Guilty Gear 2: Overture polarizes along by being an incredibly large departure from the fighting game mainstay series. Similar to the likes of Sacrifice or Brutal Legend, you control a character who actually manages bases and troops in real-time strategic combat with hack and slash elements. You produce units to capture bases automatically and produce troops to fight as a mix of automatic and manual selection via a menu called an Organ, where you can use resources from combat for troop, item, and skill purchase.

The gameplay is more simplified than the complex fighting game system fans are used to, with an attack button, a special attack button, an evasion button, an item button, and a lock on button. Cancels are also possible, though they matter less than locking onto and sidestepping your enemy. A dash is also available to quickly cover the battlefield, but it's pretty wonky to control and can crash easily.

The campaign itself is a mix - it's the main meat and potatoes of the game, but it's odd and troubling at times how much it diverges from its own main combat, featuring boss battles, races, finding hidden items, and other things that interfere with the core mechanic. Still, it's a decent story, fitting itself cleanly in the Guilty Gear universe without any retcon.

The graphics also look pretty gorgeous for the time, with stylish looking troops and enemies based on the characters summoning them (with some particularly ghoulish designs) as well as sparse but good looking environments. The music isn't quite top notch but carries the same guitar riffs from the main series. The voice acting is also not only serviceable, but carries a compelling charm all its own, something that surprises me out of an English dub that would usually be phoned in.

If this were to be the actual new direction of the series, I'd be concerned. It's quite rough at times, even though it's a fun and satisfying hack and slash with resource and strategy elements. It wouldn't be a bad spinoff series, but it leaves fans thirsty for going back to the old fighting system again.