This is the YMMV for the third mainline game. Be warned: Late Arrival Spoilers for previous entries will be unmarked.
- Angst? What Angst?: Prior to the game's events Gunvolt lost control of his powers and had to be sealed away for decades, destroying his ties with his remaining friends and comrades like Quinn and Xiao and ensuring he can't even maintain a human form without Kirin or Lumen's song regulating his powers for him. Despite this he just knuckles down and sets about dealing with Primal Dragons without complaint.
- Audience-Alienating Ending:
- The True Ending of this game has drawn harsh criticism for veering sharply into Esoteric Happy Ending. Gunvolt survives... but turns into a mysterious azure light and flies off into the unknown, completely denying him of any possible happy ending despite the crap he's gone through for three whole games, which drove the ending into Angst Aversion range for those who just want Gunvolt to be happy at this point. The world is arguably worse off than it was before the game started with Adepts beginning to go berserk into Primal Dragons world-wide, with the only differences between the two endings being whether Gunvolt lives or dies, Kirin's resolve to face the coming dangers with the other Dragon Saviors on her side until she can perhaps see GV again, and confirming ATEMS has abandoned their goal for the sake of protecting the innocents from the Primal Dragon attacks. Many fans feel that this direction was a massive cop-out and that the writers backed themselves into a corner for the sake of a Sequel Hook; some fans even argue that the bad ending was better written just because it felt like a conclusive finish and appropriately tragic, even if it just cuts off abruptly with no afterward on how the world is affected. Luckily, as detailed in Salvaged Story, an updated version of the ending gives crucial context for Gunvolt's fate and ultimately resolves his story in a substantially more satisfying way while still leaving the series open for sequels.
- Fans who were wondering what happened to the Sequel Hook from Gunvolt 2 weren't super thrilled about the joke ending reducing a tantalizing plot thread into a gag, feeling that this was basically just salt in the wound at this point for those who aren't fond of Gunvolt 3 abandoning nearly every single plot element from the past games.
- Awesome Music: "Boundless Myth" is a major highlight from the game's vocal themes, even for a series almost entirely focused on vocal music. It stands out from Lumen or Lola's music by having a very distinct Middle Eastern flavor while still retaining elements of the series' iconic techno-pop genre, creating a vocal track that is incredibly distinct by series standards and incredibly catchy. It helps that it plays to hype up the bosses' Auto-Revive... and even more hype when it comes back for Kirin in the final fight.
- Breather Boss: Moebius is effectively a Fake Ultimate Mook in boss form, as it looks incredibly imposing but is by far the easiest boss in the game, with a simple gimmick, relatively easy and predictable attacks and a very straightforward Limit Break whose only threat is dealing heavy unavoidable damage but is otherwise simple to defuse. Its only purpose is to wear you down for the real Final Boss, Gunvolt, who is a strong contender for the most difficult boss in the entire series.
- Breather Level: Ironically, Forest is That One Level for Kirin due to the level's extremely annoying Optional Stealth mechanics, but is this for Gunvolt, since unlike most levels almost all enemies use kinetic projectiles, which are deflected by his Flashfield. You can quite literally walk up to most enemies, tag them while they're shooting at you pointlessly, then just eliminate them with Lightning Assault without ever fearing getting hit.
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Despite the utterly massive variety of offensive Skill Image Pulses, almost all of them go completely unused by most players. The main contributing factor is that unlike Copen's EX Weapons, which do not earn damage Kudos but still earn Kudos Bonuses for defeating enemies with them, Skill Image Pulses do not earn any Kudos whatsoever and solely exist to be powerful attacks. This greatly diminishes their value for score attacking purposes since they don't contribute anything besides chopping off fair amounts of boss HP, and anything you could possibly use them on can be beaten with more conventional methods that give way more Kudos and thus points.
- Contested Sequel: The gameplay is generally considered to be a major step up from past installments, with adjustments to Gunvolt's gameplay being very welcome and handily sells the idea of being an unstoppable force of nature (Tag Team mechanic aside), while Kirin's gameplay is a breath of fresh air for the series' traditional Run-and-Gun roots and a much improved take on melee combat over the controversial Luminous Avenger iX 2. Much of the game's criticism is directed towards the writing; the Time Skip cuts off all plot threads from previous games, including the Sequel Hook from Gunvolt 2, the game's villainous faction has fairly bland and generic motives and are otherwise not as memorable as previous organizations, several major plot elements go completely unexplained, and Audience-Alienating Ending is in full play due to the story employing Serial Escalation for the universe's Power Levels rather than fleshing out preexisting conflicts and Gunvolt getting wrung by both of the game's endings (At least until the true ending got revised to clarify his formerly ambiguously tragic fate, but the damage from the rest of the ending is still noticable), resulting in a less than satisfying conclusion.
- Epileptic Trees: Due to the large Time Skip of several decades between 2 and 3, several have popped up to try and explain certain elements. One particular idea involves Layla's Septima The Djinn being related to whatever Xiao intended to use the extracted The Muse Septima for as shown in the Gunvolt 2 secret ending, such as being descended from someone who he gave the Septima to.
- Fan Nickname:
- For Gunvolt's sealed, animalistic form, fans have quickly taken to referring to this form as Dogvolt. It helps that his own team occasionally uses that title.
- Gunvolt Chronicles: Battle Priestess Kirin for the game, used mockingly to refer to Kirin's Spotlight-Stealing Squad status over Gunvolt himself, despite the game being billed as an Azure Striker Gunvolt main series title.
- Voltaic Buster is commonly referred to as "suplexing". It makes for a funnier mental image when Gunvolt is using it to One-Hit Kill bosses.
- Game-Breaker:
- The Final Boss on Hard difficulty is nothing short of punishing, but complete it, and you get an insanely powerful Image Pulse: Lola (Idol Mode) Passive, which makes all of your Chains start at 4.0x multiplier. No more taking out foes one at a time to build Chain when you can just tag everything onscreen and get 4x Quick Aerial bonuses instantly!
- Clear Golden Palace 2 on Very Hard, and you get possibly the most broken Skill Image Pulse in the game: The Djinn. Using her grants invincibility for a limited time, usable once per mission; fully upgraded, the invincibility lasts a whopping 90 seconds, more than enough time needed to run over almost any boss. Turn on Zonda's Passive Image Pulses and watch that Kudos counter skyrocket as boss attacks phase through Kirin entirely.
- "Reverie Mirror" Zonda's Passive Image Pulses boost your Kudos gain in exchange for capping your max HP. Equipping both of them doubles your Kudos gain but reduces your HP to the point where most attacks will kill you in two hits. Now, there's also Gibril's Passive Image Pulses, which boost Kirin's melee and Talisman damage by 130% combined if your HP is at "critical". Equipping all four of these Image Pulses essentially makes you a Glass Cannon score monster; get yourself hit once, activating Gibril's damage buffs, then start watching bosses melt before you as your Kudos counter inflates rapidly. For even more fun, activate the above-mentioned Invincibility Power-Up, and every boss battle basically becomes free points.
- Before version 1.1.1 nerfed it, the Shiron DLC Image Pulse is insanely overpowered for scoring. It reduces the damage of Talismans and disables Kudos Bonuses in exchange for boosting the Kudos earned from dealing damage by 15x. Combined with some other mobility tools like B.B. for extra air jumps and the aforementioned True Zonda for extra Kudos boosting, it's very easy to rack up Kudos values in the tens of thousands or higher.
- Goddamned Bats: The anti-Adept ninja enemies are tricky to kill if not slain immediately upon spawn, as they will negate Kirin's Arc Chain and melee attacks, warping out of harm's way before throwing kunais in your direction. Working them into your game plan for Chain upkeep requires knowing where they will reappear and attacking accordingly, a tricky thing to do when Kirin is moving at such a fast pace.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: One of Sean Chiplock's recent roles before Gunvolt is a kind, blond young man who wields blue electricity and wears outfits with blue accents. Especially funnier since Sean's Ky in Strive has access to Dragon Install, compared to GV's Primal Dragon.
- Magnificent Bastard: ZedĪ©, "The Golden Trillion" is the affable, charming and easygoing leader of ATEMS. First appearing after powering missiles to pierce Sumeragi's barrier and invade Japan, ZedĪ© fights the heroes to test their strength before stealing the Binding Brands and making his retreat. Having Grazie turn the UTU Media Tower into his base of operations, the Sunrise Palace, he lies in wait and has the Knights ambush the heroes when they infiltrate. As Gunvolt and Kirin reach him, he reveals that he has found Moebius, hidden by Sumeragi, and plans to use the Djinn to control it and take over the world, as the alternative is allowing its awakening to coat the world in Dragon Radiation. Upon his defeat, he accepts his loss even when their clash ends up awakening Moebius, and uses his Septima to help Kirin save the day. As the star of the playable epilogue, he manages to secure an Azure Spirit and plans on gathering and researching them to learn how Gunvolt's Azure Striker managed to fuse with Astral Order and learn the root cause of Primal Dragonization, and though he ends up losing them when they accidentally fuse with Luxia, he successfully keeps one, which he hands over to Kirin as a token of goodwill before departing to his home country.
- Memetic Mutation: "Gunvolt got Morbed." Explanation (Spoilers!)
- Play the Game, Skip the Story: The game's plot is noticeably weak compared to 2 and is so disconnected from its predecessor that many fans feel that it would have been better if it were considered another spinoff like Luminous Avenger iX. The gameplay, on the other hand, is considered possibly the best showing the series has had to date, with Gunvolt receiving a massive overhaul to his slow and methodical playstyle and new heroine Kirin being an enjoyable middle ground between Copen's aerial combat and speed and Gunvolt's precision and knowledge-based combat.
- Salvaged Story:
- For 1, not having Viper as the final obstacle when Gunvolt merged with Joule is considered a wasted potential especially since the former happened to be very (over)protective towards her. This actually gets addressed for this game via a Dual Boss fight with Jota and Viper where the latter gives a huge What the Hell, Hero? moment for Gunvolt's failure to protect Joule. While an illusion, it's a very nice fix.
- The PC release launched with an updated version of the True Ending, adding new dialogue that clarifies a critical plot point after the original true ending was an Audience-Alienating Ending: After having his uncontrollable powers contained by Radiant Fetters, Gunvolt senses Astral Order's power flowing into him and discovers that Moebius was trying to kill him to prevent the end of the world. Realizing that he must change destiny to avert the path of destruction fated by his "current self", Gunvolt harnesses the combined power of Azure Striker and Astral Order to seemingly reincarnate himself at a new point in time and space, leaving it in Kirin's care while he sets out to save the future. As a result, Gunvolt's fate is given a potentially hopeful future for him, alleviating worries after the original ending seemingly set him up with no chance for a happy ending, and the attempt at a Sequel Hook for Gunvolt and Kirin's future adventures is seen as a bit more satisfying and much less sour now with this new context presented.
- Sequel Difficulty Spike: Unlike previous games, where bosses and levels were designed around Gunvolt's fairly standard ground mobility and Copen's fast-paced but straightforward air dashing, the combat in this game revolves around the Arc Chain, a Difficult, but Awesome technique that requires more on-the-fly adaptation and dexterity to use proficiently. This game also has a Hard Mode and Very Hard Mode, the likes of which bring out some of the most sadistic and difficult bosses ever to grace the Gunvolt series.
- That One Attack: The Final Boss's Limit Break has the potential to be the single most devastating attack in the entire franchise. Gunvolt's Octis Veto involves Voltaic Chains covering the edges of the screen as Gunvolt shoots lightning at Kirin in a circle. Kirin must repeatedly Arc Chain Gunvolt in a circle formation to avoid his attacks while also avoiding the floor or sides of the screen, making avoiding it extremely technical and precise. Kirin's lack of Prevasion in this fight makes the attack all the more harmful, and is also the only Limit Break in the series to come out in phase two and can be repeatedly used; a slower fight means that you will likely have to face this attack more than once. The upgraded version of the attack seen in Hard and Very Hard makes avoiding it even more challenging; the cone of lightning expands to cover half the screen and sweeps around the field, reducing the room for error even further. Kirin is also saddled with the base Level 1 HP value, making getting hit by it extremely punishing; while this can be offset by Passive Image Pulses in Hard difficulty, no such luck exists on Very Hard, where your only hope is to either be insanely skilled or abuse the myriad of extremely powerful Skill Image Pulses. You also have to contend with the fact that you have to survive this skill twice at minimum.
- That One Boss: Prado on Hard/Very Hard is an extremely frustrating boss fight. Compared to her Normal counterpart, whose attacks have very obvious startups and delay, on higher difficulties her attacks come out much faster and the visual cues are reduced to split-second reaction timing, made all the more challenging when many of her attacks have the same startup animation. This makes the fact that almost all of her attacks cover massive amounts of the room even worse, as getting out of the way in many cases boils down to either having extremely good Arc Chain timing or just winning a coin flip.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The subset of players who liked Gunvolt (and his playstyle) in the first two games do not like how Gunvolt was handled in this game very much. As a duo, Gunvolt essentially exists as a panic button or a safety net, meaning competent players will almost never use him. When playing as Gunvolt solo (through D-Nizer mode), due to stage and enemy design heavily revolving around Kirin, Gunvolt is forced to essentially play like a better Kirin rather than being a standard Run-and-Gun character like in past appearances.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: One would think that Layla possessing a power identical to Anthem, a Septima so powerful and unique that it directly caused the plots of the first two Azure Striker Gunvolt games and indirectly caused the plot of Luminous Avenger iX, would have more attention brought to it or have its nature questioned by the heroes since only Mytyl and Joule (who was made from Mytyl) were known to possess such a power. Nothing of the sort ever occurs; Layla exists exclusively to be used by the villains for their evil scheme and any complaints the heroes have about her power are strictly surface-level problems.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Almost everything involving ongoing stories and elements of the past games, including the secret ending of Gunvolt 2, has become an Aborted Arc due to the several-decades Time Skip. Considering Luminous Avenger iX 2 similarly dispensed with past plot points to focus on a new story, its made some fans wonder if Inti Creates wants to abandon or finish the series and move on unless supplemental material fills the gaps.
- Quinn has gone from Gunvolt's primary supporting character to a footnote that he apparently hurt from his growing Power Incontinence, used only as a justification for Gunvolt to turn himself into Sumeragi for this game's plot to happen. She is barely mentioned at all outside of Chats.
- The partnership between Xiao and Nori was not followed up on whatsoever. Xiao himself is similarly a footnote like Quinn.
- Thanks to the above, there is no mention of what Xiao planned to do with the dormant Muse Septima. Though the game does reference it, it only does so in a non-canonical Joke Ending.
- Despite his accepting his fate as an "Adept-slaying demon", and having precedent to still be around post-Time Skip after his Robotic Reveal in Luminous Avenger iX, Gunvolt's rival Copen never makes an appearance.
- More on the thematic end, but the first two games closely revolved around Fantastic Racism as a theme, with each game's villainous groups highlighting two different ends of the spectrum between those who would wish to see Adepts contained for the greater good and those who would wish to see them thrive beyond the persecution of humanity. 3 completely does away with this in favor of the villainous faction adopting a Take Over the World plot not motivated by this relationship, with hardly any mention of how human-Adept relations have changed while Gunvolt was away aside from Adepts becoming more common and no longer a minority.
- Curiously, despite being a central plot point, the actual reason for Gunvolt's awakening is never addressed. Despite the opportunity to delve into how or why Gunvolt awakened to the powers of a Primal Dragon when he did, nothing of the sort ever comes up. It is instead regelated to "a thing that happened a long time ago" with only a single early-game Chat having Gunvolt musing it might have to do with his close exposure to the Muse and the Azure Spirits enhancing and destabilizing his Septima.
- Underused Game Mechanic: For all of her advantages, Kirin's progression in terms of earning new moves by beating bosses falls into the same trap as Gunvolt's Dart Leaders in the original game. They all sound good on paper, but you'll ultimately only end up using the Shoryuken and Spin Attack; all other moves are too niche or useless to see practical use. Kirin's progression system itself also needs improvement, with ATEMS bosses simply giving minor upgrades to existing moves rather than giving more useful moves.
