I found out recently that there are no plans to create any more Gunvolt games. Or Blaster Master Zero games. This is a Bad Occurrence, because I very much like them both. What exactly are Inti Creates going to do instead?

Anyway, this game. It’s a bit different to the previous Gunvolt game, in that you don’t play as Gunvolt. Well, not really. Instead, you play as Kirin, a sort of ninja monk who makes use of some of Gunvolt’s abilities (and can temporarily swap him in) while Gunvolt, who was a massive dragon because Reasons tags along as a sort of dog because Other Reasons. It’s set a long time after Gunvolt 2 and in the intervening years GV has been trapped as this dragon and used to power the whole world or something.

Gameplay, however, is pretty much the same as it ever was. Kirin tags baddies with her talismans (talismen?) before dealing damage with her sword, but there’s the same sort of platforming and locking-on, and bosses and stuff as in the previous games. It’s still really good, but I can’t help thinking that if they can spin Copen off into his own series, why can’t they do that with Kirin and keep Gunvolt there as the main character as his own series?

Like Luminous Avenger iX 2 I found this game really easy. None of the bosses were difficult at all, and I don’t think I died the entire game. Far cry from the older games, and getting the “good ending” here was just a case of not attacking the end of game boss at specific points, rather than a whole pile of difficult things.

I do like me a Gunvolt. Luminous Avenger iX plays a little differently, being a spin-off, and this sequel continues that way, but the Mega Man-ish roots are still there and as platform shooters go, the series is probably my favourite.

iX 2 involves yer boy Copen and some of his chums getting sucked into a parallel dimension where humans have died out and robots guard a huge tower. For story based reasons, the mission is to scale this tower (which helpfully has different biomes on each floor, in order to facilitate the genre tropes of ice/fire/jungle/etc. worlds), beat the bosses, nick their weapons (each of which is a weakness for another boss), and somehow return home.

Or, you ignore all that and have fun jumping and shooting and using loads of bizarre weapons.

Unlike all the other Gunvolt and Gunvolt-adjacent games, this one was a total breeze. Normally, the bosses at least would require many, many attempts, but here I stormed through the entire game with nary a death, and although the final boss took an age to defeat (perhaps I didn’t find the right weapon to beast it), it wasn’t difficult. Most of this was probably down to the addition of a power that lets you heal whenever you want, as often as you want, which is unlocked from the start. I suspect using this may lower your score, but I’m not score-attacking the game so I used it with impunity. Which, actually, wasn’t even all that often.

Luminous Avenger iX 2 is probably a weaker game than iX 1 in many ways – easier, shorter, less interesting story, forgettable bosses, and so on, but it’s still tremendous fun.