Guilty Gear Isuka

"A revolution not worth taking part in. AKA: I want my fifty bucks back, Sammy."

Looking back on my purchase, I can see where I went wrong. The only Guilty Gear game I bought before Isuka was Guilty Gear X2: The Midnight Carnival for the Xbox. For 20 bucks, it was a great purchase. Characters were interesting and fighting was smooth as ever. The graphics weren't that bad either. I had heard about Isuka, it was going to be "Fighting game of the year for 2004". After playing X2, I wouldn't have doubted it. Sadly, I was wrong to make assumptions about Isuka. The reason I bring this story up is because I don't want you to shell out your money for a game that does not even equal it's predecessor.

The newest thing GG Isuka has to offer is an annoying feature that turns your character. Using this, you can turn your character left or right in battle. So, if an opponent is behind you: instead of the game automatically turning you to your enemies direction, you have to do it manually. The only real reason Sammy makes you do this is because GG Isuka allows you to fight more than one character at once. That's right; sometimes you'll be fighting at most 3 other characters per fight. This makes the battle feel claustrophobic and clustered. You don't have much range pulling off certain techniques and the 2-3 other character rarely ever fight each other. Making it difficult to fight more than one person at a time since you'll be switching your direction a lot. But the biggest problem switch has to offer is the fact that it makes some characters hard to use. Take for instance:Zappa, due to his character design (Which is a dude with his head and neck flopping backwards, behind his back) , you'll never really know which direction he's facing unless you check constantly.

Another new addition Isuka has to offer is a bland Side Scrolling mode. It's bland because you're basically using the same fighting system as you would the actually arcade game. It's also pretty boring and lacks depth and thrill that you would expect it to have. The turning system is also in it, but actually; it works well in the side scroller. But the biggest problem the Side scroller has is that instead of being a straight path, you can move anywhere around the battle. Up, down, right , left, etc. You may think i'm crazy for hating this, but you and your enemies move way too slow; making it very boring to walk around. Also, it's hard to line you and your enemy up to attack them since there is no real depth to the battle field. You think you're about to punch someone, but they're a little bit farther down. You miss. Luckily, you can play Boost Mode (the side scroller's name) another player making it a bit easier to fight since you'll have the help of your friend. Too bad the damn thing is timed.

The graphics are also pretty bad since they're very grainy. I wasn't expecting this from a game whose predecessor had almost no grainy value to the background or the character sprites. Imagine my surprise when I started playing...

If you're a hardcore Guilty Gear fan, You should probably pick it up anyways, but don't get it for the full 50 bucks. It's a waste of money. Be patient and at least wait until it's 20-30 bucks, you won't feel so bad then. For everyone else though, I don't suggest this game no matter what the price is.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/05