The platforming genre is undoubtedly an important part of any serious game connoisseur’s history with the medium. There are any number of types of games which one can start their journey with, but rarely does one truly escape the genre which many major developers built their early empire off of. Whichever platformers we do end up trying, they tend to stick with us for their very simple but inviting and intuitive structures and challenges. I’ve certainly played no shortage of these titles, but today I’d like to share one that I’ve always found myself uniquely returning to time and time again. Isn’t just a simple matter of loving the game to bits though, and in fact it might just be one of the most inexplicable regulars in my gaming palette! Well… inexplicable until now.

Developed and published by Inti Creates and released in September of 2019, Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger IX is a 2D action platforming game available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and Steam. Its premise involves a young hero in a dystopia fighting to protect the remnants of humanity from the rise of a dominant super-powered subspecies. Players interact with the game by dashing through platforming levels, defeating various enemies, reading through some story context, and purchasing upgrades. Please note the Switch version of the game was used for this review.

To start by giving a little context to the very wordy title, Luminous Avenger IX is a spinoff game in the wider Gunvolt series of platformers, hence the supertitle Gunvolt Chronicles. Story-wise it follows-up the original Azure Striker Gunvolt’s bad ending, and gameplay-wise it is a successor to the Copen side of Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. I wouldn’t say you need to play these games in order to enjoy Luminous Avenger IX, but it does narratively draw upon characters and knowledge from both of those games. While playing these games for the story is not ultimately a terribly worthwhile investment as this review and the franchise as a whole will prove, I can understand the desire to better understand the game you’re playing at the moment and do endorse going back to play the other games if they interest you. Especially if you can play the first Azure Striker Gunvolt with its original localization, but that’s a whole can of worms I don’t have time for today. 

The story of Luminous Avenger IX takes place in a ruined city of an unspecified country, and follows the protagonist Copen who is sometimes referred to as Ix. In this world a new variant of humans with superpowers called Adepts have risen to become the dominant species, with ordinary people becoming such a minority that they are collectively defined by their scarcity via the name “Minos”. Under the corrupt Sumeragi Institute humanity has been hunted and killed to endangered levels, but fortunately they have one last hope: a young man who takes the fight to Sumeragi with the help of an incredible combat exosuit, and his robot partner Lola who two-times as a vocaloid. Coming to the ruined city where the game takes place, Copen takes shelter with a group of human children led by a girl named Kohaku. From there Copen takes on missions to achieve various practical aims for both the children and himself, fighting against Sumeragi’s elite officers in search of a secret asset known only as The Butterfly Effect.

For a story with such an involved-sounding premise and over a dozen named characters with speaking lines, Luminous Avenger IX is a surprisingly underwritten game. While it does successfully provide answers to the questions most immediately relevant to the plot, a lot of worldbuilding and character details which could have fleshed out the narrative more were left up to speculation. The optional base dialogues and mission briefings do help to round out Kohaku, Kyota, Jin, and Maria pretty alright, but they’re really the only fully realized players in this story. The main issue is the Luminous Avenger himself, as between this game and the previous installments his personality has changed drastically. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it were explained properly, but this shift in character happens completely off-screen and without any reason given. Copen in particular was one of gaming’s most striking rival characters in spite of everything too: a young man haunted by the death of his father at the hands of Adepts, who inherits great technological prowess and vows revenge on these new supermen despite otherwise being a decent person with still-living family he cares about. Even his faith in God should have been a turn-off as yet another “religious people are unstable and bad” stereotype, and yet it felt like a genuinely interesting detail of his character rather than being a rhetorical bludgeon. 

With that in mind, Copen gets to star in a timeline where his biased preconceptions of Adepts are basically proven right, and he shows up as the most sanded down, mass-appeal version of himself with no information about how his views and behavior changed? I’m sorry but without context this almost might as well have been another character entirely. People just don’t let go of their attitudes so easily, for better or worse, and in Copen’s case the state of the world in this sub-series would absolutely have entrenched his core beliefs and personality. If I do set this major gripe aside though, the plot is mostly predictable and not worth making too much of a fuss about. It’s not especially offensive and has one devastating moment that lands pretty well if you played Gunvolt 2, but I also wouldn’t say you miss much by skipping cutscenes here. It’s always so strange how the series manages to completely shift narrative direction between most of its entries as though it had some important new idea to present, only to then go really light on narrative anyways and not justify all that renovation.

When we get to gameplay is where Luminous Avenger IX shines. The basic loop is inherited from the Megaman strand of platformer design: traverse a stage and fight through enemies and obstacles until you reach a stage boss, and defeat them in single combat to finish the level. That’s a pretty broad concept in itself, so these games are typically defined by how the protagonist feels to pilot. In Copen’s case, that would be his gameplay centered around the ability to practically fly though stages at all times. Bullit Dashes are his core mechanic, with which he is able to dash through the air in any horizontal or diagonal direction. He has a limited number of uses of this before he must return to the ground to reload, but he can get extra Bullits by either dashing into an enemy or by dashing diagonally into a ceiling, wall, or floor and kicking off of it. This is where the main platforming hook comes in, as while in theory Copen can fly around all dangers thanks to his Bullit Dashes and the fact that he can freely slow his descent in mid-air, in practice the enemies and general level design serve as an important resource to keep the high-flying gameplay in motion. It’s unquestionably the aspect of the game that I find to be the most well executed, but things obviously don’t stop here.

Copen’s primary fire is a full-screen horizontal laser which can fire pretty fast, but you’ll be much more effective if you lock-on to your enemies first. Remember how Bullit Dash uptime can be extended by dashing into an enemy? This action also marks the affected enemy and causes your gunfire to arc directly onto that foe, allowing you to freely reposition yourself for another dash while still blasting away. In addition he has access to secondary abilities via Lola called EX Weapons, which can be acquired by defeating bosses and allow you to perform a variety of alternate skills such as a charge shot, homing dash, vertical propulsion, and more. Using these skills disables your passive shield against physical attacks however, so for some enemies it might be better to stick to your gun whilst neutralizing their attacks outright. Speaking of defense though, this is where the game’s most frustrating mechanic is found in Prevasion. Whenever Copen would take damage, if he has at least two Bullits in stock he will automatically spend them in order to negate the hit altogether. In practice this gives Bullit management more prominence since they can be used to protect yourself, but late game bosses tend to use special electricity attacks which ignore Prevasion. When you’ve spent the whole game cheating through most attacks, that can feel like a sudden difficulty spike the game doesn’t prepare you for. For players interested in getting a high score this is significantly less of an issue, but for casual players this can feel really bad and sour the ending experience.

Why are players chasing high scores less affected though? That’s because the scoring system is absolutely the glue that holds this game together. Attacking enemies grants a number called Kudos, which are cashed in for points after touching a checkpoint, using your screen-clearing attack, or defeating a boss. You gain bonus Kudos if you defeat an enemy while in mid air, and this bonus increases up to fivefold if you manage to defeat multiple enemies without planting your feet on the ground. This bonus can also be doubled if you land the last blow with an EX Weapon. The catch is that if you take damage and/or Prevade three times,  your Kudos are lost before you can turn them into points. This reframes every last inch of Luminous Avenger IX’s levels as challenges to systematically take out as many enemies as possible while trying not to plant your feet on the ground. Every floor and wall becomes a surface to bounce diagonally off to maintain your Bullits and air time, every enemy a foothold to greater heights and a tally of extra Kudos, and every attack thrown your way a miniature puzzle which you need to block or dodge at all costs. Playing this way is by far one of the most exhilarating gaming challenges I’ve set my mind to, and is the reason I keep coming back for more.

The only other major gameplay feature of note beyond this is the upgrade shop, which is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand these upgrades can be toggled on and off as you like even after you’ve unlocked them, making the difficulty of the game very personalized and fine tune-able. You can even turn off Pervasion to help you train for the later levels earlier! On the other hand though, the main way you gain money is collecting coins dropped by defeated enemies, and while this is fine in theory you have to go painstakingly out of your way to collect the coins off the floor. The fun of the game is being able to zip around the air, but in order to gain the upgrades to make that gameplay more robust you have to consciously choose to play the game slower, with lower scores, and overall more boringly by constantly landing to chase loose change. Why the developers didn’t make credits a reward for high scores is beyond me.

As for the graphics, Luminous Avenger IX’s main gameplay visuals are top notch. The environments are drawn with a rather moody color palette with just enough variety to keep the game’s environments fun to look at, while also selling the idea that this city is largely abandoned aside from Sumeragi’s bases. The sprite work for Copen, enemies, and bosses are the real highlights though. These characters are just brimming with personality and flair, with smooth attack animations and lots of little flourishes that are just a joy to watch. Unfortunately I wish I could say the same of the game’s story and character artworks, but these wound up being a miss. The art style for these isn’t bad per se and definitely looks appealing for the game’s teenage demographic, but there isn’t too much variety in the artwork used and as such there are some scenes where the characters’ on screen visuals are waaaaaay to cheery-looking for the scenes the story has them acting out. I also have to give a very dishonorable mention to Kohaku’s character design, who is explicitly stated to not be an adult and yet wears one of the skimpiest outfits in the entire series. I’m well aware that Japanese culture socially permits youngsters to start wearing revealing outfits at a younger age than America, but even so I have to draw a line somewhere and Kohaku is definitely over that line (furthermore the in-game reason for her outfit is completely contrived, and detracts from her character rather than adding to it). Once you’ve seen the story once you can just skip the cutscenes with her in them, and the game has a feature where you can change Kohaku’s main menu outfit to another one if you boot up the game on certain days of the year (I recommend the New Years kimono), but the fact that I have to actively skip the game’s story content and briefly change the date on my console to trick the game into giving me an appropriate outfit to get around this is a problem. Maybe if she wasn’t such a central character (to the point of literally being dead center of the base menu) this wouldn’t have been such a grievance, but there’s more story artwork of her than even Copen and it’s maddening. Overall the game’s visuals are great for the core action-platforming experience, but the rest of it is sometimes so egregiously misconceived that it actively makes the game hard to recommend to 90% of people.

Thankfully on the other artistic side of things, the music is pretty good. Luminous Avenger IX’s soundtrack is pretty thoroughly rooted in the EDM style which the Gunvolt series has employed since its inception, and it leverages that genre’s strengths well. The level themes are fairly subdued but do have some standout moments here and there, and set the pace of the game’s high-speed action well. That relatively modest soundscape is likely holding itself back specifically for the idol music featured in the game. While Copen has 1000 or more Kudos (aka the player is conquering the game’s challenges extremely proficiently) Lola will start singing one of a handful of songs, which serves as a fun little extra for putting in the effort. You might even choose to skip a checkpoint and hold on to your Kudos just to keep the concert rocking, if you can handle the pressure to play perfectly! Overall most of the music in this game isn’t my first choice of game soundtracks to play in the background on its own, but it’s a very effective companion to the experience it is tied to.

Lastly, for a nugget of spiritual wisdom that I can take from Luminous Avenger IX I wanted to return to the fact that I have revisited this game many times over the years. When I first played the game it was basically my favorite in the Gunvolt series since I enjoyed Copen’s gameplay more than the titular protagonist and this game was built exclusively around it, but it would be tough to say it struck me as something I would revisit again and again. It was only after I really studied how the level designs fit together to create the flashy score attack gameplay that I truly came to be impressed with the game’s craftsmanship, and really got compelled to return and chase mastery over the levels like I do these days. This is an especially rare thing to do for a critic such as me who must necessarily move from one game to the next for the sake of having topics to write about, but maybe in the end this phenomenon might be more of a boon to ground me than it first appears. Especially when taken analogously to the life of service to others in the name of God.

In modern society it can be easy to make simplistic judgments about people and events that show up in our lives and newsfeeds, and in some ways that might be necessary as the world moves too fast for anyone to truly bear the weight of understanding everything on their shoulders. Here in the States in order to live one must often drift to wherever work is to be found, and forging deep ties is not only difficult but arguably a source of pain due to how easy it is to find yourself needing to leave people and places behind. In spite of this, as Catholics we are still called to an encounter with the people we cross paths with, just as Christ met so many during His ministry and walked alongside them. Perhaps our Lord had the distinct advantage of knowing the hearts of all He encountered long before confronting them, but maybe we ought to trust that we are given the exact amount of time we need to have a meaningful impact on those around us. If you prayerfully discern that you need to get to know another person better while they’re still in your life, don’t be afraid to make as much time as you can for them. God works through these ordinary actions more than we often realize, and our witness of the Gospels to others through the time we freely give might just reveal itself to be a light that led someone to salvation. The world may move fast but the world can also wait, so always remember to walk with your brothers and spend time with the Lord. You might come to understand them and love them far better than you ever could have anticipated at first glance.

In conclusion, Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger IX is probably the best game I can’t recommend to most people. The story is relatively incomplete even with context from the previous entries, the character design is at times too extreme for its own target demographic, and the gameplay demands more than a simple main-campaign playthrough (albeit of a pretty short campaign) in order to fully appreciate. If you do happen to enjoy score attack gameplay and are capable of handling the title’s more suspect elements maturely however, it’s a fast paced and technical platformer that’s sure to leave a strong impression. Other stories and challenges surely await for me to review, but I won’t be surprised if I return for just one more flight through the ruined streets with my Bullit Dashes. It’s just too bad that I’ll probably be doing so without many to share the experience with, though I don’t blame them!

About PeaceRibbon

A graduate in philosophy from a campus with Benedictine monks, "PeaceRibbon" is just an ordinary introvert looking to put his hours of playing games to good use. He's played games on every Nintendo console since the family Wii and later took up PC games once aware of Steam. He's explored a lot of genres, but his favorites have been story driven RPGs and fighting games. Often finds himself going deep into gaming culture and seeking out low-profile titles over keeping up with big releases.

When not gaming, he enjoys walking in beautiful places, and overthinking just about everything. Also serves as a cantor at Mass whenever he can. Has a twin brother who shares many of the same hobbies and passions.