Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 - Copen Stomping Through The Garden [S+ Rank]
23An S+ Rank run of The Garden in which Copen expresses his distaste for adepts in the most comedic and inefficient way possible.
Let me get this out of the way immediately: There is absolutely no logical motivation to ever S+ a stage using Copen's Reload Crush as your primary offense. It’s a complete inversion of his usual “the floor is lava” shtick. The main reason I went through with this challenge was to highlight the flexibility of GV2's scoring system and the extent to which it can be pushed, particularly when using some of the more atypical pieces of equipment. The first Garden stage is an excellent candidate for this task due to its lack of a miniboss and Milas’ attack pattern lending itself well to an angrier-than-usual Copen stomping all over the place.
A few key Subroutines make this possible. Heaven or Hell X is the essential bit of equipment here, doubling your Kudos gain, which lets you soar past the 900k score requirement. Together, Impact Reload and its overdrive variant hasten the stage's pace noticeably, reducing the number of hits each enemy type can endure by 1. For grunts like the blue Eden Soldiers, the ability to OHKO them is indispensable, preventing retaliatory swipes. The boosted damage speeds up the dance with Milas, eliminating the otherwise pressing need for good RNG when fighting the Australian merman.
I did test this concept using Score Attack rules, and the time limit of 8 minutes unfortunately precludes players from getting an S+. Even with Score Attack’s 2x multiplier and smattering of bonus points derived from your clear time, using the same route shown in this run is about 500 Kudos short. There’s no time to farm Kudos from the Shutters at the start; without Subroutines, you’re subject to Milas’ whims, whose fight can last nearly 4 minutes if your luck is revoltingly poor.
While there’s not much strategy in this run, it’s still fairly demanding. Starting a Reload Crush requires double-tapping down while airborne. If you’re too close to the ground during the input, Copen will instead perform a regular reload, locking him in place. During the stage, such a mishap is likely to cost you the run, as whichever enemy you’re staring down will inevitably complete its attack animation during Copen’s recovery time. A successful Reload Crush stuns enemies, interrupting their routines in the same way that tagging does. Speaking of, I do tag enemies to push them when needed. Technically, this does deal damage, but it’s negligible. The animation of Copen recoiling backward after a tag is somewhat slow, so measure your dash distances carefully to avoid unwanted tags.
Concerning movement, I utilize a mix of flight and dash jumps. A normally unused mechanic makes an appearance here: alternating between the dash and jump buttons while pressed against a wall increases Copen’s climbing speed. Standard wall jumps break Copen’s air combo multiplier in GV2, so climbing usually entails diagonal Bullit Dashes into a single wall. No concerns over combo chains means quick climbing is fair game here. Also, Guard Counters don’t apply during a Reload Crush, which is disappointing.
Despite using Heaven or Hell X, I still go out of my way to stomp as many of Eden’s robots and soldiers as I can. You can get away with far less carnage than I do here, saving a substantial amount of time in the process. For the most part, I ignore airborne enemies unless it’s convenient to reposition them or if they’re in Reload Crush range. Remember, the shockwave does reach respectably far upward.
A special mention for two Floaters in the enemy room preceding the second Hexapyle. Locked to the Reload Crush only, these two can’t be destroyed by anything other than spamming glancing hits next to them. I push them together to quicken the chore I’m forced into. It may look like the game is dropping frames, but that’s just the hitlag generated by glancing hits.
Milas is a whirlpool of chance-driven madness. Vortex Rush spam is what you pray for here. There’s a useful hitbox exploit that allows you stand next to Milas during his conjuring; perfect for Reload Crushing at your leisure. However, my luck during this particular fight could only be described as transcendentally abysmal. He only uses Vortex Rush twice, which is among the worst patterns I had seen during practice; this battle could easily be a minute faster. The incredulity I felt started to mess with my rhythm, leading to multiple instances of poor spacing and ill-timed inputs for my Reload Crushes.
Despite Milas’ recalcitrance, I decided not to reset mid-fight, principally because the stage went swimmingly. The ridiculous nature of the challenge meant that each retry was extremely time-consuming. The best time to attack outside of Vortex Rush is after Aqua Trident. Milas never performs the same attack twice in a row, so pay attention to the audio and visual cues to discern if he’ll follow with Harp Boomerang or Splash Dash.
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