Legendary fighting franchise Guilty Gear has come roaring back onto the latest console generation with a real monster of a sequel. Sporting brand-new visuals and an entire arsenal of new gameplay mechanics, there's a hell (or heaven!?) of a lot to talk about. We've assembled a worthy team of fighting game veterans to tell you everything you need to know before stepping back into the crazy anime world of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-.
As always, let's start with some introductions, as well as your history with the Guilty Gear franchise!
Nate Ming: Hey everybody, I'm Nate Ming, and I wear many hats here. I actually received the original, totally-bokers-broken Guilty Gear as a Christmas present in 1998, after asking for Xenogears and my dad forgetting which gear-related game I wanted. Much as I love Xenogears, Guilty Gear is the one I hold nearer and dearer to my heart, as it feels like I've actually followed the franchise from day one. While I have and always will be more of a Street Fighter guy, Guilty Gear is really the only airdasher/anime fighter I genuinely love, and even with all my years put in I am absolutely terrible with Chipp, Slayer, Sol, and Potemkin. I'm going to spend this review being something of a moderator, and only injecting my thoughts on certain issues with a game that I otherwise find perfect.
Peter Fobian: Hey, I'm a member of the Features and Newsletter teams on Crunchyroll. I was first introduced to Guilty Gear XX by Nate Ming himself. Although he introduced me to most of the popular 2D fighters of the time (with more than a little favoritism for Street Fighter), I become very interested in the series for its extremely fast-paced play, philosophy of creating balane by making all characters overpowered, and the strong sense of style. My top characters are Baiken, Johnny, Faust, Slayer, and A.B.A.
Shane Lewis: Hi guys (and girls!), I'm Shane AKA Dingofist, and I help out with gaming reviews and the Newsletter here at Crunchyroll. I got into Guilty Gear thirteen years ago when I picked up Guilty Gear X for the PS2 and I've been hooked ever since thanks to the lightning-fast, free-form, OFFENSE-oriented gameplay. I've mained Sol Badguy for more than a decade, and I picked up Testament as a dedicated sub-character in Accent Core +R. Lately I've been playing a lot of I-no in Xrd as well! Fun fact: Brandon and I used to be part of the same fighting game scene, and I've never managed to beat him in a tournament setting. :)
Brandon Lee: Hey, my name's Brandon (or Blee) and I'm a software engineer for Crunchyroll. I've been playing fighting games since around 2010 when Blazblue came out. Since then I've played in and gone to many fighting game tournaments for games such as Blazblue, Street Fighter IV, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Persona 4 Arena, and many others! I go by superscience in the FGC. Unfortunately, I only started playing Guilty Gear with Accent Core +R. It was fast-paced and fun, so I enjoy playing it with friends and competing in it as well!
The lead-up to Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- was pretty exciting among hardcore fans, even with Arc System Works promising a lower barrier to entry for new players. Compared to the last fighter in the series (Accent Core +R), how do you feel Xrd carries on the tradition?
Nate: Having looked at the same X and XX character designs for over a decade, I was happy just to see something different, so I'm totally into the new look. Guilty Gear has always had a very individual sense of design, and visually, Xrd delivers with one of the most creative uses of the Unreal Engine. Mechanically, well... we;ll get into that later, but it's still a tight fighting game that rewards practice and precision.
Peter: I'm not sure if I could have asked for more in terms of Xrd's design. It went the same direction of Street Fighter IV by recreating the entire game with 3D models which look almost identical to the 2D models from the previous releases when viewed from the side. This makes the game feel the same while being much smoother. I have mixed feelings about some of the characters' visual redesigns, but none of them look out of place and they all feel just like they used to with a few extra moves.
Shane: I've been hating on Xrd pretty much from day one. After watching the first trailer way back when, I was so disappointed with what I saw that I didn't even know if I wanted to play it. Thankfully, I came around in the year or so since because Xrd is a pretty stellar successor to XX. Most of the new character models look great, though I would've liked for the graphical style to be closer to Daisuke Ishiwatari's gorgeous concept art from the XX days. Still, it's a new Guilty Gear game through and through, and as a fan I think that's pretty much all I needed it to be.
Brandon: I think that Xrd did a lot of things that carry on the series' tradition. Similar to SFIV, rather than basing the game off the most recent iteration in the series, it takes notes from an older version of the game: in this case Guilty Gear XX #Reload. Unfortunately, I only recently started playing GG, so for me there was a loss of a few things such as Force Breaks and FRCs, but new mechanics like Yellow Roman Cancel take their place nicely. As for the look, it's beautiful! For many of the characters, they've changed their design a little bit, and many of them look great! The only complaint I really have is how in order to fit the change from 4:3 screen ratio to 16:9, they've stretched the characters out, so now Sol looks a lot bigger and muscular than he did in previous versions. Of course, being a completely new title, many of the old familiar cast has not been brought back, but that doesn't take away the possibility of them being added into title updates or DLC.
Xrd introduces a few new characters: dopey meat-eat Sin Kiske, bed-ridden dream warrior Bedman, bunny girl Elphelt, burly Leo Whitefang, and Arcade Mode final boss Ramlethal. What do the new faces bring to the roster?
Peter: I really like the new characters. In terms of design, they all feel very at home in Guilty Gear's aesthetic except maybe Elphelt, who feels sort of like a carryover from Blazblue. From my experience with the new characters, they all play well in the series style of high-speed, highly-mobile combat. Bedman's ability to replay certain moves creates a huge pressure game which is reminiscent of characters like Zato-1 and Testament, and Ramlethal's teleporting sword style is just the sort of ridiculous thing I would expect to see in a Guilty Gear title. Many of them actually seem designed to either fill holes in playstyle created by characters that didn't make it to Xrd's roster from previous tiltles, or bring in new mechanics from other fighters that Guilty Gear had yet to tap into.
Shane: They're...ok, I guess. Bedman is certainly an interesting idea, and he has great win quotes, but his moves and tools aren't exactly the coolest things ever, and I haven't played against him much. Elphelt's the opposite: her visual design is a bit out of place like Peter said, but I really like the concept behind her playstyle. The different gun stances she has are something we've yet to see in Guilty Gear, and I think ArcSys pulled it off well. I hated Sin at first, but now he's a pretty cool character to me: very basic and easy to pick up, but his special calorie gauge adds some needed depth to mastering him. It's hilarious when people forget to make him eat and he's unable to perform his absolutely crucial special moves. Ramlethal is a cool, albeit aggravating, addition; sending out her two enormous swords to control space and pressure the opponent is a neat idea, and her pressure and mixups when she forces someone into a corner are devastating. She's a nightmare to fight, sometimes. Finally, I think ArcSys kinda missed the mark with Leo, the latest DLC character. He looks really cool, and has a great personality, but I don't like the way he's rendered in-game, and I think his moveset is really boring...I just expected a little more from him, I guess.
Brandon: The most interesting part to me is that the new characters still follow through with the rock and roll references in the game as absurd as their designs are. We have Elphelt touting the Guns 'N Roses theme along with Bedman as a reference to Bedemon. They each have unique mechanics that seem to be quite interesting. Ramlethal has already shown her strength in the arcades with her ability to knock down opponents and set swords on top of them, forcing a mixup situation. Bedman hasn't been shown to be very strong, but now that people have wider access to training mode he'll hopefully become more fleshed out. Although Elphelt was only released a short time ago, she's already been shown to be quite strong. She has great damage output in the corner, and is able to set up unblockable attacks by using her rifle stance in coordination with her grenades. As for Sin, he seems to be a character with great damage potential, but he struggles to open people up.
What about the returning cast? How do you feel about the changes made to Xrd's familiar faces?
Peter: For this question I'll just talk about the characters I'm most familiar with. I really like the changes to Faust. The changes to some of his basic attacks, while standardizing his attack patterns, give him a tighter mid-range poke game. The more predictable standard attacks are made up for by changes to his random items, allowing you to bat them at the enemy with his Dust attack. The ability to attack more reliably at mid-range with even more angles for your items to fall in on make him a real pain to deal with. Slayer's changes were similar: his options out of Dandy Step have been pared down and simplified, but his new hard slash followup can cross the opponent up and adds more strategic diversity to the move. He also really benefits from the new Roman Cancel system and wall stick as well. Ky probably feels most similar to me, but the new graphics definitely add some clarity to his projectiles and his ability to use his Dust attack to create enhanced Stun Edges give him an even meaner zoning game.
Shane: I feel pretty good, actually. Looking at Sol specifically, I was initially concerned about the removel of Sidewinder (a crucial move for combos in later versions of XX), but he received enough new tricks and buffs to remain an enjoyable and, more importantly, strong character. His lunging Fafnir punch has become a MUCH better move all around, and the system changes help him tremendously. That seems to be the case across the board: characters may have a lost a few more complex tricks, but they've been replaced by newer, easier to use techniques that strengthen what they're all about. Some other examples could be Axl's new Sparrowhawk Stance that helps him zone and combo from full screen, or Ky's "grinders" he sets that can enhance his already strong projectiles. One of the most notable changes is I-No's new command for her Chemical Love special move. In the XX series, Chemical Love had such a convoluted input (yet was so important to her game) that only players with downright robotic dexterity could perform it consistently. The new command, a simple reverse fireball motion, makes her much more accessible, and allows more people to enjoy playing as the rock'n'roll witch without worry. Overall the old faces all made the transition with their general "feel" intact, but updated for the new game. A lot of them also got whole new outfits or updated looks, which is a nice touch.
Brandon: As I mentioned before, all the characters that have been in previous iterations have been based on their #Reload versions. This of course means that those used to Accent Core will lose things such as Force Breaks, which were integral to how many characters played in that game. On the other hand, according to many people that have played since #Reload, the game is very familiar to them. Coming straight from Accent Core, it definitely feels familiar, yet different at the same time. Many characters lost tools, but got some new ones to play with instead, and having these new options is always interesting to see. Some things are very different though, such as the way May plays. In Accent Core she throws out damage like nothing else, but in Xrd she now relies more heavily on her dolphin summons to fight effectively.
While many of the original Guilty Gear characters are in Xrd, several key cast members are MIA. Who do you miss most?
Peter: I would probably have to say Baiken and Johnny. Like SLayer, I really liked Johnny's short-dashing instead of running mechanic and two stage abilities that let you play a lot of mind games. Trying to mix in coin stacking in the middle of combos then unleashing a hellish Mist Finer was really fun and forced you to decide whether you were going to build up your combo strength for a later attack or do as much damage as possible now. I'm really hoping to see him, Baiken, and A.B.A. released as DLC. I'm sure a lot of people miss Dizzy and Bridget as well.
Shane: If I could only pick one, then Testament! He had such a cool set of tools in +R with all his traps and curses, and it was so much fun controlling the screen and rushing down in such an unconventional way. It really sucks not having him around. Really, every missing veteran leaves a pretty big hole. Johnny and Baiken are especially missed among fans, I think. Anji, Bridget, and Dizzy, too. Even Zappa with his charming spectral buddies, and Jam's crazy trading card kung fu! Hell, I just miss them all! Except A.B.A. I don't give a damn about her.
Brandon: I kind of miss seeing Bridget. It was always funny to see him fly around the screen, since in AC+R he has by far the best movement in the cast, which means he's always just sailing around on his yoyo.
Guilty Gear's Roman Cancel system is a difficult-to-learn mechanic that's absolutely necessary for higher-level play. There have been some tweaks to the system, dividing Roman Cancels in Red (RCs) Yellow (YRCs), and Purple (PRCs). How have these changes affected your play, and how do you think they're changing gameplay overall?
Peter: I have to say I really like the changes to the system. Despite all the time I played with the previous Guilty Gears, I had a lot of trouble using Roman Cancels since they seemed like such a complex mechanic to introduce yourself to, especially given that they required an excellent of the game to appreciate unless you were just copying your combos rote from websites. The changes make the system much more strategically diverse and, more importantly, approachable.
Yellow Roman Cancels are the most obvious subject to discuss. They are super cheap, only 25% of your tension gauge, and let you cancel out of just about anything or even nothing at all so long as your opponent isn't in hit or block stun. These are perfect for mind games when pressuring opponents since they are relatively low cost and allow you to drop out of just about any animation. The momentary slowdown caused by RCs make this even more valuable since they allow you to do things you otherwise couldn't. My favorite use for this is gap closing with low mobility characters by YRCing out of dash attack to safely close in. It also makes taking advantage of wall sticks easier even from across the screen.
Shane: I don't know if I agree that RCs were ever very difficult to understand or utilize, but so far I'm enjoying a lot of the changes made to how they work in Xrd. Normal RCs seem pretty much the ame until you see how much flexibility the time freeze property gives you mid-combo. Having 50% tension basically guarantees that you can turn any hit into a hugely damaging combo, and I really enjoy that. Until I get hit with one, anyway. :)
YRCs are the big change, of course. They've been commonly touted as "Easy FRCs", but I don't think that's entirely correct. FRCs, which Brandon will tell you more about in a moment, had a wide range of uses depending on the character and move in question. Some were exclusively for establishing and continuing pressure (Gunflame FRC, Rensen FRC), while others were used mid-combo to unlock a character's maximum damage potential. YRCs, however, can't be used while your foe is in hitstun or blockstun, and as such their use is a bit more limited. Mostly I see them as a great way to add numerous layers to your offense by using them as feints. Basic examples would be YRCing a charging attack like Fafnir or Potemkin's Hammerfall. The other player gets scared and turtles up to block, then you YRC out of the move and grab them or hit them in a different way. With a lot of meter you can even do this a few times in a row to really screw with someone's head. The small time-freeze is also really useful in the right situation. You can do things as insignificant as running up and YRCing from nothing to get results. A friend of mine did this to me, and thanks to the time freeze and an odd bit of invincibility, he floated right through my heavy slash and grabbed me for a full combo. Thanks a lot, Guiseppe. It's a really goofy mechanic sometimes, but it adds a lot of freedom to how you can play the game.
PRCs barely seem worth talking about. They're like a life preserver for when you've really messed up.
Brandon: The new Roman Cancels, specifically YRC and PRC, change how the game is played quite significantly. YRC I believe was a move to simplify Force Roman Cancels from Accent Core. FRCs are Roman Cancels that only take 25% meter, and are only part of certain moves. The timing windows for FRCing change from move to move, but are generally somewhere between 2-4 frames. With a game running at 60 FPS, this means you have around .033-.067 seconds to FRC a move. Learning these timings was necessary for some characters to play their neutral game or apply mix-ups at a high level. YRCs are a mitigation of this issue in that anywhere during the startup of a move, you can spend 25% meter to cancel it in the same fashion. The elimination of that 2-4 frame window make this action much more accessible to newcomers.
Of course, there are some downsides to this when they allow anything and everything to be YRCed. Moves like Chipp's teleports mean that he can teleport to the other side, YRC, and basically get in for free. If you're already pressing buttons, you'll just get counter hit by him and if you're in the air he can go up and throw you. Doing nothing? He gets to start pressure. Even so, I think that the ease and accessibility that YRC has brought outweighs these negatives.
In general, I think that the changes to Roman Cancels were huge, but that overall they were quite a good adjustment.
Nate: As most of the technical stuff has been covered, I would like to say that YRCs have given me some wins that I really didn't deserve, or at least wouldn't have worked without Xrd toning things down a little. I can safely say, though, that even though it's easier for me to deal damage and possibly take a round off stronger players with these new mechanics, players who really put in the time to practice and have stronger mechanical skills will always come out on top.
Xrd also has a lengthy Story Mode--did you spend any time with it?
Nate: While I'm a huge fan of fighting game lore, I've never really been a fan of pure Story Modes in fighting games, save NetherRealm games and the Persona 4 Arena series. It's cool to see the characters going about their day-to-day lives, but it's more fun to just jump into Versus and play against real people. I'm good with the hour I spent in Story Mode, and I'm probably never going back.
Peter: I actually had no idea that the Story Mode was purely story going into it. I should have been suspicious when I didn;t have to choose a character at the beginning, but about 20 minutes in I was beginning to wonder if Hideo Kojima had a hand in the game design. I have always liked Guilty Gear's plot but having to sit trough so many conversations that the game asks if you would like to save your progress is a bit much. I wish they had either gone with a fully animated story mode or just broken the different scenes up into the characters' Arcade Mode stories.
Shane: I finished it just the other day! It's very weird that there is ZERO GAMEPLAY for the entire thing, but I don't know how much the experience would really improve if we stopped every twenty minutes to fight a half-asleep CPU. The whole affair definitely drags on at times, and it sucks that most of the playable cast barely even makes an appearance, but I still had fun watching all these characters live and interact more than we've ever seen them before. As a bonus to Johnny fans, he shows up here more than most playable characters, so there's a very good chance he'll be coming as DLC or a new fighter in the next version! Plus the story is a cliffhanger! Hooray! Really though, I like that they even tried to include an in-depth story mode at all, so hopefully the dev team will learn from their mistakes and try to improve upon this foundation in the inevitable next version.
Brandon: I haven't yet, but I do plan on taking time to watch some of it! I'm looking forward to it because I've heard it's quite interesting to watch.
Following the trends of recent fighters, Xrd also includes a Tutorial Mode to teach the basics to new players. How does it work as a teaching tool, or as a refresher for experienced players?
Peter: I like that the Tutorial Mode includes just enough dialogue to keep you entertained during what can sometimes feel like homework. That said, they way they approached it sort of just explains what different mechanics can do without really discussing the different ways they benefit you. While an experienced player will probably understand these abilities immediately, it would be nice if they went over some different character-specific combinations to get you started. Even so, I think the nature of the new mechanics themselves makes them more approachable and I didn't really mind much since I have played Guilty Gear titles a whole lot.
Shane: The actual "Tutorial" mode is pretty standard stuff, and it can teach you the very barest of basics. So it's kinda whatever. What really got me excited was the accompanying Mission Mode, which helps you learn more than how to walk back or forth. Mission teaches you about okizeme meaty attacks, reversal windows, and even a few universal option selects. If you really pay attention and study what you're being tasked with, it can improve your overall game way more than the Tutorial or Challenge modes do. There are even something like 30 character-specific missions that teach you how to combat different things the various cast members will attack you with. So, Tutorial is nothing special, but if you spend time grinding on all of the available practice modes, you'll definitely level up your game.
Brandon: As a teaching tool, I think it serves pretty well if you spend the time to read the text. For more experienced players, it can serve as a nice refresher and possibly teach something that you didn't know about the system. I wish that it had a little bit more where it puts you in situations that in some way force you to learn these mechanics more intuitively, though.
Have you spent any time playing online? How do you feel about Xrd's lobby system and online play?
Nate: I've played both ranked and player matches, but ranked was a ridiculous hellhole of terrible connections and constant ragequites. Player matches bring back a slightly stripped-down version of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax's lobbies, and it's really fun to spectate on matches and chat in the lobby beforehand, for those rare occasions when somebody actually has a mic. Good times!
Shane: I think there's a lot to like about Xrd's netplay. Like Nate said, ranked games are iffy as always. It can be tough to find someone with a good connection to play, and even when you do there are occasional lag spikes and slowdown. I've only been able to stomach 20 ranked games so far, going 17-3. The lobbies, on the other hand, are really cool! You can make a room, and each room has different "stations" you can "sit" at. Thanks to this, it's easy to get multiple friends and strangers playing at the same time in one location, jumping from station to station as they please. There's less wait time if you lose, and it makes for an experience that's much more like hanging out in a real arcade. It's not quite as visually intriguing as Ultimax's lobbies were, but it's definitely a step up from other fighting games. There's also a handy lag display at the top of the screen showing your input delay in frames per second. Anywhere from 2-5F is relatively playable, but if the delay goes above that...WATCH OUT!
As we enter a new console hardware generation, it seems like most of the important fighting staples are making their way back into the ring. How do you think Guilty Gear will fare in this new generation? Will we still be playing on the Xrd system for another ten years?
Nate: We have a Street Fighter on the way, we have a Mortal Kombat on the way, we have a Tekken on the way, and we have a Guilty Gear right here. All we need is a KoF and a VF and the whole gang's back together again. Steady updates have brought the roster to a more manageable balance so every character gets a chance to shine (and some characters just shine more, like Zato-1 and Millia). Yeah, I'm sure we'll be playing Guilty Gear Xrd and it's regular title updates for a while to come.
Peter: I really think that the engine used in Xrd will do to Guilty Gear what Street Fighter IV did for the Street Fighter franchise. It's a massive visual upgrade to carry the game into the current generation and creates a platform for future improvement requiring significantly less effort than making changes to one of the older titles. I think Xrd is an extremely stable title that will last and, hopefully, one which we can expect to see a lot of new (and returning) content released.
Shane: It really depends on the community, I think. "Anime" fighting games have a lame tendency to cannibalize each other whenever a new one comes out. Look at Blazblue and Persona 4 Arena over the past few years. A lot of people pick these games up when they launch, but very few stick with them over the long haul like you see with something like Street Fighter IV, and they usually move on to whatever's newer. These are all niche games fighting each other for the same niche audience. However, Xrd is very nad and very pretty, so hopefully it can fend off its competitiors for a while and stay "alive" over the next several years with new versions. I don't think we'll see anything like a Guilty Gear 4 or whatever for a very long time, though.
Brandon: I think that it's very possible we'll be playing on the Xrd system for a while. I can't say that it'll be another 10 years, but at the very least a lot of the technologies that were used to create Xrd will hopefully be used in the future.
Finally, what are your overall impressions of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-?
Peter: On the whole I would have to say my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. I think the mechanical chanhges have really lowered the bar for taking advantage of all of Guilty Gear's gameplay features. The new engine and designs are beautiful and lift the title to our modern expectations for 2D fighters as well as serving a fantastic platform for future releases. My only real issue is the sizable cuts to the roster. Cutting almost half of the regular cast guarantees just about everyone will be losing some of their regular characters, but it remains to be seen whether they will be released later as DLC.
Shane: It's good, but Accent Core +R is better. However, +R had a decade to mature into the game it became, and this is really only Xrd's first try. It's a very fun game, and I think it will only get better with each new (inevitable) edition, but right now I just don't want to love it forever like I did every game in the GGXX series.
Brandon: I have to say that as a first iteration, I think that it's quite well put together. Exhibiting the new 3D shader, I think it looks amazing. It still looks as if it were a game which was animated in 2D. The game itself I think is also really fluid and feels nice to play. Although there are a few questionable balance decisions, I think that its a nice first iteration of Xrd. Praise be.
REVIEW ROUNDUP
+ Gorgeous visuals that maintain a 2D feel with creative use of the Unreal Engine
+ Still the same hardcore-focused fighter, but with new tools to help ease in newer players
+ Cross-platform play between PS3 and PS4 users!
+ Relatively balanced; every fighter has a full and varied set of skills to keep them viable
+/- Lobby system is great, but netplay can be laggy and aggravating at times
+/- Story Mode can be fun to watch, but a complete lack of gameplay could put you to sleep
+/- The cast is solid, but absentee veteran fighters will surely be missed by many fans
- It isn't Guilty Gear XX ^_~
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