Fighting Games Friday: My Funny Valentine
It has been, upon a quick check, two whole weeks since the last time I’ve made a Fighting Games Friday post. It’s hardly the longest break the feature has taken. The last post came after a prior two-week break, and I’ve gone longer without making one in the past. But there was an announcement event last week in the form of The Game Awards, one that makes it clear that it’s absolutely not an actual awards show annually. There weren’t many fighting game announcements at it, to no surprise considering even the actual awards showcases seldom hand fighting games prizes outside categories specifically for the genre, which Street Fighter 6 won.
Everyone’s Valentine was announced and released for Guilty Gear Strive: Elphelt Valentine, that is. It would have been a surprise if she wasn’t announced, considering the character was leaked through screen captures that surfaced on social media. If they weren’t legitimate, they were some of the most convincing-looking fakes around, and their creator would have deserved a pat on the back. The people who deserve that actual pat work for developer Arc System Works, though, because they were indeed true.
Elphelt came to Guilty Gear Strive with a brand-new outfit, this time sporting a shorter dress combined with wearing short black shorts. It’s the risk a lady simply must take when she’s desperate to find a new boyfriend. It’s a crazy outfit even by Guilty Gear standards, but perfectly fitting considering Elphet’s personality. She might be a tad… overenthusiastic. A hair. But endearingly so.
Her move set and combos looked similar enough to her Guilty Gear Xrd self when she was shown in the trailer, previews short enough to give a miniature impression of how a character plays. It was enough to confirm that she remains a rush down character with a nice array of options. But Elphelt controls very differently from her Xrd self upon seeing the official guide and especially going hands-on with the character.
She’s less like Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske, both of whom are similar enough to their Xrd selves (and from games prior to those), and more like, shockingly enough, Jack ‘O Valentine and Ramlethal Valentine in receiving significant changes. She was bound to have altered combos thanks to the updated gameplay systems Strive has compared to the Guilty Gear franchise predecessors, but Elphelt is actually different enough that anyone who spent plenty of time playing her during Xrd’s three versions will have to relearn her.
The fact that she’s so different means it will take time to determine just how good she is in Strive, or isn’t. I can only hope she’s as notoriously powerful as she was in the Xrd games. The combination of her gameplay prowess and extremely outgoing personality made some Guilty Gear fans quiver at the mere thought that she could return in this game. She’s a popular character, and there are already two other returning Valentines in this game; Elphelt was bound to arrive eventually. There wasn’t a better time to bring her back, at the beginning of a new season where every other character has received new moves and balance upgrades. A three-on-three mode is also coming in 2024.
Meanwhile, the newest character announced for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, the updated version of Granblue Fantasy: Versus that’s actually playable online, is Lucilius. I won’t even pretend to know much about Granblue Fantasy, because I’ve never played the original mobile game itself (and don’t plan to, thanks). I’ll just blandly say that this fella sure looks intimidating, with this three (!!!) swords and gigantic angel wings. Lucilius will appear as a boss character before debuting as a playable character in mid-January.
Coming with this is an ostensibly less but actually more important announcement: Narmaya is getting a “Black Butterfly” outfit. Opinions on the outfit are one thing, and she’s certainly fitting those threads tightly. What matters more here is how Arc System Works has figured out how to provide skins for their 3D games made to resemble 2D titles. This was previously thought to be so difficult that it would be impossible for them to implement without redoing the entire character model and shading techniques, but apparently not. This might still depend on the game it’s being implemented in, though, with GBVS and the Rising successor not requiring as heavy shading as the likes of the Guilty Gear games. If that’s not the case, however, it could open the floodgates to more alternate outfits in other Arc System Works-developed titles.
See? I didn’t have that much to catch up on, which perfectly justified the feature taking another week off. Further news will arrive as newer fighting games release, with Tekken 8 and Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes set to arrive a mere week apart in late January. There should be plenty of preview events for both until then, especially the former. Perhaps (and I’d love to nudge both Bandai Namco and French-Bread here) both need final betas to fully ensure that their netplay will be up to par for their general releases. This goes especially for Tekken 8, because I heard few complaints for UNIBII during its previous open beta session.
About The Author
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
