Sometimes it’s hard to remember which Guilty Gear games I’ve even played, given how many of them are basically the same name with a small identifier. Street Fighter used to be the worst offender with titles like EX+α but Guilty Gear stole the crown when they started calling their games things like XX Λ Core Plus R and Xrd -Revelator-. In perhaps the most simply named Guilty Gear since Guilty Gear X, Guilty Gear -Strive- arrives just in time to remind everyone why it’s the king of Anime fighters.
If you’re new to Guilty Gear or haven’t played one in a long time, -Strive- is an excellent entry into the series. Not only does it come with a decent-sized cast of returning characters from previous titles, but it also includes an abbreviated deep dive into the Guilty Gear series history and explains how everyone and everything is connected. This is a godsend because that universe is extremely confusing and difficult to keep track of. New to -Strive- are the fighters Nagoriyuki, who’s the most bullshit boss character I’ve seen in quite some time, and Giovanni who’s a super badass looking girl with a spirit wolf that unfortunately doesn’t do much but just add to her look.
On the surface, Guilty Gear -Strive- has most of the things you’d expect from a fighter: Arcade mode, story mode, online play, and a few other options to break up the monotony of simply spamming fights. There’s a mode where you fish for random items to equip your online avatar with by spending money earned from fighting. It’s fine for what it is, but not nearly as impressive as say Tekken 7 or Soul Caliber VI’s fighter customization. This ultimately leads me back to the biggest problem I have with Guilty Gear -Strive-; It’s severely lacking in content for being a full-priced game.
Guilty Gear -Strive- is actually an incredible game, the fighting is fast, flashy, and extremely responsive. Pretty much everything you’d expect out of a Guilty Gear game, but the animation is even more beautiful than anything I’ve seen to date from this series so far. The soundtrack is absolutely excellent if you’re into the grindy Japanese metal that often accompanies these games, and then there’s Giovanni’s theme that sounds like a mix between an anti-pop song, Muse, and Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, with a little bit of Crystal Method voice drops peppered in for good measure. However, once you’ve played a few hours the initial impression of terrific animation and fun music is dulled by the lack of actual gameplay modes. The story isn’t a playable experience, it’s literally a movie broken up into chapters. Arcade mode is about as standard as you’d expect, with the option of your rival appearing to help against the boss if you win the fight against them, and the difficulty depends on who you pick and whether or not you win or lose.
Maybe I’m just spoiled at this point, but Netherrealm absolutely set the bar by putting a plethora of both on and offline modes in Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat 11, and Injustice 2. Guilty Gear -Strive- is an excellent fighter, but doesn’t feel like enough by today’s standards to warrant the $60 price tag. I think with a $40 price tag, it would be far easier to recommend -Strive- to anyone who loves fighters considering how well the online play works, but again, I just can’t recommend it at full price due to how little content is actually here. I had the same complaint with Granblue Fantasy Versus as well – this was a fine amount of combat when games were shipped on discs but now that games require patches and whatnot, there’s no excuse for not having more content than what you’d find on a game released four generations ago.
Guilty Gear -Strive- was reviewed on the PlayStation 5, and was provided for review by Arc System Works.
