When Guilty Gear was first released, I considered it one of the best 2D fighters I had ever played. Over the past 10 years the game has been using the Capcom method of creating sequels, adding new features and characters to the old game across various systems. When Guilty Gear 2: Overture was first announced for the Xbox 360 I was ecstatic. When I discovered it was going to be a 3D game, my excitement dropped a little bit. Then I found out it was an action-adventure game and my heart completely deflated. Larry Hryb brings word now that a Japan-only demo is out for the title, scheduled for release in that country at the end of the month, so we’ll soon have a much better idea if the double jump of genre and dimension was a good idea. Of course, there are ways of getting the demo in the US, and an Xbox 360 near me might be downloading a 717MB demo as we speak, but that’s all hearsay.
Demo: GUILTY GEAR 2 (Japan only) [Xbox Live's Major Nelson] More »
While Guilty Gear 2 is supposed to feature a mix of a 3D hack-n-slash and RTS elements, the demo only let us tear through a level of the cutting and killing variety. It is a combo-based H&S, though I’m not sure I plumbed its deepest depths or anything since it seemed fairly simplistic—in fact, I hope I’ve only skimmed the top because I’d expect a combo system with more complexity from Arc. That said, it was a lot of fun tearing through waves of fairly hapless drones with Sol’s signature moves.
The thrill certainly doesn’t come from how gorgeous the game looks. The graphics are adequate, but nothing special, which is disappointing considering the historical eye candy quality of GG visuals.
While I enjoyed the demo, I still walked away with the sort-of feeling I played a regular hack-n-slash with a Guilty Gear skin on top of it, ultimately leading me wonder how much of the enthrallment stemmed from the GG branding. The H&S mechanics are solid, but not mindblowing or genre-busting. In other words, it’s really cool to kill things as Sol. But the Sol factor’s a big part of that equation, at least for me. More »
