beta runs feb 18 - 21 on PSN. no PS+ required. it starts on the 17th if you preorder. this beta is very promising. it has tutorial and training modes, local versus and versus CPU modes, 13 characters playable (no anji), and network play featuring their rollback code that was developed in-house. even if the rollback netcode is not good it should at least be usable, which is more than can be said for the netcode in the last beta
with this beta approaching we're finally getting some more footage of the game in action. it looks good. it seems very neutral heavy which is a welcome change from the oppressive oki of the xrd series. they got rid of some legacy guilty gear stuff but there is still a lot of guilty gear in this game: anti-air conversions into P juggle into super, lots of roman cancelling, dust combos, fishing for random hits and converting into massive damage, dragon installs. i believe that blitz is gone. i didn't see any just frame blocking but i think that property was absorbed into faultless defense. check out some matches:
5. "GG has the best tutorials of any fighting game" In response to Reply # 1
from basic movement to bread and butter combos to fuzzy guard and even character specific matchups. it's all covered. you seem to have a wealth of fighting game experience. you'll be able to pick it up easily
6. "i think you're a little advanced for gio" In response to Reply # 2 Fri Feb-12-21 07:26 PM by bearfield
from what i can gather her whole thing is letting players ignore meter management. if you don't spend meter with her then she does more damage and maybe has more moves. she's supposed to be a beginner-beginner type of character. i think you could pick up millia since you're a laura main. both millia and laura are all about getting that knockdown and setting up your oki. millia even has a meterless dash/side switch like laura
that said there is no wrong or right way to approach this game. whatever you think is going to work for you is the best course of action
8. "I’ll give Millia a look" In response to Reply # 6
She hasn’t really been a character I’ve gravitated toward in previous GGs, but I’ll see how she plays in Strive.
Saw the starter guide for Giovanna and she not only looks basic, which I dig, but maybe a bit under equipped for a Guilty Gear game, which I don’t dig.
9. "i feel like one character is as viable as the next right now" In response to Reply # 8 Mon Feb-15-21 02:28 AM by bearfield
this is functionally the beginning of the meta. no tiers have been defined. it's a hard reset of the series. who knows which character actually works in this new set of rules. going with the character that has the most appealing playstyle or design is as good a reason as any. that's how i picked ramlethal in xrd; she played like a guest character due to her weird target combo juggles and i thought she looked cool
maybe giovanna has been designed for onboarding and will make for a better transition for new players. she might not be under-equipped because of universal mechanics like roman cancel and faultless defense. i will say that the thing that makes her unique is the lack of a unique mechanic or play style. millia has her airdash oki, axl is the zoner, ram has her shooting swords, faust has random item toss, nagoriyuki has blood gauge, etc. giovanna has at best a passive buff which isn't very guilty gear
12. "After watching some early matches" In response to Reply # 9
I’m gonna stick with Gio for the beta. She has some safe mix-up, tick throw pressure, dash cancels, high damage, and crazy corner carry. She feels like home.
7. "official starter guides for all characters in the beta" In response to Reply # 0 Sun Feb-14-21 09:26 PM by bearfield
these are brief explanations of character mechanics, strengths, and play styles plus detailed command lists. #1-7 are about 10 months old and might not reflect the current state of the game
That blood meter shit looks rough on Nago. It's looking like if you can't kill your opponent in a combo then don't even bother doing it. Once combo will send you into blood rage basically.
I'm sticking with him fuck it. I'm sure we'll see better strats with him once the game has it's legs under it.
this is still very much guilty gear. you now have to charge dust (D) to launch. throws are no longer instant startup but they still look pretty fast. dead angle (alpha counter) was merged into roman cancel (yellow). this makes sense as dead angle used 50% tension anyway. they also added instant block to faultless defense
the rollout for this *beta* has been phenomenal. i hope this sets a bar that other fighting games want to clear
13. "I'm hype" In response to Reply # 11 Wed Feb-17-21 09:06 AM by Mafamaticks
The mechanics in this game are fucking dope. The defence system opens up a bunch of different punishes. Got me looking at Nago a lot better now. I have to go back and watch some matches because I don't think a lot of people were utilizing all of these.
What's the window like for faultless defence in other GG games? Like 3S parry?
16. "netcode seems very good" In response to Reply # 0
all the matches i played were on US east and US west and they almost uniformly felt good to great. i can only recall one match that was iffy but it was still very playable. will try matches on overseas servers tonight
i need way more time with the game to accurately assess it but so far i like it a lot. the damage is probably still too high. most matches are about 30-40 seconds, which is pretty short. the presentation is astounding. ramlethal looks and animates like a character from a miyazaki film. stages are brimming with detail. sometimes it's a little busy and i can't quite make sense of the action, especially in the corner with ramlethal's swords and with chipp and millia pressure. the GUI fonts for combo count, meter names, character names, and battle notifications (just frame, counter, punish) are all different in a way that makes the design feel incongruous. hopefully they settle on something uniform that ties the rest of the presentation together
it's weird going from one game to the next iteration and the character you're using has far fewer moves than in the previous game. not even a pre-patch times balance change kind of thing where one move was removed or altered but a fundamental reset of the character. my muscle memory keeps betraying me because i want to throw ramlethal's fireball (gone), pull off her tekken dial-a-combo style P and K blockstrings and juggles (gone), use her command throw (gone), launch into juggle state off of normal dauro (gone), juggle with giant 2S and 2HS (gone)... she lost a lot of good tools. her neutral is strong though and it seems like footsies is a viable play style in strive. they did keep the sprit of her gameplay, which previously was full-screen corner carry via long juggling combos into countless long form corner mixups and combos. it's just less complicated to pull it off now, although you do have to spend meter for red roman cancel to get the really long corner carry combos. however having to use red RC at the correct time in the hitstun and then carefully positioning for the follow up juggle during the slowdown is interesting and challenging. her corner pressure is different but still seems strong, although corner pressure in general has been nerfed due to wall break. i think i like this change because corner pressure in xrd was pretty tough to deal with
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
High-Tech
