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Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Gave the Strive soundtrack a listen and it's actually great. Tons of experimentation and stylistic diversity in the compositions, and the vocals especially sell the goofy sincerity of the performances and sometimes land on something genuinely emotional. Incredibly long tracks with minutes of development which I don't know how will fit into a fighting game context, but as a set of tracks they're really fun.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Posting again because I just keep listening to this soundtrack. It's really amazing what they accomplished here--every single song comes off as virtually the respective character's treatise on life, or serves as their sentimental epitaph. I'm not so deep in the series narrative that I could say whether it's ramping up to any kind of climax in actuality, but the songs on their own are extremely cathartic to listen to, and have single-handedly made me care about characters I'd previously given little thought to or thought I had pegged. I haven't felt this energized and excited about Guilty Gear music since I was like fifteen, and Strive is doing it by actually evolving the sound and taking risks with it.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
I listened to it front to back a few times today while playing other stuff; I honestly think the preview video they put out last week or whenever that was, was a mistake? They often chose my least favorite part of a song for the preview IMO. Or even if there's a part that I don't like the parts just before and after it make that section MAKE SENSE in context, so hearing just that one part feels weird. I feel like a lot of the songs are uneven, but mostly good.

I'm just not sure how it's gonna work in context...like, Necessary Discrepancy (Ram's theme) has a cool part that starts roughly 2 minutes in, but a lot of matches aren't even gonna last that long. It's six minutes long in total and that's longer than the game timer allows (90 second rounds means even if you go to 3 time-ups you still won't hit the end). Zato's Theme is probably my least favorite song (neck and neck with Leo's theme, which has that weird breakdown 40 seconds in that I cannot stand but is otherwise good), but it has a cool ending bit...that starts at a point where even if you have 3 time-ups you won't ever hear.

I guess you WOULD hear the full tracks in training mode, so maybe that's why they are as long as they are? It's definitely a different approach; it's not what I want or even necessarily think a fighting game soundtrack SHOULD be but maybe...it will be? We'll see. That's kind how I feel about the whole game! It's not the Guilty Gear I want but maybe it's the one I need...?

Anyway, looking forward to Pot Bustering the entire Earth on Friday (opted for PC since I have friends who don't have PS5s [understandably])
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Leo's theme, which has that weird breakdown 40 seconds in that I cannot stand

Out of all the Queen tributes in the makeup and performances of these songs, Hellfire is probably the Queen-est. That part echoes Stone Cold Crazy, and around two and a half minutes in the track segues into goddang Great King Rat harmonics of all things. Musical homages of course have always existed in the series, but the total integration of vocals in this allows them to approach them from new angles, which I love.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
There's just...something about it that I don't like? I love Queen but like...I don't know? *shrug* Can't put my finger on it. Then again a huge reason why I love Queen is cuz Freddie fucking Mercury, so maybe that's part of it.

I still think the fact that they gave Millia a Nightwish song is like...just perfect, it's TOO GOOD.
 
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Riot.EXE

Fighting Game Enthusiast
(He/Him)
There's just...something about it that I don't like? I love Queen but like...I don't know? *shrug* Can't put my finger on it. Then again a huge reason why I love Queen is cuz Freddie fucking Mercury, so maybe that's part of it.

I still think the fact that they gave Millia a Nightwish song is like...just perfect, it's TOO GOOD.
But Nightwish is terrible.

Also, PS4 and PS5 can play with each other, but I guess we ain't fightin' 'cause you went PC...
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
Come to think of it, is there confirmation anywhere if/why/how purchasing a Playstation 4 version will mean you have the Playstation 5 version when that system is more easily available to purchase? I know that is the case for the likes of Final Fantasy 7 Remake and some other games.
 
If you buy the PS4 version on PSN, the PS5 version also appears in your library. Not sure how/if it works for physical copies.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
Me last night: well it's midnight and I have to get up early for a doctor's appointment, but I can play a little bit

Me at 200 AM: FUCK

Anyway, I briefly contemplated going back to Ky since my execution has always been bad and I'm having trouble with getting kara-Pot Buster consistently...but also, fuck it. Pot is ridiculously fun. Just a huge wall of buttons with surprise command grabs. I love him. I ran into a May who just...annhilated me. I've kinda only run into Mays and Leos so far. I wonder how it'll be in the higher brackets of ranked.
 
As someone who doesn't play fighting games, I can't understand why anyone would want a visual lobby. Also May's song is basically a Sonic Adventure song.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
Literally no one likes Strive's lobbies. Everyone who participated in the betas complained about it, and they added "duel stations", which turns it into the exact same as every other ArcSys lobby...which everyone ALSO HATES.

I worked today but literally all day yesterday all I did was play this. It's pretty cool! I'm not sure how much staying power it has, but people seem to be liking it, and there's a exhibition tournament going on right now that had an INSANE set with SonicFox (cuz of course). So I don't know, we'll see how the game develops! People are figuring out bonkers shit; Potemkin can kara-input his BACKWARDS Megafist and make it move FORWARDS, so basically you have a safe-on-block forward Megafist. That's nuts!
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
Before I really look into it: can anyone tell me how "arcade mode" one player mode works as far as difficulty? I didn't notice a difficulty slider in starting up the game, and after every match, it was like "CURRENTLY ON SUPER HARD MODE" and then I'd win a match, and it would be like "CURRENTLY ON MURDER DEATH EXTREME MODE", and... like... I usually play arcade mode on easy mode to see if I like playing as a character before I get stomped by online matches. I was still able to win the fights, but the whole thing felt a lot more... confrontational than I usually expect in a one player mode. I have a vague fear of trying someone new...

(First world fighting game problems)
 

Riot.EXE

Fighting Game Enthusiast
(He/Him)
Before I really look into it: can anyone tell me how "arcade mode" one player mode works as far as difficulty? I didn't notice a difficulty slider in starting up the game, and after every match, it was like "CURRENTLY ON SUPER HARD MODE" and then I'd win a match, and it would be like "CURRENTLY ON MURDER DEATH EXTREME MODE", and... like... I usually play arcade mode on easy mode to see if I like playing as a character before I get stomped by online matches. I was still able to win the fights, but the whole thing felt a lot more... confrontational than I usually expect in a one player mode. I have a vague fear of trying someone new...

(First world fighting game problems)
Not sure how the difficulty works...but yeah, it's inconsistent.
 
Before I really look into it: can anyone tell me how "arcade mode" one player mode works as far as difficulty? I didn't notice a difficulty slider in starting up the game, and after every match, it was like "CURRENTLY ON SUPER HARD MODE" and then I'd win a match, and it would be like "CURRENTLY ON MURDER DEATH EXTREME MODE", and... like... I usually play arcade mode on easy mode to see if I like playing as a character before I get stomped by online matches. I was still able to win the fights, but the whole thing felt a lot more... confrontational than I usually expect in a one player mode. I have a vague fear of trying someone new...

(First world fighting game problems)
I guess you can't adjust arcade mode difficulty directly? There's a setting for CPU level in vs. mode, but arcade mode just has the dynamic difficulty/route thing based on how well you're doing. Seems to go up from Hard to Extreme after the first stage, but then goes back down if you lose a round. There's probably a secret boss or something if you get through it on Extreme with no losses, but the regular boss is already really hard on Extreme.

Vs. CPU is a fine way to get a feel for a character, though, and the CPU level setting definitely makes a big difference there.
 

Denn

(him)
Anyone, for anyone brave or stupid enough to attempt it, I can explain how the Arcade difficulty works.

There's no difficulty option. As gorha said, if you lose a round, you'll be on the Extreme Route. However, if you lose the match, continue, and win the next fight without losing a round, you'll still remain on the Extreme Route. It's incredibly dumb, since a mediocre player can accidently fail their way into the ridiculous boss fight.

The most surefire way to get there is to throw any match where you lose a round. I wouldn't recommend it though unless you're among the best GG players. I've fought Nagariyuki easily a few hundred times without winning a single round. He's as bullshit as he is cool (note: Nagariyuki might be the coolest character in Guilty Gear). Not sure if there's anything past this fight, and I doubt I'll ever see it.
 

Regulus

Sir Knightbot
Yes, Arcade Mode is awful. The Extreme AI is really, uh, unkind.

I just want an online mode that plays like the 2p Versus mode. Let us go back to the character select screen after the match so we can change characters/stages/music without having to reinitiate the stupid dueling station.
 

Riot.EXE

Fighting Game Enthusiast
(He/Him)
Anyone, for anyone brave or stupid enough to attempt it, I can explain how the Arcade difficulty works.

There's no difficulty option. As gorha said, if you lose a round, you'll be on the Extreme Route. However, if you lose the match, continue, and win the next fight without losing a round, you'll still remain on the Extreme Route. It's incredibly dumb, since a mediocre player can accidently fail their way into the ridiculous boss fight.

The most surefire way to get there is to throw any match where you lose a round. I wouldn't recommend it though unless you're among the best GG players. I've fought Nagariyuki easily a few hundred times without winning a single round. He's as bullshit as he is cool (note: Nagariyuki might be the coolest character in Guilty Gear). Not sure if there's anything past this fight, and I doubt I'll ever see it.
Also, the dramatic battle works like it does in Street Fighter Alpha: y'all share the same health bar.
 

Fyonn

did their best!
god, this game kicks ass
this is the best experience I've had with a fighting game ever
every time i go into the lab and go "there's no way i can do this in an actual match" and then do it in an actual match ten minutes later i feel like a million bucks
also the floors are an incredibly fine-tuned sorting method for players and I can't believe it given how few floors there are
 

Denn

(him)
I've gotten significantly more enjoyment out of the game since I learned that there's an option to auto-matchmake while you spend time in Training. Sometimes it bugs out and spits you back into the lobby, but it's definitely an improvement overall.

The arcade is still shit though. I did learn that I can cheese the Extreme AI by spamming Totsugeki, so I managed to beat Extreme Nagariyuki. But I confirmed that is a fight afterwards (if you don't lose a round).
Yep, it's Boss Nagariyuki. But it's even more bullshit, and he's always in bloodrange mode (but still doesn't take damage over time, has bonus super armor, and takes, like, a quarter damage)

My cheese strat plays out way more randomly in that fight. It generally works. But while I've been close a few times, I haven't actually won a round. So I think I could win, but it'll be about trying until random chance gives me the win.
 

spines

cyber true color
(she/her, or something)
i have been playing guilty gear petit 2 off and on for a little while. i don't have a lot of history in handheld fighters, and they're obviously a pretty different experience, though i've watched a moderate amount of ggx advance. (this game and its predecessor are also clearly based on x, with anji and johnny showing up alongside the usual core roster and the notorious petit-only character fanny. venom has a sprite that appears in zato's story, but i don't think he's playable. testament unlocks after you fight him in story mode.)

Mechanically and aesthetically, it's got a similar approach to NGPC fighters; the characters are super deformed, the backgrounds are low-res and -color interpretations of major ones from the full games, and a bunch of moves distort limbs to further emphasize punches and kicks. Even Faust is kind of cute, which is a sentence i never thought i'd write. The game really only treats the two right-side buttons as core inputs, with A+B giving a third set of normals and being used for supers and a small number of special moves. the Y buttons (difficult to reach when you're doing direction motions with the X buttons) have taunts and IK mode activation. Suffice it to say i realize fighting the computer isn't really akin to a real match, but most of the characters feel wild in a very guilty gear way, and although i'm not entirely familiar with which moves did and didn't exist in X, even coming from accent core/+r most characters have most of the moves i'd expect, except for sweeps (i think everyone got their 2H as 2AB instead of sweep, even though 6AB is generally Dust). in particular, Y4 is unused for most characters i think, but gives Eddie's drill; i assume this means unblockables are hypothetically possible. But the shadow mechanics make getting a knockdown that doesn't cause him to disappear before you can cast it rather difficult. still, he's the character i've played the most

Zato also has break the law, dashes absurdly fast (it's comparable to Chipp's!), his command grab seems amazing, and he can also do ungodly cheap tick throw setups off of the sawblade. The only default characters i haven't really played as or against enough to really understand if they have something that seems super silly are Millia and fanny; Millia is fast and has her two airdashes, but even with her moveset largely carried over i don't necessarily understand her gameplan with it, and she's probably more reliant on full combos than most...and Fanny is just strange, with Faust's pogo stance and a large number of functionally similar moves, but no item toss, so i'm not really sure what she's supposed to play for. She does have something that seems similar to the fish/pull type special move that Faust has from XX on if not earlier, so her midrange has better threat and reward, but she mostly seems weird, kind of boneless Faust. Anji gets two hops and Fuujin with most of the non-FB followups; the butterfly isn't as powerful but i think he gets a guardpoint (albeit with only one followup?) if i understand the command list correctly. Johnny has infinite coins (as far as i know...but the UI doesn't really have space for any of the character specific icons and meters), though their arc and character hitboxes make it seem not as good as XX, and the rapid-hitting level 3 mist finer, Jam has no cards but gets to keep most of her fast-moving specials and her divekick, Potemkin has Heavenly alongside his buster, hammerfall, megafist, and slidehead, and Axl gets to keep pretty much everything, even the unblockable.

but basically, i really adore this game even though i started playing it just because i got the wsc and thought it would be funny to check out. of course i always have a soft spot for quick to pick up fighters and with so many familiar movesets and inputs with only a few simplifications (there are no roman cancels, i think) this one's not the easiest i've played by any means but definitely scratches the same itch of just mashing out simple stuff to have a good time. it's full of personality, bringing a lot of the gg aesthetic with an appealing twist, and the director also went on to lead battle fantasia, which in a lot of ways is probably my favorite arcsys fighter of all still. you should check this game out if you get a chance (i have *no* clue where wsc emulation is at)
 

spines

cyber true color
(she/her, or something)
oh, also there's a new strive patch that came out after i started writing that last night and i guess leo is bonkers now. overall it seems good, with a lot of reasonable tonedowns of the strongest characters with some improvements for everyone and especially large ones for the launch game's weakest characters (anji seems hilarious now and faust is probably way, way closer to fine), but "you can dash cancel back turn 5k" is a *surprisingly*, uh, old-school decision. to say the least

by which i mean most of the stuff i've seen of him so far makes me think i'm watching reload or something
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
I don't play this series and don't know a lot about it but I think even I can recognize that this is inredibly cursed.

...

Oh shit. We're probably all going to die in a week now, aren't we? I'm really, really sorry about that. :(
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I mean, that's just this.

clean.jpg
 
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