Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2 (Switch) – Review

PhantomZ2 joins Copen & co. to enter a new world and experience the Gunvolt series for the first time with Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2. Thank you to Inti Creates for sending us a Nintendo Switch review copy of the game!

While I’ve had a visual interest in the Gunvolt series and have played the first level of the original 3DS title and its Steam version a few times, I’ve never dedicated myself to the series – until now. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2 is the sequel to 2019’s Luminous Avenger iX, a spin-off of the Azure Striker Gunvolt series that focuses on rival hero Copen and delivering fast-paced 2D side-scrolling action within a futuristic world.

Although I don’t have experience with any of the previous titles, this game’s story moves the Copen & co. into a different world where most of the context, story beats, or elements of the previous titles are not important. In addition, to be as transparent as possible: if you’ve seen the Luminous Avenger iX review, you may remember that was not done by me and instead by PushDustIn. I did not read any of his review until after I had already beat the game and formulated my own thoughts about it, so while some of our opinions are the same, none of his opinions influenced my thoughts and conclusions.

With the world at peace after the events of Luminous Avenger iX, Copen spends his free time submerged in his research. However, at some point, a mysterious piece of tech – the Blaster Rifle, manifested before Copen’s eyes. Unsure of why or how, but somehow knowing that it comes from another world, this rifle has become the focus of Copen’s research. While sitting in his office and chatting with his AI Idol companion: Lola and mechanic-savvy friend Kohaku, Copen hears a distant voice and suddenly a wormhole opens up within his office, causing everyone to be sucked in. Woken up by a robot girl named Null, Copen and company find themselves within a new world. Skipping to several months later, Team Copen, with Null as their guide, have made their way to the Grave Pillar – a tower that holds all of the information of this new world and should also have a way to get the three back home.

While I do enjoy the fact that Luminous Avenger iX 2 has a story that allows anyone to hop in and enjoy, what’s here is quite simple and bare. This may be due to the game’s structure. In total, there are 12 story missions: most available to do in any order within a set and some that will have to be done in sequence, unlocking one after the other. Thus, if Inti Creates wanted to create a bigger narrative across the game, there would probably have to be multiple alternating dialogue sequences that would string together the player’s desired mission sequence and I don’t blame them for deciding not to do that.

However, the story doesn’t need to be that much longer or more complex. My problem is that with how short it is, I wasn’t able to feel much towards any of the characters, especially for Null, the character that is stated to be “the new heroine of the Luminous Avenger iX series”. Additionally, while I won’t show it here to not spoil what little story the game has, I think the game could have served its story a bit better with brevity and visual storytelling rather than saying what’s occurring or what the symbolism is meant to be word for word.

But, where iX 2’s story falters, the gameplay shines. While taking control of Copen and tackling different missions leading you into different environments, you’ll be able to dash around and mow or shoot down enemies on the ground and in the air with the Razor Wheel and homing shot. When on the ground, you can repeatedly dash to keep up a quick pace and knock into most enemies, bouncing them back and resetting their attack cycle. When in the air, you’ll be able to Bullit Dash for a set distance and descend slowly to maintain placement while platforming or dash into enemies to lock onto them, where Copen will then be able to shoot them from anywhere on the screen.

These aren’t the only abilities at Copen’s disposal. Although Lola is always at his side, serving as what carries the EX Abilities you’ll gain from defeating the bosses, she’ll also appear in her idol form and sing when your Kudos points go over 1,000 – activating Overdrive mode. This will give you the ability to dash for a longer amount of time and in different directions, as notified by the Bullit Gauge under Copen. By dashing into enemies and any terrain during this mode, the Bullit Gauge will instantly refill and allow you to keep up your momentum and blast through missions. While touching a checkpoint will get rid of Overdrive mode as it will then turn your Kudos into your score, using Lola’s recovery ability will also turn your Kudos into score. However, unlike checkpoints that are specifically plotted at different areas in the stage, Lola’s recovery ability allows Copen to fully heal at any time and without limit.

With these abilities alone, Copen is absolutely overpowered. While the EX Abilities you’ll gain will help in speeding up the process of defeating bosses once you uncover their weaknesses and finding the hidden Bonus Emblems, Copen is already designed in a way to take on anything and everything with relative ease. The game isn’t difficult, but there are ways to play and provide self-imposed challenges through using your gained shards to buy abilities. Want to get rid of checkpoints? Buy the All or Nothing ability. Want to be even stronger? Buy Hyper Guard which causes you to only take a single point of damage when standing still. Those are just two examples but there are a lot of abilities and choices you can make, like not healing ever, to alter your experience with the game.

In regards to presentation, the game is also pretty good. Although simple, the look of the UI does follow the idea of a futuristic setting, definitely at its best during the results screen. The sprite work is good as well, but it’s not something I was really surprised by given Inti Creates’ track record. The only problem I really had is with the music and audio. Not that the soundtrack is bad, I just wish it stood out more, and even with the tracks that do stand out, as in Lola’s songs, I’m not really a fan of pop idol music anyways. Maybe this is a current bug with the pre-release version of the game, but when I was trying to set the voice audio to 0 to record the background music – the voices would still be present but at a lower volume.

One final issue I have with the game’s presentation is the character designs. While I do think Null is clearly portrayed to be a robot through her arms and segments between her torso and legs – I think the pretty obvious focus on her breasts does take away the idea that she is meant to be a robot. Similar criticism would go to Grave Keeper Hail, her special attack animation is clearly animated in a way to highlight her body and give her sex appeal when she isn’t really sexy in look or attempt to come off that way in personality – she just has breasts. Also, the outfits you can unlock for Kohaku in post-game are the lowest form of sex appeal – I think the unlocks would’ve been better suited for something else like being able to customize Copen’s outfits.

Despite a short but lacking story, Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2, delivers fast-paced overpowered 2D action that allows players new and old to experience robot-busting action. While I think the game would be just a bit better priced at $20 instead of $25, as my entire playthrough took 5 hours, $25 is still fair enough – especially with the launch price being on sale for $22.50.