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Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers Review
Written by Robert Falcon on Thursday, May 4, 2006
User Score
Multiplayer battling fun; good presentation
Confusing control scheme; mini-games seem bland.
Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers is a confusing product to review. On one side of things, it's completely different from any other Guilty Gear game, as it has a completely different approach to the fighting formula. It seems to be working more on the Super Smash Bros. Melee side of things, with multi-tiered stages where you can hop around to bash an enemy to pieces, all while using your patented fighting moves and keeping up against a multitude of foes.
But on the other, it's unlike the other Guilty Gear games, which makes it subject to alienation. Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers suffers from a few flaws with this formula, namely having to adjust to some of the new control mechanisms. For instance, there'll be moments where you're ready to unleash an attack on an awaiting foe and you end up somehow facing the opposite direction, and unleashing your well-timed combo on thin air. This leaves you wide open for a key attack, and it's something that should've been fixed by the folks at Arc System Works.
The gameplay works alright, for the most part, but also has some quirks in terms of its jumping from platform to platform. You have to basically tap up or down to move around, and doing so while trying to pull off a number of your moves gets downright confusing at times, especially if you're trying to stay alive on what little power you have remaining in your bar. It's not horrible, by any means, but it could've used a bit more adjustment to have a natural flow, like Melee did.
Other than that, the game's very serviceable. The music is acceptable and true to the Guilty Gear theme, and the graphics actually look pretty good, with their detailed animation and wide-open stages, providing the kind of graphic goodness you expect from a Guilty Gear game. The game also comes with a series of mini-games, most of which are pointless but worth a try anyway, as well as the opportunity to link up with others in multiplayer, where things really begin to take off. Fighting in a heated four-player round hasn't been this good on the DS since my friends attempted to do it with Jump! Superstars. It's chaotic and a little frustrating, but it delivers where it needs to.
Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers is not the essential handheld fighting experience, and doesn't really deserve to be. Its control quirks and lack of anything in terms of long-term entertainment outside of the multiplayer fail to make this a must-buy. However, fans might enjoy the new interface, and will surely get into the presentation and multiplayer options. It won't gather that much dust.
