It's definately a solid game worth getting, but with just an addition or two, this could have been a must own for the DS
Gameplay- 7/10- Unfortunately, this score should be much higher. The actual game style really works well for this game. The game is now 4-tiered, as said before, with various different floor set ups. You can easily traverse between the two different levels by jumping up to them or jumping down to other levels. Having enemies on the left & right doesn’t deter the way you face much (there is no look left/right button set up like in Isuka, thank goodness), and the moves have been effectively remapped. Everyone now has their moves mapped out into a new style of moves, where you now do special & super attacks though a simple directional hit & a action button press, nothing more. But with this style of game, that is exactly what you need; quick to execute moves that enable you to pull off moves in a way not cumbersome to having 3 other characters moving around you. Also, you have standard GG gameplay maneuvers, such as Psych Burst & Roman Cancel placed on their own buttons, which is very convenient. The Dust Strike has also taken on a new form in this game. Whereas in past GG games, it allowed you to launch opponents into the air for large aerial beat combos, the Dust Strike allows you to knock opponents up or down a level. This is a nice use of a standing maneuver redone for the new game style. Also, items that are picked up are used by hitting the corner of the touch screen with your thumb, which feels amazingly natural.
Though the basic gameplay is very strong, the gameplay does suffer from ups & downs. The arcade mode is great, having various battles with different numbers of opponents & at the end, a battle with what appears to be a strange Gear. There is also story modes, which help to show a little more into the characters & who they are. The disappointing parts are the last two modes. Versus Mode allows you to connect with others that have a GG: DS game cart & set up a game. Challenge mode is more of an instant battle where you play against/with friends to progress through the arcade mode. The problem is, those are the last of the game modes. This game REALLY needed to have a way to be able to play solo battles that you could set up what type of level, BG music, items, difficulty, souls (life bars), all that kind of stuff. You don’t always have friends around with the game cart to play, so it kind of hurts the overall gameplay score, always being at the mercy of the levels & characters generated to fight you. You CAN go into Challenge & do a lot of the arcade stuff without anyone there… but your DS will be searching for a WiFi signal from another DS the whole time, which just drains the battery.
A saving grace from that though, are the mini-games, which are very fun. There are seven mini-games, all of which open up moves for Robo-Ky customization, with getting a Top 3 high score unlocking moves (3 moves per game, getting a #1 score unlocks all, #2 as highest getting 2, and #3 as highest only getting one move from the set) There is a May themed game where you have to moves hoops for dolphins to jump through, a Johnny one where you slice at targets, a Faust “whack-a-Mole” type game, a Kuradoberi Jam tray balancing game, a Venom 9-ball pool game, a Bridget Yo-Yo cleaning game, and an I-no note catching game. The I-no mini game could have used a little programming to allow for the timing difference in the jump in screens (because it isn’t there, there may be more of a learning curve than most people would expect) and the Venom 9-ball game is just missing key functions to make it work. But the I-no one just takes some getting used to, the Venom one is broken, so really, 6 of them are total fun & will keep that stylus busy.
Graphics- 7/10- By moving this game onto a smaller party style field some of the great things about Guilty Gear had to be sacrificed, namely, the large & detailed character sprites. What you get in this game are smaller versions of the same characters, BUT even with the smaller sprites, you can still easily tell who your character is & the animations of moves are fluid. The detailing on the foreground & background of the levels though, is very nicely done, all very fitting of the GG series.
Sound- 7/10- Yet another case of good, but not great for this game. The voices & sound effects of the game are intact & sound great. Anyone that may have experience with the other portable Guilty Gear game that exist (for the GBA) may remember just how many sounds went missing in the transfer over, among other things. In this game though, the sounds gives a full experience. The background music is also very nice, featuring many of the soundtracks that GG fans have come to expect. There does, though, appear to be a lower number of songs in the game, which could bother some, especially those that are fanatics of the series.
Value- 5/10- Here is where the lack of a true single player vs. bots mode really gets effected. Had there simply been the addition of that mode, so that you could choose the battle, who is in it, what, where, etcetera, this game would have been much more fun to just pick up & play. In fact, I’d have been inclined to raise the score of gameplay and value just from that simple addition. Without it though, you are at the mercy of either arcade or story mode. Not that it is all that horrible, but such a simple oversight which probably would have only required a short delay, which considering the benefits is just disappointing.
Overall- 7/10- Even without an extra single player selection mode, the game still deserves an overall score of 7. The game still has yet to come out in the EU sector, which has a release in Q3 2006 as of right now, so it is possible you guys may see such a mode (and if you do, it’ll be first on my list of MUST IMPORT). Arc Systems took a chance to move their game over to this style of gaming and were more than not successful. The game definitely deserves a follow-up release on the DS in a year or two to add a character or two, maybe another mode or two, and expand the Robo-Ky options. But there is no doubt that this game is definitely worth looking into and a follow up by Arc Systems (you best deliver, Arc!)