Guilty Gear Strive Review

Arc System Works models everything in 3D and then lights, poses and animates it on twos so that it reads as hand drawn art, and Strive is where that technique stops being a trick and becomes a whole visual language. Cameras snap to cinematic angles on a counter hit, dust kicks up in ink, and Daisuke Ishiwatari's guitars carry the rest. Underneath is a fighting game that made a decision. Damage is enormous, rounds are short, and the wall break that hurls both fighters into a new stage section resets the neutral instead of letting a single opening run the clock out.

Veterans of Xrd lost airdashing density, a chunk of the movement options and a great deal of combo length, and a section of them has never forgiven it. What they got back is a game a newcomer can actually read, plus rollback netcode good enough that the online population became the healthiest in the series. The story mode is several hours of cutscene you watch rather than play, and it is genuinely well told if you have the previous decade of plot in your head. The tower matchmaking remains the weakest part of the package.