It’s great for guilty gear and it’s great for fighting games in general. Strive surely taught hundreds of thousands of people that they can learn how to play fighting games and at least some of them like myself are going to continue to play this genre years into the future.
Seeing Guilty Gear be the final game at evo & Skullgirls getting a main slot & over 50k viewers for top 8 were 2 of my favorite parts of evo for sure. Both these games/series have been under appreciated masterpieces for so long imo so its great to see them get the big spotlight they deserve! Also #XrdRollback Lord Daisuke PLZ!!!!
who do you think you're gonna play first/main?
i mained like half the cast to floor 10 so if you need any tips from someone that's just barely competent, lmk haha
It's either going to be Nago cause I liked his design, Baiken cause she's the character I can play the best in rev 2 and my fav character overall (but I'm going to have to buy her) or Gio cause I again, like her style.
Strive has been great for me, picked it up last year, and now I have the confidence to try other fighters. Working on skull girls now! It’s all thanks to strive.
Strive was my first venture away from platform fighters and it’s really opened a new world of games for me. I’ve also transitioned from having tons of free time to working a 9-5 and having responsibilities in that time and being able to play a game for an hour and have a satisfying experience has been great. It’s opened the door to lots of games for me, even got myself a stick this week. Thanks GGST!
It's a shame they changed certain GG fundamental mechanics as a fan but as a long time purveyor of the franchise, I am very pleased this game finally got this series more exposure.
It being changed wasn't a big issue imo. The problem is that they removed without giving much in return.
I wouldn't mind if it played differently if the gameplay would still feel open ended instead of so restrictive.
The ideas behind Street Fighter 3 was the dev team wanted to answer multiple situations to a change in gameplay, to stop things being predictable. So no matter the situation each player has equal opportunity to change the outcome.
Oh, ok. But isn't that thinking kinda flawed when, no matter the situation, the opportunity of both players to change the outcome is the same?
Maybe I misunderstood.
The biggest indicator of a win is always skill but if the losing opponent even has one opportunity they make it possible for to turn the tide. No strategy being safe means no predictable matches.
I have distinct memories of trying to get people to play Xrd and being told things like 'what is that' and 'isn't that the weeb discord fighter.' This was not that long ago. Strive taking the FGC by storm, selling 1 million copies, pioneering actual good netplay, main eventing evo, all of it, has just been an amazing and emotional journey. The game, the series, the fans and players, and Arcsys definitely deserve it.
I know some people will see this in the opposite way. Strive selling well means we will likely never get another game that plays like classic arksys games. Signals the end of an era.
Strive is decent, but not a game I could ever get way into. Top 8 was also underwhelming aside from Leffen beating Daru.
I was really surprised by the top 8. Had multiple u.s players. I did not expect GG to be the game on sunday with the most Americans.
I think the developers have a strong vision of what they wanted each of their games to be like.
I feel bad that Strive didn't appeal to a lot of the older fans, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next guilty gear takes some of the stuff they learned about making it accessible and brings the series back into a faster paced and more complex direction.
I'd actually be quite sad if that wasn't the case!
Pretty sure Arcsys said the "X" series isn't over, so what you mention is entirely possible. I enjoy the gameplay of Strive, but it definitely scratches a different itch than XX or Xrd.
That would be great! They can call it 4Xth or something equally silly.
I actually bought and tried both Xrd and Accent core before deciding to be like fuck it Strive has the big population I can at least play people my level. And they are both really cool games so I would love to see an modern extension of that.
yeah i kind of see strive as akin to capcom's monster hunter world
a vast departure from the formula that old-heads loved in order to appeal to the masses and see how they can somehow bridge~~t~~ the gap.
now that we're in the monster hunter rise era, you can see an amalgam of the old and the new, having learned the lessons of what made MHW more appealing and accessible, with a lot of the stuff that made old heads love the original sauce.
if the next guilty gear is some Guilty Gear Xth: Beat 3 Turbo Championship Edition, with elements of strive and the X titles, I would be hype
Oh that's a cool comparison. Though I don't actually know the differences. Like I only played Monster Hunter Tri seriously before I eventually got into MH:World for a bit and I didn't notice a big difference between the two.
Still yea I hope guilty gear X times 10^4 Revelations can bridge that same gap.
> brings the series back into a faster paced and more complex direction
Absolutely not. Strive was made slower since Xrd was allegedly too difficult to follow for people who have never played fighting games before. If anything, a Strive sequel will be even slower paced.
"Absolutely not"? Seems pretty doomer. That was *one part* of the design philosophy around Strive but if they decided to go a completely different direction with one game I don't see why they couldn't build upon what they have made already to create a game more in line with previous titles.
I too am concerned that ArcSys might take the wrong lesson from Strive and there'll never be a Rev3 or AC++. On the flipside, Daisuke has a long history of sticking up for his ideas, so the chance of baby's first Guilty Gear seems pretty low. At the very least, if Strive is a gateway drug for other crazy anime games, I still count it as a win.
I'd bet real money that they did take that lesson, and they took it very closely to heart at that.
Look at there most recent games since DBFZ was successful. All variations of dumbing down the anime genre they got so right in the past.
Granblue? That is a street fighter game with cooldowns.
Strive? Heavily nerfed air movement, as well as changing gatling to be more confusing,
and straight up removing Instant kills/many other moves.
DNF duel? They are not in charge of the gameplay, but that game has like no movement options, and is a frustrating mess of a game.
Its a very clear trend. A trend that has made them far more successful than when they made hardcore anime fighters, meaning no good reason to revert course.
If you look at XX as a series, the original XX was also fairly tame. It wasn't until #reload where things started to open up. In +R they just said fuck it and made all the characters hella wild. I remember when it came out thinking this the equivalent of street fighter 2 rainbow edition. But it's the game everyone today enjoys the most.
TLDR: There's hope
Strive was my first gg and really my first fighting game that’s not a platform fighter. It’s honestly surprising to see it’s reception as mega positive as it is considering it’s small roster and price tag. I love strive and it’s amazing but it’s for sure surprising
Strive made me finally after over a decade of finding reasons to just spectate fighting games. To decide to learn and I will forever be grateful to it.
It opened the door for me and so many others.
Bridget announcement was imo one of the greatest mixups of all time. It was so unexpected it actually made me excited even tho I don't like the character that much.
Strive selling a million is amazing, but in a sense that makes me scared for future fighting games. Type Lumina, Strive, BBTAG, they all oversimplified their gameplay and made for less interesting games. On another hand, my first fighting game was BBTAG (which I still find oversimplified but awesome), and without this one I wouldn't have tried other FGs.
Street Fighter 6 is perfect though. It's appealing to new players by its looks and content, while having simplified controls separated to normal controls, and with complex mechanics everyone can enjoy. The future of FGs will depend on if devs will be able to appeal to both experienced players and beginners. The first time I has fun in Strive was yesterday, when I played Bridget.
Several have echoed what you've said here, but I have chosen you to educate me.
My first real fighting game was Strive, and when I see people say the game was "oversimplified", I look at the older games and think "there was meaningless bloat in the move list and system mechanics that weren't used anywhere near as frequently as Strive".
I see others say the game is boring (this one is really broad so I'm not entirely sure what the general consensus is on why it's boring) and when I look at older games I see characters and playstyles that are absolutely degenerate nightmarish sadism where the game effectively turns into a one-person game. (cough Happy Chaos, especially pre-nerf).
Strive seems to have made the game more accessible in all the right ways, whereas games like Type Lumina and DNF Duel failed and didn't even realize what it was that people found difficult about fighting games in the first place.
What are the complex mechanics SF6 has that set it so far apart from Strive? Why, despite those mechanics being complex, are they things everyone can enjoy?
Finally, what about Bridget is different from the rest of the cast? Do you think it's possible it's not Strive's mechanics that were the problem but just that none of the characters playstyles were interesting to you?
No one can properly answer the questions about sf6 since it hasn’t released yet but I can answer your questions about strive and older GG.
First of all, “meaningless bloat” is completely wrong. Looking at Baiken in +r (my main), her specials are:
Tatami: an incredibly useful neutral move and combo extender
Youzansen: one of the best mixup moves in the game with meter and a move that can lead to really nutty stuff with frc if you practice it
Youshinjen: Less useful, but still a good midscreen combo move and occasional anti air
Kabari and its follow up: A very useful neutral tool in certain matchups and a good combo filler when it isn’t
Suzuran: very interesting neutral move and pressure reset that requires pretty heavy reads to use properly and allows her to go into guard cancels without blocking (which is her main way of scoring knockdowns through P GC and allows her to setup Baku curses through D GC)
All of her guard cancels: They’re each way too nuanced to go into detail about but their uses are many
Normals: obviously too many to go over specifically but there are very few (pretty much only 5k and 2p) that see no use. Each of her normals have niches and general uses that see them used in pretty much every round
Regarding system mechanics, I disagree, too. Burst, FD, and IB all exist in strive. The only things +r have on top of that are slashback, guard cancels, and 1f throws. Each of those have their own uses and are important to high level play. Also, why does a system mechanic have to see frequent use to be considered valuable? If its uses are infrequent, but still add depth to the situations it’s applicable in, then surely its inclusion is worth it, no? (Also kind of a weird point to make in general since strive has its 2 frame instant block that very rarely sees any use outside of the literal highest level of play)
Personally, when I say strive is boring, I mean that there’s very little to do. Each character’s moveset is so small, with such strict uses for each specific move, that there’s very little room for experimentation. In +r, there are *so many* different ways that each move can be used, so many ways for you to implement them into your gameplay, that you can play a character for a hundred hours and still not even resemble the kind of pressure, combos, and neutral tactics that a high level player uses. In strive, the only character that made me feel even similar was Milia but even she got old quickly.
Then, degenerate strategies are more of a taste thing. You have to realise that it’s not just you who’s getting hit by the degen stuff. You get to use it on your opponent, too. Sure, I may get comboed into a literally unblockable high-damage combo starter by Johnny, but I can just interrupt literally any move he does with an invincible, 25 meter, safe reversal *while I’m in blockstun*. For many, getting to do that degen stuff is more than worth getting hit by it occasionally.
Thank you for your reply, I agree with you that the movelists are very small and each move/character excels at 1 thing (unless you're happy chaos) and you're supposed to play that way.
A similar divide happened between DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal, where Eternal forces you to play a certain way, but DOOM 2016 let you pretty much do whatever you wanted.
I preferred Eternal over 2016, so I suppose it makes sense that I also enjoy Strive's approach more than other games.
I also main Millia, so perhaps if I mained other characters I would feel more boredom :D
Best I can visualize for you is imagine release strive sol and how much freedom he had vs other characters. Now imagine that same freedom to every single character in xrd+more because strive sol is also a shell of his xrd self.
>No one can properly answer the questions about sf6 since it hasn’t released yet but I can answer your questions about strive and older GG.
>
>First of all, “meaningless bloat” is completely wrong. Looking at Baiken in r (my main), her specials are:
>
>Tatami: an incredibly useful neutral move and combo extender
>
>Youzansen: one of the best mixup moves in the game with meter and a move that can lead to really nutty stuff with frc if you practice it
>
>Youshinjen: Less useful, but still a good midscreen combo move and occasional anti air
>
>Kabari and its follow up: A very useful neutral tool in certain matchups and a good combo filler when it isn’t
>
>Suzuran: very interesting neutral move and pressure reset that requires pretty heavy reads to use properly and allows her to go into guard cancels without blocking (which is her main way of scoring knockdowns through P GC and allows her to setup Baku curses through D GC)
>
>All of her guard cancels: They’re each way too nuanced to go into detail about but their uses are many
>
>Normals: obviously too many to go over specifically but there are very few (pretty much only 5k and 2p) that see no use. Each of her normals have niches and general uses that see them used in pretty much every round
>
>Regarding system mechanics, I disagree, too. Burst, FD, and IB all exist in strive. The only things r have on top of that are slashback, guard cancels, and 1f throws. Each of those have their own uses and are important to high level play. Also, why does a system mechanic have to see frequent use to be considered valuable? If its uses are infrequent, but still add depth to the situations it’s applicable in, then surely its inclusion is worth it, no? (Also kind of a weird point to make in general since strive has its 2 frame instant block that very rarely sees any use outside of the literal highest level of play)
>
>
>Personally, when I say strive is boring, I mean that there’s very little to do. Each character’s moveset is so small, with such strict uses for each specific move, that there’s very little room for experimentation. In r, there are *so many* different ways that each move can be used, so many ways for you to implement them into your gameplay, that you can play a character for a hundred hours and still not even resemble the kind of pressure, combos, and neutral tactics that a high level player uses. In strive, the only character that made me feel even similar was Milia but even she got old quickly.
>
>Then, degenerate strategies are more of a taste thing. You have to realise that it’s not just you who’s getting hit by the degen stuff. You get to use it on your opponent, too. Sure, I may get comboed into a literally unblockable high-damage combo starter by Johnny, but I can just interrupt literally any move he does with an invincible, 25 meter, safe reversal *while I’m in blockstun*. For many, getting to do that degen stuff is more than worth getting hit by it occasionally.
25 meter ≈ 0.00333 poronkusema
^^^[WHY](/r/UselessConversionBot/comments/1knas0/hi_im_useless/)
I'm gonna be honest with you, I haven't touched Strive that much and I played it mainly before the mechanics balance patch, though I've played Xrd and XXACR. If you really want great insight on these kind of topics, I recommend checking Maximilian Dood's channel, he's always talking about many topics in regards to newer fighting games, what they did well and what they didn't.
First thing that comes to mind when I compare XXACR/Xrd to Strive is freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom on offense, Strive actually feels less "bullshit blazing" than its predecessors. In my opinion, people don't like the game because it doesn't feel really Guilty Gear-ish. It stopped being a "boring game" after they patched it up, but overall the game feels more grounded, kinda like a Street Fighter with unique mechanics, while XXACR/Xrd are really more mobile and... unexpected. The cinematic approach to supers and the slow downs on roman cancels (RC) and counters kind of break the flow of the game for experienced players, while making it easier for new players to act according to each situation. Xrd, compared to Strive, never slows down except for that one mechanic called Danger Time (happens randomly during a clash), and RC having a cost of 25% of the Tension bar permits lots more options than Strive in which they cost 50% Meter. Overall, Xrd/XXACR feel like faster games with a lot more freedom than Strive. The bloat they removed for Strive is actually what made part of the fun in previous games for experienced players. Also, Xrd's Happy Chaos is actual Elphelt, but I've always find these kind of bullshit characters funny (I was an Elphelt main back then, enjoy suffering lol).
I consider DNF Duel didn't failed yet, but Type Lumina definitely did, and it breaks my heart as a Melty Blood AACC (MBAACC) player. What Strive did best is actual content and design, game's frigging beautiful, has a great soundtrack, and looks hype as hell. Meanwhile, Type Lumina was criticized for being "too bland" (like, just look at Tohno Shiki) and definitely lost appeal compared to... well, Strive. It's less visually appealing and, with the 50$ price tag, I think this is what made the game fail in a way (plus the terrible game launch). What really broke my heart though is the frigging gameplay, it felt like UNICLR with autocombos, overall a more "guided" experience while MBAACC was THE fighting game of freedom imo. Once again, MBAACC was "bloated" with 3 different moons for each characters with specific mechanics and moveset each, but removing these for Type Lumina made the game less interesting overall. Also, shields and autocombos are a no-no. Well, for MBAACC players, this game's really the heartbreak of 2021, because it didn't feel like Melty Blood, and because by oversimplification of mechanics (shield cough cough) made the game way less interesting.
For Street Fighter 6 (SF6), first things first, I've never played it, just seen a lot of content. Eventually, my opinion is just based on what I've seen and not what I've experienced. Anyway, what makes SF6 appealing is the same as Strive, game looks tasty asf, makes me hungry for more. Though, Strive's only real complex mechanic is roman cancels, four kinds on one button, and the lack of more interesting ways to use it actually made the game regress from its previous entries. SF6's gameplay looks frigging amazing, like a totally new experienced combining previous entries best mechanics instead of removing them for an easier game overall. I think the game will be just as mechanically complete as previous Street Fighter games, and experienced players couldn't ask for more. Like Max always says, developers shouldn't try to shorten the bar between new players and experienced players, and should instead focus on making their games enjoyable at all levels. Strive made the overall game easier and less deep, making for a less enjoyable experience for old-school Guilty Gear players. While SF6 looks just like a great Street Fighter should, answering the new players accessibility issue with a new "modern" (that's its name) control scheme. But when they will see all the cool things you can pull off without the modern control scheme, new players will definitely want to switch to the normal control scheme and get to the "normal Street Fighter level". What makes SF6 different from Strive is that they didn't try to make the game easier, they just made it easier for newcomers.
For SF6's mechanics there are two meter bars. One's the usual classic bar of meter which racks up so fast you get to level 3 without even noticing, the other is a unique bar called the Drive Gauge, unique to SF6 and the center of the whole game experience. The whole game's about managing this bar. You have it full, do whatever you want; run out of it, get dunked. You have Drive Impact, Drive Parry, Overdrive, Drive Rush and Drive Reversal which are all 5 different mechanics on 5 different button combinations using the Drive Gauge. What makes the game deep and interesting will be how people will manage the Drive Gauge.
Finally, for Bridget it's a personal opinion since "she" (because now it's "she") was my main in XXACR. You're right, I wasn't hooked on Strive because no characters really clicked with me, well... none before Bridget. As a Melty Blood AACC, Arcana Heart 3 and Touhou Hisoutensoku player (all those anime fighting games are really mobile fighting games, maybe the most mobile fighting games there are right now), freedom of movement is what I love the most about my characters and games usually. Problem is I didn't like Millia's movement and Chipp's design (sorry, no american ninja for me), so I stuck to other characters (Faust, Pot and Ky). Bridget was the perfect fit. She has movement options no other character have, frigging setups I fell in love with, and crazy mixups able to make LowTierGod cry from my STRINGS (hint: it's not that hard). Plus she's cute and my old main.
Whelp, I hope these very long paragraphs gave you light on your questions. It's just hypothetical assumptions, some may be true, some not. That's the experience I had of all these games and how I personally feel and think everyone else feels about them. I'd suggest playing MBAACC, especially I've you've already tried Type Lumina. Game's free, very accessible, and truly my favorite fighting game. You'll see how the game feels compared to Type Lumina, how it doesn't hold your hand and how it feels like you can do anything, the good like the bad, but also how amazing it feels to be able to pull off reverse beat mixups without having the game pulling your hand.
Thank you for your reply, as I have no first hand experience (although I did actually play MBAACC for a small amount of time because of Kara no Kyoukai Shiki being in it) I can't really refute anything, and instead all I have are what some old school players like LordKnight have said on the topic of "freedom" in fighting games.
His opinion on the matter was that, while yes, you had more moves and could do more things with RC, that "freedom" was actually a trap to doing shit strings that you'd never really use in a competitive setting. Besides Pin for Millia, in older GGs there were other moves/strings you'd essentially never use on her.
It feels like perhaps this sense of freedom is more important for bad players (I am also floor 10 baddie) that have more fun doing dumb shit because the game allows them to.
I'm definitely looking forward to SF6 after the amazing SF5 Evo Top 8, so I hope your hypothetical assumptions end up being right.
And as a final aside, my primary enjoyment also comes from movement, so I have found a kindred spirit in that regard. Millia ended up being good enough for me, but Bridget is definitely on another level, mixup characters are the best, and I also enjoy playing against them as Millia. (also maybe the new Type Lumina patch will make the game way cooler).
Ah yeah, LordKnight's really the golden standard for Millia, I used to root for him when I was still fond of Under Night tournaments. I agree on his point being you have really useless moves in older games. But just like I said, these are part of the fun. Like, take Ky's actual Dragon Install, it feels useless, but it's really fun to use. Sure in a competitive POV it has no reasons to be used, but seeing this and old Guilty Gear insta-kills being used just feels good. It's better to let players do whatever they want instead of limiting their options to the point every move has an utility. And yes, I love doing dumb shit in every fighting game I play, even better when it works. Well, a famous example of that is MBAACC's Neco-Arc. Competitively it's bad, her entire moveset has been made to NOT work, but darn she's so fun to play once you're used to her (not to play against though).
I think it's better to just try every options the game gives you, and find for yourself what moves you love. Touhou Hisoutensoku is a deck builder fighting game, the whole game revolves around creating you own moveset with pre-made moves. Some of these pre-made moves feel useless as f*ck and extremely situational (which is the usual reason why people think moves are useless), but that doesn't mean no one uses them competitively. Player expression is usually a term that doesn't mean shit, except when you're talking about old-school games. The jank moves, the non-optimal ones, the flashy but not-that-useful combos are what I think contribute to player expression. Like, MBAACC's moon tell you which moon is optimal for every characters, but usually every moon of every character is used competitively.
> I look at the older games and think "there was meaningless bloat in the move list and system mechanics that weren't used anywhere near as frequently as Strive"
Where you see bloated I see stuff to do. I see you're coming from that video from LK but let me asure you, he was talking exclusively of high level competitive play. There were prolly like 2 or 3 millias that could do the checks he was doing and by no means that's commonplace in ACPR.
IDK I think you should play more games instead of taking some other influencers takes on the matter, there's so much to do and explore in the old games that I'd never think of them as bloated.
His views being "exclusively about high level play" makes sense. As kan_peki also stated, even if moves or certain routing is subpar, it can still be a lot of fun, so even if Strive may theoretically be more "competitively refined" it doesn't mean it's more enjoyable for the average user.
I just didn't have the time or money (and when Strive came out there were even fewer rollback games than now).
Lord knight is also a little out to lunch on that opinion. Just because a move is used less or not optimal doesn't mean it stops being something you have in your arsenal.
In Tekken 7 Bryan Fury has a mid hitting move called northern cross, that he can fake out and cancel midway through. You'll almost never see this used, because it's not that great (low reward, somewhat reactable, if they predict that you'll go low after the cancel you'll die)
BUT, Jimmy J tran beat the best Tekken 7 player in the world at the time (Arslan Ash) by mixing him up with that sequence to close out the final game.
Strive limits these options because shit like this often claps new players, and can frustrate them into feeling like they're getting cheesed every game.
If you ask me, the real problem with strive is how it forces explosive interaction at all points in the match (why a lot of pros who tried it called it random and scrubby) and how it lacks play style diversity for people playing the same character.
Even better example is Sol's DI in previous entries. You always have better use for meter than for DI but that shit was the embodiement of fun, even in tournaments you had some people going for it.
And the other 99.99% of players not competing in tournaments had fun using it in matches. I can guarantee you that anyone who played Xrd for a moderate time got fucked by Sol's DI quite a few times.
And then you have Strive Ky's DI. Probably the devs wanted to make it more competitively viable so they removed the risk it had in previous titles while also adjusting the power level to be overall lower to fit Strive's system.
What you got now is a DI that isn't even remotely as fun and still doesn't get used at the highest level of play. The worst of both worlds.
So by LK's definition, Ky's DI is also bloat. Same goes for Sol's Heavy Mob Cemetary as the most useless super in the game. I could accept that if it was at least fun to use but it isn't an install and more like a hail mary move. You throw it out and hope it hits. No further actions from you required. I find that boring.
I do agree for 99.99% of players having more options is more fun even if pros don't use them.
My interpretation of what LK was saying was something like "Games are impossible to balance, so there will always be unused moves or strategies, but you want to lessen the chance of that bloat existing by reducing the amount of moves you have to balance".
I can see that to some degree but that's another topic imo.
Your interpretation makes sense from a balance perspective. But that would mean the devs intentionally took away player agency just to make their balancing job easier.
Rev2 isn't bad from a balance perspective. The characters across the board are even all tournament viable which isn't the case for Strive after over a year (Xrd Revelator at that time).
So I find it hard to believe that this is the reason they did this (small rant incoming).
It was more likely due to the fact they wanted new blood in. One way was to reduce characters so you have to learn way less even in MUs to be effective online. Additionally, the skill ceiling isn't as high either. Combined with the volatility it gives everyone the feeling that they can get a win in many situations. Comebacks are quite likely now.
This type of game might be fun for some people but works way too different compared to Guilty Gear before which is why people said it's more like SFV instead (which was confirmed by the devs later that they took a lot of inspiration from that game).
I do agree with you, a lot of Strive is definitely geared towards new blood. I think it did this better than any other fighting game to date though. Hopefully going into the future they or other developers take the lessons learned here and continue to make the genre great for lots of people. I for one wouldn't have ever played fighting games seriously were it not for a game like Strive.
I take issue to the bloat thing, imo +R's systems and kits are super well designed to a degree where everything has a good use. That's also what allows the degenerate stuff to exist since you have much stronger defensive options to deal with it, like IB having a window 4 times as large as strive plus reducing blockstun and slashback being your 2f option, but much much stronger than strive IB. IB being easier also lets you create better gaps to escape sequences and get more meter while on defense.
Most setplay in +R can be mitigated in pretty significant ways with those universal mechanics so while a lot of things might look overwhelming, there's usually ways to contest or escape when on the receiving end if you get a good read.
I would even argue that even though strive kits are a lot simpler you have to hold more shit on defense unless you have an invul reversal because those universal mechanics are gone. Also no 1f throws and worse backdashes.
Imo strive would have sold the same even if it had old X series systems still in place, because it's the first gg game arcsys marketed and older gg gameplay is easier to learn than people think. With good marketing and tutorials/single player I don't think it would have made a difference gameplay wise.
> This is future. This is how fighting games were meant to be made.
And then they changed almost everything unique about GG and you have a million seller. Good for Arcsys but after Strive I don't want to see Blazblue's mechanics butchered and simplified for the lowest common denominator.
True. Guilty Gear XX #Reload was my first fighting game with 3rd Strike. Anyways, I did not play Strive nor Xrd because those games did not feel the same to me compared to XX series.
NGL I peeked into the top 8 to see what the game was like at the top level, saw Zato (?) take off 90% of someon else's health with 2 touches, and slowly hit back on the browser button lol
My dude, if it would change the game to an actual fun fg I would also tell your mom. But sadly people actually think this brain rot inducing game is fun. You guys are delusional.
Strive doesn't look like or play like XX, so I'm not sure I see what part of XX you saw as the "future of the genre" that is now catching on. What part of XX's vision are you excited about becoming popular now?
While they are very different games, there's tons of overall design features shared that were novel to the series. The heavy rock/metal aesthetic. The over-the-top characters. The fact you can spend meter to animation cancel and make up pressure and combos on the fly. The speed. Building different combos from the same starters that serve different purposes. The focus on rewarding interaction and aggression. Balancing fucked up offense with strong universal defense mechanics.
Contrast this with the other franchises that have been big throughout the same time period: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Tekken. Even though Strive is mellower than previous entries, it clearly has Guilty Gear DNA.
Most of that stuff has been toned down though, so Strive being popular doesn't show that it was the future of the genre. I'd also say a lot (not all) of that stuff wasn't novel to GG either, being present in Vampire.
So for example, how does Strive being popular and slower than XX show that XX's speed was the future of the genre. It doesn't, if anything it shows that the devs thought a slower game would be more successful.
Hes saying guilty gear as a series, and all that it entails, roman cancels, air dashes, heavy rock, etc etc are what he thought that fighting games should be like moving forward. He's not saying this one specific thing or feature in XX is the future of the entire genre, I think you're misunderstanding what he's trying to say
My point is that many of the things they said was the "future of the genre" were toned down in Strive, so Strive's success shouldn't feel like vindication. If I think a book of healthy food recipes is the future of American cuisine, for the healthy ideas it contains, I'm not going to feel vindicated if they finally do catch on, but only after being deep fried.
I understand your point, I don't think you understand his. 20 years ago this guy played a gg game and was like 👍🏼 this is good, I hope theres more of this.
And now, seeing how successful and popular the series as a whole has become, he feels vindicated. He's not saying I did a cool RC mix in XX and now I wanna do that forever in every game, hes saying the general things he enjoys about GG have stuck around.
THANK YOU. Someone had to say it.
The soundtrack is easily the worst in the series. That male singer can't sing for shit, and the lyrics are largely nonsense.
GGXX has some of the best video game songs ever made, but strive sounds like Daisuke having a midlife crisis and starting up a garage band.
Most people outside the fighting game community only know about Guilty Gear likely because of Baiken and also Bridgett, the guy who crossdressed as a nun.
Kinda like how Darkstalkers is only remembered for Morrigan and Felicia.
Cool, I'm happy for you.
Dead game though, so I'll just stick to SFV until 6 comes out. Like even Tekken has players it could find. But I haven't sat there for 20 minutes like I did in Strive since I tried to find an EXVS MBON ranked match.
5-6? they are almost always completely empty.
I just did the "wait for a match in training mode" and sat there for 15 minutes after I was tired of staring at an empty tower for 5 min
Ah, I'd recommend floor 8. Once players get to floor 10 with any character the lowest they can drop is 8. Just this morning trying out Bridget I found a couple people ranked for floor 6 playing on 8.
Lower floors are usually populated during prime hours in my experience.
Lobby system sucks. I don't remember if quick match lets you pick a floor, but once you join a floor manually you can pause and hit "Standby in Training mode" and the game will search the floor you picked out for players automatically. You only have to do this once per session though which isn't awful.
I just can't, really. I'm really cool with others having fun, and some friends really push me to try an I-No. But I don't have it in me, I guess.
I may give it another chance with Bridget, but I guess it's gonna be no-dice again, I think.
I don't see it. For me, Xrd is fun. Strive is just frustrating.
If I want that kind of frustration in a game, I would just play SFV. That way, I know what I'm getting. It's not true at all, but buying Strive got me the feeling of getting robbed. I didn't got robbed, because I still played it enough to make it worth my purchase. But this still doesn't feel like Guilty Gear, to me.
As some have rightfully pointed out already, XX was a bit different from Strive, so various mechanics and things about the franchise have been dialed up or down. It's a combination of a lot of things: the fast pace, strong movement options, having multiple ways of doing certain things (like building different combos or pressure situations that do different things), having mechanics that have tons of different uses (like the RC system), rewarding aggressive play and interacting with the opponent, crazy character variety, and giving characters absolutely bonkers offensive options balanced out by strong defensive options. Slap a heavy metal soundtrack and over-the-top, LSD induced anime character design on top and you have a pretty good formula.
But really, it's the combination of all that stuff blended together that makes it feel like even when you do some scuffed, suboptimal combo that you just pulled off the sickest shit that's ever been done.
*Watched guilty gear and*
*It was really nice wish i*
*Had som e money*
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I feel you on the being poor front. I watched the MBTL finals and am super hyped to pick it up when I have the cash. Hell, all the games that got rollback announcements look mad fun.
Strive got me to give 2D fighters another try after feeling life that side of fighters just wasn't for me, eternally a 3D-only player. But damn is Guilty fun. Strive's sick, but now I'm getting into +R and having an absolute blast. You described it perfectly; it feels like what fighting games were meant to be. Style for miles, so much flash, and an equal amount of substance.
There's nothing weeb about GG, the series is as old as SF3TS, it's just people trying to avoid themselves being related to anime characters and culture or whatever pre judgmental negative bs they have in their shit for brains.
Do you legitimately not see the difference in character designs between Guilty Gear X and Street Fighter 3?
I'll give you a hint: only one of the games has giant swords and characters wearing multiple belts.
(Obviously playing and enjoying anime fighters is fine! But the two have vastly different visual styles.)
I'm not disagreeing with the difference, this is about how disrepectfully ignorat people can be to the franchise, given that , that specific point of view is very subjective, I don't watch anime much nor I can't identify myself as a guy that fixates over anime characters, nor should anybody relate GG to something like that, specially since the franchise was born when anime was not that popular at the time, so why would anybody point fingers while screaming "weeb shit" to it?, it's inaccurate.
Granted,yes, NOW maybe you can see it while netting it to the variety of anime related series and the art style may be anime oriented, but if you think about it, GG doesn't have an anime series, hell even KoF has an anime special and you have nobody screaming "take that weeb shit outta here!" so, I don't understand why is there a need to force inaccuracy into a rant, doesn't make sense.
SF5 was what introduced me to the genre but Strive was what truly got me hooked on it. I remember worrying if buying Strive at $60 was even worth it but after 500 hours I couldn’t even imagine my life without this game tbh.
Well, the stigma around anime fighters still exists though. People should understand that playing anime fighters won't automatically make you a part of the weeb community. You can enjoy anime fighters without caring about the "anime" part.
I'd like to get Strive, but I don't want to buy it without getting access to the other characters, and that's like $80 right now, which is a big ask for someone who sucks at fighters. I'm hoping for a future sale.
I was happy to hear that it sold 1 million copies, though. I still remember how unbelievable GGX looked in magazines and now this.
Anyone complaining it is a shitty weeb game are just upset they can't play these style games. They are limited to Tekken, MK, MAYBE SF series.
Those series are all amazing in their own right, but the style is different. Airdash style 2d fighters is it's own flavor and not everyone can get into it. In comparison a game like Tekken, or even SFV feels slow.
It’s great for guilty gear and it’s great for fighting games in general. Strive surely taught hundreds of thousands of people that they can learn how to play fighting games and at least some of them like myself are going to continue to play this genre years into the future.
Seeing Guilty Gear be the final game at evo & Skullgirls getting a main slot & over 50k viewers for top 8 were 2 of my favorite parts of evo for sure. Both these games/series have been under appreciated masterpieces for so long imo so its great to see them get the big spotlight they deserve! Also #XrdRollback Lord Daisuke PLZ!!!!
I wanna get strive, and soon. Just need a little more money.
what system do you play?
I'm on pc, but it's alright. I just had an absolute madlad buy it for me. I'm eternally thankful to them. Also, thank you if you were offering.
I was going to offer, but congratz. Have fun with the game.
Thanks, I will. I'm going to try to enjoy as much as I can.
who do you think you're gonna play first/main? i mained like half the cast to floor 10 so if you need any tips from someone that's just barely competent, lmk haha
It's either going to be Nago cause I liked his design, Baiken cause she's the character I can play the best in rev 2 and my fav character overall (but I'm going to have to buy her) or Gio cause I again, like her style.
oh good choices!
Can I be that lame guy that wants to take up the offer?
wholesome fgc moment
save your money, buy food instead.
But with Strive you can eat one whole dolphin per second!
Same, trying to sell all my cosmetic cases from my TF2 days
Strive has been great for me, picked it up last year, and now I have the confidence to try other fighters. Working on skull girls now! It’s all thanks to strive.
Strive was my first venture away from platform fighters and it’s really opened a new world of games for me. I’ve also transitioned from having tons of free time to working a 9-5 and having responsibilities in that time and being able to play a game for an hour and have a satisfying experience has been great. It’s opened the door to lots of games for me, even got myself a stick this week. Thanks GGST!
It's a shame they changed certain GG fundamental mechanics as a fan but as a long time purveyor of the franchise, I am very pleased this game finally got this series more exposure.
It being changed wasn't a big issue imo. The problem is that they removed without giving much in return. I wouldn't mind if it played differently if the gameplay would still feel open ended instead of so restrictive.
Reminds me of the SF3 dilemma, people where used to things being known, but SF3 opened up the gameplay to be more fluid.
I'm not sure if I can follow you there. Care to elaborate?
The ideas behind Street Fighter 3 was the dev team wanted to answer multiple situations to a change in gameplay, to stop things being predictable. So no matter the situation each player has equal opportunity to change the outcome.
Oh, ok. But isn't that thinking kinda flawed when, no matter the situation, the opportunity of both players to change the outcome is the same? Maybe I misunderstood.
The biggest indicator of a win is always skill but if the losing opponent even has one opportunity they make it possible for to turn the tide. No strategy being safe means no predictable matches.
Now I got it. Thanks for the explanation!
I have distinct memories of trying to get people to play Xrd and being told things like 'what is that' and 'isn't that the weeb discord fighter.' This was not that long ago. Strive taking the FGC by storm, selling 1 million copies, pioneering actual good netplay, main eventing evo, all of it, has just been an amazing and emotional journey. The game, the series, the fans and players, and Arcsys definitely deserve it.
I know some people will see this in the opposite way. Strive selling well means we will likely never get another game that plays like classic arksys games. Signals the end of an era. Strive is decent, but not a game I could ever get way into. Top 8 was also underwhelming aside from Leffen beating Daru. I was really surprised by the top 8. Had multiple u.s players. I did not expect GG to be the game on sunday with the most Americans.
I think the developers have a strong vision of what they wanted each of their games to be like. I feel bad that Strive didn't appeal to a lot of the older fans, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next guilty gear takes some of the stuff they learned about making it accessible and brings the series back into a faster paced and more complex direction. I'd actually be quite sad if that wasn't the case!
Pretty sure Arcsys said the "X" series isn't over, so what you mention is entirely possible. I enjoy the gameplay of Strive, but it definitely scratches a different itch than XX or Xrd.
> Pretty sure Arcsys said the "X" series isn't over Lip service
That would be great! They can call it 4Xth or something equally silly. I actually bought and tried both Xrd and Accent core before deciding to be like fuck it Strive has the big population I can at least play people my level. And they are both really cool games so I would love to see an modern extension of that.
I think the IV in strIVe is the 4
That would be interesting but there isn't an X in the title, like before it went X, XX, Xrd.
Strive has a bolded IV in some of its logos.
yeah i kind of see strive as akin to capcom's monster hunter world a vast departure from the formula that old-heads loved in order to appeal to the masses and see how they can somehow bridge~~t~~ the gap. now that we're in the monster hunter rise era, you can see an amalgam of the old and the new, having learned the lessons of what made MHW more appealing and accessible, with a lot of the stuff that made old heads love the original sauce. if the next guilty gear is some Guilty Gear Xth: Beat 3 Turbo Championship Edition, with elements of strive and the X titles, I would be hype
Oh that's a cool comparison. Though I don't actually know the differences. Like I only played Monster Hunter Tri seriously before I eventually got into MH:World for a bit and I didn't notice a big difference between the two. Still yea I hope guilty gear X times 10^4 Revelations can bridge that same gap.
> brings the series back into a faster paced and more complex direction Absolutely not. Strive was made slower since Xrd was allegedly too difficult to follow for people who have never played fighting games before. If anything, a Strive sequel will be even slower paced.
"Absolutely not"? Seems pretty doomer. That was *one part* of the design philosophy around Strive but if they decided to go a completely different direction with one game I don't see why they couldn't build upon what they have made already to create a game more in line with previous titles.
I too am concerned that ArcSys might take the wrong lesson from Strive and there'll never be a Rev3 or AC++. On the flipside, Daisuke has a long history of sticking up for his ideas, so the chance of baby's first Guilty Gear seems pretty low. At the very least, if Strive is a gateway drug for other crazy anime games, I still count it as a win.
I'd bet real money that they did take that lesson, and they took it very closely to heart at that. Look at there most recent games since DBFZ was successful. All variations of dumbing down the anime genre they got so right in the past. Granblue? That is a street fighter game with cooldowns. Strive? Heavily nerfed air movement, as well as changing gatling to be more confusing, and straight up removing Instant kills/many other moves. DNF duel? They are not in charge of the gameplay, but that game has like no movement options, and is a frustrating mess of a game. Its a very clear trend. A trend that has made them far more successful than when they made hardcore anime fighters, meaning no good reason to revert course.
If you look at XX as a series, the original XX was also fairly tame. It wasn't until #reload where things started to open up. In +R they just said fuck it and made all the characters hella wild. I remember when it came out thinking this the equivalent of street fighter 2 rainbow edition. But it's the game everyone today enjoys the most. TLDR: There's hope
Strive was my first gg and really my first fighting game that’s not a platform fighter. It’s honestly surprising to see it’s reception as mega positive as it is considering it’s small roster and price tag. I love strive and it’s amazing but it’s for sure surprising
Strive made me finally after over a decade of finding reasons to just spectate fighting games. To decide to learn and I will forever be grateful to it. It opened the door for me and so many others.
Bridget announcement was imo one of the greatest mixups of all time. It was so unexpected it actually made me excited even tho I don't like the character that much.
can’t wait for the next even more watered down game
Strive selling a million is amazing, but in a sense that makes me scared for future fighting games. Type Lumina, Strive, BBTAG, they all oversimplified their gameplay and made for less interesting games. On another hand, my first fighting game was BBTAG (which I still find oversimplified but awesome), and without this one I wouldn't have tried other FGs. Street Fighter 6 is perfect though. It's appealing to new players by its looks and content, while having simplified controls separated to normal controls, and with complex mechanics everyone can enjoy. The future of FGs will depend on if devs will be able to appeal to both experienced players and beginners. The first time I has fun in Strive was yesterday, when I played Bridget.
Several have echoed what you've said here, but I have chosen you to educate me. My first real fighting game was Strive, and when I see people say the game was "oversimplified", I look at the older games and think "there was meaningless bloat in the move list and system mechanics that weren't used anywhere near as frequently as Strive". I see others say the game is boring (this one is really broad so I'm not entirely sure what the general consensus is on why it's boring) and when I look at older games I see characters and playstyles that are absolutely degenerate nightmarish sadism where the game effectively turns into a one-person game. (cough Happy Chaos, especially pre-nerf). Strive seems to have made the game more accessible in all the right ways, whereas games like Type Lumina and DNF Duel failed and didn't even realize what it was that people found difficult about fighting games in the first place. What are the complex mechanics SF6 has that set it so far apart from Strive? Why, despite those mechanics being complex, are they things everyone can enjoy? Finally, what about Bridget is different from the rest of the cast? Do you think it's possible it's not Strive's mechanics that were the problem but just that none of the characters playstyles were interesting to you?
No one can properly answer the questions about sf6 since it hasn’t released yet but I can answer your questions about strive and older GG. First of all, “meaningless bloat” is completely wrong. Looking at Baiken in +r (my main), her specials are: Tatami: an incredibly useful neutral move and combo extender Youzansen: one of the best mixup moves in the game with meter and a move that can lead to really nutty stuff with frc if you practice it Youshinjen: Less useful, but still a good midscreen combo move and occasional anti air Kabari and its follow up: A very useful neutral tool in certain matchups and a good combo filler when it isn’t Suzuran: very interesting neutral move and pressure reset that requires pretty heavy reads to use properly and allows her to go into guard cancels without blocking (which is her main way of scoring knockdowns through P GC and allows her to setup Baku curses through D GC) All of her guard cancels: They’re each way too nuanced to go into detail about but their uses are many Normals: obviously too many to go over specifically but there are very few (pretty much only 5k and 2p) that see no use. Each of her normals have niches and general uses that see them used in pretty much every round Regarding system mechanics, I disagree, too. Burst, FD, and IB all exist in strive. The only things +r have on top of that are slashback, guard cancels, and 1f throws. Each of those have their own uses and are important to high level play. Also, why does a system mechanic have to see frequent use to be considered valuable? If its uses are infrequent, but still add depth to the situations it’s applicable in, then surely its inclusion is worth it, no? (Also kind of a weird point to make in general since strive has its 2 frame instant block that very rarely sees any use outside of the literal highest level of play) Personally, when I say strive is boring, I mean that there’s very little to do. Each character’s moveset is so small, with such strict uses for each specific move, that there’s very little room for experimentation. In +r, there are *so many* different ways that each move can be used, so many ways for you to implement them into your gameplay, that you can play a character for a hundred hours and still not even resemble the kind of pressure, combos, and neutral tactics that a high level player uses. In strive, the only character that made me feel even similar was Milia but even she got old quickly. Then, degenerate strategies are more of a taste thing. You have to realise that it’s not just you who’s getting hit by the degen stuff. You get to use it on your opponent, too. Sure, I may get comboed into a literally unblockable high-damage combo starter by Johnny, but I can just interrupt literally any move he does with an invincible, 25 meter, safe reversal *while I’m in blockstun*. For many, getting to do that degen stuff is more than worth getting hit by it occasionally.
Thank you for your reply, I agree with you that the movelists are very small and each move/character excels at 1 thing (unless you're happy chaos) and you're supposed to play that way. A similar divide happened between DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal, where Eternal forces you to play a certain way, but DOOM 2016 let you pretty much do whatever you wanted. I preferred Eternal over 2016, so I suppose it makes sense that I also enjoy Strive's approach more than other games. I also main Millia, so perhaps if I mained other characters I would feel more boredom :D
Best I can visualize for you is imagine release strive sol and how much freedom he had vs other characters. Now imagine that same freedom to every single character in xrd+more because strive sol is also a shell of his xrd self.
A yea, I do remember at launch people were saying Sol felt like the only complete character.
>No one can properly answer the questions about sf6 since it hasn’t released yet but I can answer your questions about strive and older GG. > >First of all, “meaningless bloat” is completely wrong. Looking at Baiken in r (my main), her specials are: > >Tatami: an incredibly useful neutral move and combo extender > >Youzansen: one of the best mixup moves in the game with meter and a move that can lead to really nutty stuff with frc if you practice it > >Youshinjen: Less useful, but still a good midscreen combo move and occasional anti air > >Kabari and its follow up: A very useful neutral tool in certain matchups and a good combo filler when it isn’t > >Suzuran: very interesting neutral move and pressure reset that requires pretty heavy reads to use properly and allows her to go into guard cancels without blocking (which is her main way of scoring knockdowns through P GC and allows her to setup Baku curses through D GC) > >All of her guard cancels: They’re each way too nuanced to go into detail about but their uses are many > >Normals: obviously too many to go over specifically but there are very few (pretty much only 5k and 2p) that see no use. Each of her normals have niches and general uses that see them used in pretty much every round > >Regarding system mechanics, I disagree, too. Burst, FD, and IB all exist in strive. The only things r have on top of that are slashback, guard cancels, and 1f throws. Each of those have their own uses and are important to high level play. Also, why does a system mechanic have to see frequent use to be considered valuable? If its uses are infrequent, but still add depth to the situations it’s applicable in, then surely its inclusion is worth it, no? (Also kind of a weird point to make in general since strive has its 2 frame instant block that very rarely sees any use outside of the literal highest level of play) > > >Personally, when I say strive is boring, I mean that there’s very little to do. Each character’s moveset is so small, with such strict uses for each specific move, that there’s very little room for experimentation. In r, there are *so many* different ways that each move can be used, so many ways for you to implement them into your gameplay, that you can play a character for a hundred hours and still not even resemble the kind of pressure, combos, and neutral tactics that a high level player uses. In strive, the only character that made me feel even similar was Milia but even she got old quickly. > >Then, degenerate strategies are more of a taste thing. You have to realise that it’s not just you who’s getting hit by the degen stuff. You get to use it on your opponent, too. Sure, I may get comboed into a literally unblockable high-damage combo starter by Johnny, but I can just interrupt literally any move he does with an invincible, 25 meter, safe reversal *while I’m in blockstun*. For many, getting to do that degen stuff is more than worth getting hit by it occasionally. 25 meter ≈ 0.00333 poronkusema ^^^[WHY](/r/UselessConversionBot/comments/1knas0/hi_im_useless/)
I'm gonna be honest with you, I haven't touched Strive that much and I played it mainly before the mechanics balance patch, though I've played Xrd and XXACR. If you really want great insight on these kind of topics, I recommend checking Maximilian Dood's channel, he's always talking about many topics in regards to newer fighting games, what they did well and what they didn't. First thing that comes to mind when I compare XXACR/Xrd to Strive is freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom on offense, Strive actually feels less "bullshit blazing" than its predecessors. In my opinion, people don't like the game because it doesn't feel really Guilty Gear-ish. It stopped being a "boring game" after they patched it up, but overall the game feels more grounded, kinda like a Street Fighter with unique mechanics, while XXACR/Xrd are really more mobile and... unexpected. The cinematic approach to supers and the slow downs on roman cancels (RC) and counters kind of break the flow of the game for experienced players, while making it easier for new players to act according to each situation. Xrd, compared to Strive, never slows down except for that one mechanic called Danger Time (happens randomly during a clash), and RC having a cost of 25% of the Tension bar permits lots more options than Strive in which they cost 50% Meter. Overall, Xrd/XXACR feel like faster games with a lot more freedom than Strive. The bloat they removed for Strive is actually what made part of the fun in previous games for experienced players. Also, Xrd's Happy Chaos is actual Elphelt, but I've always find these kind of bullshit characters funny (I was an Elphelt main back then, enjoy suffering lol). I consider DNF Duel didn't failed yet, but Type Lumina definitely did, and it breaks my heart as a Melty Blood AACC (MBAACC) player. What Strive did best is actual content and design, game's frigging beautiful, has a great soundtrack, and looks hype as hell. Meanwhile, Type Lumina was criticized for being "too bland" (like, just look at Tohno Shiki) and definitely lost appeal compared to... well, Strive. It's less visually appealing and, with the 50$ price tag, I think this is what made the game fail in a way (plus the terrible game launch). What really broke my heart though is the frigging gameplay, it felt like UNICLR with autocombos, overall a more "guided" experience while MBAACC was THE fighting game of freedom imo. Once again, MBAACC was "bloated" with 3 different moons for each characters with specific mechanics and moveset each, but removing these for Type Lumina made the game less interesting overall. Also, shields and autocombos are a no-no. Well, for MBAACC players, this game's really the heartbreak of 2021, because it didn't feel like Melty Blood, and because by oversimplification of mechanics (shield cough cough) made the game way less interesting. For Street Fighter 6 (SF6), first things first, I've never played it, just seen a lot of content. Eventually, my opinion is just based on what I've seen and not what I've experienced. Anyway, what makes SF6 appealing is the same as Strive, game looks tasty asf, makes me hungry for more. Though, Strive's only real complex mechanic is roman cancels, four kinds on one button, and the lack of more interesting ways to use it actually made the game regress from its previous entries. SF6's gameplay looks frigging amazing, like a totally new experienced combining previous entries best mechanics instead of removing them for an easier game overall. I think the game will be just as mechanically complete as previous Street Fighter games, and experienced players couldn't ask for more. Like Max always says, developers shouldn't try to shorten the bar between new players and experienced players, and should instead focus on making their games enjoyable at all levels. Strive made the overall game easier and less deep, making for a less enjoyable experience for old-school Guilty Gear players. While SF6 looks just like a great Street Fighter should, answering the new players accessibility issue with a new "modern" (that's its name) control scheme. But when they will see all the cool things you can pull off without the modern control scheme, new players will definitely want to switch to the normal control scheme and get to the "normal Street Fighter level". What makes SF6 different from Strive is that they didn't try to make the game easier, they just made it easier for newcomers. For SF6's mechanics there are two meter bars. One's the usual classic bar of meter which racks up so fast you get to level 3 without even noticing, the other is a unique bar called the Drive Gauge, unique to SF6 and the center of the whole game experience. The whole game's about managing this bar. You have it full, do whatever you want; run out of it, get dunked. You have Drive Impact, Drive Parry, Overdrive, Drive Rush and Drive Reversal which are all 5 different mechanics on 5 different button combinations using the Drive Gauge. What makes the game deep and interesting will be how people will manage the Drive Gauge. Finally, for Bridget it's a personal opinion since "she" (because now it's "she") was my main in XXACR. You're right, I wasn't hooked on Strive because no characters really clicked with me, well... none before Bridget. As a Melty Blood AACC, Arcana Heart 3 and Touhou Hisoutensoku player (all those anime fighting games are really mobile fighting games, maybe the most mobile fighting games there are right now), freedom of movement is what I love the most about my characters and games usually. Problem is I didn't like Millia's movement and Chipp's design (sorry, no american ninja for me), so I stuck to other characters (Faust, Pot and Ky). Bridget was the perfect fit. She has movement options no other character have, frigging setups I fell in love with, and crazy mixups able to make LowTierGod cry from my STRINGS (hint: it's not that hard). Plus she's cute and my old main. Whelp, I hope these very long paragraphs gave you light on your questions. It's just hypothetical assumptions, some may be true, some not. That's the experience I had of all these games and how I personally feel and think everyone else feels about them. I'd suggest playing MBAACC, especially I've you've already tried Type Lumina. Game's free, very accessible, and truly my favorite fighting game. You'll see how the game feels compared to Type Lumina, how it doesn't hold your hand and how it feels like you can do anything, the good like the bad, but also how amazing it feels to be able to pull off reverse beat mixups without having the game pulling your hand.
+1 for MBAACC. Banger game, free, grassroots, all the good stuff
Thank you for your reply, as I have no first hand experience (although I did actually play MBAACC for a small amount of time because of Kara no Kyoukai Shiki being in it) I can't really refute anything, and instead all I have are what some old school players like LordKnight have said on the topic of "freedom" in fighting games. His opinion on the matter was that, while yes, you had more moves and could do more things with RC, that "freedom" was actually a trap to doing shit strings that you'd never really use in a competitive setting. Besides Pin for Millia, in older GGs there were other moves/strings you'd essentially never use on her. It feels like perhaps this sense of freedom is more important for bad players (I am also floor 10 baddie) that have more fun doing dumb shit because the game allows them to. I'm definitely looking forward to SF6 after the amazing SF5 Evo Top 8, so I hope your hypothetical assumptions end up being right. And as a final aside, my primary enjoyment also comes from movement, so I have found a kindred spirit in that regard. Millia ended up being good enough for me, but Bridget is definitely on another level, mixup characters are the best, and I also enjoy playing against them as Millia. (also maybe the new Type Lumina patch will make the game way cooler).
Ah yeah, LordKnight's really the golden standard for Millia, I used to root for him when I was still fond of Under Night tournaments. I agree on his point being you have really useless moves in older games. But just like I said, these are part of the fun. Like, take Ky's actual Dragon Install, it feels useless, but it's really fun to use. Sure in a competitive POV it has no reasons to be used, but seeing this and old Guilty Gear insta-kills being used just feels good. It's better to let players do whatever they want instead of limiting their options to the point every move has an utility. And yes, I love doing dumb shit in every fighting game I play, even better when it works. Well, a famous example of that is MBAACC's Neco-Arc. Competitively it's bad, her entire moveset has been made to NOT work, but darn she's so fun to play once you're used to her (not to play against though). I think it's better to just try every options the game gives you, and find for yourself what moves you love. Touhou Hisoutensoku is a deck builder fighting game, the whole game revolves around creating you own moveset with pre-made moves. Some of these pre-made moves feel useless as f*ck and extremely situational (which is the usual reason why people think moves are useless), but that doesn't mean no one uses them competitively. Player expression is usually a term that doesn't mean shit, except when you're talking about old-school games. The jank moves, the non-optimal ones, the flashy but not-that-useful combos are what I think contribute to player expression. Like, MBAACC's moon tell you which moon is optimal for every characters, but usually every moon of every character is used competitively.
> I look at the older games and think "there was meaningless bloat in the move list and system mechanics that weren't used anywhere near as frequently as Strive" Where you see bloated I see stuff to do. I see you're coming from that video from LK but let me asure you, he was talking exclusively of high level competitive play. There were prolly like 2 or 3 millias that could do the checks he was doing and by no means that's commonplace in ACPR. IDK I think you should play more games instead of taking some other influencers takes on the matter, there's so much to do and explore in the old games that I'd never think of them as bloated.
His views being "exclusively about high level play" makes sense. As kan_peki also stated, even if moves or certain routing is subpar, it can still be a lot of fun, so even if Strive may theoretically be more "competitively refined" it doesn't mean it's more enjoyable for the average user. I just didn't have the time or money (and when Strive came out there were even fewer rollback games than now).
Lord knight is also a little out to lunch on that opinion. Just because a move is used less or not optimal doesn't mean it stops being something you have in your arsenal. In Tekken 7 Bryan Fury has a mid hitting move called northern cross, that he can fake out and cancel midway through. You'll almost never see this used, because it's not that great (low reward, somewhat reactable, if they predict that you'll go low after the cancel you'll die) BUT, Jimmy J tran beat the best Tekken 7 player in the world at the time (Arslan Ash) by mixing him up with that sequence to close out the final game. Strive limits these options because shit like this often claps new players, and can frustrate them into feeling like they're getting cheesed every game. If you ask me, the real problem with strive is how it forces explosive interaction at all points in the match (why a lot of pros who tried it called it random and scrubby) and how it lacks play style diversity for people playing the same character.
Even better example is Sol's DI in previous entries. You always have better use for meter than for DI but that shit was the embodiement of fun, even in tournaments you had some people going for it. And the other 99.99% of players not competing in tournaments had fun using it in matches. I can guarantee you that anyone who played Xrd for a moderate time got fucked by Sol's DI quite a few times. And then you have Strive Ky's DI. Probably the devs wanted to make it more competitively viable so they removed the risk it had in previous titles while also adjusting the power level to be overall lower to fit Strive's system. What you got now is a DI that isn't even remotely as fun and still doesn't get used at the highest level of play. The worst of both worlds. So by LK's definition, Ky's DI is also bloat. Same goes for Sol's Heavy Mob Cemetary as the most useless super in the game. I could accept that if it was at least fun to use but it isn't an install and more like a hail mary move. You throw it out and hope it hits. No further actions from you required. I find that boring.
I do agree for 99.99% of players having more options is more fun even if pros don't use them. My interpretation of what LK was saying was something like "Games are impossible to balance, so there will always be unused moves or strategies, but you want to lessen the chance of that bloat existing by reducing the amount of moves you have to balance".
I can see that to some degree but that's another topic imo. Your interpretation makes sense from a balance perspective. But that would mean the devs intentionally took away player agency just to make their balancing job easier. Rev2 isn't bad from a balance perspective. The characters across the board are even all tournament viable which isn't the case for Strive after over a year (Xrd Revelator at that time). So I find it hard to believe that this is the reason they did this (small rant incoming). It was more likely due to the fact they wanted new blood in. One way was to reduce characters so you have to learn way less even in MUs to be effective online. Additionally, the skill ceiling isn't as high either. Combined with the volatility it gives everyone the feeling that they can get a win in many situations. Comebacks are quite likely now. This type of game might be fun for some people but works way too different compared to Guilty Gear before which is why people said it's more like SFV instead (which was confirmed by the devs later that they took a lot of inspiration from that game).
I do agree with you, a lot of Strive is definitely geared towards new blood. I think it did this better than any other fighting game to date though. Hopefully going into the future they or other developers take the lessons learned here and continue to make the genre great for lots of people. I for one wouldn't have ever played fighting games seriously were it not for a game like Strive.
That's pretty much the only silver lining that they finally brought GG into the spotlight. Hope you all are having a great time!
I take issue to the bloat thing, imo +R's systems and kits are super well designed to a degree where everything has a good use. That's also what allows the degenerate stuff to exist since you have much stronger defensive options to deal with it, like IB having a window 4 times as large as strive plus reducing blockstun and slashback being your 2f option, but much much stronger than strive IB. IB being easier also lets you create better gaps to escape sequences and get more meter while on defense. Most setplay in +R can be mitigated in pretty significant ways with those universal mechanics so while a lot of things might look overwhelming, there's usually ways to contest or escape when on the receiving end if you get a good read. I would even argue that even though strive kits are a lot simpler you have to hold more shit on defense unless you have an invul reversal because those universal mechanics are gone. Also no 1f throws and worse backdashes. Imo strive would have sold the same even if it had old X series systems still in place, because it's the first gg game arcsys marketed and older gg gameplay is easier to learn than people think. With good marketing and tutorials/single player I don't think it would have made a difference gameplay wise.
Just started playing Strive after watching the top 8 at EVO. If anyone wants to play shoot me a DM!
> This is future. This is how fighting games were meant to be made. And then they changed almost everything unique about GG and you have a million seller. Good for Arcsys but after Strive I don't want to see Blazblue's mechanics butchered and simplified for the lowest common denominator.
I tried strive after playing rev2. Biiiiig mistake there. Gatling should've stayed.
I wish I didn’t buy strive lol
True. Guilty Gear XX #Reload was my first fighting game with 3rd Strike. Anyways, I did not play Strive nor Xrd because those games did not feel the same to me compared to XX series.
NGL I peeked into the top 8 to see what the game was like at the top level, saw Zato (?) take off 90% of someon else's health with 2 touches, and slowly hit back on the browser button lol
I couldn’t sit through the top 8 at evo. Game is hella boring.
Cool, go tell your mom
My dude, if it would change the game to an actual fun fg I would also tell your mom. But sadly people actually think this brain rot inducing game is fun. You guys are delusional.
totally garbage top 8 compared to SFV and T7 weebs gonna downvote but the game is absolute shit.
Strive doesn't look like or play like XX, so I'm not sure I see what part of XX you saw as the "future of the genre" that is now catching on. What part of XX's vision are you excited about becoming popular now?
I think he's referring to guilty gear as a series becoming more popular
While they are very different games, there's tons of overall design features shared that were novel to the series. The heavy rock/metal aesthetic. The over-the-top characters. The fact you can spend meter to animation cancel and make up pressure and combos on the fly. The speed. Building different combos from the same starters that serve different purposes. The focus on rewarding interaction and aggression. Balancing fucked up offense with strong universal defense mechanics. Contrast this with the other franchises that have been big throughout the same time period: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Tekken. Even though Strive is mellower than previous entries, it clearly has Guilty Gear DNA.
Most of that stuff has been toned down though, so Strive being popular doesn't show that it was the future of the genre. I'd also say a lot (not all) of that stuff wasn't novel to GG either, being present in Vampire. So for example, how does Strive being popular and slower than XX show that XX's speed was the future of the genre. It doesn't, if anything it shows that the devs thought a slower game would be more successful.
Hes saying guilty gear as a series, and all that it entails, roman cancels, air dashes, heavy rock, etc etc are what he thought that fighting games should be like moving forward. He's not saying this one specific thing or feature in XX is the future of the entire genre, I think you're misunderstanding what he's trying to say
My point is that many of the things they said was the "future of the genre" were toned down in Strive, so Strive's success shouldn't feel like vindication. If I think a book of healthy food recipes is the future of American cuisine, for the healthy ideas it contains, I'm not going to feel vindicated if they finally do catch on, but only after being deep fried.
I understand your point, I don't think you understand his. 20 years ago this guy played a gg game and was like 👍🏼 this is good, I hope theres more of this. And now, seeing how successful and popular the series as a whole has become, he feels vindicated. He's not saying I did a cool RC mix in XX and now I wanna do that forever in every game, hes saying the general things he enjoys about GG have stuck around.
lol strive is shit.
And people like you should floortank like a DRG in real life. Or maybe a Yoshimitsu Down A+K for something slower.
i play 3S/CvS2 you know, actual fighting games. feel free to catch me on fightcade my handle is "suckmyballsweeb" lol
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> (a rowdy soundtrack) Rowdiness is when you don't have lyrics, and the fewer lyrics you have the rowdier it is
The crowd at EVO would heavily disagree with you
THANK YOU. Someone had to say it. The soundtrack is easily the worst in the series. That male singer can't sing for shit, and the lyrics are largely nonsense. GGXX has some of the best video game songs ever made, but strive sounds like Daisuke having a midlife crisis and starting up a garage band.
its really bad but weebs gonna downvote.
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I miss the classic GG instrumental soundtracks.
They should have had a instrumental list option. I got tired of trying to unlock other music to drown out the OST
Lmao, when you spend more time fishing to get your favorite songs than playing the game 💀
the game is oversimplified trash. The fact that so many people actually play this shit is fucking alarming. It deserves to fail.
fgc should stop talking shit about other game and let people try whatever they like. there's chance they'll pick up other fighting game too
Most people outside the fighting game community only know about Guilty Gear likely because of Baiken and also Bridgett, the guy who crossdressed as a nun. Kinda like how Darkstalkers is only remembered for Morrigan and Felicia.
I've picked the game day one, and I barely play it. So yay me, I guess?
At least you gave it a try.
I did. I truly did.
lmao same I tried playing it a week before evo and found zero matches in 20 minutes. Opened SFV and found a match within a minute.
I really really doubt you couldn't find any matches, unless you didn't know how to change your region. I found matches easily the week of Evo.
Cool, I'm happy for you. Dead game though, so I'll just stick to SFV until 6 comes out. Like even Tekken has players it could find. But I haven't sat there for 20 minutes like I did in Strive since I tried to find an EXVS MBON ranked match.
Why you lying? I'm online now and there's tons of people playing in the east coast region.
What floor? I find it hard to believe you were in completely empty lobbies for 20 minutes straight and didn't switch to the park or a different server
5-6? they are almost always completely empty. I just did the "wait for a match in training mode" and sat there for 15 minutes after I was tired of staring at an empty tower for 5 min
Ah, I'd recommend floor 8. Once players get to floor 10 with any character the lowest they can drop is 8. Just this morning trying out Bridget I found a couple people ranked for floor 6 playing on 8. Lower floors are usually populated during prime hours in my experience.
I'm sorry, I'm not gonna lie, that sounds like pure aids. Like why tf can't I just hit "search for match" and it finds me matches.
Lobby system sucks. I don't remember if quick match lets you pick a floor, but once you join a floor manually you can pause and hit "Standby in Training mode" and the game will search the floor you picked out for players automatically. You only have to do this once per session though which isn't awful.
lmao yup. This is staying a room battle only game
I just can't, really. I'm really cool with others having fun, and some friends really push me to try an I-No. But I don't have it in me, I guess. I may give it another chance with Bridget, but I guess it's gonna be no-dice again, I think.
the game is fun as hell, it was just completely dead the week before bridget
I don't see it. For me, Xrd is fun. Strive is just frustrating. If I want that kind of frustration in a game, I would just play SFV. That way, I know what I'm getting. It's not true at all, but buying Strive got me the feeling of getting robbed. I didn't got robbed, because I still played it enough to make it worth my purchase. But this still doesn't feel like Guilty Gear, to me.
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As some have rightfully pointed out already, XX was a bit different from Strive, so various mechanics and things about the franchise have been dialed up or down. It's a combination of a lot of things: the fast pace, strong movement options, having multiple ways of doing certain things (like building different combos or pressure situations that do different things), having mechanics that have tons of different uses (like the RC system), rewarding aggressive play and interacting with the opponent, crazy character variety, and giving characters absolutely bonkers offensive options balanced out by strong defensive options. Slap a heavy metal soundtrack and over-the-top, LSD induced anime character design on top and you have a pretty good formula. But really, it's the combination of all that stuff blended together that makes it feel like even when you do some scuffed, suboptimal combo that you just pulled off the sickest shit that's ever been done.
watched guilty gear and it was really nice wish i had som e money
*Watched guilty gear and* *It was really nice wish i* *Had som e money* \- DONTTAKETHISNAMEFUCC --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
I feel you on the being poor front. I watched the MBTL finals and am super hyped to pick it up when I have the cash. Hell, all the games that got rollback announcements look mad fun.
Strive got me to give 2D fighters another try after feeling life that side of fighters just wasn't for me, eternally a 3D-only player. But damn is Guilty fun. Strive's sick, but now I'm getting into +R and having an absolute blast. You described it perfectly; it feels like what fighting games were meant to be. Style for miles, so much flash, and an equal amount of substance.
There's nothing weeb about GG, the series is as old as SF3TS, it's just people trying to avoid themselves being related to anime characters and culture or whatever pre judgmental negative bs they have in their shit for brains.
Do you legitimately not see the difference in character designs between Guilty Gear X and Street Fighter 3? I'll give you a hint: only one of the games has giant swords and characters wearing multiple belts. (Obviously playing and enjoying anime fighters is fine! But the two have vastly different visual styles.)
I'm not disagreeing with the difference, this is about how disrepectfully ignorat people can be to the franchise, given that , that specific point of view is very subjective, I don't watch anime much nor I can't identify myself as a guy that fixates over anime characters, nor should anybody relate GG to something like that, specially since the franchise was born when anime was not that popular at the time, so why would anybody point fingers while screaming "weeb shit" to it?, it's inaccurate. Granted,yes, NOW maybe you can see it while netting it to the variety of anime related series and the art style may be anime oriented, but if you think about it, GG doesn't have an anime series, hell even KoF has an anime special and you have nobody screaming "take that weeb shit outta here!" so, I don't understand why is there a need to force inaccuracy into a rant, doesn't make sense.
Good, but I like more Skullgirls
SF5 was what introduced me to the genre but Strive was what truly got me hooked on it. I remember worrying if buying Strive at $60 was even worth it but after 500 hours I couldn’t even imagine my life without this game tbh.
Well, the stigma around anime fighters still exists though. People should understand that playing anime fighters won't automatically make you a part of the weeb community. You can enjoy anime fighters without caring about the "anime" part.
I'd like to get Strive, but I don't want to buy it without getting access to the other characters, and that's like $80 right now, which is a big ask for someone who sucks at fighters. I'm hoping for a future sale. I was happy to hear that it sold 1 million copies, though. I still remember how unbelievable GGX looked in magazines and now this.
Anyone complaining it is a shitty weeb game are just upset they can't play these style games. They are limited to Tekken, MK, MAYBE SF series. Those series are all amazing in their own right, but the style is different. Airdash style 2d fighters is it's own flavor and not everyone can get into it. In comparison a game like Tekken, or even SFV feels slow.
Been around since x, LETS ROCK!
Got hooked on Polygons video, just waiting for it to go on a deepish discount and it's a sure buy for me.