Review: Gunvalkyrie

Gunvalkyrie (Smilebit, 2002) is Japanese. (And no, that doesn't mean it should be killed with fire.)

It's difficult. It's not excruciating, but it is fairly unforgiving. It also makes things easier for better players by giving them more currency to purchase upgrades. Easier missions cannot be played over for more money, so poor players are out of luck. I actually completed the game having only bought one 4,000 point upgrade. By the time I'd saved up for the 100,000 point upgrade I really wanted, I didn't want it anymore. The challenge was the reward.

It's got strange trappings. The setting is a very alternate history. In 1870 a scientist named Hebble figured out how to use pieces of Halley's comet that fell to earth as a powerful energy source. This discovery gave rise to a host of others, and humanity headed to the stars. Then Hebble went bye bye and alien bugs infested humanity's new colonies. The player is part of some sort of power armored military unit (Gunvalkyrie, est. 1899) tasked with tracking down Hebble and killing lots of bugs. Oh yeah, and there are dark energy orbs hidden in many of the levels that used to be human colonists. Yeah. I know. And that's not the half of it. The level names reference Irish and Norse mythology for no apparent reason, the Gunvalkyrie logo is a realistically depicted orca with little white bird wings, and you take your orders from a floating head.

And the unusual movement mechanics are stranger than that. On the ground, the main character mostly controls like a horror game protagonist, in other words, like a dump truck. No, this game is not meant to be played on the ground. It's meant to be played in the air. The left trigger makes the character jump and engage her jet pack. By depressing and pointing with the left thumbstick, the character can be made to boost forward, backward, left, or right. By depressing and pointing with the right thumbstick, the character can turn left, right, or a full 180 without losing an inch of altitude. Also, as the character boosts around in the air, a meter is filled that allows for special attacks which can be used to gain altitude. The best players can complete most of the game in one jump. :P

As much as I like bizarre things, I didn't find this mechanic too satisfying. Heck, just watching a skilled Gunvalkyrie player makes me feel ill. I appreciated the novelty, and the challenge of learning how to manage the mechanic well enough to finish the game, but in the end I would say Gunvalkyrie was mostly a novelty.

Final Score
3 of 5

I used GameFaqs once, but only to learn how to do the special attack because my copy of the game didn't come with a manual.