After playing a lot of Guilty Gear Strive and out of excitement for Jack-O's reveal as a DLC character, I decided to give Xrd Rev 2 a full re-play to see what I thought of it now. And to my surprise, it is genuinely one of the best fighting games I have ever played.
I play a lot of fighting games, I go out of my way to play as many as I can to see what games do to stand out from one another. Guilty Gear has always excelled at being a unique and incredible splash of style. The games developers want to do something amazing, which is tell a genuinely entertaining story through its story mode and arcade mode cutscenes, which is something most fighting games throw by the wayside. At the time of Rev 2's release and popularity, I was playing Street Fighter 5, a game that at the time, was causing me more heartache than anything. But still, I didn't mesh with Xrd that well. I played it a bit but ultimately I didn't find a groove with it. I would play it on and off up until Strive's release. In this time as well, I went around and played as many Guilty Gear games as I could get my hands on, and promptly came to find that even though I was never very competent at the gameplay, I loved the series for what it did.
Now after playing fighting games more seriously since 2017, I can say I love Xrd for its story, its style and importantly its gameplay mechanics. The roster is great, with a lot of interesting characters. Some rely too heavily on gimmicks in my opinion, but overall there is enough variety here for it to not matter. The roman cancel system is a great tool to make the game feel very open to what you want to do next, and sometimes its fun to just see what happens next after you decide to do it without a real plan. Experiencing the character stories in arcade mode is a sight to behold, with multiple cutscenes and dialogue exchanges between this games eccentric cast of amazing characters unique to each characters arcade mode route. It's one of the few fighting games that makes arcade mode actually feel like a storytelling experience, and it all preludes this games really great anime-styled story mode. This games arcade mode blows Strive's out of the water, I was so disappointed to see Strive had hardly any unique cutscenes to develop each character through the arcade mode. I also think the game is graphically stunning. The 3D models and the environments as well as the soundtrack create a presentation that is far superior to what many modern fighting games set out to present. In areas where it felt KoF 14 and Street Fighter 5 barely made the cut, Guilty Gear Xrd excelled and created a lovingly crafted fighting game that feels like a world being built around you.
I'm grateful that Strive has finally allowed the Guilty Gear series to make waves, and hopefully after its run is over, I can look back on it with as much love as I do Xrd. And also, here's hoping one of my favorite fighting game characters of all time, Baiken, makes her way in as DLC. Let's Rock.
I play a lot of fighting games, I go out of my way to play as many as I can to see what games do to stand out from one another. Guilty Gear has always excelled at being a unique and incredible splash of style. The games developers want to do something amazing, which is tell a genuinely entertaining story through its story mode and arcade mode cutscenes, which is something most fighting games throw by the wayside. At the time of Rev 2's release and popularity, I was playing Street Fighter 5, a game that at the time, was causing me more heartache than anything. But still, I didn't mesh with Xrd that well. I played it a bit but ultimately I didn't find a groove with it. I would play it on and off up until Strive's release. In this time as well, I went around and played as many Guilty Gear games as I could get my hands on, and promptly came to find that even though I was never very competent at the gameplay, I loved the series for what it did.
Now after playing fighting games more seriously since 2017, I can say I love Xrd for its story, its style and importantly its gameplay mechanics. The roster is great, with a lot of interesting characters. Some rely too heavily on gimmicks in my opinion, but overall there is enough variety here for it to not matter. The roman cancel system is a great tool to make the game feel very open to what you want to do next, and sometimes its fun to just see what happens next after you decide to do it without a real plan. Experiencing the character stories in arcade mode is a sight to behold, with multiple cutscenes and dialogue exchanges between this games eccentric cast of amazing characters unique to each characters arcade mode route. It's one of the few fighting games that makes arcade mode actually feel like a storytelling experience, and it all preludes this games really great anime-styled story mode. This games arcade mode blows Strive's out of the water, I was so disappointed to see Strive had hardly any unique cutscenes to develop each character through the arcade mode. I also think the game is graphically stunning. The 3D models and the environments as well as the soundtrack create a presentation that is far superior to what many modern fighting games set out to present. In areas where it felt KoF 14 and Street Fighter 5 barely made the cut, Guilty Gear Xrd excelled and created a lovingly crafted fighting game that feels like a world being built around you.
I'm grateful that Strive has finally allowed the Guilty Gear series to make waves, and hopefully after its run is over, I can look back on it with as much love as I do Xrd. And also, here's hoping one of my favorite fighting game characters of all time, Baiken, makes her way in as DLC. Let's Rock.