Game:

Guilty Gear -STRIVE- (2021)

Duration: 9:03

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Wait, this isn't Smash! And what's this...a PS4 game?! That's directly captured?! So yeah for the longest time I avoided capturing on PS4 because originally you'd need special hardware to bypass HDCP, but at some point they patched in a toggle for it so now I can record without any real issue! I don't record all that much anyway but here's my latest obsession: Guilty Gear Strive!

I'm a fairly new fan to Guilty Gear; in the lead up to Strive, I ended up playing through a bit of Accent Core +R and Xrd Rev 2 with friends and over time I've kinda fallen in love with the series. What if anime and hard rock n' roll had a baby? You'd get this game, more or less! Strive is the newest release and uh...strives to make the game as accessible as possible, even if it means alienating longtime fans! Yay! So yeah, some are miffed at Strive streamlining some things, or just being different at all, while others want to show their support because Strive is one of the few Japanese-developed fighters that's using Rollback Netcode: basically, it's a LOT more reliable and consistent than the delay-based netcode many games in the past used. For whatever reason, the West embraced Rollback and Japan has kind of been lagging behind, but Arc System Works (alongside SNK and Arika) have made strides to catch up.

As for me...I just kinda like this series and thought it'd be neat to buy a fighter at launch for once. Usually I don't buy a fighter until it's all but dead and heavily discounted, then play with friends for a session or two and forget it forever...but not today! So here's my first foray into online, albeit just some replays I saved to test that feature out.

Match 1: Ajatar Hunting Ground
Giovanna (me) vs. Faust (jskrrt)
OK so first off...this game is gorgeous and has all these lovely extended intro animations for every stage and for each character...that most people seem to skip. I let them rock but most other people I've fought so far seem to mash through them as soon as they are able. And yeah, they DO go on for a while but still. So impatient!

So Giovanna is a newcomer to Strive, bodyguard to the President of the United States and bonded with a strange wolf spirit named Rei that further enhances her powerful kicks. Gio is clearly designed to be easy to pick up and play but she has some nuance. She has by far the lowest amount of special attacks in the game at four, but all four are versatile and overall very good. She's got an anti-air kick, a move that propels her forward (and can even nullify projectiles!), a strong kick that has some real range on it and a tricky flip kick that can keep the opponent guessing as to which side of the screen they need to block. She's fast too, able to keep the pressure on the opponent if they let her run wild.

Faust meanwhile is a series staple, and has always been a bit of an oddball. With his lanky frame and giant scalpel, he has some range on his attacks but he often contorts himself in odd ways and has a habit of pulling out random objects in a fight that can help turn the tables. His main gimmick is just throwing out random crap, forcing both fighters to adapt at a moment's notice. Maybe he pulls out a giant weight that'll hit anyone on the ground, or maybe it'll be a sentient doll that attacks independently from Faust. Sometimes it's a meteor shower! Or bombs! Or...a marching band. Which I was able to use against Faust to score the first win. Neat! Sadly, my opponent didn't want to rematch (then again, connection issues run rampant so maybe we just got disconnected).

Match 2 and 3: "A Happy Family"
Giovanna (me) vs. I-No (Hodges)
This is...quite the stage, huh? How about that name! Totally not weird at all! So, here we are against I-No, a very infamous character who's been around for most of the series and in Strive becomes the primary antagonist. A time-warping rock n' roll witch, I-No's a real...piece of work who gets off on making people suffer, but is there something deeper underneath? Watch the five hour story mode to find out!

What makes I-No trouble is that unlike the rest of the roster, her ground dash has her ascend at an angle (much like Morrigan from Darkstalkers), letting her go to town on people with constant overheads, meaning you MUST block while standing. But then she can just fake you out and go for a low attack instead that'll require you to block low. What is a government agent to do?! I dunno, just kick her a lot I guess. I-No, personally, feels a bit off in this game. Strive isn't quite so aerial-focused as older titles and she just feels weird to me as a result. I mean, I've never liked the Morrigan-like dash, but even I-No's air dash here feels bad. She's got some good tools, but she seems trickier to use compared to Gio here. Good games, Hodges! Would have liked to play more but Ranked pulls the plug after enough matches so we had to stop there.

Expect some more Strive in the future. When and how much? NOBODY KNOWS!

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