Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2 review — Dashed to bits

Copen being added to the roster in Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 was a shot in the arm for the series. I’m a huge fan of the Mega Man X/Zero games, but the first Gunvolt didn’t do much for me. I appreciated it, but shocking foes with darts didn’t hit the high notes brought by the games it attempted to ape. With the sequel, though, Copen dashing into foes and zooming across the screen added a lot to the gameplay. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2, the second of Copen’s solo games, may still not touch the classics, but the addition of a melee attack alongside the still-enjoyable series gameplay makes this a brief, but fun, 2D romp. The plot of Luminous Avenger iX 2, much like the plots of all the Gunvolt games, is pretty hard to take seriously. For the first time, the series is dubbed in English, and quite capably I might add! The narrative seems almost like a complete throwaway, though. After the events of the first game, Copen, Kohaku, and Lola are just han…