One of My Favorite Anime Fighters

I bought Guilty Gear Xrd about a year ago and it is one of the few fighting games that I consistently go back to (besides Smash Bros of course) which is why I wanted to talk about it. Guilty Gear Xrd is a shining example on how good and stylized an anime fighter can be.

 

One of the first things to note, besides the strange name, is how beautiful the graphics are. While most fighting games made by Arc System Works used 2-D sprites for the character models. This game uses beautiful cel-shaded graphics to render all of the characters in beautiful 3-D. The game looks amazing in motion as well with each character getting a ton of flashy moves to work with including a cinematic instant kill move.

A few Examples of the game in motion

While the game looks great, its absolutely not style over substance. The game puts a very large emphasis on aggression by giving super meter when approaching the enemy and by taking meter away when you only stay on the defensive which is a mechanic that I appreciate because it means that matches always feel frantic and fun.

The game has a hefty roster with about 25 characters that all feel completely unique and fun with some of the most unique designs and move sets I’ve seen in a fighting game. The game includes an incredibly detailed tutorial as well which was not only helpful from someone who never played guilty gear before, but it is also useful for people who have never played a fighting game before. All in all Guilty Gear has definitely earned a place in my heart as one of my favorite fighting game franchises and its all thanks to Rev 2.