Possibly one of the oddest things to happen to me in my gaming career is to get become a huge fan of a game series at which, quite frankly, I’m fairly mediocre. No, I don’t mean Dance Dance Revolution (I’m not great, but I’m improving), but rather the Guilty Gear games. I enjoy them, perhaps more than any other fighting game I’ve ever tried. But despite knowing tons about them and playing them often, I’m really not all that good at the game; I get by mostly on remembering patterns in different characters. So naturally, I was quite thrilled to get a chance at Guilty Gear Isuka when I heard about it. I wasn’t anticipating greatness at it, but I wanted to give it a run.
The game is sadly deficient, story-wise, compared to the previous games. The mysterious fighting tournament (somehow related to That Man, still as anonymous as ever) has been started up again, and the whole cast from Guilty Gear X2 managed to make it, despite the dire straits that several characters were in during that game. Why everyone decided to go in for this again, I don’t know. The previous Guilty Gear games were surprisingly strong in regards with constructing a storyline to intertwine the games. However, Guilty Gear Isuka drops the ball on this; Sammy got a bit lazy and decided to pull a Street Fighter on us.
All right, stop throwing rotten fruit – I know quite well that people really aren’t playing this for the story (if they were, more people would know who the Guilty Gear was. And it’s not Dizzy; she wasn’t even in the original game). You’re really playing for the fast-paced two-dimensional fighting action. And, moreover, you want to know what makes this different from every other Guilty Gear release. Well, to begin, it plays a bit different than the previous games. In this one, instead of dividing battles into rounds, you just have a number of life bars. Should one be eliminated, you arise again, losing one “life” and continuing the fight. Once you run out of all chances, though, your game ends. This is only a minor shift, though. The idea reminds me much of the Capcom Vs. games, except the same character, instead of your teammate, is the one that comes in after a defeat.
The first big difference to mention is that the game now takes place on two planes. Instead of simply the standard flat arena, you have two parallel areas that you can stand in, and for the most part you can only attack in one area at a time. The logistics become much more interesting – sometimes, when you don’t have the energy to cancel out of an opponent’s move, or you would be mashed by block damage, you just shift planes and await your opponents there. You can even attack as you’re shifting planes, so you’ll have a whole new host of maneuvers and tricks to get down.
This is the simple shift, though. Perhaps the most drastic shift is that the game is now built to handle up to four fighters at once. In any mode, up to four different characters, with only one mandatory human, can now beat each other senseless. To facilitate this, you now have a button that turns you around, and defending is simply a matter of pressing away from your current face direction. Granted, it might seem silly to block someone behind you attacking this way, but the controls were set up more with playability ease in mind, not realism. However, one thing that might have been more sensible is that the game should have you auto-rotate (like most 2D fighters do) if you only have one opponent. That’s a relatively simple oversight, but it would make matters easier on the player.
The advantage of allowing four-player mode, though, is that you can also perform team battles. This can actually work as an interesting handicap: each team is given the same number of reserve life bars. Even if the actual numbers are uneven. So even if you set up a 3-on-1 brawl, if the one person has one extra life bar, the three have to share one extra life bar. This allows for some interesting handicap matches, and certainly adds to how much variety of gameplay there is in the multiplayer mode.
What may be a disappointment, though, is that many game modes have been taken out. Certainly, there is standard versus mode for going against friends. But the arcade mode is basically survival mode from the previous games, except you start with extra life bars if you choose. The goal is to just earn 100 levels (by effectively beating on your foes) and thus clear the game. But you only get a token amount of health restored after each fight, and there is no way to earn new life bars. Quite obviously, this was built to be an arcade quarter-muncher, but this matters quite little with a home version permanently stuck on “free play” mode. While I certainly think that a survival mode is interesting in fighting games, it should not be the main game mode.
However, GGI packs in another game mode which is totally unexpected and, oddly enough, the best reason to pick this up. The game comes with a solo-player mode called Guilty Gear Boost, and it’s actually just a side-scrolling beat-‘em-up. Well, with a Guilty Gear character and their entire complement of moves. To be honest, there’s no greater joy than unleashing Ride The Lightning, one of Ky’s signature moves, on a dozen mooks. Frankly, I’m still astounded by the inclusion of this mode. For ages, I’ve been complaining about the lack of new beat-‘em-up games, and Sammy decides to include one as a pack-in with their latest Guilty Gear game.
The controls in this section of the game are fluid, and it is, in fact, even easier to perform many moves. This is because up and down move your character to different planes now, and it’s actually a bit easier to perform special moves without moving in a way you don’t want. It admittedly takes some getting used to using L1 to jump, but you catch on pretty quick. The only flaw is that R1 not only functions as a turn button again, but it also dashes in GG Boost mode. You have to get used to tapping it rather quickly if you want to turn around and prevail in this mode.
Also, all of the fun techniques common to all characters that you’re familiar with are still in the game: Roman Cancels, Dead Angle attacks, Gatling Combos, the whole deal. They even add a new twist, the False Roman Cancel. They are similar to regular Roman Cancels, except that each character can use them only in certain situations and after certain attacks. But the advantage they have is that they’re much cheaper to use, and thus can set up more interesting combos. It’s only a minor tweak, but one that’s quite fun to have.
Finally, the game gives you an interesting last option, but it’s only for using against friends. Robo-Ky, the cybernetic duplicate introduced in GGX2, is in this game in a fully customizable mode. You can send it through Scramble, which is like Boost mode, and earn points to buy stat increases and new moves for it. You can even choose to short one stat in order to increase another. However, as I said, you can’t bring in your customized Robo-Ky into the regular game. You do, however, get the chance to use it against friends, and indeed up to four people can use their own differently customized Robo-Ky characters against each other. While it probably won’t interest most people, it is an interesting diversion within the main game.
Of course, I have to mention the character selection in this game. Well, people familiar with Guilty Gear X2 will recognize the base group available, as well as the original version of Robo Ky, albeit with a different moveset than the GGX2 version. One new character has been added to the mix, A.B.A., which appears to be a red-haired woman wrapped like a mummy and porting about a giant key. She’s interesting because she has several attack modes, and can become quite powerful. But A.B.A. has a huge drawback for this game – her powerful modes cause her to take damage as she delivers it. Given than you’re expected to make do with your beginning allotment of energy through your entire run, she is only really useful in versus mode. The concept is great, but this game’s setup is just the absolute worst place in which to use it.
In terms of unlockables, though, Guilty Gear veterans are going to be quite disappointed. You can open up EX versions of each starting character. You can also open up “awakened” versions of Ky and Sol (in case you were wondering if Sammy was going to stop making them the center of attention). And, of course, you can open up the final boss, Leopaldon. And the mooks from Boost mode can be unlocked for versus mode. But that’s it. You won’t find Gold or Shadow versions of the characters. You won’t find any version of Kliff or Justice, let alone the multiple versions available in Guilty Gear X2. No, in Isuka, there are fewer characters to deal with. But considering how absurd some of those alternate version were (Gold Ky probably should have been illegal, as well as Gold Faust), it’s just as well that they never were allowed. However, I really wish Kliff and Justice managed to come back.
Oh, but while it’s still in my memory, Leopaldon. I have to actually deduct points for its appearance in the game, because Leopaldon is, quite simply, the cheesiest final boss I have ever set eyes on in a video game. Standing larger than Potemkin (who was already capable of occupying around an eighth of the screen and is always selectable), it manages to occupy and attack both ranks at once. So all those new techniques you learned to deal with the new setup are completely worthless. It can’t block or jump, but that doesn’t matter because only the puppy dog head near the top (don’t ask – it’s too grotesque to even get into) is vulnerable to damage. So a good 75% of your attacks won’t be used at all, and almost all of your specials will be worthless. It can attack 25% of the screen in one move – and said one move is the easiest way for it to counterattack you. And it can, at will, unleash a nigh-undodgeable 80+ hit combo on your pitiful existence. Seriously, when you look back at I-No EX from the end of Guilty Gear X2 and consider her a fair fight next to this, you know the fight is absurd. If you’re patient and lucky, you might get past it. But in all honesty, a boss that obscene just shouldn’t be in a fighting game.
Graphically, the game is as brilliant as you’d expect after playing previous incarnations. They use the same animation as Guilty Gear X2, and all of the characters move smoothly. If anything, the backgrounds are more detailed and nuanced, and the background animation is much more common and fluid. It’s actually unnerved me to the point where I wasn’t even sure what was an active part of the game, and got trounced by my opponent’s move. It’s just that striking and arresting. While it lacks the nifty anime intro that GGX2 had, Guilty Gear Isuka makes up for it by showing some great watercolor stills, and if anything, I think the game needs more of them.
Also, since I know someone is going to ask about it, Sammy has decided to toe the line in regards to how sexual the female characters get. Some, like Millia, stay modest as always. Some, like Dizzy and A.B.A., aren’t afraid to wear tight clothes that show nipples, and a bit of cleavage, but nothing beyond that. And I-No still takes off her top and angles herself so her breasts are just barely on-camera. But Sammy still does not throw in any nudity within the game itself. So you’ll just have to buy Playboy if you want to see naked video game characters. And if you thought this paragraph is just a shameless attempt to rise up in the Google rankings, you know me too well.
Fans of the game’s music will have to prepare for something a little different. No, don’t worry; the game’s soundtrack is quite rocking. In fact, this might be the best Guilty Gear soundtrack to date. Each tune fits the area well, and it all fits into the game’s hard-rocking tradition. But as I’ve hinted, the music is pinned to areas, not characters (who have their favorite haunts). So instead of having a favorite character theme, you might find yourself particularly attached to the theme for England, or Zepp. It’s a slight shift for gamers used to associating a given song with a particular character, but the music is still continuing the grand Guilty Gear tradition.
The problem in grading this game is deciding how to fit it with the rest of the series. Considering that it lacks a classic arcade mode and just sticks everyone into survival mode, it can’t measure up to Guilty Gear X2. But the addition of Guilty Gear Boost mode is the reappearance of a near-dead genre. But because it’s only a side game added onto the main game, it isn’t the main purpose. However, it is, quite clearly, the best part of the game. So ultimately, Guilty Gear Isuka is a fun game, but its main mode is a step down from Guilty Gear X2. However, it is easily the best four-player game for the Playstation 2 (not that it had any real competition here), and Guilty Gear Boost mode is certainly worth a playthrough. People looking for a multiplayer fighting game will want to pick this up along with the PS2 multitap. And beat-‘em-up fans will love this. Beyond that, though, I recommend that you stick with Guilty Gear X2. While it is still a solid game, it’s a step back from its predecessor. But with the new ideas that just need a tweak, sometimes you need to take a step back before you can really start to step forward again.
