Guilty Gear Isuka

"Not quite the foursome I envisioned..."

Next to Capcom's bazillion reiterations of Street Fighter, the Guilty Gear series has emerged as one of the best bets for those clinging to their 2d fighters, with it's colorful anime-quality visuals, rockin' soundtrack and over-the-top brawlers beaming with personality. The punches swings and misses in the Isuka version though, where the engine expands to fit up to four pugilist at a time. Although you'd think that would mean four times the fun, it adds up to four times the headache instead.

Graphics: If you liked the colorful flash and smooth animation of the previous Guilty Gear games, then you'll love the way the graphics in Isuka come together. The all new backgrounds are great in their detail and vividness and no matter how big the explosions, laser effects, and colorful fireworks get, the animation remains as fast and furious as it ever was. Unfortunately the fantastic graphics can hinder as much as help the game. If you played the previous Guilty Gears, you know that the splashy signature moves can amount to a psychedelic supernova. Get four people doing those moves at the blistering speed the game runs and it can become really easy to get lost in the animated shuffle. Also, this time around you fight on 2 planes and more could have been done to make the foreground and background more distinguishable.

Sound: One of the other distinguishing features of Guilty Gear is that there is the hair band influence. The heavy metal riffs here match the atmosphere pretty well, and make the soundtrack more unique then the typical pop and techno beats found in other games. The voices work pretty well too, and sound effects match their requisite sword slices, thunderbolts, guitar chords etc.

Gameplay: This is where Isuka stumbles a bit. While many of the button configurations match the one used in Guilty Gear X2, a few new additions have been made that will make you feel as if you're fighting with the controls more than against your opponent. Gone are the instant kill moves and launcher attacks. I liked those aspects of the previous games, but I can live without them. The "turn-around" button is another story. The "R1" button will soon become your enemy. Unlike in other fighters, crossing up makes you face the wrong way, leaving you open for attack. And as mentioned before, with the fast-paced gameplay, it's very very easy to find yourself on the other side of someone with your back toward them before you even realize it. Making things more complicated is the fact that there's a foreground and a background for characters to attack in. (Think Guilty Gear meets Fatal Fury.) While this does gives you more options for both attacks (knocking someone into another level for your partner to deal with) and defense (shifting between planes makes it easier to dodge moves), as mentioned before it's not always easy to tell which plane your on. And that's not even factoring that you can be doing all this with three other people at the same time. It's still Guilty Gear though, so if you think you're the type that can master the frustrating control set-up and frantic pace, you'll mine some enjoyment from this.

Modes: Unfortunately Isuka has less modes of play then X2 did. Arcade is still here, although it seems to be done up in a survival type battle, rather than the typical "2-outta-3" battles of most fighters. Again this allows the game to move at a faster pace, but since all your information bars and gauges are smaller (regardless of how many people you play with) it often makes it harder to understand your own status (or the enemies) until one of you is defeated. There's also a side-scrolling minigame similar to Final Fight (or the Tekken Force mode from the Namco series). This is mildly fun, but ruined by the confusing control schematics from the regular game made worse. Now you must press a separate button to jump (making aerial attacks needlessly complex) and it's difficult to press R1 while turning around because here, you have to come to a full stop before you can do it. Also, the side-scrolling game lets you play with either an existing character or customize a character with existing moves and ability points. It doesn't have the customization of, say the Tony Hawk games, but it's not bad. However, I still think the various modes in GGX2 were more enjoyable.

If you're an expert Guilty Gear vet with the reflexes of a well-oiled machine and three similar friends, then you might be able to look past the cumbersome control and chaotic, Excedrin-inducing structure of gameplay to appreciate the hardcore play mechanics. More "casual" fans however, might be better served with Guilty Gear X2 Reloaded (X-Box) or just waiting for Guilty Gear X3. Hopefully that one will keep the fabulous graphics, sound and fighters while being less confusing.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/05