Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-

[Cyber Rat]

 

Platforms: PS4, PS3

Features: Cross-play between PS4 and PS3, Cross-buy for DLC, 60FPS (both) and 1080p (PS4)

Players: 2

 

This is the new Guilty Gear, after ArcSystem Works finally got ahold of the rights from Sega. It's out next week for Japan and Dec 16 for North America (EU will have to import, as usual). It's simpler than BlazBlue and since it's a fresh start for the series, has less characters you need to learn to play and fight against. I've tried the demo (available for NA PS+ on PS4 atm) and it's hard to judge it because of only having two characters and an Arcade + Tutorial mode on the easiest settings, but as far as movement and feel goes, it's Guilty Gear - fast-paced and satisfying.

 

Anyone getting it? I'm an obvious fanboy of the series so I'm getting the JP and NA version since I can't be patient for two weeks.

 

[Mister Jack]

I'm totally getting it but it might not be at launch since I have a huge ps4 and Wii U backlog right now.

[Baconrath]

My brother has already pre-ordered the special edition. Guilty Gear has become our fighting game of choice to be bad at.

 

Think they'll add Jam in eventually?

[Mister Jack]

I tried the demo with both Sol and Ky.  The voice acting is pretty bad but I'm assuming they'll let you change it to Japanese so that's not really a big deal.  As the resident GG veteran on this board, I also noticed a few subtle changes that seem designed to make the series more accessible to fighting game newbies.

 

- Blitz shield is a new defensive mechanic that allows you to repel any attack that isn't a throw or an overdrive at the cost of 25% of your tension bar.  Repelling an attack also staggers your opponent, though they can recover by using their own blitz shield.

 

- The clash system has been expanded to include something called Danger Time, which activates at random during a clash and temporarily increases the damage done by both players' attacks.  Some people might not care for such an unpredictable mechanic, but we'll see how it plays out.

 

- Dust attacks can now be followed up by a dash pursuit instead of an air pursuit.  The purpose of this seems to be to better facilitate corner combos, so if you're not in a corner you might want to stick with air pursuits.

 

By far the biggest change is to Roman Cancels.  In the old games these allowed you to cancel any normal or special attack and immediately begin another attack, which opened up new combo possibilities.  That still applies here, but they've made the whole thing more user friendly in a few ways.

 

- Roman Cancels now cause the game to pause for about half a second when activated, whereas before they were instant.  They also cause slowdown to your opponent for a few frames.  This was obviously changed in order to give new players a little breathing room, as in the past you had a very small window to follow up on a cancel.

 

- False Roman Cancels are now Yellow Roman Cancels and the timing on performing them is MUCH more forgiving.

 

- Purple Roman Cancels have been added, allowing you to cancel a whiffed attack to avoid punishment at the cost of 50% of your tension gauge.

[Cyber Rat]

^I'd also like to add that Yellow Roman Cancels, unlike FRCs from previous games, can be used on almost any normal and almost all specials. That means you can do very creative stuff, like cancel a lunge attack to stop the actual attack, but retain the movement momentum.

 

@Bacon: They said they want to add all classic characters eventually as DLC. But with ASW, that's always a big question mark.