Arc System Works really knows how to make a competent anime fighter, but Guilty Gear especially just has some great setplay and okizeme (for those who don't play fighters, basically setting up attacks after knocking down your opponent) as well as interesting neutral game that's very unique. Most of the characters are really fun to play, with particular setplay dynamics ranging from Venom's pool ball setups to Kum's moving ball setup to Millia's loops. Roman cancels are also still in and while they aren't perfect (YRC slowing down time is shit) they add another dimension to meter management and decisionmaking that's just incredibly deep and fun to play around with.

The music is also great, giving a huge metal power to each character with their themes and just being kickass to listen to while fighting. And even if you don't approve of the new soundtrack, you can queue up tracks of old like Guilty Gear XX's. The character designs are anime as hell and they're great as well, it is an aesthetic feat to watch even if you can't get into the base gameplay.

The only real issues are more personal, as in setplay is cool for a solid 20-30 hours and then not so cool when that's all neutral becomes at times. Also the netcode is some real trash to work with, and Danger Time is still a terrible mechanic. It's a great fighting game and I highly recommend trying it even if you're not a big fan of anime fighters. (8/10)

Note: This review also covers the previous game, REVELATOR, since this one is only a minor update and considered the definitive REVELATOR.

From an update perspective, a new Xrd was inevitable. Slamming in a new story that brings back fun characters and a slew of interesting fighting styles with characters like Answer, Jack O', Baiken, Dizzy, Jam, Raven, etc - Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 is what you want from an updated version, including a few tweaks to the pre-existing system like Burst versions of special attacks.

The biggest thing, however, and the one that both works for and against Rev 2, is its tutorial system. Rev 2 and Revelator go off the rails in attempting as robust of a tutorial as possible for a fighting game. FAQs in the menu, fun little obstacle courses to teach the basics, a meter that shows the direction of the controller at any point in time - it definitely seems from a surface level that this series has itself together when it comes to tutorials.

However, something seems amiss after the first tutorial segment. Not all moves are covered under the tutorial, the detection for if you actually did a move correctly is off (and sometimes nigh impossible, if you're doing Faust's backstep) and the game still manages to gate important skills behind frustrating maneuvers. In a sense, we're used to fighting games throwing us out there without any experience and us either practicing hundreds of hours or just staying at a set skill level, but Rev 2 has the nerve to make itself welcoming, all while kicking out the difficulty curve underneath you at the very basics. That said, it's still a solidly made game that goes out of its way to tutorialize as much as it can, regardless of missteps. That's more than what we can say of most fighters -