Recent reviews by Swissy

It's peak.

A fun novelty alongside the rest of the collection. Metal Gear 2 is especially appealing with its presentation and ideas, it's fun to see the original incarnation of some setpieces that would later be re-framed for MGS1. But some of the puzzles lean a little too far into cryptic mcgyver solutions at times, which can be even more frustrating if you can't find a codec call hint for it, do not be ashamed to pull up a walkthrough for these games, it will save you tons of avoidable backtracking and scratching your head.

Update: Gunvolt is so powerful in this one they have to put a limited meter on him and also make him the potential game over condition.
Very fun, very replayable, story complaints really aren't that bad. My only issue is that skill image pulses don't serve much purpose :v

I like the new playable character so far. Very fun way to reiterate on Copen's "the floor is lava" design philosophy, featuring a mix of melee and ranged combat that is easier to swallow than iX2's Razor Wheel (though I will gladly defend iX2's approach to mixing ranged and melee any day of the week).
Making GV a character you temporarily swap to allows the game to make The Azure Striker absolutely stark bonkers overpowered (more so than usual), which is cool lore-wise, but a little deflating when your Gunvolt meter runs out if you're not saving it for a boss fight or something.
I understand the people that want more GV-centric gameplay, and to that I say, did you know GV2 has extra challenge stages in the "runner modes" menu featuring the bosses from 1? They're very cool.

Back to 3 tho, I think Image Pulse is kind of a meme, novel idea, but it halfway through the game, it hardly feels it brings substantial changes to score-attack gameplay, it's a neat idea for casual play, but way more negligeable than the collectibles in 1 or 2 like a double jump or air dash. I find it as substantial as something like the stickers in Super Smash Bros Brawl, very minor variables that don't contribute to the whole equation in the long run.
I'm sure DLC image pulses and late game ones let you snap the game in half, I did see a video of someone wiping the boss rush mode one command grab at a time, lol.

I often hear the biggest complaint being about the story, and while I can parse a few already, like the game being more of a soft-reboot doing its own thing while ditching loose ends and themes found in the previous games. Half-way through the game, I remain cautiously optimistic, Gunvolt's characterization is intact and is supplemented by the supporting cast pretty well (though the dogvolt banter can be a little one-note sometimes), and after witnessing the character assassination fiasco that was Bayonetta 3, Gunvolt acting like Gunvolt in a Gunvolt setting is good enough for me.

Also the music and graphics still slap.

Goofy maw shots 👍

This game was engineered by the Sumeragi Group to brainwash us

send help

Update: After dedicating more time to getting good, and trying out hard mode, this is the bomb, actually. The whole "easy to pick up, hard to master" aspect of the Gunvolt series is in full force here, and hard mode makes every stage and boss fight a grueling yet satisfying ordeal to claw your way through. I thought I was going to hate it, but I love getting closer to a win every attempt. Based on the time I'm gonna be spending trying to get through hard mode, I might just be able to recommend it at full price, too.

TL;DR. Get it on the sale, don't even look at the DLC prices, experimental and takes a bit of time getting used to, turns a little too wacky near the end. Not as "bad" as my friends made it out to be, honestly. Presentation is top-notch, story isn't important.

Don't head into this game expecting the same gameplay as GV2 or LAiX 1, this game is trying something different by playing more emphasis on Copen's sawblade melee to build up Kudos with precise three-hit combos, holding your saw blade into a dash to do a quick double tap, or buffering the first hit of the three hit combo in the air to land a clean hit.
With this game removing prevasion and losing Kudos on hit, it's definitely more casual, in a different fashion than other Gunvolt titles that let you prevade everything if you want to.
I can get behind a more restrictive moveset when the level design compliments it, and working your way up to overdrive, removing the restrictions locking your "infinite" airdash is satisfying enough, too. So I enjoy the game when I'm in the stages.
The bosses get kinda really stupid near the end though, there's no reason I should be facetanking the final boss' weak point for 5 minutes straight.

Addendum: I looked more into the DLC, and while the boss fight themselves are pretty pricy, locking some game changing QoL abilities behind said bosses is a little, uhh... Bad? :S

Spin-off story gets a li'l quirky. But if you want more Copen after GV2, you'll enjoy this pretty well, special weapons are all phenomenal, and the challenge ramps up pretty high.
Though, a big chunk of that challenge is memorizing boss patterns, which I find harder to read here than in GV1 and 2 because of how much flashier everything is.

Inside you are two twinks with guns:
One has Hatsune Miku in his brain,
One is a raging evangelical racist,

You got hit again and lost all your Kudos.

The first fortress stage is literally just MMZ2's intro stage layout, it's peak.

Not as good as Sega All Stars Transformed but there's a Crush 40 song in there, so it's good.