Without question, Assault Spy is one of the greatest character action games ever made, easily standing alongside the kings of the genre. This title came out of nowhere, a Japanese indie developer's one-man project and yet it oozes style, love, and understanding of what makes this genre work. There is almost no limit to the praise this game deserves.
In Assault Spy, you play as corporate spy Asaru and, later as an alternate route, CIA agent Amelia, battling robots for, frankly, rather silly reasons. The plot gets out of the way fairly quickly and the action takes center stage. Asaru has a great set of action game fundamentals, a strong dodge, a couple of combo chains, several command modes, an assault umbrella with which he can do the Vergil Judgement Cut, as well as exploding business cards. His moveset is clearly inspired by the DMC protagonists, especially in the focus on stylish action achieved through a wide variety of command moves and careful dodges and less so lengthy light/heavy alternating chains. Most of the fodder enemies fire slow moving projectiles or laser bazookas. You can, of course, parry and reflect the bullets. While there are several melee combatants, this creates a much more spaced out combat environment than the average stylish action. Dealing with projectiles is the norm rather than the gimmick like those DMC3 bow assholes, but it also remains fair unlike the spiteful Ninja Gaiden 2 style of spam. Asaru has the tools to deal with this, teleports, dodges, parries, and he can even deploy his irritating loli sidekick to draw enemy aggro temporarily, and as a super move, can trigger his "Overclock" watch to stop time. Asaru can bypass the armor of shielded enemies if he attacks from behind, so his mobility and be able to control aggro contributes directly to his performance in combat rather than being solely defensive tools. The encounter design is wonderful, playing with the game's cast of enemies quite smartly without cheesing you. The enemies remain tough throughout, never reaching some of the doldrums of other character action games where you MUST play for style to have fun, and as a result no fight feels like a waste of time.
Speaking of wasting your time, unlike certain other character action games, there are no minigames to speak of, no slow walking segments. There is one stealth segment that can be skipped on all subsequent plays on any difficulty. For the first time in a very long time do we have a character action game that does not have "that bad part." The whole game plays smoothly from start to finish with nary a moment of wasted pacing. Even the bosses are top notch. They are almost all human-sized robots, or even humans themselves, carrying the energy of a good rival fight. They all have hyper armor from the front, but, as with the mook enemies, can be comboed as much as you can style if you can get behind them or if you deal enough damage to deplete their break gauge (Which comes with a wickedly satisfying screen shatter effect when you pull it off.) putting them into brief state where anything you do staggers or juggles them.
Once you have cleared the game as Asaru, you unlock Amelia, who has her own route through the story with a unique finale. Amelia is flat out one of the most overpowered character action game heroes I have ever controlled. Ryu Hayabusa even at his most absurd only almost matches her in how nuts she is. Amelia's biggest gimmick is her parry, which if she parries anything at all, she can counter by teleporting to the enemy and slamming her fist in his face. Her combos are less fluid than Asaru but she has several charge moves that, specifically as the move description informs you, give her immense iframes and deal out considerable damage. And these can be powered up even further by building up her voltage meter with her normal attacks. She is an immense joy to play in an already raucously fun game. She feels like the powerhouse to Asaru's agile style, but still maintaining stylish action speed and combo herself.
And as if the game wasn't good enough, you can unlock tag mode once you beat both routes and tag combo between the two of them. DMC NEVER gave you Dante/Vergil tag, did it? To top that off, you get boss rush, bloody palace, EX Hard bloody palace, and a super hard EX boss who I have not yet managed to beat, plus two additional difficulties. And the game itself plays so quick it practically begs repeat plays if you have an arcade lover's heart.
The soundtrack is rocking, too. The art is carried by the character designs as most everything else is stock assets, but the white aesthetic manages to work quite well at giving the game a clean, easy to read, yet memorable and pleasant look. The only weaknesses I would point out in the game are the two end bosses of each route both having gimmicks that are especially punishing and, unlike most of the other bosses, quite rudely dictate the pace of the fight, but certainly nowhere near some of the worst bosses in even the best games of this genre.
I could quite literally play Assault Spy forever. It is one of the finest character action games out there and is just as fun on my sixth play as it was on my first. It is immense fun if you are bad at it, and it is even more fun if you are reaching the point where you can play for style. It deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as DMC, Ninja Gaiden, Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta, and the like. If you have any love of character action, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up as soon as possible. But if you need a bit more proof as to how stylish the action can be, you do not need to take my word for it, just have a gander at this combo video.
