From one handheld system to another, the Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced package seems to be a perfect fit for Switch 2. This trilogy is clearly designed for short, replayable sessions. How well does this Nintendo 3DS franchise hold up in today’s gaming landscape? Unsurprisingly, it holds up extremely well, and its design choices set it apart today. Read on as Cubed3 takes a look at this great triple-tag of action-platforming fun!
Over the years, video games have become longer and longer. While it was once extremely rare to see a game last longer than 100 hours, especially outside niche JRPGs, that’s become more common as budgets have increased and gamers expect more playtime for their bucks.
This has led many modern games to feel bloated to reach a certain playtime. However, back in the day, even when games were so short they could be beaten in an hour, gamers were happy to play them for hundreds of hours. The key was making a game replayable by making it fun and giving players goals beyond beating the game. This old-school design philosophy still runs strong in Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced.
As a 3DS trilogy, the games had one key objective: to be a fun experience in five-to-ten-minute bursts. Each level is easily beatable in this timeframe, and each game has 10 to 20 levels. It might sound short on paper, but Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced makes up for it with quality.
Each level is a carefully designed playground that lets players fully explore Gunvolt’s movement and the game’s scoring mechanics, which are ingenious and addictive. They have three aspects: avoiding damage, time beaten, and multipliers for defeating enemies in different ways, mostly based on how many you defeat at once. The best example is the Manor stage from the second title. It is a simple stage, but it has extremely strong theming that makes it stand out, plus a few enemy groups you have to take out in specific ways to increase your score. Its stunning visuals, combined with score-focused level design, make it a stage worth replaying.
This mix creates a bunch of games that go way beyond what you would expect from a game of its size in terms of how long the player will play. All of this in short five-to-ten-minute bursts. While the games are very fun in these short sessions, they are rough to play for more than an hour. In a way, it makes sense that a game beatable in less than two hours in 10-minute sessions becomes exhausting to play on a stationary console for hours on end – but that’s where the Switch 2 version shines. Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced is a match made in heaven for the system. It also fills a gap that system owners truly need: one of those amazing games to play while waiting for the bus, and few games fit that bill as well as this.
There are some issues, though. While the game plays wonderfully in handheld mode, it doesn’t look great on a big TV screen. The over-the-top and colourful visual effects that make the game so great on handhelds become too busy on a large screen, making it hard to keep track of what happens second to second.
As a handheld title, though, the amazing boss designs, control scheme, and level design make Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced a must-buy for fans of games like Mega Man. However, if looking to use the Switch 2’s enhanced graphics on a TV compared to the original, other games are out there to buy.
Cubed3 Rating
Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced is a love letter to the old-school game design philosophy of “less is more” replayability. The few levels in each of the three games hold up across multiple playthroughs without feeling dull or repetitive thanks to strong level design and solid gameplay. However, while this is an amazing handheld experience, its age and laser-focused handheld design show up in the worst ways on a big-screen TV: it feels busy and the graphics look a bit too blocky. However, this is definitely a title to recommend for those looking for a Switch 2 game to fill ten-minute gaps in their day-to-day life instead of doom scrolling online.
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Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced
Formats: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5
Genres: 2D platformer, Action, Compilation
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Cubed3 is reader-supported. If you buy through banners on our site, we may earn a commission. This does not influence our opinions/reviews.
