Guilty Gear Isuka (2003)

I really want to say that Guilty Gear Isuka is good—I do—but I can’t—it’s terrible. The fighting is still the same and the art is still wonderful and I love all of the new stages, but the sprites have been greatly reduced in size in order to fit four players on one screen which detracts from the art. Character-wise the cast is the same from GG X2 with the exception that they’ve made Robo-Ky a main character (a good decision, though they’ve changed his moveset so thoroughly that you will have to relearn him completely, a minus stroke for me) and they’ve added ABA who I love as a character, I just wish she was presented in a different game because story mode is MIA so we never get a full understanding of her character, sadly. Many modes are missing in this game, even arcade mode, mysteriously, you just sort of play a modified survival until you reach the boss. The boss in this game is horrendous; it’s a weird gnome riding a mechanical yeti of sorts; ever played League? Think Nunu, except way less interesting. It also doesn’t help that one of the only reliable ways to hit the boss is to the up and attack down on a small spot on the bastard’s head—it’s absolutely monotonous and takes forever to boot. There’s also a create-your-own-Robo-Ky mode which is mostly dumb. It’s a poor excuse for a beat ‘em up and when you’re building your Robo-Ky you need points which you get from doing other modes in the game, but any good move is extremely expensive so have fun building a decent one and winning is no easy chore either because you have to fight super saiyan Sol and Ky at the end who are both permanently in overdrive mode. The biggest killer for this game to me though is that for some horrific reason the developers added in the concept that you have to manually turn your character around—this absolutely killed it for me, I simply couldn’t get used to it and honestly I shouldn’t have to, Smash Bros managed twice before your game came out so why can’t you? If you find this game cheap, get it just to experience ABA and really nothing else, but don’t bother with it unless it’s $10 or less.