Guilty Gear

by Sony

Product Features

• 10 Playable Characters Plus Hidden Bosses
• Great 2-D Fighting
• Insane Anime Charater Desihn
• Ultra-hardcore Metal Soundtrack

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00002STIZ
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 12, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,463 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

GameSpot Review

In a world occupied by two kinds of 2D fighters (Capcom's and everyone else's), you have to be cut from a different kind of cloth in order to survive in this hostile environment. In development for almost three years, Guilty Gear is just that - a 2D fighter with enough originality and flavor to earn its own place in this once-dominant genre. Let's explore.

In Guilty Gear you take control of one of ten characters, which are available from the outset. These fighters are a mix of the usual Ken/Ryu/Zangief ilk, with a little Samurai Shodown thrown in for good measure. The difference here is that these characters are designed with a flair not usually seen in a "serious" fighter. Character artwork is fantastic and lends the game an incredibly manga feel without being too derivative. As with Samurai Shodown, most characters utilize a weapon of some sort, ranging from the usual Excalibur-type sword, to some futuristic-looking blades, to a sickle and chain. Some characters, however, fight with only their fists and/or hair. It's this sort of diversity that keeps Guilty Gear fresh and not too confined to one particular premise.

Gameplay is confined to the usual fireball motions, double air jumps, super moves (called chaos moves), and counters. The difference in Guilty Gear, as opposed to something like, say, King of Fighters, is that the GG fighters move with an ease that rivals even Capcom's elite, and in some cases, even surpasses them. It's surprisingly agile for a PlayStation fighter, and you'll find the control impeccable. In addition, you won't be hampered by choppy animation; instead, each character has a wealth of moves and supers, each rendered in stunning detail, which complements the pinpoint control. In fact, the PlayStation handles so many frames of animation, with very little slowdown (except when doing screen-filling chaos moves), you'll wonder how Arc Systems fit it all in the meager amount of RAM available - transparencies, multiple blue shadows, fast and fluid animation at little cost to the gameplay. The only noticeable defects in the presentation are a fairly high amount of pixelation in the super moves and very little background animation. Even so, you'd be hard-pressed to even notice, since everything moves so fast and furiously.

Sound-wise, heavy metal style is the order of the day - a choice that is a nice contrast to the techno-heavy soundtracks of games like Tekken 3 and the nondescript music that litters most of Capcom's fighters. It certainly adds an aggressive edge to the proceedings. Sound effects are extremely well done. On a good sound system, your house will quake each time a hit lands or two swords meet. The soundtrack and the crunchy sound effects combine to create a truly awesome sound experience. Thankfully, Atlus hasn't messed around with the voices as it had been contemplating. Everything has basically remained intact from the original Japanese version.

The downside to this great fighting game (especially when you consider how long Arc's been working on it) is the lack of options. OK, there's a training mode and an options screen, which lets you mess with things like match time, but there's little else. You can't set the number of rounds or adjust the difficulty, things that seem peculiar by their exclusion. Another problem with Guilty Gear, and it's not the only one, er, guilty of it, is the extremely cheap bosses. Anyone who's played a Fatal Fury or X-Men: Children of the Atom knows about cheap bosses. Same thing applies here. Fortunately, you can continue as much as you'd like and switch characters after each defeat, so you can find someone who'll get you past the last boss. Unfortunately, once you unlock the secret characters, you can only use them in vs. mode, which is a bummer since Baiken is such a cool boss. It's always better when you can use them in one-player mode.

To summarize the Guilty Gear experience is to look to the best parts of other four-star fighting games. Fast, furious action, with truly awesome characters and moves worthy of the Darkstalkers series, Guilty Gear is one of the few non-Capcom or SNK 2D fighters to make any sort of impact on the genre. If you like 2D fighters with a little flair, GG comes highly recommended. With its excellent gameplay, surprisingly good graphics, secret characters, and kick-ass aural experience, Guilty Gear (minus some spit and polish) is as good as it gets. --James Mielke
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Product Description

The most technically advanced 2-D playstation fighting game of all time!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE MISSING LINK, November 25, 2001

By 

"rickycarbon" (In front of the TV playin' Suikoden II) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guilty Gear (Video Game)

Guilty Gear is THE Ultimate 2d Fighting game.
Pros:

Kickin soundtrack (Gotta love 'Beyond the Dark Life')
Tight Characters
Killer Combo System

Cons:

Lack of 1 player modes(Not SO bad)
Instant kill (on you) is VERY irritating when you're trying to get Baiken (SUPER SECRET CHARACTER)

BOMBIN'

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lack of balance and excess cheese=FUN!, November 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Guilty Gear (Video Game)

What to say about Guilty Gear? You arn't going to get the hours you would from Street Fighter Alpha 3, but on the other hand you are going to get a very unique and very entertaining fighter. Guilty Gear is most similar to NeoGeo/SNK games, especially Last Blade and the newest version of Fatal Fury. Game play is excellent and moves are pulled off easily even on the PSXs pad. Also there is a chain combo system such that with every character you can hit punch-slash-slash-hard slash then cancel into a special move, but this does not make the characters any more homogenous--each of the ~10 fighters is relatively unique ranging, including a character that fights with her hair and another one that will attack with his shadows! The game moves very quickly with air dashing, air combos, hitting your opponent on the ground, supers and level 3 specials, as well as simply running at a good clip. The characters are not particularly well animated, but once you slip into their special moves you'll see this game really shine. Some of the sprites for the special moves are amazing. Great eye-candy. Complaints are the inability to set the game difficulty, a speed control, and most of all game balance. I don't know how found serious players are of being able to win a match with one move, but I know their eyes would bug out if they saw the combo you can do with Kliff that will kill your opponent. The fact you can hit your opponent with supers while they are on the ground, or simply jump into an infinite combo is really what makes this game altogether different than a capcom game. I would really hate to play this in an arcade and have someone kill me within 5 seconds or less, or instead win the match through an infinite combo. On the other hand, if you want to beat the boss, you will have to become this cheap yourself. On the whole I've given it a 4 star because I could see this game being better. I like its looks, I like the game play, and I admit that doing this outrageous chain combos, uppercutting people on the ground, etc. is pretty damn fun. Doubt I'll be playing it in a couple months, but it was definitely money well spent.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The start of a great franchise, September 1, 2005

By 

Michael Corona "Nemesis Legion" (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Guilty Gear (Video Game)

Guilty Gear - Circa 1999/2000

GOOD:
- Good Balanced 2D fighter
- An old school fighter that stands out art style or theme wise

BAD:
- Loading times, very short but still there
- Graphics might be dated for some people
- Somewhat small staple of fighters
- Game has one hit instant death moves, which cannot be turned off

WILL IT FIT YOUR TASTE:
- Very fast and furious
- Anime art style or theme
- one hit instant death moves cheapen the game for most players

GAME ITS MOST ASSOCATED TOO:
- Samurai Showdown 5
- Marvel Vs Street Fighter

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- First game in Guilty Gear franchise, after this the franchise was known as Guilty Gear X
- The one hit instant death moves are called destroyers and they enable your fighter instantly win both rounds
-In later versions of Guilty Gear (The "X" franchise) the destroyers stayed in the game but where reworked to not be such so cheap