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Review: Guilty Gear |
Dark Schneider answers the ring of the doorbell only to find a man dressed in all brown. After making a crack at his ridiculous shorts, DS wonders what the bizarre package this messenger holds, only to find out minutes later (after signing forms of many kinds) that it his copy of Guilty Gear he ordered, advice taken from one ex-Gamefan editor.
*DS inserts copy of Guilty Gear into PSX**DS plays GG**scratches head*
Weird. That’s all I have to say. Weird.
A game obviously cut from the Capcom/SNK mold, Guilty Gear succeeds in bringing some interesting concepts over an aesthetically pleasing, yet twisted backdrop. Shall we begin?
I’d have to say that Guilty Gear is a mixed bag graphically. On one hand, this game sports more frames of animation than I thought a PSX 2-D fighter could possibly handle. Apparently ARC System Works/Team Neo Blood, the company responsible for GG, came up with some sort of advanced compression system to allow the PSX to hold more frames in RAM. However, to keep all these frames, game speed was sacrificed, so it’s HIGHLY suggested by this reviewer to keep GG in Omit Frame Mode (standard option in Option Mode) on at all times to keep the game at a decent speed. The characters have a distinctly anime look, and most of them are BIZARRE to say the least. The backgrounds are fairly detailed (May’s Pirate Ship and Testament’s little stairway complete with headless knights as Exhibits A and B), but often lack any life and just stand as a backdrop. On the downside, the resolution is a little lower than the Capcom standard I’ve become so accustomed to. Granted, this doesn’t knock the game down by any means, but it does take some of the crisp-ness out of the presentation.
Sounds are fairly standard. The background music consists mostly of thrashing guitars and power chords. Not that I mind that. :) The characters’ speech is fairly standard for what I consider is “the anime look”, from Kliff’s typical “anime old man” to May’s “anime cutie” voice.
Anywho, gameplay is all that matters, right? Well, Guilty Gear is, ONCE AGAIN, a mixed bag in this department. GG uses only the main four buttons on the PSX pad, the shoulder buttons only used for taunting. (Hooray!) Fans of Capcom’s Marvel series will be happy to hear that GG has combos worthy of the Marvel engine. OTGs, “air raving”, infinites, and chain into super should all sound familiar to the vs. family, no? Suffice to say GG also has a few innovations. The Destruction move is a fairly simple way to eliminate scrubs. Anyone with half a brain can escape the move (a simple reverse fireball with triangle), but if you don’t reverse them in time: instant death. For both rounds. While it seems incredibly cheap, any old school fighting game nut will have the timing down on the reversal in no time, eliminating any chance of seeing a Destruction in serious play. Other than that, the super (Chaos) meter, the “powering up”, the round setup and what not should all look fairly familiar to the fighting enthusiast.
Hee hee. You can DEFINITELY tell the Japanese made this one. This game REEKS of anime. The character designs are fairly cookie-cutter (Kliff= Generic Anime Old Man.. May= Generic Under-aged Anime Cutie.. Chipp looks a LOT like Benimaru from King of Fighters.. the two main characters, Sol and Ky, resemble Eiji + Kayin from the land of Toshinden, etc.), however there are a few exceptions. Testament (the first boss) is a cross dresser with a very large scythe. Potemkin is a BIG man with HUGE arms. :) There’s 13 characters in all (10 to start with and 3 acquired through prowess. All together an eccentric and heh… attractive bunch.
All in all, GG offers some interesting twists in to the 2-D fighting world. It does have a lot in common with other titles, but also does have a feeling all its own. Unless you’re a diehard Capcom/SNK nut like me, you should probably stay away from it though. This game is just TOO Japanese for most people. :) However, I personally am looking forward to ARC Systems’ next release.
Bottom Line: Best summed up with “Mixed Bag”. However, the 2-D Capcom/SNK fans should definitely give it a second look.
- Dark Schneider
