Gunvalkyrie was one of the original Xbox games that I was truly jealous of. Initially I wasn’t planning to pick up Microsoft’s new console. Sega changed all that by announcing a plethora of original titles for it as well as hotly anticipated sequels to their Dreamcast releases. Virtually all of their in-development games for their discontinued console were announced elsewhere, and the Xbox just happens to be where Gunvalkyrie wound up. I liked it quite a bit, but unlike most of their other titles from this era it hasn’t been re-released anywhere else. This is rare for the company considering they port their titles almost as often as Capcom does. Regardless, I was hankering for some sci-fi third person shooter action so I dusted off the old Xbox and fired Gunvalkyrie up. It still holds up quite well. Let’s take a look.
Sega wasn’t messing around when it comes to the plot here. The opening sequence goes into a lot of detail painting an alternate reality where the British Empire rules all of the Earth as well as several colonies in outer space. Gunvalkyrie takes place in the year 1906 if you can believe it. Technology advanced at a hugely accelerated rate due to technology brought to Earth from Hailey’s Comet in 1835. The game begins as contact has been lost with the planetary colony of Tir na Nog due to an invasion by insect-like aliens. You play as an elite military force known as Team Dolphin who are sent to investigate as well as push back the creatures that now run rampant. The story takes itself too seriously in my opinion, but it is nice that you can read notes between stages to keep up to date with what’s happening.
As I’ve mentioned Gunvalkyrie is a third person shooter leaning heavily into the sci-fi elements. Despite taking place in 1906 your characters are fit with futuristic armor. This allows them to perform a lot of different maneuvers, but I’ll get to that later. At the start of each stage you’re given a mission as well as different conditions to complete. Sometimes you have to defeat all of the enemies and each an endpoint, but others have you retrieving items and returning to where you started. The first stage serves as a tutorial to teach you the basics. These include boosting into the air, dashing forward, and rolling from side to side. Here you’ll become familiar with the auto aim and defeating very basic foes. After this point the difficulty ramps up. You’re expected to master these skills during the tutorial because you’ll have to be good at them almost immediately.
You have three basic weapons in the game which can each be upgraded by spending currency earned from completing stages. Each character has a different set of weapons. The first for the main character is a basic long range shot, the second a short range flurry of electricity, and the third is a rapid fire machine gun that takes some time to get going. She’s more focused on moving fast and striking while in motion. Another character has similar weaponry but the upgrades hit heavier so he’s more useful toward the end of the game. That is, if you’ve focused your upgrades in the right direction. More experienced players can opt for a third choice. This guy is slower but stronger, and has no upgrades. Gunvalkyrie is tough so I tend to go with the easier characters with less learning curves.
You select these weapons using the Y, B, and X face buttons on the controller, and fire with the right trigger. It’s an interesting system and allows for swapping on the fly. Auto aim is very generous here and if you can see a foe your weapons will target them. You can also manipulate the camera with the right joystick in case an enemy is just out of sight. This is a little clunky because the viewpoint tends to snap back behind your character. It works well enough I suppose. Gunvalkyrie leans heavily on aerial combat and while it is clunky once you get the hang of things it’s not so bad. The ability to roll mid-air, as well as boost forward will be used frequently.
Controls take a lot of getting used to. Smilebit (the developer at Sega responsible for this title) made one big error in my opinion. The A button isn’t used for anything beyond navigating the menus. This is where your thumb tends to rest, and for a game that leans so heavily on reflexes. More perplexing is the fact that the jump and boost button is the left trigger. There’s no reason they couldn’t have assigned this to A. It just feels unnatural especially when I almost never took advantage of the pressure sensitive triggers. Additionally actually moving around is kind of cumbersome. There’s a good sense of weight behind your character, but simple actions like turning around are awful. You have to run in a semi-circle to achieve this. This can cause problems when you’re cornered by foes in small areas.
Gunvalkyrie is at it’s best when you’re in arena areas fighting enemies. I love how the strategy comes in to play with which weapon you’re going to use as well as dodging. Unfortunately the level designs are more focused on your armor’s abilities. Some areas are entirely aerial and I didn’t like this at all. Falling and aiming doesn’t work as well as it should. Additionally Smilebit threw in far too many platform areas that you have to use to progress. The boosters on your armor aren’t super accurate especially when boosting forward is required. These sections just aren’t very fun to be honest. Gunvalkyrie would have been better as a more corridor based shooter. The level designs start off easy enough but later on become mazes. This isn’t what I wanted for this title. Getting swamped and cornered by foes is much more entertaining than awkwardly floating to ledges.
With that said Gunvalkyrie is an absolutely beautiful game. I mean, just look at it. The textures are rendered at very high resolution for the original Xbox. Additionally the character models are chock full of details and animate extremely well. There also weren’t a lot of high profile anime style titles for the platform so Gunvalkyrie gets kudos for that. My absolute favorite part of the title is it’s art design. The interior areas are a bit bland and generic, but the outdoor stages look absolutely amazing. In particular the intro area features an alien sunset and crazy looking foliage as well as a really nicely rendered pond. The framerate stays consistent and I didn’t notice any serious drops. This is good because the action can get absolutely chaotic at times. The soundtrack is okay. It’s mostly subdued electronic pieces but it fits well enough.
