Home | News | Reviews | Previews | Hardware
Guilty Gear X
Score: 89%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: Sammy Entertainment
Developer: Arc System Works
Media: CD/1
Players: 2
Genre: Fighting

Graphics & Sound:
Anyone who has followed (and laughed) at the fanboy wars taking place in internet chat rooms and forums may remember that around this time last year, the Anti-PS2 group argued that Sony's black box couldn't handle 2D games. Nonbelievers - feast your eyes on Guilty Gear X! One glance of GGX's high-resolution 2D sprites will immediately send gamer's heads spinning with visions of high-res remakes of 2D classics. Castlevania? Mega Man? It's enough to make an old school gamer cry.

Each of the 16 combatants (14 'default', 2 unlockable) are beautifully drawn and fluidly animated. Each has a very distinct design to them that, to me, looked like something right out of Outlaw Star. The only real downside is that the backgrounds, at times, are a little too bright and can become annoying to look at. The best way to sum everything up is in the words of one of my friends after she saw the game for the first time, 'It looks like a real cartoon.'

Sound is definitely 'love-it or leave-it'. Personally, I loved the cheesy 80's metal sounding tracks, but hated the garbled announcer. It also annoyed me was that the music seemed like it was recorded louder that the other sounds, making them sound muffled.


Gameplay:
GGX, has a definite Samurai Showdown feel to it. If you've played a fighting game, you know how it works. It's easy enough to pick up and play, but the difficult moves will take patience to master - if you can at all. In addition to the requisite punches, kicks and special moves, GGX brings a few new toys to the party. The first of which is the Tension Gauge, which fills up faster the more aggressive you are to your opponent. Why should you care? Because filling up the gauge will allow you to unleash your Overdrive moves - which can quickly change the tide of battle if done correctly. In addition to these moves, you can also perform devastating one-hit kill moves - but before you yell Cheap!, keep in mind that they take time to perform and you will see them coming.

Combos and counters are the rule in GGX, and knowing how to break your opponent's combos will mean life or death. At your disposal are dust attacks, gattling combos, Roman Cancels, and recovery moves. All of these help to add a new dimension to the combat system's depth and will take even battle-hardened fighting game veterans time to master.

In addition to normal one-on-one matches, GGX also offers a fully adjustable Training mode to help you practice moves and combos in just about any situation. It also includes a Survival mode in which you pick one character and fight through an onslaught of one-on-one battles, slowly increasing your abilities - it's tough, but it's also the best way to learn the game.

While the combat system does have a bit of depth, the rest of the game is pretty shallow. It would have been nice to have more unlockables and not just the two characters - but hey, half the fun is playing with a friend anyway, right?


Difficulty:
GGX's difficulty hinges on how quickly you and your human opponents learn the combos, counters and moves. If you try to jump right in and 'button mash' - regardless of which of the five difficulty levels you choose, the computer will eventually eat you alive. Plan to spend a lot of time in Training mode.

Game Mechanics:
As with any fighting game, the controls have to be laid out in a logical manner and above all - be responsive. Thankfully, Guilty Gear X fits the bill perfectly. Every button is in just the right spot, which not only makes combos easier to string along, but also the dual and quad-button press moves. Everything had a very tight feel to it, and felt right. While the D-pad will never be as good as the arcade stick - it still worked.

Although the gameplay may be lacking, and some of the moves difficult to pull off, 2D fighting fans should definily run out and pick up Guilty Gear X.


-Starscream, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ricky Tucker

This site best viewed in Internet Explorer 6 or higher or Firefox.