Guilty Gear -Strive-Â development director Akira Katano and general director Daisuke Ishiwatari answered various opinions and concerns received from players.
Before getting into it, Daisuke Ishiwatari reiterated that Guilty Gear -Strive- is not intended to be a continuation of previous titles. The base of development is to “create everything to be completely new”.
Below are highlights from the development blog:
About the Gameplay of Guilty Gear -Strive-
Concern: The damage is too high
- The idea is to deal big damage without memorizing long combos as required in previous games.
- Arc System Works showed this in the beta test to get the idea across. The developers will adjust it by looking at player feedback and match results.
Concern: There are fewer gatling combo routes*
(*Gatling combos refers to the combo system by which you can combo normal moves into other normal moves.)
- The devs made restrictions to make it more difficult to combo into damaging moves from fast, small normal moves.
- The idea here is to put more emphasis on choosing which normal move you use to start your combos.
- Katano acknowledges that this makes it difficult to put the experience from previous titles to use, and man fans of the series have voiced their concern and criticism about it.
- Ishiwatari added that one important concept for Guilty Gear -Strive- is placing greater importance on choosing moves based on the current situation. This might make it more difficult in a sense that muscle memory won’t work the same, but this means fewer mechanics for new players to learn before they can enjoy playing matches.
- Arc System Works continually adjusts what moves combo into what, not only for gatlings, but also follow-up moves and combos in general. The developers plan to further increase the level of freedom with combos compared to previous Guilty Gear games. This will be done through a combination of other mechanics.
- There were many combo routes in the closed beta test, however, only a limited number of routes were effective due to the extreme damage.
Concern: The 3D camera movement disrupts the game pace
- The 3D camera movement caused motion sickness to some players, so Arc System Works is working on making improvements.
- Players also pointed out that some of the camera work, such as the effect on counter hits, have impacted the game’s pace, input, and visibility. These are all concerns among many others from the survey results that Arc System Works is working on improving for a more comfortable experience, while still trying out new effects.
Concern: The user interface (UI) during matches
- The Burst icon moves as the health bar drains in order to minimize the amount of eye movement required to check each gauge.
- The R.I.S.C. gauge was made less visible to reduce the number of gauges that first-tome players try to be aware of.
(*R.I.S.C. gauge refers to a gameplay mechanic where the player takes more damage as the gauge fills up. The gauge increases when blocking the opponent’s attacks.)
- As for the large hit counter, this is because it’s been difficult to see the number of hits due to being “hidden” by character models in the previous games. Consider this an attempt at fixing the issue.
Read more the full blog post here.
Guilty Gear -Strive-Â will release for the PlayStation 4 in early 2021. Check our previous report to see the most requested characters across regions.
