Alright just finished the intro.
...Eh.
There's nothing bad about it but there isn't anything good about it either.
First, the text. Yes, it is super obtrusive however it got much easier to deal with when I turned the 3D slightly up. If you play with it off, the text completely covers the stage terrain, characters and enemies but with 3D on it brings the text somewhat into the foreground which allows your eyes to focus on the stage because you're "looking past" the text. It's kinda like how when you wear glasses, you don't notice the glass as much. At least that's how it was for me. Still, there is that thankful option to disable it with the X button.
Next, the combat. Freaking. Boring. I've never felt IntiCreates had a very good understanding of how to design levels around a projectile based weapon, which is why they were much better playing to Zero's swordplay rather than Mega Man's buster. GV's buster has the tiniest shot possible and it is extremely hard to see which you use to tag enemies or items for a max of three tags that can also overlap. You then hold R or A to shoot lighting at the targets and overlapping tags take more damage. Simple...but boring. Here's the main problem: because of how tiny and limited the buster shot is, you tend to stop when you see an enemy, tag, and then wait for zap to kill him. That's because the buster is too weak to kill (does it even do damage??) and the electric attack doesn't deal damage at a sufficient speed so the gameplay at this point is functional, but slow and unengaging.
Compare that to, let's say, Mega Man X where you can be running a see an enemy coming toward you. Your natural response is to start shooting and sure enough, they'll be dead long before they reach you. Same thing with flying enemies as you can jump to deal with them. You are engaging the enemy without losing momentum which is satisfying and intuitive. The basic combat is too involved and requires too much of your attention to do so little.
The momentum is butchered by this system yet I can imagine something that could greatly help and that is allowing GV to fire the gun at an angle while moving as well as the ability to duck. The combat is too restrictive. I'm fine with zapping being the only way to kill, but you need to lighten the restriction on the buster if you're going to take away its effectiveness. Shooting in one direction worked with Mega Man because your objective was just shoot and dodge. This one is shoot, tag, zap, dodge, watch electric gauge and it really bogs things down. I can only imagine going faster though this game if I memorized the enemy placements, but only so I can avoid dealing with them. And that does not sound fun. Could you imagine Contra gun play being this complicated?
Lastly, I am optimistic. That is because you have the ability to change weapon equipment and get more skills by leveling up. You also can get items like rings and pendants that can give you tweaks to your attack properties as well as a shop where you can build items, although it does something I hate which is require you to gather miscellaneous junk that you use to craft the items. You can grind money, but these crafting items you can seemingly only get at the end of missions by drawing them from blank cards at the end of a mission. How well you did determines how many draws you get. This just screams padding to me. "Grind for money, but also grind for random drops".
I haven't beaten any bosses so I don't know what you get from them and just like past Mega Man titles, special weapons make the game. If Mega Man could only fight with his standard buster in his games, there is no way he'd have lasted as long as he did. So we better find that weapon set up that helps Azure Gunvolt, or he might not survive two weeks.
the only time it really seems noticeable is distinguishing the dialogue layer from the gameplay layer