By Elias Dounis on November 3rd, 2004

Since it first made its debut on the PlayStation years ago, Arc Systems Works’ Guilty Gear franchise has finally reached the point with it’s latest version, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload, where it gives fans the right to say that "Guilt Gear X2 kicks Street Fighters’ ass." And the best thing about this is that critics and 2d fighting fans can actually take them seriously.

Like it or not, the first thing any player is going to notice about Reload are the game’s beautiful 2d visuals. Without question, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload is the best looking 2d fighter on the market. In fact, it’s arguably the best looking 2d game of any kind. While one could ask for animations that look more fluid and for some livelier backdrops, the game’s visuals are extremely clean, colorful and presented to players at a high resolution, thus making it an incredible sight to behold on any television, becoming even more glorious in progressive scan mode.

Making things all the more interesting is the game’s art style, which obviously goes for that anime approach. Thanks to this over-exaggerated art style, life is given to each one of the game’s bizarre characters. Whether it’s the leather clad, guitar wielding chick I-no or the giant Faust, who floats into battle with an umbrella and a paper bag over his head, you’ll always be dumbfounded by the game’s bizarre characters. While these characters may be based on formulas introduced by Street Fighter II, each have their own unique traits that prevent them from feeling like clones of Capcom’s legendary characters.

Like any great game, these visual traits only make up part of what creates Reload’s appeal, with another part being the game’s auditory aspect. To my splendor, Reload’s soundtrack is a heavy metal fueled circus of guitars that’s just amazing to hear when listened to loud. The tunes are fast, they’re heavy, and most importantly of all, they’re memorable. The guitar work on some of these tracks are comparable to tunes heard on a Dream Theater album, and what this makes for is one of the best original game soundtracks around. Complementing this soundtrack are the game’s over-exaggerated Japanese voice-overs and sound effects. In truth, the only negative thing that can be said about Reload’s audio aspects is that the spoken dialogue in story mode seems lose its effect due to the fact that button commands progress the dialogue, thus taking away from the fluidity of it all.

As for the actual gameplay, it’s superb in every way. In fact, Reload is one of the the most enjoyable 2d fighter in years. In all truth, Guilty Gear X2 can be considered just as enjoyable, if not more enjoyable than Capcom’s best Street Fighter II efforts.

An interesting aspect about Reload’s gameplay is that it’s not just an unarmed combat type of fighter. It’s a game that’s a mix of both unarmed and weapons-based combat. However, let it be known that swords will not be clanging like in a 3d fighter such as Soul Calibur II. Weapons are more like an extension of the character. But when it comes down to it, the game still feels very much like a Street

Instead of going for the more traditional button layout that features heavy, medium, and light punch and kick attacks, Reload features one that feels very much like that found in a 3d fighter such as Dead or Alive 3. You have your punch, kick, slash and heavy slash attacks and, simultaneous button combinations that can executed with the simple pressing of a button, which includes the "Dust" attack.

This Dust attack can be used to knock an opponent sky high where you can then jump after and perform a combo chain and other attacks or, while also pressing down, use as a sweep attack. It’s a very useful maneuver. However, not all is well in the area of control due to the fact the Xbox pad isn’t too great for any type of fighter.

The D-pad on the Xbox pad is just terrible for fighting games. At times it becomes unnecessarily difficult and

Despite these control issues, the quick pacing of the game survives and functions well enough to retain the game’s enjoyable gameplay, and that which greatly adds to this pacing greatly, as mentioned earlier, are the game’s mid-air dash maneuvers and Instant Kill attacks. The game’s mid-air dash is a nice maneuver that allows players to move quickly to either side of screen. Obviously, it doesn’t really need to be explained, however it provides to be a very useful technique.

As for the game’s Instant Kill attack, while many may feel as if it’s an unfair attack, it’s more of a risk. When your Overdrive gauge reaches a certain level, an easy to perform button combination will allow for players to perform this Instant Kill maneuver, and if it’s landed, it will bring an end to the round. However, this attack can easily be avoided and blocked, and at that point it cannot be performed again, nor can players perform any other type of super attack. Although, it is a bit odd that performing these Instant Kill attacks is done in the same fashion for every character in the game. It almost robs players of that satisfaction of truly mastering a particular fighter.

Despite the fact that Instant Kill moves are relatively performed in the same way for each character, Reload is indeed a deep fighter. It’s is the type of fighter which new players can easily become accustomed to, yet still need plenty of experience with the game to truly understand how it works. That which players need to understand is how the game implements its many defensive and recovery maneuvers. It features shield gauges, recovery maneuvers called Roman Cancels, and a defensive shield, all of which decrease one or more gauges that are featured on the screen. Of course, you can play the game without the intention of ever paying attention to these details and using these defensive maneuvers, but once understood and used in battle, this knowledge makes and breaks the difference between a skilled Guilty Gear player and someone who just thinks this is another Street Fighter clone.

The modes of play found in Reload are more than enough to satisfy players. In fact, it seems that one mode, being the M.O.M, could’ve been completely left out and players would still have a long lasting experience of 2d fighter goodness in the palm of their hands.

As in most fighters, the Arcade mode is where the more traditional action is at. No matter how many games feature the same mode, it seems that going through a number of characters before reaching an unnecessarily difficult boss battle never seems to get old, and especially not in Reload, due to its near-flawless gameplay.

The game also features a semi-interesting Story mode you can take characters through to experience a handful of still images and subtitled spoken dialogue, which tosses players into the game’s stories and back-stories for each character. It’s an interesting mode, but more or less, just the game’s Arcade mode with a few bells and whistles.

Other gameplay modes include Survival, and the lengthy Mission mode. It’s pretty obvious of what Survival mode is, a series of matches that continues as long as the player isn’t defeated, however, Reload adds a few twists to the type of mode we would normally expect and tosses challenging opponents at players based on how well they fight in previous matches in this mode. Now, in the game’s Mission mode, players are

That which I had not mentioned earlier is that Reload is a port of the PlayStation 2 version of the game released nearly a year ago, and that which makes the Xbox version a world’s different, aside from a new character (Robo-Ky), is the inclusion of Xbox Live multiplayer. Although, the Xbox Live component of the game isn’t implemented as well as one might have hoped for.

There’s no sense of an online community in Reload. In many instances, the sense of a large online community is what often makes most Xbox Live games extremely enjoyable. For that reason, the lag found in games such as Star Wars Battlefront seems somewhat forgivable, and a solid game like RalliSport Challenge 2 feels like one of the greatest online experiences around. But alas, nothing of the sort is found in Guilty Gear X2 #Reload. And what’s more unfortunate is the fact that lag is no rare occurrence on Reload’s servers either.

In a game as quick-paced as Reload, data must be streamed quickly from player to player, since complicated button commands are being performed every second, and if the servers aren’t running smoothly, you’ll feel robbed of that arcade-like multiplayer experience most online fighters have been promising, due to the fact that many attacks will not be executed properly, if at all. But even then, while things are running smoothly, it feels as if the game isn’t responding to every maneuver, making one question if 2d fighting games will ever be able to function properly online.

Now, does all of this mean that Reload’s Xbox Live experience isn’t’ fun? Of course not. A fighter as great as Guilty Gear X2 will be fun no matter how bad the scenario may seem, and the fact that online rankings exist, they will alone fuel many players to make it to the top of the rankings. The sense of competition is there and that is what player’s crave most.

When all is said and done, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload establishes itself as one of the best fighters on the Xbox, if not one of the best ever created. It’s the type of game newcomers can easily become accustomed to, as well as the type of fighter that offers a great amount of depth when mastered. It’s an all around amazing package of gameplay, crisp 2d visuals and a killer heavy metal soundtrack. Reload is a must for fans of the fighting genre and one of the best fighters ever created.