Sausage-in-Training
Fighting games. How far they have come. In the beginning, there was only one, a lone, domineering, all-powerful World Warrior, who stood atop the highest mountain, proclaiming its name loudly for all to hear. Its name was Street Fighter 2. Many men gravitated towards him and became his disciples. Eventually, several offshoots came into light and developed followings of their own, and even long after Street Fighter 2 was dead, its legacy lived on through others. The most recent successor to the 2D fighting game throne was probably the most unlikely of prospects. Its name is Guilty Gear.
Some are still reluctant to acknowledge Guilty Gear's current dominance over the 2D fighting game genre, renouncing it as a young, flashy upstart, lacking in experience and relying solely on a mixture of opportunity and aesthetics to carry its practice into the forefront. While this may certainly be the case on the surface, once you examine Guilty Gear XX#R up-close, you will see that it becomes far more complex and wonderful than that.
Guilty Gear XX#R, henceforth referred to as #R, is an extremely relevant game in the new millenium for quite a few reasons. For one, despite only being a baby, in relation to the many other fighting game series, both 2D and 3D that preceeded it, #R represents a great deal of progress within a series that has its roots in very meagre and humble beginnings. As I implied before, Guilty Gear X is a game that probably wouldn't be where it is today were it not for the opening provided to it within the market, by the lack of quality 2D fighting games, and to a further extent 2D fighting games altogether, that were being pushed into arcades and consoles after the year 2000. Even more interesting, considering the mediocre Playstation predecessor, Guilty Gear, which disappointed in terms of both gameplay and sales, it came as a surprise to everyone when Guilty Gear X was announced.
Many Street Fighter-esque revisions later, we arrive at #R, which represents the single most responsive, accurate, and popular 2D fighter on the market today. How did this happen? How could a game of such underwhelming status become such a phenomenon? The simple answers are 'no fear,' and the willingness to not just break, but attack convention at every opportunity. Follow me, and I will guide you through the world of Arc System Works' finest creation, and explain to you exactly why I feel that Guilty Gear XX#R on XBOX LIVE is the last bastion of 2D fighting games.
From the moment that you turn this game on, those of you who are familiar with the previous installment of GGXX (available on the PS2) will find yourselves in very familiar territory. The menu screens, modes and options are all identical to that of GGXX, save for the now available 'XBOX LIVE' option that you are presented with. #R, is not so much of a sequel, as it is a direct upgrade to the game, with quite a few extremely significant gameplay tweaks, and a couple of extra surprises thrown in for good measure. If the transition between the two games could be compared to anything, it would best be likened to the differences between Super Street Fighter 2 and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.
There are three main draws in favor of the XBOX iteration of #R, and they are all immediately apparent. Not only that, but they also all cater to both hardcore and casual fans of the series alike. The first, of course, is the fact that the game is on XBOX LIVE. This is of course the most important benefit, and I will touch on this much in the same way that Johnny touches on Bridget - briefly and with a smile on my face. The next perk is that, even though #R was released on the PS2 in Japan, it wasn't released domestically at all, perhaps due to lack of demand for the product, or poor sales of the previous iteration in the USA. The last, and certainly the most important, is that the game itself is only 20 dollars brand new. Seriously ladies and gentleman, you can't find a better deal at Wal-Mart.
The fact that this game is on XBOX Live is by far the most important selling point of the product, considering the high demand, and grossly unjustified lack of XBOX Live fighting games. While the main portion of #R requires one to go through the motions and unlock the secrets, such as the two hidden characters, the EX modes, and the extra color palettes for your characters, when you log onto XBOX Live, all of these things are immediately available to you in order to provide immediate and ultimate immersion for both hardcore and casual fans alike. I think that this was a good move on the part of the developers, because it eliminates the possibilities of one player having an unfair advantage over the other, and it makes the idea of playing online far more appealing than playing alone.
The main issues that everyone worries about, no matter who you are, in dealing with XBOX Live fighting games are the issues of lag and droppers. Both of which are not foreign to #R. In fact, I would go so far as to say that these two problems are quite chummy with the game. If you plan to play a game without lag in this, which, in my opinion is imperative for a game that requires such precise timing, the only way is to play exclusively with players whose connection is listed as 'Excellent.' Any other option can't even be qualified as 'adequate' in my opinion, for playing the game, as all require you to think ahead quite a bit, which definitely impedes upon your gameplay.
In playing online, you will commonly encounter people who have insane statistics along the lines of 5023W/2L. While perhaps a dozen of these people are actually that damned good, many of them can instantly be written off as droppers. The first symptom you will notice is that the player just isn't all that good. The second, of course, will be that if they lose even a single round, they will obviously quit.
Many people who play the game do engage in what can only be referred to as 'lag-deathmatches,' in which, they will engage in a laggy game, and spend all of their resources going for the instant kill. It's pretty hilarious to watch and very hard to take seriously. Honestly, I don't see how, in a game with so much to offer, this can be gratifying in any way. Perhaps, when two players with this mentality come together, it resembles a digital rat race. On the other hand, when you do get good games against good players, seeing their combos in action really helps you learn to play the game better, and you'll always be learning new things, as for each and every competitor in the game, they all seem to have their own unique style for their own particular character.
The online mode provides you with several options, despite only having one type of game mode to play. You can lock out people with connections you don't like, or you can enable or disable EX characters and instant kills. You can set your rounds and do many other things that change the face of the game a little bit.
#R's main reason for existing is to touch up, tweak, and refine the gameplay of Guilty Gear XX, which, while highly successful in Japan, was not without its balance issues and problems. Of course, this was nothing egregious, like that of X, but it still merited changes, and I think, after quite a bit of time with the revision, benefited greatly from them. Characters received individual gameplay tweaks, new moves, and heightened or lowered damage. Before I get into the subtle nuances of some of the characters, however, I would like to talk about the core gameplay of Guilty Gear X, XX and #R.
I'm sure that you recall when I mentioned my perception of Guilty Gear X being that it not only broke conventions, but attacked them head on. I think that the gameplay reflects this the most. The fact is, never has a game taken so many of the most disrespected and controversial aspects of modern 2D fighting games, and amalgamated them so seamlessly. Things that have made gamers cringe in the past, such as nearly unlimited chain combos, the ability to cancel specials into other specials or supers, on-the-ground attacks, air recoveries, bouncing off of walls, and round-ending one hit kills are all staples that make this game into a single cohesive entity of its own.
The best way to describe #R and the entire Guilty Gear series from X onward, would be to say that if Street Fighter were Kung Fu or Karate, then the X series would be Jeet Kun Do. This is a game with seemingly limitless possibilities in terms of the cool looking things that you can do. In almost any other game, the potential to do combos like this is generally limited by either the restrictions of the system itself, or the lack of options available to you for each individual character. In the X series, the only judge is a somewhat conservative, but ultimately fair damage scaling system.
Another aspect in which #R successfully takes conventions and tosses them out of the window would be in terms of the characters that you play with. The characters in this game are decidedly stylized for the universe in which it exists, and that universe only, as they are completely different from anything that you've ever seen in any other game. They are all fleshed out completely in terms of both aesthetic appeal and individual gameplay. This is all thanks to the imaginative series creator, Daisuke Ishiwatari, who both designed the characters and wrote their stories.
The thing that makes this game so different from any other game is that not only are the characters all unique to anything ever seen in any other game, but they are completely unique to each other as well. No single character plays like, or feels like any other character in the game. Every character, from Axl to Zappa fights in a way that is decidedly his or her own.
Of course, within this system, you still have your staple categories, such as your grappler, with Potemkin, and your shoto or ARK with Ky and Sol, or your zoner, being Axl, and so on and so forth. While there characters act within the conventions of their categories, all of them are far more than just that, each, while perhaps having a golden method by which they should be played, can all be used in a multitude of ways, producing various results.
Then, you also have characters that seem to be complete representations of systems from other fighting games and anime altogether. For example, Zappa is a character who uses ghosts, which act like, and are summoned in a similar fashion to the Stands in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Another would be Baiken, who relies strongly on defensive maneuvers that can be best compared to Alpha counters from the Street Fighter Alpha series. There are characters who specialize solely in aerial combat, characters who summon beasts to fight alongside them, giving them full control of the screen, and of course, one of my favorite characters, Testament. Testament's entire game revolves around planting traps and triggers all over the screen, in order to dominate the space in which you can move, sort of like if Bomberman were put into a fighting game.
For the cult fanatic of this game, you'd probably be interested to know, if you already didn't, that every character in this game is based on either an anime character, a historical japanese legend, a hardcore american rock star, or some combination of the three. The amount of attention paid to this game in terms of characters and their personalities is unquestionably the most thought-out in the history of fighting games. While most characters develop over time, through countless sequels, or based on their respective stereotype, these characters define themselves as individuals from jump street.
There's someone for EVERYONE in this game. Don't believe me? Ask Bridget, the pedo-attracting transvestite 12 year old boy, who dresses like a nun. Ask I-No, nymphomaniacal wicked witch who has a propensity for stroking her guitar like it's an extension of one's manhood.
As lively as the characters are, it is only thanks to the high-resolution graphics, anime-styled sprites, and above par animation that they are anything more than ideals. While #R isn't the most well-animated game out there, and the graphics have remained completely unchanged from X, it is undoubtedly the single best looking 2D fighter ever crafted. Not only that, but it's also the *only* 2D fighter aside from Street Fighter 3, to be released within the last 8 years, that wasn't actually behind the times upon its initial release.
The backgrounds in this game, if they can even be called that, are as smashing and well-produced as every other aspect of the game. Some of the stages are so colorful and stand out so much that it's easy to be distracted by them. The stages effortlessly walk the line between all being completely diverse from one another, while distinctly being a part of the same universe. Many of them are multi-layered, and all of them are immersive and engaging. While most of them have been ripped from previous entries in the series, none of them seem dated or out of place. The only drawback about the backgrounds is that I wish that there were more, as many characters, depending on their region, share the same background. It's just not enough of a good thing.
In today's fighting games, perhaps the most overlooked feature by developers would have to be the music. Guilty Gear XX#R does not disappoint here either. Each character has his or her own individual track, and nearly all of them are noteworthy. The fact is, both #R and XX, while posessing almost identical soundtracks, are among the most popular fighting game soundtracks in the world. Not only do they move CD units at a cheetah's pace in japan, but they have also spawned live concerts, and rap/rock albums using their melodies. The fact that vocalists are willing to kick down for a fighting game's music is truly a marker of how far ahead of everything else, this game is in terms of auditory pleasure.
The vocals and sound effects for the individual characters and announcers are also well-done. Every voice actor does his or her job above and beyond the call of duty, emoting perfectly during their attacks, and grunting heartily when they end up with a weapon jammed up their 'hoo-hoo.'
One thing that I had heard a lot about in #R, that I had missed greatly here, was the korean soundtracks and voice samples. I've heard good and bad things, but the inclusion would have definitely pushed this game's production values from over the top to through the roof.
There are quite a few easter eggs within the game that up its replay value, and while they're nothing new to those of us who have had the pleasure of already enjoying them in XX, they definitely make for a great time to people new to the game, as well as upping their skill level a bit as an added bonus. Story mode gives players the ability to branch out into 3 different paths for each character, thus unlocking new characters upon completion of all of them. Mission mode allows for players to defeat the computer under certain circumstances and conditions. Medal of Millionaires allows you to earn money through comboing your opponents, and survival allows you to flex your power through defeating a seemingly endless wave of opponents.
Last, but not least, there is the inclusion of an all-new, updated Robo-Ky. Robo-Ky is exactly what he sounds like. A robotic version of Ky Kiske, who plays totally different, and is once again, a unique idea from a unique game. Robo-Ky is immediately selectable from the beginning, and he posesses his own metalic hit sounds, and even has a different weight from the other, human characters. His stage music is really, really awful though.
For the price of admission as weighed against the quality of the product, I can't do anything but recommend this game to everybody, casual and hardcore alike. Everything about it exceeds expectation. The amount of replay thanks to the multitude of unique characters, the fact that it's an online fighter and the nearly endless number of combinations to learn cause this game to edge out its competitors by a longshot. The biggest strike against it is that there are really no players, the game is slipping under the radar pretty hard, so if you want to play online, you'll have to rely on a great deal of luck. Well, unless a lot of people take my advice and get the game.
And remember, don't just play to win. Play to improve your game. If you do that, the wins will start coming naturally.
Score: 91
Developer: Arc System Works
Publisher: Sammy
Last edited by Do You Like Erotic?; 27 Jan 2005 at 09:18 PM.
Electronic cigarette.
I <3 you.Originally Posted by Do You Like Erotic?
I'm not sure how you mean this. If you're referring to a general sense then yes but if you mean they're using the same sprites then no, a lot of #R was even redrawn from XX.and the graphics have remained completely unchanged from X
Otherwise, I approve. Good work
Actuarian
I'm fairly sure the graphics were not touched up in any way for #R. A lot of the sprites carried over from GGX to XX, but some were touched up with added frames of animation.
DYLE is way too kind on the online play. Frankly, it is worthless. Between the lag (I found that even "excellent" games were unacceptable; you try doing combos with 2-frame FRC windows with any lag!) and the fact that 90% of your games are against droppers (why everyone but Team Ninja does not penalize droppers in ANY way is forever beyond me) and it quickly becomes worthless.
Shame really, as it was the best fighting game of this year (without Mzo's 3S rule, and maybe even with it). I have one major problem with it, though (and as such, begins autotext rant #36) -- the learning curve is way too steep. I (as a person who had experience with Soul Calibur and SF3: Third Strike before this) took months to even get remotely competent with the game (and the locals would still say I am not >_<); how the fuck do you expect someone with little experience in fighting games to ever learn how to play, short of a massive exercise in self-immolation? A more sane progression curve (while still retaining the overall depth at the high end) and actual documentation of the game systems would do wonders for that, but the core community refuses to deal with any games that do the former (DoA, SC) and no one has attempted the latter except for Sega (and when that's the case, either everyone really fucked up or that is a shining example of why not to do it. I'm not sure which.)
-Dippy
Electronic cigarette.
The only characters I've spent a large amount of time with are Millia and - with #R, obviously - I-no, and I know Millia got certain attacks redrawn, such as during her hair "lightning kick" she's now wrapped up in locks of hair all over her body. Since I haven't spent nearly the same amount of time staring at the other characters sprites I can't list specific examples like that for them, but there are a bunch of small changes all over the place. Just not things 99% of people will notice.
vs. GoRuck Challenge
I concur with this analysis. Even before I bought the game, I went to research the game system through gamecombos.com's GGX2#R's section and I found it very daunting. It took me several reads before I got a decent understanding of what was going on, and that was after I got the game.
If any game needed an in-depth tutorial, it's this one. There are so many systems and special rules, and the instruction manual does not do a great job of explaning them throughly. What's the difference between a Roman Cancel and False Roman Cancel? Unless you went to Gamefaqs.com, you wouldn't know because the game won't tell you.
A Virtual Fighter 4 tutorial system would have been great for this game, but it would need to be extended further. Since many moves are dependant of executing them at the right frame-period, there should be a mode where the game slows down and indicates to you when to execute something like a False Roman Cancel, with the option to repeatedly go through the animation and press the button until you get the hang of it.
I hope Sammy considers incorporating a good tutorial system when they release the home version of Guilty Gear 3.
R.I.P. Paragon Studios
Cuckoo Daddy Long-legs
I agree with this completely. I am new to Guilty Gear and I would have loved this. Only after devoting many many hours to this game, both playing it , reading up on it and watching combo videos, did I fully understand the potential of this engine.
This is one of my most played games of the last year and I don't see myself ever stopping! It feels more balanced than most fighters. Its the eqivalent of Virtua Fighter 4, balance-wise.
If anyone wants to play online, let me know. I'm always up for a game. Add me if you wish
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