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Well, it's good they both survived, sucks to be Zeno and Moniqa though who basically got ditched, lost everything and their buddies/loved ones without any explanation on the details whatsoever. That's why I don't really see it to be so much of a "Good" ending but hey.
The game does try to establish more stuff in the robot master stage like Elise actually had some dialogue and Viper actually knows someone on the good guy's side besides Gunvolt. Unfortunately nothing ever happened with that (shouldn't Joule speak up when one of her fans are fighting for her with Gunvolt?) The stages do a good job building the QUILL members but it's still missing the point, as Joule, Lumen, and Copen are all more important than QUILL in terms of story. Not to mention in a game that penalizes you heavily for being slow it's really bad design that some of the QUILL members talk forever (but relevent) during the stages.
Since Gunvolt doesn't actually acquire enemy powers I think there should really be 2 set of the 'robot master' stages where the important characters all get involved in some way. Lumen is woefully underdeveloped even though she's supposed to be Joule's inner personality but throughout the game it'd make far more sense that Joule/Lumen just have a split personality like Elise because you never talk to Lumen enough to get the idea that they could be the same person. You can keep the same bosses but have them upgraded and become stronger like Elise, or do something like first time you only have to take out 2 lifebars (no desperation).
For what they had to work with I think the ending was okay but it's a totally wasted opportunity. Unless Gunvolt 2 is about trying to find 3 parts of Elise to resurrect her and then resurrect Joule I'm not even sure what the heck the characters can be fighting for. Did Gunvolt decide he got tired of having the electronic diva around 24/7 and look another girl? Did Joule went on a strike because with her power + Gunvolt's they'd completely faceroll anybody stupid enough to get in the way? What kind of crack is Copen on to think he could take on Gunvolt without his special gun?
Lumen is I think a split personality of Joule just like Elise's other 2 personalities.
Joule and Elise are both mentally weak and as such they lost control over their power and the power kinda developed personas of their own as a result of it. The only difference is that Elise's 3rd personality is a synthetic product created by a 3rd party for the sole purpose to replace the host's personality, hence it constantly asserts a sense of superiority over the host. Meanwhile the 2nd personality, which would be the power's real personality, while insane she doesn't actually harm the host and is in fact supportive of the host whenever she needs it. That's probably also why 2nd has the strongest power of all 3 personalities of Elise, just like how Lumen can access Joule's power while she doesn't seem to be able to.
The relationship between Joule and Lumen should be the same as the 3 Elises, just that Lumen somehow made up her mind to actively reach out and assist Joule on the basis that she's a product of Joule's power. But Lumen really is a split personality born from Joule's inability to govern her power. After Joule lost her physical body, since there is no border between the 2 personalities anymore, they fuse together and become one. However the dominant personality remains as Joule. And that they fuse with GV's personality and become a part of his subconsciousness shortly afterwards.
I think that's all great and all, the problem I have is the last scene when they all act completely out of their characters for no reason. Where GV+Joule now ignores all their comrades/friends, the crying/mourning Moniqa and the confused Zeno, and simply walk away while Joule acts hostilely towards Zeno for no reason etc. That's really odd and it makes me feel uncomfortable reading it as a supposely True/Good ending of the story.
But I gotta agree with the largely wasted opportunities with the cast members and their potentials. The game makes 0 mention on why Asimov and GV somehow have the EXACT same power, why Asimov's true intention and his actions so far literally don't add up, who is really Copen, Zeno&Moniqa, and all the incoming rebellions as well as the stance of GV on the whole map etc. There is so much to tell, but the game doesn't seem to be really interested in solving all the mysteries that are left behind, which is really a shame.
Honestly, I feel the stories are seriously rushed near the end of the game where they'd decided to just go "There..... Here you go, The End" without much considerations on all the previous plot points and other informations. Leading to imo a very lacking, confusing and contradicting ending of the title.
Lumen is supposed to be Joule's true feelings that she's too shy to talk about. So while you can see traces of Lumen in Joule's dialogue (she's obviously not 100% introvert) naturally it'd follow that you should see some traces of Joule in Lumen's dialogue, as presumably Lumen isn't going to be a 100% 'bro next time let's dance naked without a shirt' type personality if she talked more than 5 times in the entire game. Of course that doesn't work precisely because you don't know anything about Lumen.
In the final scene I assumed the implied situation was one where Zeno could've just pulled out a gun and try to shoot GV with it. Not that that'd have any effect on him but Joule just intervened in case a freak accident happened.
Inticreates seems to have a particular bad case of 'save it for the sequel'. I know that if you're not a big gaming company with deep pockets it is tempting to just get something out of the door to fund the next project, but if you look at how something like ZX Advent flopped (game obviously implies there's supposed to be more to it but it never happened because it didn't sell enough), it's still likely a better idea to do everything right the first time than hoping you can roll out an unfinished product (or just withheld certain features for the sequel) to fund a better sequel. The MMX games on the SNES sold around 300K, and I think at least MMX4 was in that range. After you move to the MMZ (made by Inticreates), MMZX, and now Gunvolt hitting 100K is a big deal. Keep in mind that SNES MMX games are expensive per game (~$60) and the PSX ones are probably in the $50 range, so even if they sold the same amount the MMX versions is much bigger revenue overall. The Megaman games was once a mainstream game and now it seems to be a fringe niche for guys that like to run through an entire level consisting of spikes like the perma-Anthem speed run mode and I think the literally decades of 'saving for the next game' is a huge factor. Other than that Sigma or Dr. Wily never goes away, I never got the feeling that the earlier Megaman games were saving something extra in the tank on purpose. The story might be nonexistent, but they're not hiding anything for the next game.
Somewhere around MMX5 Capcom and all the follow ups seemed to decide that 'stay tuned for the sequel to explain things that make no sense in this game!' was the way to go. Gunvolt 2 will feature Copen as a playable character, which I think is to absolutely no one's surprise given he's supposed to have a very prominent role in the game. But why couldn't he have been a playable character when he was relevent? Did nobody look at the original script and say, "Hey this Copen guy would have been a good second character to play as'? I mean he even says the Adepts have grown out of control so that the best he can hope for is that Gunvolt and Nova takes each other out because it's out of his hands, and we're supposed to believe in that in Gunvolt 2, Copen's supposed to be a relevent player against Gunvolt at the peak of his power?
Copen got it back after Asimov was killed, a side-story included with one of the drama tracks thing or the OST or so showed that.
But then again you're right, the information we have on Lumen is too little to make any concrete call.
I don't agree that Joule was protecting GV from a bullet or 2 at the finale, since after all this time with GV, she SHOULD already have an idea that GV is practically immune to almost anything that's not a laser (and near invincible after merging with Joule). Now being a part of GV's subconsciousness (though still retain individuality), she should've at least explain the situation to the very upset and confused duo if GV is unwilling to do so (which is understandable considering he'd just killed his dad), instead of pushing everyone aside and go all "where are we gonna go honey?" with GV while he is like "........I...........", it just feels off honestly. There is no reason or benefit to have things end up like this but for 1 reason or the other they made it such.
Which brings us to your other point, the forced sequel foreshadowing. And I guess that's probably why they did this just so they can leave the explanation somewhere for us to pick up later. Sure that's okay, but still for the time being it definitely leaves a slightly bad tastes seeing how badly GV and Joule treated their fellas at the end of this game but hey.
You have that part right with Copen. Given that he is going around murdering other superpower folks, this game should've benefited way more from having Copen as a playable character in this game instead of being in the sequel where he'd be put up against a god in human form that is the current GV. I mean it would've been more dynamic if for the first 7 bossess outside of the tutorial, you can play as both GV and Copen. And as Copen you'd face GV in the mirror guy stage where you'd fight against him using all the powers you'd previously acquired, while as GV you fight against Copen (again the powers he owns will depend on how many bosses you'd defeated using him). It could've been fun, potentially challenging, flesh out his character as a rival better, and have no negative impact on the overall plot but I guess they didn't have the budget to do that yet and they had to push him into the sequel in terms of being a playable character. But honestly just like you've mentioned, he really wouldn't be relevent in the sequel even if he were to appear there, which is a shame. Unless they flip some silly "plot twists" just to take him to the same level as the current GV, which I hope they don't.
I think all the Inticreates Megaman-type games have forced sequel foreshadowing and that, along with the difficulty curve that punishes people new to the genre, has reduced what was once a mainstream game (Megaman wasn't just some fringe game on the NES/SNES) to the fringe status. I think there's also this assumption that people don't buy Megaman type games for the story. Sure, that's probably not the primary motivation, but I bet there are more Megaman game type players that want to know how the original series transitioned to the X series compared to guys who like to air dash over an endless pit of spikes in the Anthem speedrun mode.
I really don't like the fact that they went through the entire game of creating this hopelessly overpowered main character narrative in Gunvolt and then saving stuff for a sequel when Gunvolt supposedly become a living god. You can see why Copen is afraid of him or why Asimov wants him to rule over the new world (Asimov seems to have no problem to concede to Gunvolt as the top Adept of this new world had he cooperated). Gameplay elements aside, I never got the feeling that your enemies actually stood a chance against you and it'd not surprise me if bosses take damage for walking into Gunvolt rather than the other way around. At the end of the game Gunvolt could easily have destroyed the world had he wanted to. He can probably take control of any Adept and if he doesn't want to fight there's certainly nobody that can possibly stop him from just taking off. Heck, Gunvolt sheds feathers while doing multiple airjumps in Anthem form. That's not exactly a subtle hint!
Rather than trying to rationalize how Gunvolt could possibly be balanced in the next game, they should've spent the effort to flesh out the first game. Unlike the typical Megaman game, Gunvolt's power is built into the narrative itself. It'd probably have made more sense to treat a sequel like a new Zelda game where it's the same set of characters in a similar but alternative universe, because there sure isn't anything interesting or challenging left for Gunvolt.
I don't think anyone "turned emo" here. There's nothing wrong with a kind of bittersweet ending and that's basically where we ended up. Understandably Gunvolt needed time to process everything. He went on an emotionally charged rescue mission. Barely managed to save Joule and then ended up with them both being shot. Wakes up and she's dead, though finds out she's still with him (literally). So picks himself up and goes to settle things, and yeah get revenge while he's at it.
All this involving him in a brutal fight to the death against someone he thought of as a father. So...yeah he needed some time to just deal with all this after they got to the ground. Just like his friends were dealing with the shock of seeing their boss dead, so was Gunvolt dealing with his pain and grief. That's pretty reasonable. He didn't have anythign left to go and explain the whole situation and Joule was protecting him from having to do that. Heck just imagine how she's processing dying and seeing someone she cares about having gone through that kind of hell in such a short amount of time. Being a little snippy isn't crazy there. Sure, ask her to go ahead and explain everything without considering that she's got a lot of her plate as well. She doesn't really have any real relationship with Gunvolt's allies. And even if she did, just a lot easier to focus on one thing which at that point was the state Gunvolt was in.
I think there is plenty interesting left story-wise to tackle here. Gunvolt getting back into the fight after everything he went through, the ongoing and now more complicated relationship with Joule, and potential aftermath with his friends after/if they find out all or part of the story of what happened up there.