Game #1318: Azure Striker Gunvolt 3

  Man... what is Inti-Creates doing with the series?

 In a way, it seemed as if they made Luminous Avenger 2 worse than the first as to make Gunvolt stand out... but that was way off-base, as Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 sends our hero into the shadow realm.

 In what's a huge departure from the series, the game takes place 100 years into the future.... a future in which Gunvolt turned into a giant rampaging dragon and was sealed away by the new bad guys. Oh, sure, every dangling plot thread from the previous games? Gone, for good. And just as the game starts, you play as new comer Kirin who EASILY defeats this powered up version of Gunvolt and seals him away again... and to further humiliate the hero from the previous games, now he's turned into a dog. I am not making this up. Honestly, what they've done with Gunvolt is just baffling.

 Dialogue is as annoying and distracting as it was in the original Gunvolt. At first I thought I had to endure getting hit because the dialogue cutouts couldn't be turned off, but it turns out you can... it's hidden under "Story Mode+". Why? I thought those were new game+ options. Who came up with branding this option like so?

 Anyways, now Kirin is the main character, but Gunvolt takes a Megaman X3's Zero-like role, as you can temporarily play as him in his human form. He is ridiculously over-powered and is this game's easy mode. On the other hand, Kirin is really fun to play as. She can tag enemies with talismans, but not outright kill the enemy, in order to weaken them for either your simple slashes or using the homing-aerial attack. Her gameplay is truly satisfying, they made melee work... unlike what they did with Coppen in Luminous Avenger 2.

 Defeating bosses net you new attacks for Kirin, and you can find and equip both passive and active skills. Honestly, I think Kirin might be have favorite playstyle in the series... But she and Gunvolt should've had different campaigns, much like Gunvolt 2, and they definitely shouldn't have done Gunvolt dirty like they did. Turning him into a dog, what were they thinking?

 I downloaded the free update and it adds the final boss as a playable character. He is very similar to Kirin and has a shorter campaign.

 Gunvolt 3 is, gameplay-wise, pretty good, although going back to a single playable character kinda sucks. On the other hand, the direction they are taking the series in is... kinda dumb. At least it's better than Luminous Avenger 2.

 7.0