GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE-

I came into Strive already impatient with fighting games that hide behind complexity for its own sake, and Arc System Works clearly felt the same way when they rebuilt this one. The damage numbers are high, the combos are shorter than in any prior Guilty Gear, and the neutral game is the real arena now. Every hit lands heavy. That philosophy lands differently depending on who you are: if you bounced off Xrd because the combo routes felt like calculus homework, Strive is genuinely your on-ramp. If you miss the freeform gatling chains and the sheer expressive chaos of older entries, you will feel the loss every time you hit a wall in the Gatling system that simply was not there before. The mechanics that survived the cut are still excellent. Roman Cancels remain one of the best meter-spend tools in any 2D fighter: four color-coded variants that let you cancel actions, extend pressure, or create defensive breathing room depending on timing. Wall breaks shift the arena mid-combo and reset corner pressure, which is a genuine quality-of-life win for newer players who used to get trapped and dismantled in seconds. Burst is still there for escaping pressure. The Mission Mode walks you through frame advantage, fuzzy guard, and per-character matchup knowledge, making it one of the more honest tutorials in the genre. The roster itself is wild and distinct: Sol Badguy is the brawling anchor, Chipp is a movement-heavy nightmare, Potemkin is a grappler who plays an entirely different game from everyone else, and May is a pirate whose dolphin-summoning pressure is genuinely oppressive to deal with at mid-skill. Now, the netcode. This is where Strive earns serious credit. ArcSys games were historically notorious for delay-based online play that made matches feel like fighting through syrup. Strive launched with rollback netcode, and it works. Cross-region matches feel close to local. On a decent connection, polling rate and monitor refresh rate barely enter the conversation because the inputs just arrive. It is the foundation that makes this game worth investing time into online at all. The lobby system that sits on top of that netcode, however, is the long-running frustration: the Tower floor setup puts you in a small pool of players rather than drawing from the full player base, which means opponent variety is limited and dodging is rampant at higher floors. A proper ranked mode with direct matchmaking and seven tiers was announced and expected around August 2025, which would address the core complaint. Whether that has fully landed by the time you are reading this is worth checking before you commit. Presentation is not in question. The 2D-3D hybrid art style is still stunning, the soundtrack is loud and relentless in the best way, and the story mode plays out like an animated film rather than a series of fought-through cutscenes. Content at launch was thin, but years of post-launch DLC characters have expanded the roster considerably. Single-player options outside the story and arcade modes are serviceable but not the reason you are here. You are here to play ranked, lab your character, and grind the neutral game until your movement is tight. On that front, Strive delivers a game with a genuinely high ceiling dressed in an accessible surface. The anger from Xrd purists is real, but so is the 88 percent positive Steam rating across over sixty-five thousand reviews.

Fred · Scout Team

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