Guilty Gear X2 #Reload: The Midnight Carnival - Review

Added October 3rd, 2004 by Sallizar

Introduction:

The Xbox has a pretty decent selection of fighting games available. Unfortunately all the 2D fighters we’ve seen so far have been ports of aging Capcom and SNK games. While decent games, they aren’t something you toss in your Xbox to show off the Xbox’s power to your friends. Guilty Gear X2 #Reload: The Midnight Carnival (hereafter referred to as GGX2 because that name is pretty ridiculous) may just change that. Combining quirky characters, gorgeous graphics and complex game play this PS2 port comes to the Xbox complete with Live play and a low price tag.

Gameplay:

I’ll discuss the sizzling graphics in a bit, but they don’t really matter unless the game play is on target anyway. Luckily, GGX2 features one of the most complex, yet flexible fighting systems I’ve seen in a 2D fighter. Players have many various basic attacks at their disposable along with special Overdrive attacks and even Instant Kills.

Overdrive attacks are special attacks that do buckets of damage. To pull them off you’ll need to boost your Tension gauge by damaging your opponent with some basic combos then input the sequence for the Overdrive to go nuts on your opponent. Of course, like any good fighting game, your Overdrive could be blocked or avoided so timing and positioning is everything.

Instant Kills can be activated by pressing all four attack buttons simultaneously. Your Tension gauge changes to an Instant Kill gauge that starts counting down. When it runs out it starts depleting your life bar. If you can pull off the commands for your Instant Kill before your meter or life runs out you’ll kill your opponent with a fatality style cut scene.

To add more depth to the game you can try advanced moves like the Psych Burst and Roman Cancel. The Roman Cancel drains part of your Tension Gauge but lets you end an attack animation and return to your ready state. This can be used to avoid a counter blow and strike back with a better attack or to make up your own combo. Fill your Burst meter and you can perform a Psych Burst to become temporarily invulnerable.

Combat in GGX2 is quick and intense. While blocking works it’s almost frowned upon. The game features a Guard gauge that fills up as you attack and drains as you block. If you stay on the offensive you’ll be able to block just about any move in the game when your opponent gets you in a position where you absolutely must block. Block a lot of weak attacks and your opponent will be able to mow you down with an Overdrive or an Instant Kill.

Graphics:

The first thing you’ll notice about GGX2 is the character design. Characters range from a cowboy with a wooden sword, to a guitar wielding witch, to a guy on roller-skates dressed as a nun. The characters, while bizarre, are very well drawn and animated in a much higher resolution than characters in any other 2D fighter on the Xbox. Backgrounds are varied and fit each character they provide a home to. Various special effects accompany Overdrives and Instant Kills and provide that extra bit of glitter that the game needs. The game runs extremely smoothly (even on Live) which really helps considering how twitchy the control scheme is.

Audio:

Hope you like your metal high speed and high pitched, because GGX2 has a pretty stale soundtrack. The metal tracks fit the fights well, but they don’t really stick with you like some games soundtracks. Voice work is all done in Japanese and the voices fit the characters pretty well. The cut scenes in story mode are subtitled, but there is no way to understand the various taunts in combat unless you speak the language or find a translation guide online. It’s a minor thing, but I’m sure some people would have liked to have the option of English dubbing.

Controls:

Since I purchased my Pelican Real Arcade stick I haven’t used a standard controller for any fighting games. I went ahead and tried GGX2 with a Controller S for this review and the controls seem adequate. If you can handle a Capcom or SNK with the standard controller you’ll be fine. The best part (and why I didn’t list the controls here) is the ability to completely customize the button mappings. Don’t like Heavy Slash as B? Put it on any button you want. I’d gotten used to the control scheme I used on the PS2 and great to be able to arrange the buttons how I’m used to.

Replay:

Fighting games usually have pretty low replay value. Thankfully GGX2 is packed full of it. The complex fighting system alone takes a great amount of time to get good at, let alone master. On top of just learning how to play the game you have almost ten different modes to play in. Along with the standard Arcade, Survival, Training and VS modes, GGX2 features M.O.M. mode, Story mode, and Mission mode. M.O.M. mode lets you collect medals dropped by your opponent as you fight them to try to max out a medal level gauge. Story mode is a series of fights with storyboard style cut scenes interspersed between each match. The story actually makes sense compared to most 2D fighters and learning the backgrounds of all the characters makes it a fun mode to play through. Mission Mode is a series of 100+ special conditions fights. For example, in one fight only the hits after the third hit in a combo will actually damage your opponent. You’ll need to be a seasoned veteran before you take on most of the missions. If all that isn’t enough, the Xbox version of GGX2 has Live support and it’s one of the smoothest, lag free games I’ve ever played on Live. It’s great fun playing against skilled opponents from all over the world and seeing what sort of crazy moves they can pull off.

Summary:

Guilty Gear X2 #Reload will make you proud again to own a 2D fighting game on the Xbox. I was a big fan of the PS2 version, but traded my copy in so I could pick up the new Live enabled version for the Xbox. It’s one of the most complex fighters I’ve ever endeavored to master, along with being the most gorgeously designed 2D fighter to date. It’s made the conversion to Xbox stunningly and is a bargain at twenty dollars.