YMMV / Mighty Gunvolt

• Even Better Sequel: Mighty Gunvolt was a pretty straightforward Mega Man clone but lacked any real substance, and required DLC to even make it a full-length title. Mighty Gunvolt Burst not only mended the length by default, but was a much more ambitious and unique game thanks to the weapon customization system and more variety between the abilities and style of the playable characters.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Set Shot Bullets at 5, Attack Power to 3x, and Full-Auto to 16 Shots/sec. You need at least 12,000 CP to pull this off, but it absolutely annihilates anything that you could possibly damage. For even more shenanigans, set Diffusion Type to Explosion and set Explosion Count to 3.
  • With about 6000 CP, Beck's Spark, Missile, or Fire bullet types can be set to have a wide homing range, a Max Angle that changes 90 degrees, a "Strong" accuracy, and the ability for the bullets to pierce through walls. The result is a weapon that homes in on anything on the screen, completely removing any need to aim, because even at average speed, it is almost completely impossible to dodge (to the point bosses can't escape the bullets), and can eat through enemy health in seconds, even at the most basic damage percentage. Kurona and Copen can use this combo as well (as can Joule, but the player has to unlock Parallel World, which is unlocked by beating her campaign), while Ekoro can create a fairly close version without altering the Max Angle.
  • For 1,000 CP, you can set the Charge Shot upgrade to automatically charge at near instant speed, allowing you to use very powerful shots at about 25% of their normal CP cost if you can put up with the reduced rate of fire. Say hello to Fast Explosive 3x Damage Accurate Homing shots launched every half second, and at lower CP than you'd think.
    • This, specifically with Homing and 3x damage, also works surprisingly well with Spread Shot and Cluster Shot, coming at enemies with 15 times the power of a single shot, though you may wanna lower the duration a bit.
    • With the addition of Joule and her Anthem ability, she can temporarily use any custom weapon set-ups regardless of CP limit. Although many of her set-ups are fixed, that doesn't stop her from using other modules that can max out attack power and/or using the Full-Auto module to make mincemeat out anything stands in her way while her Anthem is active. She can also throw in other modules for her Anthem to take advantage of such significantly cutting down the damage she takes, negating knock-back, and giving herself infinite jumps to trivialize many situations.
  • RAY is almost tailor made for easy A or S ranks; in a game where almost everybody has to use a projectile and risk potentially heavily damaging themselves by getting too close, RAY is designed with great melee options, such as her starting Chaos Claws (which give her a three-hit attack) and her Aerial Action, with her only major weakness (her Xel Decay) being able to be disabled for a fairly low cost. The result is a very powerful character that can maintain a fairly low CP cost, with potentially no need to use projectiles (albeit with the cost of the last being struggling against opponents that stay out of RAY's reach, such as Dynatron, Aviator, and Teseo). It helps that her campaign is much more generous with health pickups, even when Xel Decay is deactivated, which allows you to fight bosses at full health, as there's a pickup just before the fight.
  • Just give any character a short projectile lifetime, high projectile speed, high damage and a bullet count of 5 and waltz around with turbo fire (if your controller has it) or Full-Auto. Sure, you need to get up and personal, but you will melt bosses with that!
• Good Bad Bugs: In Mighty Gunvolt Burst, if you quickly switch to a loadout with RAY that has Xel Decay, and then back before it can do any damage, any health taken from the enemy is added to your own, turning RAY's biggest weakness into a recipe for free health.
• I Knew It!: After the surprise appearance of Call and Joule in Mighty Gunvolt Burst, there was speculation that Ray and Copen were going to be among the last three characters released for the game, due to them being the rivals for the heroes. Those two, along with Kurona from Gal*Gun: Double Peace, were announced.
• Improved Second Attempt: Mighty Gunvolt Burst is considered a vastly improved version of Mighty No. 9.
  • It delivers a much more traditional Mega Man experience, and Beck no longer needs to dash everything to defeat enemies.
  • Cryosphere's boss fight in Mighty Gunvolt Burst was completely reworked into something more similar to the various shield bosses in the Mega Man franchise, rather than the slow and tedious, but easy fight from her home game.
  • The Call DLC, which promotes her to a fully playable character in Mighty Gunvolt Burst instead of being restricted to a single Kickstarter-funded Prison stage and the online co-op missions in Mighty No. 9. Furthermore, players can alternate Call's appearance based on the Call A◊, E◊ and H◊ designs from the Kickstarter voting campaign as collectible modules.
  • The RAY DLC release for Mighty Gunvolt Burst retains the Xel Decay mechanics that made her so interesting compared to Beck, plus adds the ability to use melee combos, which have the notable effect of, due to how Burst works, guaranteeing much higher Burst combos than anyone else, since all other players use ranged attacks exclusively. RAY's Xel Decay mechanic also can be turned off, if players wish, and RAY has much higher health pick up amounts anyway.
  • The 3DS and PlayStation Vita ports of Mighty No. 9 have seemingly gone AWOL after the game's disastrous reception and Comcept being bought out by Level-5 as a result, and said systems have reached the end of their lifespans. Mighty Gunvolt Burst, on the other hand, is available on the 3DS and Switch, filling out the portable Mighty No. 9 niche until the main game gets released (if at all).
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A complaint towards the original Mighty Gunvolt is the short length of the game itself, having only 5 stages (4 traditional stages and a single stage for the final boss) from the get-go and the linear flow of the game. This was somewhat mitigated with the Stages Pack DLC which added 4 more stages to the game, which became integrated with subsequent ports on Steam and the Japan-only release on PlayStation 4 and Vita. Mighty Gunvolt Burst, on the other hand, offers a full-length action-platforming campaign with additional characters that offer unique playstyles, abilities, and unlockable Pixel Stickers.
• More Popular Spin-Off: Compared to Mighty No. 9's mediocre reception, Mighty Gunvolt performed better.
• Nintendo Hard: Going with low-CP builds in Mighty Gunvolt Burst usually means basic shots and maybe an element or unique shot-type attached. Which also means you have no defense, your pea shooter is a Death of a Thousand Cuts for bosses and some of the tougher foes, you get no aerial mobility whatsoever beyond the basic jump, and so forth. You can even make it Harder Than Hard by increasing the damage you can take. One challenge requires beating the entire game with the bare basic shot you start the game with, and various level challenges require restricted loadouts.
• Most Wonderful Sound: In Mighty Gunvolt Burst on the Nintendo Switch, when the Dowsing ability, a very lovely sound is the tinny sound of the Joycon's HD rumble beginning to vibrate louder, eventually going crazy, as you get close to a hidden secret.
• Porting Disaster: While the PC version of Mighty Gunvolt Burst is mostly functional for Nvidia graphics card users, AMD users however are treated to the game's dynamic lighting effects not working at all, resulting in flatter visuals like in the 3DS version, and some players even encountered a bug where the fullscreen mode renders the game in 4:3 and cuts a substantial part of the screen on the sides, especially for those with displays with a higher operating resolution than 1080p.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Fans were hoping Mighty Gunvolt Burst would help redeem Beck after the not-so-warm reception of his home game, and the consensus is overwhelmingly positive. Thanks to his new characterization, coupled with the improved gameplay and boss fights, many consider Beck's part of the story perfectly serviceable and are glad he's in.
  • Call was criticized for her fairly annoying voice, lack of personality, and abrupt gameplay change to stealth, but her appearance in Mighty Gunvolt Burst showcases an endearing Undying Loyalty to Beck, and also changes her abilities to be much more combat-oriented and mechanically interesting among the playable characters.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Mighty Gunvolt Burst has got improved visuals, has a lot more longevity in its upgrade and customization system, and provides a less controversial alternative to Mighty No. 9 itself. It also has every character play discreetly different from each other, while also being accurate to their source franchises.^note With Ekoro and Kurona, they are unique, since they're not playable in Gal*Gun.
• Tainted by the Preview: The initial announcement trailer of Mighty Gunvolt Burst, which was attempting to capture the campy and cheesy style of video games from the 80's and 90's, many were quickly reminded of Mighty No. 9's infamous "Masterclass" trailer from Deep Silver that quickly got the game a lot of negative attention (especially after the game's launch) due to mocking most of its potential audience and backers. This soon died down after Mighty Gunvolt Burst was released.
• That One Boss:
  • Mighty Gunvolt:
    • Elise is a LOT harder than all of the other bosses; she retains most of her Azure Striker Gunvolt moves (save for Resurrection and Gorgon's Gaze), but the rigid gameplay and lack of Prevasion makes dodging the kunai a real pain.
    • Brandish from the DLC stage is reviled for simply being freakishly fast and unpredictable. His moves have practically no tell and he spends the majority of the fight flying across the screen. The only way to land a good solid hit is to pray he whiffs, then unload on him. And even as Beck you can't do that due to the nature of his charge shot.
  • Mighty Gunvolt Burst: The Briar Guardian if playing as Ekoro, not just due to her smaller HP meter, but how she jumps compared to the other characters since she takes off from the ground faster, which can make dodging its laser beam attack much harder, especially on Hard mode where you have less room to move around in.
• That One Attack:
  • Elise's kunai have an enormous hit-box and are very hard to work around due to the gameplay, and if you do manage to dodge it, it will summon a snake that'll harass you until it hits you, leaves the screen, hits a wall, or is shot. It's usually the first one.
  • Viper is a nasty wake up call as a first boss for Beck and Gunvolt (Ekoro gets a much easier boss to start) as he retains many of his Azure Striker Gunvolt attacks, but is quite unpredictable. Particularly his rendition of Refulgence while the flying bullet part is toned down, the initial dashes has bigger splash projectiles (in contrast in Azure Striker Gunvolt, they're smaller and easier to dodge) and angles that result in his second dash having a good chance of nailing you. Mix this with the limited (in comparison with Azure Striker Gunvolt) ability sets of the characters (particularly Beck), and your first half hour will be filled with dying.
  • In Burst, Pyrogen (Mighty No. 1) gets a one-hit kill attack that starts with him bringing up a fire shield that while balls of fire shoot from the walls toward him, making the shield bigger. The small fire balls can quickly rack up damage due to their slightly unpredictable pattern and high speed, but then you have 3 seconds to stand as close to the wall as possible without taking damage from it to avoid the almost screen-covering blast. Of all the Mighty Numbers, he's the only one with a one-hit kill and he's guaranteed to do it twice - once at half health and once at one quarter health.
• That One Level: In Mighty Gunvolt, the School level can be a nightmare for Beck, because he's a few pixels shorter than either Ekoro or Gunvolt and thus cannot shoot high enough to fight the enemies poking out of windows. This easily turns them from a minor nuisance into Goddamned Bats that are well worth skipping rather than fighting.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Mighty Gunvolt, which was advertised as a crossover game between Mighty No. 9 and Azure Striker Gunvolt, featured Ekoro of Gal*Gun, who was from a franchise that was relatively unknown to the west. The trope seems to have worked in her favor, considering she's one of the most popular of the playable characters (to the point there were fears she was dropped from Burst before she was confirmed to be in the game after all), and the exposure likely helped in bringing her home series over to the West.
  • The 1.2 update for Mighty Gunvolt Burst features two new playable characters, one being Call and the other being Joule, Gunvolt's support in the main series games.
  • Considering that the major bosses in Mighty Gunvolt Burst are the various Mighty Numbers, it was unexpected to find that Teseo was the final boss.
  • Given that Mighty Gunvolt Burst, in its 3DS release, had already filled out the the eight playable character slots by the end of 2017, and Gal*Gunvolt Burst coming along in early 2018, it was assumed the game was essentially wrapped up. But then, in late April 2018, it was announced that Tenzou Motesugi, the Featureless Protagonist of the first Gal*Gun, would be coming to the game, breaking the trend of characters from said franchise only being from the sequels, and adding content to a game that was thought to be done (if you're not on the 3DS version).

---