Fighting Games Friday: Guilty Gear Strive Got Its Improved Beta
The closed beta session Arc System Works held for Guilty Gear Strive presented a good-looking game that had the potential to be impressive, but it was beset with unfortunate issues. It was clear before it arrived that rollback netplay wouldn’t be ready for it, with the version temporarily using the old (and very outdated) delay-based netplay. The focus, then, was on problems involving the game balance thanks to the altered gameplay features, which led to hilariously brain-dead combos and a bad lobbying system that involved too much work to start matches. But there was a reason they did these betas in the first place: To gauge how fans felt about the features and understand what needed to be changed
The plan was for the experience to be improved in time for the second beta, this time an open one for everyone to participate instead of one closed to a small group of fans. The results were successful — mostly.
The early experience was enough to think the whole thing would be a bust. The actual matches felt great when players could get them going thanks to rollback being included this time. Arc System Works promised they’d have it for the final game, but there was nonetheless intense fear that they’d botch the implementation like Capcom did for Street Fighter V. But the online only worked well after they fixed all the server side issues that prevented people from logging in, which happened for hours on end after nearly two days. Fortunately, the beta’s duration was expanded as compensation, and the server issues were eliminated.
The matches themselves felt indistinguishable from offline fights. There was a good reason why Arc System Works representatives were proud of themselves during the latest Fighting Game Roundtable stream. I’ll just assume rollback will be used for all future Arc System Works games, and perhaps it can be patched into existing titles still receiving support like Dragon Ball FighterZ and Granblue Fantasy Versus. All other Japanese developers should follow suit if they don’t want their games to be dead as soon as they arrive. The King of Fighters XV director Yasuyuki Oda and SNK, for instance, finally confirmed a plan on implementing it in the game, perhaps after intense fan demands; but here’s hoping they won’t run into implementation issues.
Strive’s balance has been improved too. The game features number of gameplay changes compared to Guilty Gear predecessors in order to be more welcoming for newcomers, though it’s evident the developers tried their best to please existing fans and the newer ones they’d like to welcome. The brain-dead combos are gone, with more complicated ones taking their place, though basic combos are still less complicated than those from the prior titles. Characters like Ramlethal and Potemkin feel dominant at the moment, but the cast feels well balanced overall from this early stage. Keep in mind there’s a chance that more balance updates will be made to the final game.
With all these enhancements, it’s unfortunate that the same lobby system was kept. It’s a cute system that places players in towers so they can work their way to the top of the rankings as they mingle in rooms with avatars. But this intricate system leads to it taking a long time to get into a match, and provides no option for players to rematch the same opponents for two or three bouts like other fighting games. There’s a meme that fighting games make it needlessly difficult for players to get into online matches compared to other titles in different genres, and though it’s partly a joke, it’s pretty accurate. Hopefully it will be tinkered with for the final game, but the chances of that are low at this point.
The open beta offered a chance to play with 13 of the 15 characters that will be available in the base roster. Anji Mito, revealed nearly two months ago, wasn’t playable, while I-No was just revealed to be the final one while the beta was happening. The biggest modification to her design is how she’s kind of wearing a shirt this time, with the developers mentioning how they’ve tuned her sexiness down a bit. She also has a long coat that doesn’t cover much in the front and glasses, and bears an even stronger resemblance to Reena Shingo. Not much of her has been shown, but they’ll have to preview her and Anji sometime soon, right? Hopefully.
Meanwhile, a Guilty Gear character is coming to SNK’s Samurai Shodown. It’s tough to think this could be anyone but Baiken or Anji, but they could throw a curve ball like, I don’t know, Nagoriyuki in full samurai garb. This will be the fourth guest character to grace the game, following The Warden, Gongsun Li, and Hibiki Takane from For Honor, Chinese MOBA Honor of Kings, and fellow SNK franchise The Last Blade, respectively. A friendly reminder that SNK loves guest characters.
Strive will release for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam on April 9th June 11th.There is, of course, a season pass that will include five characters as part of the first round of DLC, fitting for a modern fighting game. Don’t be surprised if one of them is revealed before the base game arrives.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
