The Guilty Gear saga returns with a new installment that tries to simplify many of the saga's proposals, while maintaining its essence. The result of the closed beta leaves many questions in the air.
2D fighting games are living a generation full of proposals of quality and variety. For every taste. Among all of them there is a company that is in full swing: ArcSystemWorks. The success of Dragon Ball FighterZ has been accompanied by the surprising Granblue Fantasy Versus and proposals, surely of lesser importance, such as BlazBlue: Crosstag Battle. But something was missing to close the circle: a new Guilty Gear. One of the heaviest sagas that Xrd presented as an intergenerational installment, and that was expanded with Rev 2 three years ago. Now we have before us the closed beta of Guillty Gear Strive, which wants to join the fashion of modern fighting game with many changes.
What does it mean to be a modern fighting game? Mainly, adapting to a way of bringing new players that surely found the entrance door to the genre too demanding. Simpler combos to perform, special inputs without too many complications -most of them, quarter circles- and the presence of autocombos as mechanics that, if they were already in some games before, now integrate much more clearly. The greater accessibility, which has been seen in countless sagas, also tries to enter one of the most demanding sagas par excellence.
The closed beta that we have been able to play during the last weekend has several changes. At the mechanics and controls level, the essence is there, with the punch, kick, strong and special buttons, as well as a specific Dust button for overhead and sweeps and that is not useful for comboing (except counter). We also have some mechanics such as the pshych burst to escape pressure (and to use again you have to wait for a bar to reload) or the Roman Cancel, which allows us to cancel the end of movements to create new combos that without them, for frame issues, it would be impossible.
Guilty Gear in action
The essence of the saga is seen in the layout and mechanics that we know, although they differ from their use in previous installments. Roman Cancel himself maintains the properties, but now he also generates a kind of time circle that, if the rival is within him, allows him to gain time (slows him down) to lengthen combos in a somewhat simpler way than in previous uses of the mechanical (yes, spending 50% tension bar). Something that has also changed is the dash by button, which allows new options both for the speed at which it falls if we press the attack button when we use it or if we leave it without any action like a normal airdash. We have found some interest in being able to start the animation and that the rival has to be alert in case he reacts immediately to an attack or waits for the airdash to travel, its possible crossup or a short delay before being attacked during its trajectory.
We said at the beginning that the game was trying to be somewhat more accessible, but the reality is that it is a title that requires confirming combos and situations in a much more complex way than FighterZ or Granblue, two more grateful titles in this regard. This has to do with the change of the gatling system (progressive combos) that previously allowed us to order attacks from P to HS to end specials. A system that by its disposition allowed to confirm more easily if the combo entered or was blocked and continue according to each case. This is no longer the case, and most universal combos start with an S, and with exceptions based on characters. What does this mean? That at least what we have seen, it is more difficult to confirm them because they are shorter sequences, which in blocking leave you sold and the decision window to follow them, therefore, is shortened. With loose and fast punches (P) you could confirm if you were hit and follow or not, with greater ease.
Much damage with very little
So during these first sessions we find combo attempts that if they come in, perfect but if not, they leave you totally sold. And here we do enter into certain concessions: damage. The damage done with any combo, no matter how short, or special attack is exaggerated. Climbing in long combos doesn't seem to be very friendly to the one taking the damage, and two combos we can leave the round settled. Obviously it needs an adjustment.
To this damage are added other situations that give a lot of advantage to cause it. When we make a counter there is a small stop that serves to clearly indicate that it is a counterattack and the punishment window is somewhat wider than normal. The set of walls, which is not yet clear, allows us to embed the rival into a wall, and calmly, think about how to follow the combo with other seconds of margin. The wall can also be broken on the third hit, a way to gain an extra bar of tension in passing.
For all this, the Roman Cancel that slows down and facilitates the combo, the stamping of enemies on the wall, the mini pause of the counter and the exaggerated damage, you can think that a somewhat more friendly and spectacular game has been made than technical and travel. As we said, it is not exactly like this because surely the game demands more than other recent ones from the company, but it demands less than others from the saga itself, like its same predecessor, Rev 2.
Is all this bad or good? There are decisions that make it a very attractive and spectacular game, and we have already been able to see and make some more than surprising combos with Roman Cancel in between and the wall game. In addition, it has the epic of allowing you to overcome games that seem totally lost thanks to the damage that we can do from almost any punishment situation. Regardless of whether or not the purist is satisfied with the changes, the important question is whether what he sets out to do works. And there are things that are and others that are not.
Only the hours and time will tell if the title knows how to fit all the pieces and the adjustments that will surely be made after the beta feedback. Characters like Sol and Ky, with their tremendous damage, or Chipp and their mixups and tricks we liked for the less common ones with the saga, as well as May, who has very damaging Super attacks and in general combos with more than outstanding damage. Potemkin, devastating at close range, has also caught our attention.
A poorly planned lobby
More debatable are other design decisions, starting with a staging and a camera that with certain movements is confusing at various times during combat, and continuing with a really badly planned lobby. A kind of building where you are located on the floor that has your level and where you have to look for rivals by holding down the square, and once the avatar draws the sword, put yourself in front of another and wait. The link errors, how long it takes to connect and how uncomfortable this is make us think of drastic changes here, especially when we come from lobbies such as FighterZ and Granblue that are quite clear when it comes to connecting with other players.
Guilty Gear Strive leaves us a beta with certainty, the game is fun, colorful and has some very interesting rethinking of mechanics; but also several doubts, since there are both playable and staging design decisions that, at least initially, do not quite fit. We will see what changes after the feedback received.
