This article contains HEAVY SPOILERS for Gunvolt's first game's True Ending.
Gunvolt is side scrolling action game inspired by Megaman series developed by the same people behind Megaman Zero. The game's main mechanic is the titular character's electric ability that he uses by tagging enemies then charging them with shocks! You can read my review of this game here.
Azure Striker Gunvolt now has two sequels. The third one has been announced.
The story is set in an interesting world in which people with superpowers called Adepts have emerged. The story starts while the world is controlled by the Sumeragi group whose goal is to control and experiment on adepts.
Through-out the story, Gunvolt works for a terrorist group called QUILL while protecting Joule, the girl who has been used by the Sumeragi group to find adepts until he saved her from them. But she's kidnapped by the Sumeragi leader. Gunvolt fights them in their HQ to save her again.
Gunvolt successfully defeats the Sumeragi group and saves Joule. Asimov, the leader of Quill and Gunvlot's former mentor congrats him for defeating the Sumeragi, and asks him to create a perfect world for adepts together, by killing all humans. Gunvolt & Joule refuse of course, so Asimov just kills them.
That's the normal ending.
The true ending can only be played after finishing the normal one. In this ending, Joule finds herself as a ghost looking at Gunvolt's (almost) dead body and hers. She tries and successfully revives him, merging her mind with his. Gunvolt goes on an angry rampage to avenge Joule and save humanity from Asimov.
"Let my Song become your Wings." -- Joule's Merged Form.
Thus begins the best section in the game!
While in their merged form, Gunvolt's septimal abilities are maxed to insane degrees. Infinite Jumps. Infinite Electricity powers. Perfect weapon control! You can still get hurt but you're so powerful that any earlier boss will become easy to beat. It's similar but more awesome than the Anthem mechanic of the game that revives Gunvolt in normal levels under certain conditions.
Then they confront Asimov, and he's Insanely Powerful!
The boss before him, Nova had two forms, the second one of which took me multiple tries across different days to beat. Asimov took me 3 hours of fighting in a single session! If I turned off the game, I would need to fight both of Nova forms before him again.
Asimov also has the Azure Striker ability, which means he has the same skills as Gunvolt but more powerful. (He was his mentor after all.)
Because of the above, Asimov is the perfect foil to Gunvolt from narrative perspective. Both are adepts with electrical powers, who were experimented upon as children. While Gunvolt wants to live freely even if it's outside the system, Asimov seeks revenge on humans for treating his kind poorly.
In the battle, it was hard to fight the same abilities used against me. The hardest part is that he has a gun that cancels powers. One hit or two of that and my loss for the round was guaranteed.
It says a lot when you fight him with Gunvolt having all his stats maxed out in "Anthem Mode" yet he's more challenging than Nova you fight without the maxed abilities.
Another thing I like is that some of his attacks are almost unfair. Gunvolt has infinite jumps in this fight but it doesn't seem to matter with how big AoE Asimov attacks have.
Asimov is the leader of the "good guys." (I mean terrorists aren't always bad, right?) Him being the final boss and showing his true colors is a nice twist I didn't expect!
This betrayal by Asimov, proves the fears of Sumeragi Group true. They wanted to control adepts because some of them have the power & the intention to destroy the world. (Asimov wouldn't have wanted that if Sumeragi group didn't exist though.) It's a vicious cycle. Only people like Gunvolt can stop it.
I also like his motive rants. If you played the Japanese Voiced version, (PC/Nintendo Switch) he'll talk about the history of adepts and their Septima powers. He gloats about the perfect world, and even while he's dying, he won't shut up wondering why Gunvolt doesn't want to become the leader of the new world with him.
Despite the tag #BestGamingVillain, Asimov isn't nearly my favorite antagonist. (That goes to Persona 5 Royal's final boss.) But he's my favorite in this game and I feel that it's underrated. I also (probably) needed to justify the 3 hours I spent trying to defeat him.
I haven't played the other games in the series yet, but there's some charm in Gunvolt story and characters that I didn't find in any other game.
