Guilty Gear: Strive Review (pattynextdoor)
I'm writing this review as someone who went from fighting game newbie (save for like 40 hours of DBFZ) to a Celestial Lv~1100 Zato main.
This game's production value is insane. The attack animations, voice acting, that big ass "COUNTER" that pops up on the screen after a HS counter-hit - *chef's kiss*. The soundtrack is amazing and spans across a wide variety of metal sub-genres. Every single character feels unique to play, and the ones that I've tried will continue to reward your proficiency and experience with new ways to mix up and pressure your opponent.
In-game, the performance is amazing as well. It's not particularly demanding, but if your machine is older, there are ultra low-spec mods you can safely and easily install. It legitimately performs like you're sitting right next to the person you're playing against online. At game launch (June 2021 or so) the initial load time to connect online was ridiculously long though, like 3 minutes. Now it's more like 1 minute, which is a lot more tolerable.
Your experience as a new player is surprisingly friendly, though I do recommend going into training mode or doing some tutorial rounds to get familiar with your controls. No, you don't need a fight stick. I play on a PS5 controller and do just fine. You don't need crazy combos to start, just dive right in. In my opinion, the CPU opponent isn't a very realistic one. Don't worry about demoting ranks, that's just part of the process. Just focus on getting better. If you block a mix you never did before, that's a dub.
There are quite a lot of gripes regarding character balance at high level play. Many of the easier-to-play top characters (like Ram or May) are able to easily convert their large and safe normals into 60%+ combos. Some of the harder-to-play top characters (Happy Chaos, Nago) can abuse parts of their kit that were clearly meant to weaken their strengths but end up using them to their advantage. Characters like Millia, Anji and Faust have to work so much harder to be in the same realm as these characters in the higher Celestial levels. There is a major balance patch coming on June 10th (this review was written May 27th), so fingers crossed that these issues are mediated.
If you're not planning to play this game to go pro, this doesn't matter. You'll still have a bunch of fun. Plus, if you're playing a harder character and absolutely wreck the easier character you're playing against, there's no better feeling.
Anyways, I love this game. It has opened up the confidence for me to pursue other fighting games. And I have, but I always end up preferring to play Strive.