Hello, and welcome to the second instalment of a series that I’m calling That’s Good, That’s Bad, based on a joke in the Simpsons in which Homer buys a cursed Krusty doll from what I now see as a pretty racist stereotype of an asian person. The gag is still good though, good enough for me to form a sort of review process in which I alternate between saying something good about a game, then something bad about it. This time my game of choice is Arc System Works’ 2.5D fighter Guilty Gear Strive.

This game’s got some serious swagger…that’s good.

The first bite is with the eye as they say, and when that reveal trailer hit many (myself included) were absolutely blown away by Strive’s presentation. It was a true next step in ArcSys’ signature visual style, and it was unarguably instrumental in getting those hungry eyes pointed towards their game. Every single frame of movement has been carefully crafted to make sure it is cranked towards maximum flair, almost to the point where you can miss the exquisite detail during normal gameplay.

We are connecting to the servers…eventually…that’s bad.

Listen all right, sometimes it’s hard to find a thing to dislike about a game that I enjoy, so I will have to reach back into Strive’s history for something to moan about. And moan I will about the insanely long time you had to wait as the game built its confidence up to finally connect to the servers. An update has quickened this process to acceptable speeds, but during the early days, the idea of firing up Strive for a small session was not an attractive one.

Roman Cancel is the spice of Strive's combat…that’s good.

Roman Cancel acts as one of the cornerstones of Guilty Gear, and it essentially allows one to cancel an action for the cost of some of your meter, which has all sorts of applications such as extending combos or allowing safe recovery from a whiffed attack. I would even go as far to say that Roman Cancel is what makes Guilty Gear’s combat feel like Guilty Gear. And now in Strive, Roman Cancel’s new ability to drift really adds some mobility to fights. It lets players move in a direction during a cancel to get better positioning, which naturally makes side-switch combos a breeze to execute if you don’t mind spending the resources. Fast Roman Cancels also allow you to cancel into attacks far quicker to catch an opponent off-guard, if your hands can move fast enough that is.

Damage is high, like really high…that’s bad.

One aspect to make Strive more casual friendly was decreasing the amount of times you had to hit someone before they get…erm…Slashed as the game calls it, meaning combos could be shorter. The issue is that now even relatively simple combos can eat away half of a health bar (or about a third of someone’s life, more on that later). So all it takes is one bad mistake against a character like Ramlethal or Sol and you can pretty much kiss your win goodbye.

I can’t stop listening to the music…that’s good.

A controversial topic in the GG community since Strive’s music is seen as a bit of a departure from previous entries, but given how the album is burned into my Spotify app, it gets a thumbs up from me. The infectiously saccharine Perfection Don’t Please Me, the sad boy song that is Armor-clad Faith, the fist-pumpingly upbeat Play the Hero and the erratically eccentric Necessary Discrepancy all help to give the soundtrack some great variety. Each song also features English vocals mostly sung by a Japanese man, so you can play the game of trying to guess what the hell the vocalist is actually trying to say.

You need a spreadsheet to understand the health system…that’s bad.

So a Pot Buster does just over half the life of Chip Zanuff – who has the lowest health in the game – so it stands to reason that a second Pot Buster will kill them right…well no. This is because of Defensive Guts, which ups a fighter’s defence the closer they are to death. But on top of that, characters vary in how much damage they take from an attack regardless of health. So while Anji takes 106% damage from hits, his Guts rating is the highest in the game meaning he gains the biggest defence boost. This whole system is channeling some serious Rube Goldberg machine energy, being overly complex for the task its meant to achieve.

Rollback netcode is putting in work…that’s good.

In some ways, I’m a little resentful that I even have to point this out as a positive since rollback netcode has been around for years now, but I guess better late than never. Japanese fighting games in particular have suffered from the terrible netcode known as delay-based, so it is great to see Guilty Gear Strive be among the first to embrace our rollback overlords in Japan. When I first played Strive in the open beta, it was so refreshing to not have to worry about matches suddenly feeling like they are taking place underwater. While rollback won’t magically fix a bad connection, it has allowed me to play in different countries with pretty decent performance, something that was near impossible with delay-based netcode.

The lobbies are pain…that’s bad.

Where to begin with this? Shall I start with the fact that your avatar gets stuck to the floor every time you finish a match for several seconds? Or the fact that when you go up or down in ranking, you have to mash through dialogue being spouted out by some kind of butler guy? Or the fact that the Duel Stations still – after almost a fucking year of the game being out – can sometimes straight up not work? If there’s one thing that any person whose played Guilty Gear Strive can agree on, it’s the utterly failure of the lobby system. And it’s all because ArcSys wanted you to dress up your little 8-bit person and make them do dances.

The roster is some of the most diverse you’ll find…that’s good.

What drew me to Guilty Gear originally was just how varied the list of fighters were, I mean, I’ve never played a fighter quite like Jack-O in Rev 2. Strive has some gonzo fighters of its own, such as the coffin-wielding alien-denying Goldlewis who can obliterate people through chip damage alone. Then you have the keep-away bastard Happy Chaos, who becomes an absolutely monstrous zoner if you have the skills to manage his unique resources. Even Mr. Blandface himself Ky Kiske has mechanics like Shock State and his transformation super. This also leads to some insane match-ups, such as the one where a swift Chip must wear down the brick shithouse that is Potemkin while trying not to get cornered and their health bar vaporised.

Strive is not quite as crazy as Rev 2…that’s bad.

Take a look at Sol's Dragon Install in Rev 2 and compare it to Ky's Dragon Install in Strive:

Sure, Ky’s is the technically superior version with far greater visual detail, but there’s something about Sol’s that is just more…impactful. Sol explodes in a storm of fire and rage while the music kicks it up a notch, and you feel almost primal. Ky’s on the other hand – much like the character himself – is good but not incredible. I just can’t shake the feeling that a layer of pizazz has been lost in between titles, with features like Instant Kills or the ability to change the announcer’s voice being unfortunately absent.

So is Guilty Gear Strive good or bad?

Strive is a slower, heavier and more simplified kind of Guilty Gear, and one that is likely to prove divisive with longtime fans. Yes, there have been casualties during the streamlining process, but despite that the game can still put on one hell of a show.