Have you ever asked yourself "what would happen if the Lord above made a video game?" Well, it would probably look like this. Or Def Jam Vendetta. The point is that Guilty Gear X2 takes the best friggin fighting game ever made and makes it better, and all at the bargain price of $30. The original Guilty Gear X2 was a beauty of a fighting game. It featured the most original, bizarre and awesome characters ever put in a fighter, each rife with many old metal references to accompany the game's Japanese 80s metal theme. Each has a variety of specials, supers and an instant kill move (though using that is a huge risk, costing use of the tension meter for the rest of the round, among other sacrifices.) Speaking of which, energy from the tension meter can be used to block attacks without chipping damage, dash in mid air or recover from being knocked out in the air if you so desire. On top of that, a BURST meter (that starts full) can be used when full to use a burst attack, that can either be used defensively to recover from attacks or offensively to fill up the tension meter. On top of that, the combo meter below your health fills up when you block attacks, and the more it fills, the more damage you'll take from attacks. Make no mistake, this game focuses on offense, but it's not like you'll win by simply knowing the longest combos. And I've only scratched the surface. There's so much to this game to learn that it's amazing. Perhaps most impressive of all is that despite the massive differences between characters, they're all fairly balanced and all can lead to victory if used right. Reload further improves this by slightly altering various characters for the sake of balance. The biggest change made in Reload (besides online play, but more on that later) is Robo Ky. Once a slightly altered Ky Kyske pallette swap, he's now a completely different character with some very unique moves, a more annoying voice and a new tension bar that he fills using temporary energy fields he can create on the floor. He also has to worry about overheating; too much attacks and he'll explode and take some damage. The Heavy Slash button is reserved for releasing steam (which actually, is a pretty effective attack.) The game's most annoying and yet so minor flaw is actually here; the cool remix of Ky's theme that Robo Ky used before is gone and is replaced by silence. All of the gameplay modes returning from GGX2 are the exact same here. In addition to arcade, versus, survival and practice mode, there's a story mode. Each fighter has a different story and fights a series of fights with dialogue sequences in between advancing the story. The story mode does have branching paths depending on how you have, and sometimes have certain stipulations (like starting with less health) and there's a lot of play here. There's also the extremely challenging mission mode, which requires players to win fights under various handicaps. Finally, there's the novel MOM mode. Hitting your oppenent causes him or her or it to drop medals, and collecting a lot of medals to improve the worth of medals. This is sort of like a survival mode where you keep going til you die as you strive for a high score. But Reload's biggest addition is Xbox Live support. Capcom vs SNK 2 is obsolete now. Now you have competition anytime available online. Oppenents are a healthy mix in terms of skill; you'll face people of all types of skill level. There's a solid amount of people playing online. Every now and then, you'll find a game with some lag, but most of the time, the game runs smoothly. I'm also proud to announce that unlike CvsS2, Guilty Gear X2 works just fine on the controller S. You'll rarely have problems executing moves like you did with CvsS2. You can choose to disable use of One hit kills and stronger EX characters, but you can't force people to not use the overpowered, normally hidden Justice (though only a few will use him) While a few frills, such as challenging friends who are playing other XBL games would've been nice, what we get is more than sufficient enough to enjoy online Guilty Gear. You simply owe it to yourself to get this game. Even if you already on Guilty Gear X2 on PS2, online play is more than worth it. It's 30 bucks, that's a steal. Pat yourself on the back, you deserve this.
This review may be all one sided because I'm a 2D fighting game nerd. Anyway, this is probably the best video game I've ever played. Everything was perfect about it. Storyline is rich and deep, controls are challengin... Read Full Review
This game really changed my views about other 2-D fighters on the market that I thought couldnt be as good as Marvel VS. Capcom. Guilty Gear X2 is probably one of the most fast paced, action packed 2-D fighting game sinc... Read Full Review
