Guilty Gear Strive 2.0 Update Has Done An Excellent Job Of Letting The Freaks Be Freaks

It's very rare to see a game take a step back and go "nah, we should fix this". I mean, balance patches are a dime a dozen, sure. But with Guilty Gear Strive 2.0, it's been a rich enough update that it feels like a new game altogether. 

While the season 4 update already had me optimistic about the direction of the game, it was largely filing down a lot of the rough edges. In the last patch of Season 4, it was still very much a lot of the same game just with the dials more tightly adjusted. But now, a month into Guilty Gear Strive 2.0, the game's more radical changes feel like it's shaken up the roster in a way that it feels playing a freak character actually has merit to it. 

I mean, just look at EVO Japan- despite everyone complaining about an overtuned Happy Chaos, the Top 8 at the first Arc World Tour event of the season was like digging out your high school sketchbook of OCs. Bedman?? What are you doing here? Sure, at the end of the day Tyurara still grabbed that victory using Kiske-stained hands, but if Grand Finals was the only match that mattered EVO wouldn't be three days long. 

Nature Is Healing

Even characters we thought were kneecapped after the 2.0 power reset are suddenly looking like they just needed a little more TLC. Zato Twitter Combos are filling the air again. Venom is getting actual match footage being posted, not just max RISC training dummies. Potemkin has somehow taken up rollerblading, and it's now all our problems. For the first time in a long while, it looks like people are genuinely having fun with their characters even if they're not in discussions for Top 3. 

A big part of this comes down to just what exactly 2.0 was for the game. It was a big step back from Guilty Gear Strive's explosive nature. A downside of fast and dirty matches is you never get the chance to feel how annoying these characters are. Bedman sucks to fight against, sure, but you only need to lose a couple guesses before the round ends. As a result of the game taking away access to hard knockdowns and neutral skips, every match feels more cerebral. Suddenly, the matchup feels like it matters again. 

By letting every stray hit not blow half a healthbar off, you get a lot of the cast suddenly feeling more viable. Not that Guilty Gear Strive had a tier-chasing problem to begin with, but playing characters like Venom suddenly feel less like gimping yourself since your damage output doesn't feel as disparate compared to a Sol or Nagoriyuki as it used to. It suddenly made sense to be playing a slower, more methodical character cus it didn't feel like the game overvaluing hyper-rushdowns like they were trying to drive up the price of RAM. 

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Another advantage of toning down the rushdown aspects in general is that you get to have real freaks of nature when you do decide to be a rushdown. New DLC character Jam is insane, being able to control large chunks of the screen with her Bakushuu command dash and then lock you down with the mix off her three special moves. She's an offensive powerhouse that has the potential to be in top tier discussions- combining strong movement, knowledge checks that make Shock State Oki look like an MBTI test and big damage when you fail it. 

She's a great example of a specialist character- exceedingly good at her one playstyle, and rewarding players who can use her toolkit to overcome bad matchups. Similarly, learning to play against her is equally rewarding. There's nothing like letting a Jam player put you in the Gekirin/Sui russian roulette then suddenly realizing they were actually guessing your mix the whole time. 

If you've been curious about Guilty Gear Strive or bounced off of it because of its fluctuating power levels over the years, Guilty Gear Strive 2.0 might be your sign to give it another go. A bunch of the rules have been tightened up to remove particularly messy moves like using Purple Roman Cancel as a get out of jail free card for high-risk maneuvers, so it feels like the game particularly rewards discovering new, disgusting tech exclusive to your own character. 

Combined with new content like the Blazing Pass dropping next week that includes the Short Stories feature, you don't have to be an EVO contender to enjoy what's changed with Guilty Gear Strive 2.0. Every character feels more fun at every level, with some (coughs, Potemkin) even feeling more fun to fight against. Characters don't just feel like they need to be strong- instead, they feel like they get the space to be unique little weirdos who have their own ways to put you into complicated guessing games. 

Ah, Guilty Gear.