I think a lot of people who are well-versed in the anime FG subgenre tend to look at Strive through a lens that they're used to, which makes it feel lacking. I will concede that the current state of the game is possibly at an all-time low point as the Season 3 characters and gameplay changes have been pretty disastrous IMO and poked countless holes in the delicate design philosophy the game initially had (and enforced throughout Season 2). Only after deep-diving into BBCF, AC+R, and to a lesser extent Rev2 did I start to appreciate the Strive gatling system for actually feeling like a system to consistently engage with rather than memorize and be done with. P buttons are the fastest abare options but are difficult to meaningfully convert off of, whereas K buttons tend to be a few frames slower but convert into knockdowns. It adds a certain dynamic to abare where I can opt for a slightly slower button like 2K and get an actual turn instead of resetting. I compare this to AC+R/Rev2 where it's rarely appropriate to not press your fastest range-appropriate button, since it all converts into the same optimally-rewarding combo tree anyway aside from differences in proration. Strive's gatlings also add a unique strength to characters like Axl and Bridget that have their abare options on K. f.S used to be somewhat difficult to get huge conversions off of, on account of being generally good pokes in a more neutral-oriented game, but that's less the case now that Wild Assault exists and nothing matters anymore. The wall is another thing that I think gets a bad rep because it's seen as a pure limitation rather than another means of skill expression. The corner is still wildly rewarding in Strive, arguably even more so than in other anime fighters, but you can't just autopilot a reasonably-optimal corner combo and call it a day. Taking frequent resets and balancing wall health as it regenerates via careful routing and starter selection are important high-level skills because wallbreaking without a knockdown is at best mildly rewarding and at worst a fumble. Granted, this dynamic is much less important in Season 3 because Wild Assault makes hard-knockdown wallbreaks ridiculously accessible, and you no longer have to build RISC and meter for a proper wallbreak cash-out from early in a round. Having Positive Bonus after a knockdown wallbreak is basically a win condition for some characters and the value is not to be understated. Strive is a fighting game that IMO places a lot of emphasis on the decision tree and resource management while also making those aspects of the game more easily accessible than any other anime fighter. It's a design that I respect a lot and it makes it far more enjoyable for me to play FT20s or longer sets in Strive compared to BBCF or AC+R (where the execution becomes a factor that warps the decision-making process in a way that can feel limiting or frustrating). Also, it wasn't mentioned in the video, but I think Strive's RC system is beautifully designed, and is way deeper and more fun to use than the equivalents in BB and older GG titles. Props to that.
I think the wall was pretty okay before, but wild assault pretty much destroyed all nuance that it had. That one mechanic has just been extremely detrimental to the game.
@@matmil5 Yeah, removing that, WWA guard crush, and DP RC was a massive improvement :D the game is probably even more interactive now than at the end of Season 2 which is refreshing. Aside from the Season 3 characters which are all bad polarizing designs lol
My initial reaction to Strive was pretty much the same as yours. It doesn't feel like the old GG at all and that was a big disappointment to me initially. ...But Strive grew on me over time. It feels different from the rest of the series, but as you said "in a vacuum, it's a good fighting game". I pretty much started seeing Strive as a "different game with the GG characters in it", and as that, it works. Especially now that I have less time to play video games/practice, I can kind of appreciate the games I play being a bit less technical and requiring less "labing". And Strive definitely does compared to the richer, but very demanding older games. I can fully understand some people are not sharing this subjective opinion, though. ...Fortunately, for those people, there is GG Xrd rev 2, which is basically the 3D conversion of the old 2D games, with all the quick airdashes and character-specific gatlings and subtleties you could ever want. And it still looks very good by today's standards. :)
My guilty gear pipeline was Xrd --> +R --> Strive. For the record I have about 300 hours in XRD, 1000 in +R and 300 in Strive so I did play extensively more of Strive than you. My main comment about the game is that the online (not inmatch) is the worst. many crashes, fighting the same opponent in tower and the downtime between matches is ridiculous. Moreover, as a TO I do not enjoy running the game cause there's spectator glitches that are still in the game and were pointed out day 1. Anyway venting aside, I do agree that Strive is a more waterdowned version of the previous 2. They streamline mostly everything, wakeup timing, gatlings, weight classes, etc. Therefore, it's weird that the wall is such a cryptic and complex mechanic that's not explained fully in game. I loved the game at first then hated the game, nowadays I play a few hours each month and enjoy my time. The main reason was my character. I played Faust from day one and really didn't enjoy my time as I climbed ranks. I tried Sin and Testament, didn't particularly like them I now play Goldlewis, Bedman and Asuka. Bedman and Asuka both provide a freedom of expression you probably were looking for. I won't convince you to play the game again, cause competitively I dropped a year and a half ago. I don't have a final point.
The downtime is actually insane. I just don't play tower anymore and instead only hop on for player lobbies with friends to not have to deal with the fight stations or w/e they're called.
Strive was my first fighting game. As a new player, breaking the wall felt good. It was a clear success condition for finishing a combo. Since then Ive put a lot more time into strive and I want to love it but it just frustrates me. Aside from the shitty stale meta, the lack of air tech really hurts the game. Players arent punished for dropping combos, they get to reset their pressure.
I think the way you approached the game led you you to the negative experience you had, there’s depth to the wallbreak mechanic that you ignored simply because it’s different for example instead of breaking the wall you can wait for the enemy to fall off and restart pressure in the corner and learn combos that lead to different situations for the state of the game, sure the complexity of some aspects of the game has been reduced but don’t write it off just because you didn’t get the new stuff at first. it’s fine if stylistic choices made by the game put you off but it’s not the same is refusing to actually learn the game “ I don’t know what positive bonus does” shows that you didn’t really care to understand strive. If I misrepresented your feeling or got anything wrong please correct me because I can’t read your mind and am making wild assumptions. ( I like meat riding strive)
After finishing the video I found it really dissatisfying to hear that you only put 20hrs into strive as I don’t believe that that is enough time to really get to know some of the deeper aspect of the game, there are interesting combos and tools to get to them, and many other parts that I think you missed out on, I love strive, it’s not perfect and I think my biggest gripe is the terrible netcode but I haven’t played any other fighting games so maybe none of what ive said makes sense.
@@livehuman4092 soo true. i keep saying how resource management in this game makes it soo fun. timing of deflect shields, the best rc mechanic imo, wild assault(wwa still is a bit tricky) and how accesible it is to learn this. if you want crazy combo expression dont use elphelt since her gameplan is the same and she works better with conditioning. its not an execution heavy game apart from a few characters but more of resource management (nago chaos asuka aba and even how you use sin's stamina for pressure) watching umisho gobou other competitors shows how the game has depth. umisho plays sol differently from everyone. every asuka player has a distinct way of playing him with the test cases, nago players are either slow and careful or just risk takers putting everything on the line. Axl can be a rushdown with crazy combos with time stop chaos can be hell to fight if he goes full zoning or a demonic rushdown with frametraps and mixups, similar to jacko , may being a mixup character. i can go on and on........
For me, Strive is the perfect mix of the grounded footies of street fighter and the anime bullshit of plus r. It still has heaps of freedom, but characters don’t feel like they use cheat codes like in the older guilty gears
I don't wanna be that guy, but you do realize you are playing Elphelt, right? Not to say your criticism isn't valid, but you picked one of the most boring/mid characters in the game. If you want freedom or uniqueness you could play Chaos or Zato or Asuka. Even among the standard characters you have SOL BADGUY who can pretty much do anything and has super fun combos and neutral with a really high skill ceiling. Elphelt bro?? Really?
@@notcraig255 sin is a pretty free combo character because gazelle step allows u to do more than other characters but the way he plays elphelt in the video kind of shows he didn't even go into the combo trials .even in the video dude didn't even attempt to mix things up he did the same combo close slash into the most mid rekka combo ever. no wild assault no air combos no pressure sequences its like he went play in training for 10 min then hopped online
Great video, I'm mainly a xrd player and tried strive for about 30 hours and agree with pretty much every point you had. I don't mind the wall breaks though, idk why but I never really thought it was good or bad, I was just ehh about it. Also the combo situation is so real, I played gio and all my pokes went into combos I didn't like the feel of it after a while, although I think you miscatorgized it. In xrd when i play slayer i have set in stone combos, that's one of the main reasons i picked him up. idk why i like it in xrd compared to strive but i'm not sure if combo expression is the reason. the dlc characters are cool though I feel like i'd have to play one of them since they usually have more going on if i wanted to enjoy the game, but idk how long that would last. Overall I really liked the vid, alot of people who don't like strive will say it's awful but it's just a 5-6 imo.
If you like old-school fighters with a ton of freedom of movement, skill-expression and combo optimization, especially in the corner, look out for the next time King of Fighters 15 goes on sale. I think you'll really like it. Strive was a tough sell for me as well. I got into +R with some friends to get ready for Strive, only to find that it's a massively different game. Played it for a year, quit, starting going to locals where I would survive on muscle memory but never lab, and that was it. I've grown to appreciate it for what it is, especially now that Slayer is out and I'm having some fun with him, but it's hardly my first choice of fighting game. Music slaps though.
I’m having a lot of fun with the game. But I feel like most characters don’t have a lot of combo freedom without the use of Roman cancel. I main Sol and, although it’s tricky, he has a lot of combo freedom compared to others. I find in a lot of uses in airdashing. It has a very good use for rushing on long distance slightly faster, while being close to the ground, and it also help when doing pressure with multi hit aerial attacks. The reason why there’s an animation before dashing is I think to leave an opportunity to be air grabbed. You can also Roman cancel during an airdash to save the momentum and propel yourself anywhere. Axl do that a lot to get behind you while getting far enough to perform zoning attacks. Also, I think because they wanted to more beginner friendly, they implemented the wall mechanic to force combos and extended pressure to stop at some point. Being Comboed and of pressured for way too long or can lead to boredom or/and frustration. That’s my theory on why the wall work that way: In addition to make fights a bit more flashy, it gives a limit to how long a combo can be. Any good pressure or long combo long enough will lead to the wall in a way or an other. And if the cornered player can’t get out of it or doesn’t know how to, he ends up forced to be sticked to the wall. From there, two options are offered to the cornering player: -either he breaks the wall and gets a positive bonus, which is very strong and allow for some crazy pressure or combos if performed successfully right after the wall break, but in return, they get back in neutral. This means that while the cornered is still on a bad spot, this offers him a second chance by regaining some space to fight again and, if successful, get the opportunity to retaliate, or maybe even get his turn to also wall break the other person. Or - want to try to keep the corner advantage. It’s risky, cause the sticked, if given the time, has a few choices on how he wants to recover from the wall. He can either recover and propel himself from the wall to the other side of the screen, getting him behind you, reversing the situation. He can jump vertically high. No horizontal movement, just a jump from the wall to fall back on top of the other player. Or he can do nothing and slide on the wall, which still leave him as the cornered one, and the cornerer will be in a pressure situation. As the cornerer, you can still expect what recovery he’s gonna do and bring him back to the corner. For instance, if he tries to propel himself behind you, you can air grab him get him and keep him stuck in the corner. But in the end, whether you got sticked to the wall by doing combos or not, the cornerer will be forced into pressuring the cornered. Basically, whether the wall is broken or not, the cornered gets a chance to be out of a combo and get an opportunity to retaliate. whatever happens, he gets a chance to get out of long combos and get a turn play again.
some characters have karas (either dash cancel before specials or classic 3s type karas with normals or other moves) which give combos and other set ups more variety- Example Sol with his kara volcanic viper or revolver, millia with her mizura before certain moves, etc. Same with tiger knee inputs- axls tiger knee bombers etc.. These are also explored more with the rc system especially fast rc. This is where the emergent gameplay comes from. The wall funcitons like hitstun decay in other games where you flip out if the combo is too long, but in this case you instantly wall splat even if you hit the wall one time. The wall also functions like the stun bar in sf3 or gg where if you reset or hit the character too much the wall breaks. You cant think of strives wall like other games with wall breaks. Its not a good mechanic imo but it helps to understand this about the wall. Also you must consider the wall and midscreen in inverse with strive. The longer more stylish combos happen midscreen- or from corner to corner. This is usually done if you get an anti air starter or a counter hit starter and have meter. The wall does not break because you are keeping the opponent away from it. The corner because of the wall mechanic will act like an auto burst and as such functions like the midscreen. Your craziest mixups also happen in the mid screen instead of the corner in strive, but you need either meter or special knock downs to really exploit it. As an old GG player- been playing since ggx (yes im old), ive been trying to keep an open mind about the game, but i think the thing about strive is that it is for an audience who really do not know or probably dont appreciate the older facets of the series. They think its too broken , too snowbally or too obtuse. And i think that ultimately this is what holds strive from being extremely good like the other titles in its own way.
I actually think Sin in strive has some decent combo expression at a mid level once you learn kara supers; often you have to decide on how many stamina bars you want to use compared to how far you want the combo to go in terms of damage and corner carry. He can get some crazy wall-to-wall 50 meter combos with this.
I went from strive to xrd to +r and I mainly play strive nowadays but I really liked Xrd. I would def play xrd more if more people played it in Australia. I like some aspects of strive and dislike some; I think it's decent personally. I liked the removal of 'artifical difficulty' mechanics like char specific wakeups, weight classes and combos which were just unreliable among the cast. I like being able to learn a harder combo route and know that it will generally work. I also like Strive's removal of stun mashing and dizzy since I found they were just annoying and not really skillful. I also mainly just like the game since I can actually find matches relaibly in AUS lol. I'm also personally a fan of the changes to IB to not being mandatory as in previous games lots of chars like Sol and Slayer are balanced around the skill-check of being able to IB their + moves; if you don't, they are a menace to deal with. I don't like the new airdashes and limited gatlings specifically. I think they make the game feel too slow, linear and repetitive. I also think some of the wild assaults are cool in theory but kinda imbalanced. Overall I think the game is decent though and I have grown to like it as an intermediate player, especially due to the tricky combos I am practicing being universally applicable and reliable.
I personally have played Uni as my anime fighter before going into this game myself, so the limited movement actually didn't bother me as much. I had also never really played GG extensively before Strive, so I didn't have much in the way of bias for the series when going into it. Although after going back and playing Xrd and +R and other anime games like Melty after playing this, I can definitely see why the movement would bother players who liked anime games beforehand a lot. I've played this game since release, and the gatling system to this day is something that still confuses me as far as its implementation goes. I assume they have it the way it is to make it "easier" for newer players as it's more restrictive, but I actually think it makes it harder for newer players to understand as what button chains into what seems very random. Anyone who's played MMBACC knows that, as a new player, when you don't know what a character does, you can basically do any chain into launcher into BCBC air throw and it works for the majority of the cast. Although the combo is obviously awful, it does let you do something, as opposed to Strive where in the beginning you sort of have to try to remember. I felt like if they wanted to restrict how long combos are and the such, they could have done something with the gravity instead of gatlings. In any case, I like this game, and it's the fighting game I've put the most time into by far. It does have its problems, although my grievances are much different than yours, probably because I have been playing much longer. I really don't blame people who came from Xrd or +R who hated this game on release. It can feel bad when a game you've sunk hundreds or potentially thousands of hours deviates so heavily from the previous titles. I'm just glad that Xrd and +R got rollback so they can experience the older games in a good environment.
honestly a lot of the enjoyment i got from strive was precisely from how simple it's combo system is it is an insanely neutral heavy game, infact i believe rc drift was specifically put in place for that i also found some enjoyment from how simple the characters are since you just jump around constantly, honestly i wish that the game let you go to the character select screen mid set the counter pick potential is crazy it's kinda occupying the same taste that like jojo hftf or kof have in my brain, which i can understand why you wouldnt like it but personally i found it enjoyable as it's own thing separate from +r (which i also really really like) tbf i am mostly glad they went with a brand new direction to what guilty gear is with strive, i found thay xrd was a heavy dissapointment when compared to +r so i never really got a reason to play it over that game, however with strive being it's own thing mostly i do find a reason to play it occasionally i wouldnt call it an amazing fast paced footsies fighter, but it's definetly great in said category and i quite enjoy the freedom rc drift brings also when it comes to airdashes i appreciate them making airdashes almost exclusively a combo/mix up option, +r neutral atleast so far from what i've played is really really centered around airdashing since it's a mostly safe extremely fast movement option, which fits for +r but would kinda remove a lot if the sauce strive has in it's neutral also i put like 100 hours into the game lmao, honestly a lot of the stuff in strive only becomes apparent after a while
I've been playing Guilty Gear since XX Reload and I kind of bounced off Strive hard for the simple fact that it feels like a game where "hey all your characters are super nerfed!" and that's just a hard sell game-feel wise. That and I care a lot about music in games and I don't like lyrical music so uh yeah.
wallbreak is cool imo, especially once you realize that combos are already artificially shortened by the gatling changes i think it works in the existing system but yeah i agree that i wish the system was different and in that different system i wouldn’t want wall-breaking back without some changes
Guilty gear accent core was my very first fighting I played through emulation on my phone in 2021and since then I have over 300 hundred hours and then I discovered Blazblue continuum shift (PSP version) which is probably the game I put the most time into in my life Right.. but since I finally have an Actual PC I can play +R and BB legitimately (cracked) So I haven't played strive (I don't think I would be able to because my PC kinda trash) thought I tried it for a couple of matches with my friend But honestly what I like most about fighting is simply combos sweet long 15_20 Seconds combos that's why I play anime fighters UNI 2 is my favourite game because every character have combos and conversions from every hit they can land (2A 2A all day) And for strive no matter how you put it it's just a tuned down guilty gear XX or Xrd in many ways like combos Oki AIR DASHING feels pretty clunky and most importantly air throw burst (soul steal)😭 also no matter what arc sys do they will never make a character cooler than+R Johnny venom or order sol also no fighting game ever can have something as awesome as sol sidewinder in the end strive might be a good beginner game and maybe a good veteran game But most of us fighting game crackheads might not find satisfaction from games like strive anyway so instead of wasting time hating or complaining one can just be chill and let people enjoy what they do play have fun that's the important thing Thanks for reading this rambling to the end🎉
I believe ever since the added Asuka the game kinda started becoming less accessible for new players but a friend who is very new to game and me a celestial floor player just like to have fun (also if you are looking to actually get a more in depth experience of the game, elphelt isn't that bad of a start but she is a bit of a cruch because someone like sol badguy is a pretty well rounded character to actually start messing with game mechanics)
I think I commented this in another video too, but I think one of the better overlooked qualities strive has, specially for newer player, is its popularity. Being popular not only makes so there's a lot of intuitive guides, but also most importantly, it makes so there's a fair ammount of players queueing up in different skill levels. Like, comparing the ammount of active players at any moment from Strive to any other airdasher fighting game is night and day - which is very sad imo, because I wanted to get into stuff like Plus R and BBCF. Either way, just giving a different perspective to the comparison, cheers!
It was definitely an acquired taste for me. I started playing fighting games with Melty a year or two ago, and pretty much have stuck with older anime fighters since. The loss of gatlings and air movement and the very linear character aims were really tough to get behind. That said, ever since I bit the bullet and bought Happy Chaos (among a few others) hoping for a resolution to my character crisis, I feel a little more at home. Gun patches together the lackluster cancel options while actually providing a dynamic feeling to playing him, and finally having an execution barrier to bite into was a godsend. I think I kinda got lucky, though. Strive under normal circumstances very likely just wouldn't be the type of game for me, but the small handful of characters that have a bit more freedom in their kit happen to click with the playstyles I enjoy normally. Its version of simple is far too simple to be enjoyable for my tastes. Personally, I find the lack of gatlings to be most noticeable when just running an offense. Having so few options makes your gameplan feel extremely cut and dry. Where combos and defense are concerned though, I'm not certain it matters as much. Most of what you do on either case is pretty much set in stone from the moment you confirm the hit, so I don't see much substantial difference besides the amount of hits in the punish or combo. Definitely agree on the wall being abnormally inconsistent when compared to the rest of the game's mechanics. It probably wouldn't be as out of place if they didn't take so many strides to sand down sources for inconsistency in almost every other place. The lack of long lasting corner control kinda blows, but like you said the game isn't built for it.
The few things I think strive does great is: Grabs, I hate grabs in general but the universal grab in Strive is better than pressing forward/back HS. Some crazy bold gameplay designs like my favourite Jacko and then theres HC and Asuka, Goldlewis, etc within this more grounded design. Wallbreaks do have their downsides, but a lot of the maps feel varied within a single match. Dash macro making things a lot easier and generally feel good. What I really dont like about Strive is the balance, many inconsistencies and arbitrary decisions and rules. There is so much crap that can happen.
@@johnsmith8055I wish that AC+r had more throw invulnerable moves to make the knockdown oki a bit cooler but the lack of a standard throw whiff animation is pretty interesting.
Guilty Gear is just too contrived to appeal to me. I've played casually a few of them, and they never reached the clear, inviting feel I've got from Blazblue or DNF or Granblue. Later I tried a little more seriously to at least understand Strive, which I know is one of the "simpler" ones, and honestly, is too loud, too unfocused. There are enormous words everywhere, the characters suddenly float in the air with no apparent reason, the "air walls" I have always hated in every single 2d fighter are even more pronounced because they look almost 3d now, and have a huge extra mechanic attached to them... also there are the multiple assaults, the multiple roman cancels, the 3 dusts, the two bursts, the bonus, faultless defense, tension, DANGER, RISC... its way too much, and most of it is not intuitive at all. Add very attention claiming music, really interesting and often with lyrics, super flashy and colorful character designs and super fast and shapeshifting animations... It is like a ton of fireworks exploding inside a toy factory. Also Giovanna's dog barely does something. I don't understand why is there if they are not going to use it.
While I get a lot of the criticisms toward Strive, and why a lot of older players wont like it, especially as someone who started with Xrd Sign, I would be lying of I said I dont enjoy playing Strive. Is it less mechanically in depth than Xrd, and especially +R? Absolutely. But does that make it a bad fighting game, or not enjoyable to play? No. At least to me it doesn't. I just enjoy Strive.
@@blockhead134 AC+r Axl combo: 5P, 6K, 2S. meterlessly combos from throw, meterlessly combos from his counters, counter-hit 5H, and if 5P hits as an anti-air then the rest will combo. The timing might be different to get 2S to hit based on weight and size but 2S also can function as a reset vs air teching since it must be blocked with Faultless defense. It's also really satisfying to land because it combos sort of like the hands of a clock moving.
i like the game for its own merits, but trying to play it like a standard guilty gear romp just messes with my head. The lack of fun and interesting combo routes without spending meter as well t’as the limited gatlings kinda upset me. it does add complexity in other areas, notably the button you used to start the combo matters way more in this game previous ones but it’s still a net negative. let me combo kick into slash ffs 😭
I knew immediately from the beta way back that this game wasn't gonna be for me. The occasional thought does arise to try it out but that thought is immediately drowned out hearing how god awful online is.
I personally like the new RC system a lot, its just stuck in a really stiff feeling fighting game. Lack of traditional gatlings, ground to air combos and air dash being missing, it makes the game feel stale. Here's hoping that strive season 4 revamps the game (it probably wont but hey, maybe after season 4 they'll do something for shits and giggles).
Hopeful rant of my opinion on strive The Biggest GG game I hope the update will address the strength of wallbreak and Wild assault The devs seem to think the same but I would like to see how the 3v3 mode shakes up the game play as it will be a new game addition really My favorite part of strive is the two players fighting to get each others set play started which has always been in GG but both wild assault and positive bouns are far too strong ATM so instead of a tug of war it's a landslide. I know despite liking GG I wouldn't have gotten into the older games for their both overwhelming complexity and lack of definitive editions. I know I'm not alone as strive now more than ever is getting more popular with 3 million copies sold this week and the Evo numbers being higher than ever. And with so much to reveal in Evo I have a feeling it's only going to get bigger P.S. Everything here is an opinion, pls remember that
Pretty nice vid, specially regarding the new gattling system and stuff like the air dashes. I think the old gattling system was overall pretty accesible, but also open to options. Like most characters had specific to how they wanna do gattlings, but it was also possible to do stuff like your basic kick or punch starter, into slash, into sweep, to get started, and the other stuff is for when ya get into the specifics more, was neat. Strive feels like it just limits both your basic and specifics more I feel Wall break I was actually overall ok with, tho I get the critisism. Is sad missing the corner combos, but at least ya still get a reward with positive bonus and such. But yeah, overall the air dashes feel so slow because the stard up lmao, crazy when ya compare it to how characters like Millia used them in plus r. Barely feels like a anime fighter in that specific regard I am not actually not the biggest fan of strive's ost lol, like idk, it strikes me as too overproduced, but relatively minor thing, and presentation great besides that. But yeah overall, as someone who has mostly played plus r with pals and whatnot, I will say is my least favorite of the main gear games (that people play anyways, we don't count missing link there lol), even if I still like it Overall good video! I feel like ya put your issues with the game in a pretty natural and reasonable manner
I honestly don’t like the old gear games, coming from a strive zoomer I much prefer the more “limited” sort of pipeline they give you access to. It’s still got plenty of character diversity, unique mechanics and fun/dogshit interactions that gear is known for. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t think people should do reviews on something that they personally just can’t bring themselves to really invest themselves in. I’d say the same for myself and the older gear games. I played +R for about 100 hours but not once online (people are too goddamn good at that game) and I also played about 25-20 hours of Xrd rev2 and I just didn’t like either. About the same as to what you have in Strive. And I’d say that’s not a valid amount of time. I have a handful of my own personal qualms about Xrd; namely the art-style of Xrd in particular looked so bad I couldn’t even tell what was happening, the way they did the animations left no room for mid way animation, it’s just startup and end so I didn’t like that. Everything just looks wrong and I didn’t like it, to ME it looked weird and gross, and like one of those bad movie type animations. And I just didn’t like just how free everything was. It was almost as if there was no structure and I genuinely hate that in games. So I don’t know, Strive is cool and so are the other games, but to judge something you kinda gotta immerse yourself in it. So I guess really I can’t say that I dislike Xrd even if what I did play I didn’t enjoy.
You can like whatever you want But being critical about a topic is very different from your personal takes and yes people probably are better off using their Time and effort into something they can emerge themselves into but not everything is perfect for YOU and OTHERS
The thing is that in old fighting games the "boring characters" tend to have a simple base line but have more quirks with their buttons and specials that you learn through experience such as AC+r Sol's gun flame faint having a small attack box that hits OTG which allows for a relaunch with roman cancel. It's about simple to learn but many quirks to master.
@@user-cc3ef7qh1x The gun faint gives a combo extension into volcanic viper and the knockdown followup that a gunflame frc wouldn't. It does, however not give enough space to set up gunflame oki but you can safe jump with jHs which is still very good. Ultimately if it will kill then it is better but if it won't then it really depends on if you are willing to spend a bit more meter for a bit more damage and safe jump oki instead of gunflame oki.
you could've played harder characters tbh. someone like jacko who is harder than even her xrd version trying johnny zato asuka hc aba even sol. elphelt is basically a character to familiarize yourself with the game but if you want wild things u can pick the other wild characters. my first gg was xrd and while i did enjoy it, it had a lot to take in which was overwhelming but fun. strive gets rid of most of those mechanics like face up or down recovery frc from accent core and focuses on how you use resources. thats why resource characters are plenty in strive and the most fun characters. strive became my favourite game after ABA. at first i also felt how the game slowed things down and i really did not like how ky was in this game especially(+r ky still best) but i just found a character that i never would have thhought id play. find the character or just hope they release a character with your preferred playstyle and the game will be extremely enjoyable. strive is basically a reset of gg to be more accesible and easy to call your friends to play. so if hard execution is your thing then ofc it wont be as enjoyable. great vid
I don't really see the problem with the airdash, I play millia and she uses it extensively. Personally I felt that millia is way more fun in strive then in previous titles. with a much more fluid airial movement game. I guess its worse on other characters but I still use them extensively. Strive has issues like wild assault and roman cancels being way too good but I prefer it over the problems that previous games had. I think both games are good and it all comes down to what kind of player you are and what characters you like
I watch strive and (mostly) enjoy it 'cause it seems like the most diverse (cast-wise and gameplay-wise) of the mainstream modern games, but I'd take Xrd or +R any day of the week. They're harder (or at least they feel so, I'm a noob lmao), but the way characters differ from one another and matches feel unique is priceless. The homogenous feeling of SF6 made me gave up the game entirely, and on that note, Strive ends up being the less homogenized of the mainstream games, but yeah, I'd rather watch/play the older ones
Strive is a mediocre game. I tell you this as a GGXXAC player from PS2 days. Xrd was already a step in the wrong direction, in Strive they just doubled down.
Bros finding out that nit everything made for them is my second favorite genre of fgc content
I think a lot of people who are well-versed in the anime FG subgenre tend to look at Strive through a lens that they're used to, which makes it feel lacking. I will concede that the current state of the game is possibly at an all-time low point as the Season 3 characters and gameplay changes have been pretty disastrous IMO and poked countless holes in the delicate design philosophy the game initially had (and enforced throughout Season 2).
Only after deep-diving into BBCF, AC+R, and to a lesser extent Rev2 did I start to appreciate the Strive gatling system for actually feeling like a system to consistently engage with rather than memorize and be done with. P buttons are the fastest abare options but are difficult to meaningfully convert off of, whereas K buttons tend to be a few frames slower but convert into knockdowns. It adds a certain dynamic to abare where I can opt for a slightly slower button like 2K and get an actual turn instead of resetting. I compare this to AC+R/Rev2 where it's rarely appropriate to not press your fastest range-appropriate button, since it all converts into the same optimally-rewarding combo tree anyway aside from differences in proration. Strive's gatlings also add a unique strength to characters like Axl and Bridget that have their abare options on K. f.S used to be somewhat difficult to get huge conversions off of, on account of being generally good pokes in a more neutral-oriented game, but that's less the case now that Wild Assault exists and nothing matters anymore.
The wall is another thing that I think gets a bad rep because it's seen as a pure limitation rather than another means of skill expression. The corner is still wildly rewarding in Strive, arguably even more so than in other anime fighters, but you can't just autopilot a reasonably-optimal corner combo and call it a day. Taking frequent resets and balancing wall health as it regenerates via careful routing and starter selection are important high-level skills because wallbreaking without a knockdown is at best mildly rewarding and at worst a fumble. Granted, this dynamic is much less important in Season 3 because Wild Assault makes hard-knockdown wallbreaks ridiculously accessible, and you no longer have to build RISC and meter for a proper wallbreak cash-out from early in a round. Having Positive Bonus after a knockdown wallbreak is basically a win condition for some characters and the value is not to be understated.
Strive is a fighting game that IMO places a lot of emphasis on the decision tree and resource management while also making those aspects of the game more easily accessible than any other anime fighter. It's a design that I respect a lot and it makes it far more enjoyable for me to play FT20s or longer sets in Strive compared to BBCF or AC+R (where the execution becomes a factor that warps the decision-making process in a way that can feel limiting or frustrating).
Also, it wasn't mentioned in the video, but I think Strive's RC system is beautifully designed, and is way deeper and more fun to use than the equivalents in BB and older GG titles. Props to that.
I think the wall was pretty okay before, but wild assault pretty much destroyed all nuance that it had. That one mechanic has just been extremely detrimental to the game.
Heavy agree
And now WA no longer hard knockdowns, all is well lol
@@matmil5 Yeah, removing that, WWA guard crush, and DP RC was a massive improvement :D the game is probably even more interactive now than at the end of Season 2 which is refreshing. Aside from the Season 3 characters which are all bad polarizing designs lol
My initial reaction to Strive was pretty much the same as yours. It doesn't feel like the old GG at all and that was a big disappointment to me initially.
...But Strive grew on me over time. It feels different from the rest of the series, but as you said "in a vacuum, it's a good fighting game". I pretty much started seeing Strive as a "different game with the GG characters in it", and as that, it works. Especially now that I have less time to play video games/practice, I can kind of appreciate the games I play being a bit less technical and requiring less "labing". And Strive definitely does compared to the richer, but very demanding older games.
I can fully understand some people are not sharing this subjective opinion, though. ...Fortunately, for those people, there is GG Xrd rev 2, which is basically the 3D conversion of the old 2D games, with all the quick airdashes and character-specific gatlings and subtleties you could ever want. And it still looks very good by today's standards. :)
My guilty gear pipeline was Xrd --> +R --> Strive. For the record I have about 300 hours in XRD, 1000 in +R and 300 in Strive so I did play extensively more of Strive than you.
My main comment about the game is that the online (not inmatch) is the worst. many crashes, fighting the same opponent in tower and the downtime between matches is ridiculous. Moreover, as a TO I do not enjoy running the game cause there's spectator glitches that are still in the game and were pointed out day 1.
Anyway venting aside, I do agree that Strive is a more waterdowned version of the previous 2. They streamline mostly everything, wakeup timing, gatlings, weight classes, etc. Therefore, it's weird that the wall is such a cryptic and complex mechanic that's not explained fully in game.
I loved the game at first then hated the game, nowadays I play a few hours each month and enjoy my time.
The main reason was my character. I played Faust from day one and really didn't enjoy my time as I climbed ranks.
I tried Sin and Testament, didn't particularly like them
I now play Goldlewis, Bedman and Asuka. Bedman and Asuka both provide a freedom of expression you probably were looking for.
I won't convince you to play the game again, cause competitively I dropped a year and a half ago.
I don't have a final point.
The downtime is actually insane. I just don't play tower anymore and instead only hop on for player lobbies with friends to not have to deal with the fight stations or w/e they're called.
Strive was my first fighting game. As a new player, breaking the wall felt good. It was a clear success condition for finishing a combo. Since then Ive put a lot more time into strive and I want to love it but it just frustrates me. Aside from the shitty stale meta, the lack of air tech really hurts the game. Players arent punished for dropping combos, they get to reset their pressure.
There's no air tech in this game???? Hell no what were they thinking dawg
I think the way you approached the game led you you to the negative experience you had, there’s depth to the wallbreak mechanic that you ignored simply because it’s different for example instead of breaking the wall you can wait for the enemy to fall off and restart pressure in the corner and learn combos that lead to different situations for the state of the game, sure the complexity of some aspects of the game has been reduced but don’t write it off just because you didn’t get the new stuff at first. it’s fine if stylistic choices made by the game put you off but it’s not the same is refusing to actually learn the game “ I don’t know what positive bonus does” shows that you didn’t really care to understand strive. If I misrepresented your feeling or got anything wrong please correct me because I can’t read your mind and am making wild assumptions. ( I like meat riding strive)
After finishing the video I found it really dissatisfying to hear that you only put 20hrs into strive as I don’t believe that that is enough time to really get to know some of the deeper aspect of the game, there are interesting combos and tools to get to them, and many other parts that I think you missed out on, I love strive, it’s not perfect and I think my biggest gripe is the terrible netcode but I haven’t played any other fighting games so maybe none of what ive said makes sense.
@@livehuman4092 soo true. i keep saying how resource management in this game makes it soo fun. timing of deflect shields, the best rc mechanic imo, wild assault(wwa still is a bit tricky) and how accesible it is to learn this. if you want crazy combo expression dont use elphelt since her gameplan is the same and she works better with conditioning. its not an execution heavy game apart from a few characters but more of resource management (nago chaos asuka aba and even how you use sin's stamina for pressure) watching umisho gobou other competitors shows how the game has depth. umisho plays sol differently from everyone. every asuka player has a distinct way of playing him with the test cases, nago players are either slow and careful or just risk takers putting everything on the line. Axl can be a rushdown with crazy combos with time stop chaos can be hell to fight if he goes full zoning or a demonic rushdown with frametraps and mixups, similar to jacko , may being a mixup character. i can go on and on........
For me, Strive is the perfect mix of the grounded footies of street fighter and the anime bullshit of plus r.
It still has heaps of freedom, but characters don’t feel like they use cheat codes like in the older guilty gears
Your only move is Hustle
I don't wanna be that guy, but you do realize you are playing Elphelt, right? Not to say your criticism isn't valid, but you picked one of the most boring/mid characters in the game. If you want freedom or uniqueness you could play Chaos or Zato or Asuka. Even among the standard characters you have SOL BADGUY who can pretty much do anything and has super fun combos and neutral with a really high skill ceiling.
Elphelt bro?? Really?
including testament and sin
@@notcraig255 sin is a pretty free combo character because gazelle step allows u to do more than other characters but the way he plays elphelt in the video kind of shows he didn't even go into the combo trials .even in the video dude didn't even attempt to mix things up he did the same combo close slash into the most mid rekka combo ever. no wild assault no air combos no pressure sequences its like he went play in training for 10 min then hopped online
@@notcraig255 considering the lack of time they played I'm sure they barely touched them
Great video, I'm mainly a xrd player and tried strive for about 30 hours and agree with pretty much every point you had. I don't mind the wall breaks though, idk why but I never really thought it was good or bad, I was just ehh about it. Also the combo situation is so real, I played gio and all my pokes went into combos I didn't like the feel of it after a while, although I think you miscatorgized it. In xrd when i play slayer i have set in stone combos, that's one of the main reasons i picked him up. idk why i like it in xrd compared to strive but i'm not sure if combo expression is the reason. the dlc characters are cool though I feel like i'd have to play one of them since they usually have more going on if i wanted to enjoy the game, but idk how long that would last. Overall I really liked the vid, alot of people who don't like strive will say it's awful but it's just a 5-6 imo.
If you like old-school fighters with a ton of freedom of movement, skill-expression and combo optimization, especially in the corner, look out for the next time King of Fighters 15 goes on sale. I think you'll really like it.
Strive was a tough sell for me as well. I got into +R with some friends to get ready for Strive, only to find that it's a massively different game. Played it for a year, quit, starting going to locals where I would survive on muscle memory but never lab, and that was it. I've grown to appreciate it for what it is, especially now that Slayer is out and I'm having some fun with him, but it's hardly my first choice of fighting game. Music slaps though.
i like strive but respect your opinion raghhh!!!! swag video
I’m having a lot of fun with the game.
But I feel like most characters don’t have a lot of combo freedom without the use of Roman cancel.
I main Sol and, although it’s tricky, he has a lot of combo freedom compared to others.
I find in a lot of uses in airdashing.
It has a very good use for rushing on long distance slightly faster, while being close to the ground, and it also help when doing pressure with multi hit aerial attacks.
The reason why there’s an animation before dashing is I think to leave an opportunity to be air grabbed.
You can also Roman cancel during an airdash to save the momentum and propel yourself anywhere.
Axl do that a lot to get behind you while getting far enough to perform zoning attacks.
Also, I think because they wanted to more beginner friendly, they implemented the wall mechanic to force combos and extended pressure to stop at some point.
Being Comboed and of pressured for way too long or can lead to boredom or/and frustration.
That’s my theory on why the wall work that way:
In addition to make fights a bit more flashy, it gives a limit to how long a combo can be.
Any good pressure or long combo long enough will lead to the wall in a way or an other.
And if the cornered player can’t get out of it or doesn’t know how to, he ends up forced to be sticked to the wall.
From there, two options are offered to the cornering player:
-either he breaks the wall and gets a positive bonus, which is very strong and allow for some crazy pressure or combos if performed successfully right after the wall break, but in return, they get back in neutral.
This means that while the cornered is still on a bad spot, this offers him a second chance by regaining some space to fight again and, if successful, get the opportunity to retaliate, or maybe even get his turn to also wall break the other person.
Or
- want to try to keep the corner advantage.
It’s risky, cause the sticked, if given the time, has a few choices on how he wants to recover from the wall.
He can either recover and propel himself from the wall to the other side of the screen, getting him behind you, reversing the situation.
He can jump vertically high.
No horizontal movement, just a jump from the wall to fall back on top of the other player.
Or he can do nothing and slide on the wall, which still leave him as the cornered one, and the cornerer will be in a pressure situation.
As the cornerer, you can still expect what recovery he’s gonna do and bring him back to the corner.
For instance, if he tries to propel himself behind you, you can air grab him get him and keep him stuck in the corner.
But in the end, whether you got sticked to the wall by doing combos or not, the cornerer will be forced into pressuring the cornered.
Basically, whether the wall is broken or not, the cornered gets a chance to be out of a combo and get an opportunity to retaliate.
whatever happens, he gets a chance to get out of long combos and get a turn play again.
great video bro, +R forever
some characters have karas (either dash cancel before specials or classic 3s type karas with normals or other moves) which give combos and other set ups more variety- Example Sol with his kara volcanic viper or revolver, millia with her mizura before certain moves, etc. Same with tiger knee inputs- axls tiger knee bombers etc.. These are also explored more with the rc system especially fast rc. This is where the emergent gameplay comes from.
The wall funcitons like hitstun decay in other games where you flip out if the combo is too long, but in this case you instantly wall splat even if you hit the wall one time. The wall also functions like the stun bar in sf3 or gg where if you reset or hit the character too much the wall breaks. You cant think of strives wall like other games with wall breaks. Its not a good mechanic imo but it helps to understand this about the wall.
Also you must consider the wall and midscreen in inverse with strive. The longer more stylish combos happen midscreen- or from corner to corner. This is usually done if you get an anti air starter or a counter hit starter and have meter. The wall does not break because you are keeping the opponent away from it. The corner because of the wall mechanic will act like an auto burst and as such functions like the midscreen. Your craziest mixups also happen in the mid screen instead of the corner in strive, but you need either meter or special knock downs to really exploit it.
As an old GG player- been playing since ggx (yes im old), ive been trying to keep an open mind about the game, but i think the thing about strive is that it is for an audience who really do not know or probably dont appreciate the older facets of the series. They think its too broken , too snowbally or too obtuse. And i think that ultimately this is what holds strive from being extremely good like the other titles in its own way.
I actually think Sin in strive has some decent combo expression at a mid level once you learn kara supers; often you have to decide on how many stamina bars you want to use compared to how far you want the combo to go in terms of damage and corner carry. He can get some crazy wall-to-wall 50 meter combos with this.
He only played 20hrs😂😂 ofc he didn't learn any of that
@@snowflake4108 yeah I don’t think it’s fair to criticise boring combos when he plays elphelt and does beginner combos.
I went from strive to xrd to +r and I mainly play strive nowadays but I really liked Xrd. I would def play xrd more if more people played it in Australia. I like some aspects of strive and dislike some; I think it's decent personally.
I liked the removal of 'artifical difficulty' mechanics like char specific wakeups, weight classes and combos which were just unreliable among the cast. I like being able to learn a harder combo route and know that it will generally work. I also like Strive's removal of stun mashing and dizzy since I found they were just annoying and not really skillful. I also mainly just like the game since I can actually find matches relaibly in AUS lol. I'm also personally a fan of the changes to IB to not being mandatory as in previous games lots of chars like Sol and Slayer are balanced around the skill-check of being able to IB their + moves; if you don't, they are a menace to deal with.
I don't like the new airdashes and limited gatlings specifically. I think they make the game feel too slow, linear and repetitive. I also think some of the wild assaults are cool in theory but kinda imbalanced. Overall I think the game is decent though and I have grown to like it as an intermediate player, especially due to the tricky combos I am practicing being universally applicable and reliable.
Same
12 minute old comment, and only 60 billion views… LBM fell off… 🥀
Still alive....
lucid is here, vid is peak
I personally have played Uni as my anime fighter before going into this game myself, so the limited movement actually didn't bother me as much. I had also never really played GG extensively before Strive, so I didn't have much in the way of bias for the series when going into it. Although after going back and playing Xrd and +R and other anime games like Melty after playing this, I can definitely see why the movement would bother players who liked anime games beforehand a lot.
I've played this game since release, and the gatling system to this day is something that still confuses me as far as its implementation goes. I assume they have it the way it is to make it "easier" for newer players as it's more restrictive, but I actually think it makes it harder for newer players to understand as what button chains into what seems very random. Anyone who's played MMBACC knows that, as a new player, when you don't know what a character does, you can basically do any chain into launcher into BCBC air throw and it works for the majority of the cast. Although the combo is obviously awful, it does let you do something, as opposed to Strive where in the beginning you sort of have to try to remember. I felt like if they wanted to restrict how long combos are and the such, they could have done something with the gravity instead of gatlings.
In any case, I like this game, and it's the fighting game I've put the most time into by far. It does have its problems, although my grievances are much different than yours, probably because I have been playing much longer. I really don't blame people who came from Xrd or +R who hated this game on release. It can feel bad when a game you've sunk hundreds or potentially thousands of hours deviates so heavily from the previous titles. I'm just glad that Xrd and +R got rollback so they can experience the older games in a good environment.
honestly a lot of the enjoyment i got from strive was precisely from how simple it's combo system is
it is an insanely neutral heavy game, infact i believe rc drift was specifically put in place for that
i also found some enjoyment from how simple the characters are since you just jump around constantly, honestly i wish that the game let you go to the character select screen mid set the counter pick potential is crazy
it's kinda occupying the same taste that like jojo hftf or kof have in my brain, which i can understand why you wouldnt like it but personally i found it enjoyable as it's own thing separate from +r (which i also really really like)
tbf i am mostly glad they went with a brand new direction to what guilty gear is with strive, i found thay xrd was a heavy dissapointment when compared to +r so i never really got a reason to play it over that game, however with strive being it's own thing mostly i do find a reason to play it occasionally
i wouldnt call it an amazing fast paced footsies fighter, but it's definetly great in said category and i quite enjoy the freedom rc drift brings
also when it comes to airdashes i appreciate them making airdashes almost exclusively a combo/mix up option, +r neutral atleast so far from what i've played is really really centered around airdashing since it's a mostly safe extremely fast movement option, which fits for +r but would kinda remove a lot if the sauce strive has in it's neutral
also i put like 100 hours into the game lmao, honestly a lot of the stuff in strive only becomes apparent after a while
I've been playing Guilty Gear since XX Reload and I kind of bounced off Strive hard for the simple fact that it feels like a game where "hey all your characters are super nerfed!" and that's just a hard sell game-feel wise.
That and I care a lot about music in games and I don't like lyrical music so uh yeah.
wallbreak is cool imo, especially once you realize that combos are already artificially shortened by the gatling changes i think it works in the existing system but yeah i agree that i wish the system was different and in that different system i wouldn’t want wall-breaking back without some changes
Guilty gear accent core was my very first fighting I played through emulation on my phone in 2021and since then I have over 300 hundred hours and then I discovered
Blazblue continuum shift (PSP version) which is probably the game I put the most time into in my life
Right.. but since I finally have an Actual PC I can play +R and BB legitimately (cracked)
So I haven't played strive
(I don't think I would be able to because my PC kinda trash) thought I tried it for a couple of matches with my friend
But honestly what I like most about fighting is simply combos sweet long 15_20 Seconds combos that's why I play anime fighters UNI 2 is my favourite game because every character have combos and conversions from every hit they can land (2A 2A all day)
And for strive no matter how you put it it's just a tuned down guilty gear XX or Xrd in many ways like combos Oki AIR DASHING feels pretty clunky and most importantly air throw burst (soul steal)😭 also no matter what arc sys do they will never make a character cooler than+R Johnny venom or
order sol also no fighting game ever can have something as awesome as sol sidewinder
in the end strive might be a good beginner game and maybe a good veteran game
But most of us fighting game crackheads might not find satisfaction from games like strive anyway so instead of wasting time hating or complaining one can just be chill and let people enjoy what they do
play have fun that's the important thing
Thanks for reading this rambling to the end🎉
I believe ever since the added Asuka the game kinda started becoming less accessible for new players but a friend who is very new to game and me a celestial floor player just like to have fun (also if you are looking to actually get a more in depth experience of the game, elphelt isn't that bad of a start but she is a bit of a cruch because someone like sol badguy is a pretty well rounded character to actually start messing with game mechanics)
I think I commented this in another video too, but I think one of the better overlooked qualities strive has, specially for newer player, is its popularity. Being popular not only makes so there's a lot of intuitive guides, but also most importantly, it makes so there's a fair ammount of players queueing up in different skill levels. Like, comparing the ammount of active players at any moment from Strive to any other airdasher fighting game is night and day - which is very sad imo, because I wanted to get into stuff like Plus R and BBCF.
Either way, just giving a different perspective to the comparison, cheers!
It was definitely an acquired taste for me. I started playing fighting games with Melty a year or two ago, and pretty much have stuck with older anime fighters since. The loss of gatlings and air movement and the very linear character aims were really tough to get behind. That said, ever since I bit the bullet and bought Happy Chaos (among a few others) hoping for a resolution to my character crisis, I feel a little more at home. Gun patches together the lackluster cancel options while actually providing a dynamic feeling to playing him, and finally having an execution barrier to bite into was a godsend. I think I kinda got lucky, though. Strive under normal circumstances very likely just wouldn't be the type of game for me, but the small handful of characters that have a bit more freedom in their kit happen to click with the playstyles I enjoy normally. Its version of simple is far too simple to be enjoyable for my tastes.
Personally, I find the lack of gatlings to be most noticeable when just running an offense. Having so few options makes your gameplan feel extremely cut and dry. Where combos and defense are concerned though, I'm not certain it matters as much. Most of what you do on either case is pretty much set in stone from the moment you confirm the hit, so I don't see much substantial difference besides the amount of hits in the punish or combo.
Definitely agree on the wall being abnormally inconsistent when compared to the rest of the game's mechanics. It probably wouldn't be as out of place if they didn't take so many strides to sand down sources for inconsistency in almost every other place. The lack of long lasting corner control kinda blows, but like you said the game isn't built for it.
The few things I think strive does great is: Grabs, I hate grabs in general but the universal grab in Strive is better than pressing forward/back HS.
Some crazy bold gameplay designs like my favourite Jacko and then theres HC and Asuka, Goldlewis, etc within this more grounded design.
Wallbreaks do have their downsides, but a lot of the maps feel varied within a single match.
Dash macro making things a lot easier and generally feel good.
What I really dont like about Strive is the balance, many inconsistencies and arbitrary decisions and rules. There is so much crap that can happen.
Forward/back HS was cool, very reactionary.
@@johnsmith8055I wish that AC+r had more throw invulnerable moves to make the knockdown oki a bit cooler but the lack of a standard throw whiff animation is pretty interesting.
Guilty Gear is just too contrived to appeal to me. I've played casually a few of them, and they never reached the clear, inviting feel I've got from Blazblue or DNF or Granblue. Later I tried a little more seriously to at least understand Strive, which I know is one of the "simpler" ones, and honestly, is too loud, too unfocused. There are enormous words everywhere, the characters suddenly float in the air with no apparent reason, the "air walls" I have always hated in every single 2d fighter are even more pronounced because they look almost 3d now, and have a huge extra mechanic attached to them... also there are the multiple assaults, the multiple roman cancels, the 3 dusts, the two bursts, the bonus, faultless defense, tension, DANGER, RISC... its way too much, and most of it is not intuitive at all. Add very attention claiming music, really interesting and often with lyrics, super flashy and colorful character designs and super fast and shapeshifting animations... It is like a ton of fireworks exploding inside a toy factory.
Also Giovanna's dog barely does something. I don't understand why is there if they are not going to use it.
While I get a lot of the criticisms toward Strive, and why a lot of older players wont like it, especially as someone who started with Xrd Sign, I would be lying of I said I dont enjoy playing Strive.
Is it less mechanically in depth than Xrd, and especially +R? Absolutely. But does that make it a bad fighting game, or not enjoyable to play? No. At least to me it doesn't.
I just enjoy Strive.
I just like having a fighting game where I dont have to put 10k hours in to be able to land a single hit in any online match
@@blockhead134 AC+r Axl combo: 5P, 6K, 2S. meterlessly combos from throw, meterlessly combos from his counters, counter-hit 5H, and if 5P hits as an anti-air then the rest will combo. The timing might be different to get 2S to hit based on weight and size but 2S also can function as a reset vs air teching since it must be blocked with Faultless defense. It's also really satisfying to land because it combos sort of like the hands of a clock moving.
i like the game for its own merits, but trying to play it like a standard guilty gear romp just messes with my head. The lack of fun and interesting combo routes without spending meter as well t’as the limited gatlings kinda upset me. it does add complexity in other areas, notably the button you used to start the combo matters way more in this game previous ones but it’s still a net negative.
let me combo kick into slash ffs 😭
Try playing more unique characters ( zato, happy chaos, asuka, etc )
It makes me wonder how the next Blazblue will be like
if even, mori is busy cooking with his own studio now, i don't know if they can make blazblue without him
I knew immediately from the beta way back that this game wasn't gonna be for me. The occasional thought does arise to try it out but that thought is immediately drowned out hearing how god awful online is.
i didn't like strive because sol didn't use his sword enough
I personally like the new RC system a lot, its just stuck in a really stiff feeling fighting game. Lack of traditional gatlings, ground to air combos and air dash being missing, it makes the game feel stale. Here's hoping that strive season 4 revamps the game (it probably wont but hey, maybe after season 4 they'll do something for shits and giggles).
Hopeful rant of my opinion on strive
The Biggest GG game
I hope the update will address the strength of wallbreak and
Wild assault
The devs seem to think the same but I would like to see how the 3v3 mode shakes up the game play as it will be a new game addition really
My favorite part of strive is the two players fighting to get each others set play started which has always been in GG but both wild assault and positive bouns are far too strong ATM so instead of a tug of war it's a landslide.
I know despite liking GG I wouldn't have gotten into the older games for their both overwhelming complexity and lack of definitive editions. I know I'm not alone as strive now more than ever is getting more popular with 3 million copies sold this week and the Evo numbers being higher than ever.
And with so much to reveal in Evo I have a feeling it's only going to get bigger
P.S. Everything here is an opinion, pls remember that
Pretty nice vid, specially regarding the new gattling system and stuff like the air dashes. I think the old gattling system was overall pretty accesible, but also open to options. Like most characters had specific to how they wanna do gattlings, but it was also possible to do stuff like your basic kick or punch starter, into slash, into sweep, to get started, and the other stuff is for when ya get into the specifics more, was neat. Strive feels like it just limits both your basic and specifics more I feel
Wall break I was actually overall ok with, tho I get the critisism. Is sad missing the corner combos, but at least ya still get a reward with positive bonus and such. But yeah, overall the air dashes feel so slow because the stard up lmao, crazy when ya compare it to how characters like Millia used them in plus r. Barely feels like a anime fighter in that specific regard
I am not actually not the biggest fan of strive's ost lol, like idk, it strikes me as too overproduced, but relatively minor thing, and presentation great besides that. But yeah overall, as someone who has mostly played plus r with pals and whatnot, I will say is my least favorite of the main gear games (that people play anyways, we don't count missing link there lol), even if I still like it
Overall good video! I feel like ya put your issues with the game in a pretty natural and reasonable manner
Bro plays the most braindead simple characters in the game and then complains about the game lacking complexity lmao
+R casual player here. GGST is like fine, I guess. I'd play more if the lobbies weren't so ass. I had to go on discord to get a good experience.
It's a series where the Catholic Church isn't comically evil. Vague? Fine, I like it!
I honestly don’t like the old gear games, coming from a strive zoomer I much prefer the more “limited” sort of pipeline they give you access to. It’s still got plenty of character diversity, unique mechanics and fun/dogshit interactions that gear is known for. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t think people should do reviews on something that they personally just can’t bring themselves to really invest themselves in. I’d say the same for myself and the older gear games. I played +R for about 100 hours but not once online (people are too goddamn good at that game) and I also played about 25-20 hours of Xrd rev2 and I just didn’t like either. About the same as to what you have in Strive. And I’d say that’s not a valid amount of time. I have a handful of my own personal qualms about Xrd; namely the art-style of Xrd in particular looked so bad I couldn’t even tell what was happening, the way they did the animations left no room for mid way animation, it’s just startup and end so I didn’t like that. Everything just looks wrong and I didn’t like it, to ME it looked weird and gross, and like one of those bad movie type animations. And I just didn’t like just how free everything was. It was almost as if there was no structure and I genuinely hate that in games. So I don’t know, Strive is cool and so are the other games, but to judge something you kinda gotta immerse yourself in it. So I guess really I can’t say that I dislike Xrd even if what I did play I didn’t enjoy.
Oh lord I left one of “those” comments
You can like whatever you want
But being critical about a topic is very different from your personal takes and yes people probably are better off using their Time and effort into something they can emerge themselves into but not everything is perfect for YOU and OTHERS
I don't know if playing the characters people consider the most boring characters in the game was the play
The thing is that in old fighting games the "boring characters" tend to have a simple base line but have more quirks with their buttons and specials that you learn through experience such as AC+r Sol's gun flame faint having a small attack box that hits OTG which allows for a relaunch with roman cancel. It's about simple to learn but many quirks to master.
@@giantdinoboy8264 ok idc, this is about strive.
@@notcraig255 My point is that Strive doesn't have multi use tools because it's not as marketable but it makes moves more 1 dimensional as a result.
@@giantdinoboy8264In what situation do I use it? Isn't gunflame FRS just better?
@@user-cc3ef7qh1x The gun faint gives a combo extension into volcanic viper and the knockdown followup that a gunflame frc wouldn't. It does, however not give enough space to set up gunflame oki but you can safe jump with jHs which is still very good. Ultimately if it will kill then it is better but if it won't then it really depends on if you are willing to spend a bit more meter for a bit more damage and safe jump oki instead of gunflame oki.
you could've played harder characters tbh. someone like jacko who is harder than even her xrd version trying johnny zato asuka hc aba even sol. elphelt is basically a character to familiarize yourself with the game but if you want wild things u can pick the other wild characters. my first gg was xrd and while i did enjoy it, it had a lot to take in which was overwhelming but fun. strive gets rid of most of those mechanics like face up or down recovery frc from accent core and focuses on how you use resources. thats why resource characters are plenty in strive and the most fun characters. strive became my favourite game after ABA. at first i also felt how the game slowed things down and i really did not like how ky was in this game especially(+r ky still best) but i just found a character that i never would have thhought id play. find the character or just hope they release a character with your preferred playstyle and the game will be extremely enjoyable. strive is basically a reset of gg to be more accesible and easy to call your friends to play. so if hard execution is your thing then ofc it wont be as enjoyable. great vid
I don't really see the problem with the airdash, I play millia and she uses it extensively. Personally I felt that millia is way more fun in strive then in previous titles. with a much more fluid airial movement game. I guess its worse on other characters but I still use them extensively. Strive has issues like wild assault and roman cancels being way too good but I prefer it over the problems that previous games had. I think both games are good and it all comes down to what kind of player you are and what characters you like
I watch strive and (mostly) enjoy it 'cause it seems like the most diverse (cast-wise and gameplay-wise) of the mainstream modern games, but I'd take Xrd or +R any day of the week. They're harder (or at least they feel so, I'm a noob lmao), but the way characters differ from one another and matches feel unique is priceless. The homogenous feeling of SF6 made me gave up the game entirely, and on that note, Strive ends up being the less homogenized of the mainstream games, but yeah, I'd rather watch/play the older ones
No one who is good at the game likes to play the game, we just play it because we aren’t shit at it.
Strive is a mediocre game. I tell you this as a GGXXAC player from PS2 days. Xrd was already a step in the wrong direction, in Strive they just doubled down.