Guilty Gear Strive (Open β #2) -- Back to Basics... and Dubs!
1Choose to blame the beast:
twitter.com/yuugijoou
discord.gg/bKT9pRW
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I don't know why I supposed there might have been some amount of carry-over between the two "Beta" sessions, given that the application remained installed on my system and only needed an update between them... but you literally begin again with nothing, not even the recognition of having signed your life away to various quasi-legal-seeming agreements... ... ... and more importantly, made Sol "train" with Ky! The nerve of them!
But wait, something's different! On Line 37 of the EULA! ...um... I mean, no, there's a spoken voice language choice now! And she's got two, bouncy, luscious... options! English returns once again to Guilty Gear!
...but you gotta work for it. Remember to dig in deep and service that options menu thoroughly, and if satisfaction is reached, you may indeed enjoy her splendors.
Also, I-No's in the game. (And Anji, I guess. Were you actually here for him?)
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This also seemed like as good a chance as any to indulge in immortalizing in gruesome detail the online lobby tutorials, obligatory as they are. Even though it CLAIMS you can ignore the challenger who will help decide where your final placement ends up?!
...maybe I should've used someone I actually know how to play and actually DON'T struggle with in all prior installments instead...
Uh... I mean... um... what better opportunity to show that they use that battle to evaluate in-depth the "skill" metrics they need to assign you to your first Ranked floor! OBVIOUSLY everyone above is too strong, and I definitely shouldn't go down, I'd mercilessly devastate anyone I encountered! This is, for sure, the best and most sophisticated ranking system ever devised!
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But the real star of the show is the PIXEL LOBBY! ...I still can't believe the number of levels of creative design and technical oversight this thing went through to get this far along. Guilty Gear really is a creature of distinct faces that wears many hats. Now, it's positively filled up with immersion-breaking... arcade machines, I guess? ...with books and hologram technology... and monitors... and... I don't even know!
I'm not going to beat a dead horse any further, but I think it's safe to say that you made up your mind about this feature from the first you saw it... and the various hiccups in performance it demonstrated in the last Open Beta event probably didn't help with anyone's reception along the continuum of responses towards it.
Then again, it was mere months from shipping, and it's not like they could just tear it all up and try something else in that time? It's slated to come out next month! ...and contrary to the easy "message" to take away from the delay, no, it was NOT primarily to fix an ancillary (but sure to be heavily used, like it or not) feature of what is first and foremost a FIGHTING game.
And the fighting part is still amazing. So. Y'know. There's that.