So I got my hands on Guilty Gear Strive BETA and well, I really don’t know what to make out of this new game. However, if there’s one thing that clear as day to me, that looby has got to go! Or at least give us a simple quick match menu while we wait in the lobby PLEASE!
Now, I’m not the most technical when it comes to fighting games but I’m no causal either. If given enough time, I too can reach a level that is considered “experienced”. Anyways, I got to put in a few hours into GG and well, I’m a bit split on how I feel about the beta. I understand that Guilty Gear Strive is gunning for a more casual approach, to bring more people into the game, which I respect. I don’t think most experienced fighting games fans understand that we need more people to play fighting games so that we can keep getting more in the future. However, with Guilty Gear Strive, there were moments that I felt weren’t all that friendly at all.
For instance, I’ve played previous Guilty Gear games in the past, and starting up combos for me only required a few inputs strings to get going. However, now it seems from my experience, you have to learn two certain combos if you want to pull certain combo strings. I guess the best way to explain it is like this. During my playthrough, I only used X and Square on my PS4 controller to pull off a few sets of combos, and then Triangle and Circle for a whole other set of combos. So that means, a newcomer to the scene will have to learn a double the combos if they want to be viable online. For me, it wasn’t too bad as I am used to learning combos. I’m not sure how it’ll fair for newcomers but I’m sure it won’t be as bad I’m thinking.
There’s nothing much to say about the visuals and music of the game. It was excellent! I’ve heard that some people don’t like the music, which is fair as we all don’t have the same taste in music. But for me, it was amazing. Guilty Gear Strive is by far the best looking fighting game coming to the market hands down. The only negative I have with the game was the horrible matchmaking experience and the lobby. I mean, WHY? I’m not hating, but the entire lobby is always out of sync and just annoying. It’s adorable I guess but I came here to murder my enemies online, not to jump around in a funhouse.
Now the lobby itself wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t for the huge-ass news section covering damm near half the screen, and the lack of a simple classic menu to join a quick match. Literally, add that like you did with FighterZ and you can have your pixelated funhouse. Online, on the other hand, was riddled with delays, but since they confirmed rollbacks, I can forgive the beta. Now in terms of combat, the damage scaling is ridiculous.
Seriously, why does Sol Badguy command throw do 40% damage, and why does Potemkin kill you with two command grabs? Trust me, when everyone gets good at Guilty Gear Strive, discover all the tech, holy moly will games end quickly. Oh and even though the added corner/screen transition to avoid getting trapped in the corner, if you delay a combo in certain frames to can reset the wall and start the combo again, basically creating an infinite. Whether this was planned or not, this will certainly scare aware noobies. It has to be scaled back a bit. And by a bit, I mean a lot!
Overall, when it worked it was fun, but when I was playing offline, that’s when I saw the true potential of this game and it was amazing. Except for the lobby, I can do without it thanks!
