Despite One Major Flaw, ‘Guilty Gear Xrd’ Rocks
Heaven or Hell! Duel 1! Let’s Rock! I cannot begin to say how happy I was to hear that Guilty Gear was coming back. Guilty Gear has always been a unique fighter in my book, since most fighters I played came from Capcom, or other fighting games like Tekken, Killer Instinct, and Mortal Kombat. Guilty Gear stood out for me, so to finally get a new game in the series after so many years was amazing news to this fighting game fan.
Guilty Gear Xrd came out Dec. 16 for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 by Aksys Games in North America, after being developed by Arc System Works after reacquiring the license for the series. For those who have played Guilty Gear from the Dreamcast and PS2 era, you know the game is well known for its high quality, amazing visuals and stunning artwork. Which is always a good thing considering that this game is probably the best ever showcase for the Unreal Engine 3’s power. Utilizing cel shaded graphics over the traditional hand-drawn sprites makes each character look fully detailed and rendered. Also each stage is beautiful, and has life to it. Another thing to mention is the anime style cut scenes each character has whether it’s their own intros, outros, or instakill finishers.
Guilty Gear Xrd doesn’t change much from previous games in the series as far as the fighting style goes, but kind of makes it a little easier to do moves. It dials back the complexity of the game mechanics in order to make it a little easier to handle for newcomers. Despite this, doing combos with each character feels very satisfying, and honestly it’s still a lot of fun. Each character has their own unique skills, abilities, and personality. It’s good to see some of my favorite characters returning to the series, such as Sol Badguy, and Venom. My only gripe with this is that a lot of series fan favorites were left out like Baiken, Dizzy, Jam, and Johnny. However I do like is that there were changes made to cast designs. Some are minor, very small, and some are huge. Though the roster is kind of small, dlc is already planned for the future.
One big issue that the game does suffer from, is its online component. For modern day fighting games, online play is VERY important, and the online for Xrd does not work. It took really long to find a match online, and when we did the lag was so terrible, it was virtually unplayable. And this was not a one time deal, it happened multiple times. This can be patched down the line, I am sure of that, but at launch to have no functioning online play is a HUGE problem, and not one that can be overlooked nowadays.
Despite being developed by a small team, and the tight time frame they were given, Guilty Gear Xrd is still an amazing game, that stays true to its original series, while making it more playable for newcomers. Its limited roster might bother a few fans, and its online play being virtually broken, does not stop the game from any form of enjoyment. I give Guilty Gear Xrd a 4 out of 5. If you have a PS3, or PS4 I suggest this game. And rock on!
