RTTP: GunValkyrie

Genesis Knight

Genesis Knight

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Yeah, so it's been a while since NeoGAF had a thread on the game. Like, six years.

So yeah, I'm kind of interested in this because I dig Sega, overlooked games, unique games, and so forth. GunValkyrie kind of fits into a lot of categories I dig individually but I'm not sure about the total product. Obviously this game isn't very well loved for a lot of reasons, even beyond the controls - repetitive design in the enemies, levels, and graphics are a big one. But coming off the awesome Jet Set Radio Future I felt like I had to give this game a shot (and Panzer Orta has been on my list for a long time).

I still don't really get how I'm supposed to say in the air like the demos and YT videos show. I mean, I click the sticks randomly to boost all over and try to fire like a maniac but I still fall out of the air pretty fast. Then I see these Japanese guys on YT who never touch the ground for an entire level and my mind is just...blown. I feel like mastery is about the only way to enjoy this game - in other words, it's all or nothing. Because trying to play it as a standard Third Person Shooter...ah...sucks.

Anyway, most of the old threads on GAF are kind of bitter. You can get the game for less than $10 and it's one of the more interesting Xbox exclusives, so there's not too much reason to hate anymore. Except my thumbs actually freaking hurt this morning after playing last night. What the hell. Smilebit were kind of crazy, huh? Hard to imagine a game like this getting released now.

I've seen Otogi/Otogi 2 brought up as games that do air-based Third Person Action right, but I'm not sure if I'm seeing the connection. They seem very different, and Otogi was a lot easier than this. Any other games that take this idea and do it better?

Smilebit were kind of crazy, huh? Hard to imagine a game like this getting released now.
 
I really loved that game and the feeling of the game after the first playthrough. Not touching the ground once in the first level :D

I always wanted this on the BC list :(
 
ArchAngel said:
I really loved that game and the feeling of the game after the first playthrough. Not touching the ground once in the first level :D

I always wanted this on the BC list :(
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Do the Gearskin and gun upgrades help you stay aloft? Please tell me yes, lol. Are there tricks to staying in the air, like certain boost patterns or something?

And the BC issue really irks me because I have a 1.6 Xbox, which means I have the crappy video card and I have to play the game in 480i instead of 480p. That definitely doesn't help the kind of already muddy graphics and dark textures. Kind of stupid that JSRF and Orta work on 360 but not this.

UnluckyKate said:
I could never pass the second level... I played the game two years ago and I couldn't past the first level (I think)
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I had to watch some YouTube videos to get some inspiration. I've beaten the first boss so far, so like stage 4.
 
I got this game without ever seeing any videos, didn't really know how it played. Playing the first level or two mostly walking through it, I wasn't overly impressed but felt like I was missing something... quit back to the title and watched some attract videos - mind blown.
Took a bit of practice to get the hang, but I was ninja'ing through the levels after a bit and I quite enjoyed it. I'd get into a bit of zone playing it, the constant boosting around was kinda hypnotic.
I don't remember exact techniques, just keep dancing side to side, back and forth etc.
Wouldn't mind digging the old xbox out to replay it. If only my backlog weren't so obscene.
 
Inverted camera made this game unplayable to me. I put hours into it, hours of trying really goddamn hard, but I could never get used to it.

Fuck inverted in any game ever.
 
ElAlcesDiablo said:
I got this game without ever seeing any videos, didn't really know how it played. Playing the first level or two mostly walking through it, I wasn't overly impressed but felt like I was missing something... quit back to the title and watched some attract videos - mind blown.
Took a bit of practice to get the hang, but I was ninja'ing through the levels after a bit and I quite enjoyed it. I'd get into a bit of zone playing it, the constant boosting around was kinda hypnotic.
I don't remember exact techniques, just keep dancing side to side, back and forth etc.
Wouldn't mind digging the old xbox out to replay it. If only my backlog weren't so obscene.
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Are you aiming with the right stick while you boost? If so, geeeeeezzz....

Phinal Phantasy said:
Great game, we need more challenging control schemes in games.
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Assuming the control scheme wasn't a massive screw-up, it's an interesting conversation. Smilebit had a lot of skilled developers. Was this truly their best idea for giving the player control or did they intentionally make it difficult as a gameplay decision?

pmj said:
Fuck inverted in any game ever.
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Yeah, that's killing me right now. Can't believe it wasn't an option.
 
I could see it being an XBLA release with a new control scheme. Will never happen in a million years, though.

I would like to have tried this with the Dreamcast prototype controls - lightgun plus gamepad. My biggest problem is aiming.
 
It's been so long since I last played this, but I remember thinking that the game would be much better with a dual-analog control scheme.
 
Genesis Knight said:
Are you aiming with the right stick while you boost? If so, geeeeeezzz....
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I think... it has been ~10 years.

Genesis Knight said:
Assuming the control scheme wasn't a massive screw-up, it's an interesting conversation. Smilebit had a lot of skilled developers. Was this truly their best idea for giving the player control or did they intentionally make it difficult as a gameplay decision?
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They definitely intended it to be a challenging, skill-based action game. Mastering it, flying through the levels keeping the combo up is satisfying and rewarding. You do have to overcome that hurdle, but I think the game would be less memorable if it had an easier control system.
 
ElAlcesDiablo said:
They definitely intended it to be a challenging, skill-based action game. Mastering it, flying through the levels keeping the combo up is satisfying and rewarding. You do have to overcome that hurdle, but I think the game would be less memorable if it had an easier control system.
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Now that I think about it, the enemy AI is pretty basic. If it was easier to combo and stay airborne, they would have to drastically change the enemies to make the game more difficult. You're probably right that they wanted it to be difficult. It's almost like a fighting game in that respect.
 
Haven't played this game in years. I remember it having a very steep learning curve due to the controls but once you got the hang of it it was good fun. Personally, I preferred Saburouta to Kelly although he was way harder to play with if I remember but Kelly's style was super frantic and chaotic which made for good fun. I don't remember this game being compared to the Otogi games but they couldn't be more different IMO.
 
LOVED the character designs, but upon buying it I found the controls to be too much. In the end I didn't see it being worthwhile to master the control scheme to shoot a bunch of bugs.
 
It's a really well designed game, but I wish they had gone a different direction with the character art. The woman with her butt hanging out added nothing. Maybe they hoped to catch the eyes of casual players who would walk by and notice the cover art, but anyone I knew who fit into that demographic quit the game after the first or second level. They should have used a sleek cybernetic male design (or had a woman version you could select) and called it a day.
 
GunValkyrie fucking ruled. (Says probably the only guy on this forum with a GV avatar)

Anyway, if you're having trouble with the game, don't start off going for the 'never touch the ground, ever' style that the pros use. It's hard to pull off until you're really comfortable with the game. Try to position yourself somewhere where all the enemies are roughly in front of you (so you don't have to worry about turning on top of boosting), and boost around while locking on to them, then feel free to drop to the ground once you let your shots fire.
Remember that boosting back and forth (if I recall correctly) doesn't increase your boost combo. Try to move in a figure 8 (ie: Boost left, back, right, forward, forward, right, back, left, etc) so you don't 'waste' any boosts.

If you're at the beginning of the game and it's your first time through, then your only choices for characters are probably Kelly-1 and Saburouta. Kelly-1 is really not conducive to infinite boosting for new players, because she can't do the Meteor Charge move (clicking both sticks while you're in the air to charge in any direction, including straight up; requires you to refill a meter by chaining regular boosts together), which helps make up for the air that you gradually lose if you're not a master. Later in the game, you'll unlock Kelly-2, who does have that move (and then later on, Kelly-3, who is just ridiculously overpowered with it).
On the other hand, Saburouta starts off being able to do that move, but he never gets any upgrades and his standard weapon can never lock onto multiple enemies, so he's not really worth learning, for the most part.



My only real, lasting complaint with the game at this point is that it's a huge shame you can't un-invert the controls. I could deal with it way back when it was new, as I hadn't played Halo or any other console shooters, but these days it's just an exercise in frustration. Other than that, I really liked the way aiming worked, where you were sort of intuitively limited in how far you could aim in any direction to how far your character's torso could bend without changing direction. Coupled with clicking the stick to do 90-and-180-degree snap turns, it was a really fun game to just aim and shoot at things in.
 
playoverwork said:
It's a really well designed game, but I wish they had gone a different direction with the character art. The woman with her butt hanging out added nothing. Maybe they hoped to catch the eyes of casual players who would walk by and notice the cover art, but anyone I knew who fit into that demographic quit the game after the first or second level. They should have used a sleek cybernetic male design (or had a woman version you could select) and called it a day.
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The boxart certainly caught my 13-year-old eye back in the day.

@Coxswain, nice tips. I wasn't aware you could unlock extra characters. Kelly-2 sounds like a godsend. I might scale back my expectations until I unlock her.

What upgrades should I be going for?
 
YO

Gunvalkyrie is the goddamn motherfucking shit.

This is a game that just gets it. It's fast-paced, challenging, arcade-y, and rewards skill. It's not the most accessible game, but when you come to grips with the game's mechanics, it just feels perfect. Even now, I don't think there's a single game with flying mechanics as good as Gunvalkyrie, because in this game, when you can rocket through levels like a season pro, you've really earned it. And the controls aren't needlessly cumbersome, either. They work exactly as they should, and it's a matter of you learning what to do rather than the game being obtuse.

The levels do tend to boil down to "shoot up X number of enemy hives" or stuff like that, but c'mon. No matter the game, you're gonna do that anyway. Gunvalkyrie is just more honest about it. I will admit that this is a game that's far less focused on level design and more on the actual shooting, and I can see why that'd bug some people (no pun intended)... but those who can accept the game for what it is will probably love it, even today.

Fuck. I need to play this game again.
 
I loved this game, and never understood the complaints for the contorls. By the third level I had them down.

Xbox had so many awesome and varied Japanese action games. Gunvalkyrie, Panzer Dragoon, Otogi, Otogi 2, Phantom Dust, Phantom Crash, Ninja Gaiden, JSRF... it's a shame no system really picked up the reigns this generation.
 
I just loved this game so much back then.

It sits up there along with PN03 as THE pair of severely misunderstood games of that generation.
 
leroidys said:
I loved this game, and never understood the complaints for the contorls. By the third level I had them down.

Xbox had so many awesome and varied Japanese action games. Gunvalkyrie, Panzer Dragoon, Otogi, Otogi 2, Phantom Dust, Phantom Crash, Ninja Gaiden, JSRF... it's a shame no system really picked up the reigns this generation.
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Is Phantom Dust any good without Xbox Live? Never played it.

Tain said:
Sega's best Xbox game?
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Eeesh, that's a hard call with JSRF and Orta in the running.
 
When the game first came out, I thought it was utter dog shit just because the controls. One summer when I was out of new stuff to play, I decided to give it another chance just because of my fondness for Smilebit.

Eventually, the controls clicked, and I had a good amount of fun with it. If there was ever a game from that gen that could use a modern sequel, it's this.

Would love to see someone like Platnium take a crack at it.
 
The guy who directed this, also was level designer on Sonic 3 and Knuckles, did one of the Mickey games, and did PC Ports of Saturn games.

Where he is he now...?
 
The makings of a fun arcadey shooter are here, the mechanics are fun, but not fun enough to overcome the poor level design. It's just a very boring game to go through despite some involving moment to moment action from time to time. Like an unholy union of arcade and archaic DC/early PS2 action/adventure design.

The music at the character select screen is great though, I have it in a few playlists.
 
Marion Cobretti said:
OutRun 2 smashes both of those games.
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Outrun 2 is a solid choice. Personally, I liked Outrun 2 a lot better than 2006, thanks mostly to the challenge mode in 2 being absolutely superior in every way to the codswallop that Coast 2 Coast offered up.


But man... looking at all the crazy good, inventive Xbox 1 games coming out of Japan makes me kinda sad. This ain't the same industry it was back in those days. :(
 
Genesis Knight said:
I forgot about that one. Although I only own Coast 2 Coast. I thought that was the definitive version?
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Coast 2 Coast includes the arcade versions of Outrun 2 and Outrun 2SP, so in that regard, it is definitive. All I was saying is that the actual meat of the game -- the challenge mode -- is much better in Outrun 2 than it is in Coast 2 Coast. Really, you should have both games.
 
Gunvalkyrie's final run to the end boss was nuts enough, but the actual boss was too much. You absolutely have to boost combo, shift, fire cannon, turn around, boost, reverse and repeat, all in the air to even get close enough to the floating baby head. Took way too much concentration.
 
playoverwork said:
It's a really well designed game, but I wish they had gone a different direction with the character art. The woman with her butt hanging out added nothing. Maybe they hoped to catch the eyes of casual players who would walk by and notice the cover art, but anyone I knew who fit into that demographic quit the game after the first or second level. They should have used a sleek cybernetic male design (or had a woman version you could select) and called it a day.
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Nah, I saw it in a bargain bin when I was about 12 or 13 and the girl on the front being sexy almost single handedly sold me the game, this was before I was a sega fan or anything. Furthermore, given how rarely I received games and even though I initially hated it, I eventually grew to like the controls at that young age because it was the only new thing I had to play.

Had to force myself to learn them to gain any enjoyment at all.
 
Chacranajxy said:
Coast 2 Coast includes the arcade versions of Outrun 2 and Outrun 2SP, so in that regard, it is definitive. All I was saying is that the actual meat of the game -- the challenge mode -- is much better in Outrun 2 than it is in Coast 2 Coast. Really, you should have both games.
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Coast 2 Coast is missing the Daytona 2 and Scud Race tracks, isn't it? They were unlocked as part of Outrun 2 challenge mode I think. I'm just bringing them up because I think they're a pretty big reason to own that version.

On topic: GunValkyrie is probably tops on my list of games that I love but feel guilty for not having finished. I should rectify that.
 
Popstar said:
It was originally designed for the Dreamcast as a light gun game. They had to redo the controls when the DC was killed and it was moved over to Xbox.
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Yeah mentioned that above. Would liked to have tried that version; then again I don't own a CRT anymore so I couldn't any more.
 
Loved GunValkyrie. I still got my OG copy. Gotta rebuy am XBOX at some point and replay it. The select few quirky Japanese action games on the original XBOX make that hunk of shit-looking console worth owning. =D
 
Popstar said:
It was originally designed for the Dreamcast as a light gun game. They had to redo the controls when the DC was killed and it was moved over to Xbox.
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Wasn't it being developed to use both the light gun and standard controller? I remember seeing a blurb about it in the Official DC magazine, and recall it being pretty unique.
 
One of my top games from the OG XBox era.

Dreamcast version for the curious

I tend enjoy games with experimental control, like Sandlot Mech games for PS2, I found this to be a wonderful game. It's interesting, the OP talks about the graphics to be a sticking point, but I thought it was a beautiful game. Naglfar's Pit being a standout.

No, they really don't make games quite like this anymore. Not sure what the closest spiritual successor to this game would even be. Vanquish?
 
It's one of my favourite Xbox games too. Once you get the hang of the controls, it's one of the most fun, intense games around. I was desperately hoping for a sequel or even just an HD remake this gen but sadly neither happened. They really don't make many games like this any more (Vanquish was the last one that gave me a similar feeling).
 
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