It is one of our best discoveries of the year. The latest from Arc System Works, Guilty Gear: Strive, is exceptionally refined, a rare pearl in the world of Japanese two-dimensional fighting games.
In person, in front of television and online, we were charmed. So much so that we were quickly surprised to shop for arcade style broomsticks, when fighting games are usually not our cup of tea.
This kind of game is indeed one of the most difficult games to approach. Alienating mechanics, obtuse combos, (very) competitive online community: fighting games don’t have the most enticing of reputations. Corn Strive, even if it has its faults, manages to be welcoming to the newcomer.
From the first minutes, a tutorial allowed us to take control of its systems.
From there, we jumped straight into the online mode, in which we assessed our abilities before facing opponents of our level.
Of course we got washed a lot of times, but we always had an idea of what was wrong with our performance. Guilty Gear: Strive has the merit of having visuals without too much fluff, which help to understand the action that takes place on the screen.
In single player mode, we can continue to learn the inner workings and hidden abilities of the twenty or so characters at our disposal during different “missions”. Too bad, on the other hand, that the “story” mode is only one (very, very) long animation without interactivity.
And the community that has been built around the game is there to help us. There are plenty of videos available online to explain the intricacies.
But above all, Strive literally eliminates distances.
Unlike many fighting games which choose to introduce a delay between when you press a button on the controller and what happens on the screen to compensate for a too slow Internet connection, its online game system of rollback frames allows you to completely eliminate these delays.
Let’s roughly explain: here, our actions take place on our machine instantly before being synchronized with our opponent’s machine. The software then fixes the errors so quickly that you don’t have time to notice them. The result is duels of a frankly remarkable fluidity, even against people on the other side of the planet.
However, we regret how much the game takes its time to communicate with the Arc System Works servers, which we suspect are located in Japan. We spent long minutes waiting to be connected, stunned, in front of the screen.
The absolutely brilliant soundtrack of Guilty Gear: Strive (each character has their song!) accompanying us in the game has helped us to forgive this shortcoming.
After several hours of play, we still have the impression of having only scratched the surface of Strive and it’s for the best. There is so much to learn. Here’s a perfect project for the holiday season, hopefully there is.