The Guilty Gear series is a much-loved and well-respected fighting game series among both critics and fans. Unfortunately for us, the only thing Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- is guilty of is being a bad port of a mediocre game.
How a company can release a game in such a state that even basic options that have gone back dozens of years in gaming are left out, is just beyond me.
I know there is a lot on contention in the Steam forums about what the game “can” be, all I can do is review was the game currently is. Guilty Gear -Overture- is being sold as a finished product, and that ends up being its greatest downfall.
But before I can talk about what this port of Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- isn’t, I have to explain what the game originally was when it released back in 2007. Hitting the Xbox 360 Guilty Gear 2: Overture made use of 3D graphics instead of the hand-drawn art of previous titles. With this new look came new gameplay that was a mix between action and real time strategy. That description is accurate, but it’s easier for most of you to understand this game as one of the first MOBA titles.
Guilty Gear 2: Overture is a proto-MOBA in that there are lanes, but the three lane structure isn’t on display. It also changes on the fly as more traditional fights also take place during the story in an open arena setting. These changes are huge from the traditional Guilty Gear experience, and they were so different and out there that they worked to make the game unique. Even playing it today you’ll get this feeling of comfort if you’ve played something like League of Legends, while still staying engaged by the slight changes to the modern MOBA format. Mix in the one-on-one fights in a 3D space and you are left with something special. Not good per say, but special nonetheless.
Gameplay is reminiscent of games like SMITE as you control a hero character from a third-person perspective. Instead of having a load-out of magic powers to cast, you instead fight in a more traditional Dynasty Warriors form with extra abilities/items that you can pick up. You’ll hack and slash your way capturing control points that then active more units that in turn make their way to the enemies base. Guilty Gear 2: Overture does a lot of things at once, and while it isn’t a master of any of them, it does do a good job at the very least at being quite entertaining.
Now we get to why Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- (the port with the weird new title) simply doesn’t work. Ports are always a tricky thing, but you’d figure that a game that’s now nine-years old shouldn’t cause this many issues. First off, don’t expect to use a keyboard and mouse to play the game. The controls are a complete mess that will have you pecking around the entire keyboard figuring out what does what. Grab yourself an Xbox 360 or One controller to save yourself a massive headache
When the game boots up you’ll also find that you are locked into a windowed mode. Fine, no big deal, I’ll just head into the option menu and set the game to… Oh, that’s right, there are no video options to mess with. You’ll be forced to play the entire game in a small window that can’t be changed or adjusted. I’m sure you can play Mr. hacker-person and edit config.something files to adjust things, but not having something so basic in the final product is simply a disgrace. It really does feel like a slap to the face by the developers. It sucks because even nine-years on the game looks pretty good, but this just doesn’t come through with the way this port has been handled.
Maybe it’s because of the windowed mode, but the game is also so cramped that everything sort of overlaps text wise, especially when button combo prompts come up from time to time. There is also a fair amount of tearing on screen that happens even during cut-scenes. Another issue is that while the MOBA elements are fun, the full 3D environments make figuring out what’s going on a real pain at times. Prepare to lose yourself within the combat as friend and foe clutter the screen in a mess of similar looking bodies. Targeting is simple enough with a flick of the right stick, but it always feels random even at the best of time.
Another problem comes up when the game turns into a traditional fighter. It works okay when there are dozens of mindless enemies to wildly swing through as it requires little precision, but the one on one battles are almost always in the favor of the computer controlled character. Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- just doesn’t work well as a one-on-one fighting game and would have been far better if this was left out of the entire experience. Maybe I just need to “Git Gud,” but these encounters always felt like a slog. Movement is slow and sluggish while still feeling like your charcters has on a pair of shoes made of butter.
The tension that you get in the MOBA sections though is still great, even in this shoddy port. Deciding to push forward to the next capture point, or fall back to reinforce your home base really keeps the player on their toes and constantly checking the map to see what’s going on. If only some very basic things were working then maybe I’d be able to recommended Guilty Gear 2 -Overture- to fans of the series looking for something a bit different. As it stands there is simply no way to justify you spending your money on this one in its current state, at least not until it receives some patches which are being worked on as we speak.
Pros:
+ Interesting concept
Cons:
– Utterly terrible port
– Missing basic options games have had for decades
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