If you’re a fan of fighting games, you may be familiar with the venerable Guilty Gear series. Perhaps you’ve even fallen victim to Bridget’s charms, if you know what I mean. Guilty Gear 2: Overture offers an intriguing mix of hack-and-slash mechanics and strategy rather than the Guilty Gear you’re used to. Like Mortal Kombat’s branching out with Shaolin Monks, the creators of Guilty Gear felt that the franchise could use an entirely different attempt. While it’s certainly an interesting entry to the venerable series, it really only stands on its own as another “flavor” of Guilty Gear rather than another face.
Story
Set five years after the original Guilty Gear, Sol Badguy returns to the spotlight. Saddled with the plucky (and often obnoxious) Sin, Sol is traveling, true to his ways as a bounty hunter. On one fateful day, longtime rival Ky Kiske sends out a message all across the country of Illyuria, where the characters reside. It turns out that dormant Gears have begun to disappear. What’s worse is that the kingdom Ky presides over is under attack. Because it isn’t in true rival fashion to ask for help outright from a rival, Ky’s cry for help is in the form of a “Wanted” poster plastered all over the countryside.
With this, Sol and Sin make getting to the bottom of a rather violent mystery their top priority. Of course, this is your fairly standard tale, especially for the Guilty Gear games. If anything, it’s overly dramatic for a game that typically relies on short cut scenes, character biographies, and brief bits of story between fights. Still, it’s an intriguing adventure that should keep you playing if only to figure out what’s really going on.
Gameplay
If you’re expecting some silky-smooth, gorgeously rendered 2-D fighting, then you’ll have to look elsewhere. Overture can best be described as a marriage of hack-and-slash goodness like Ninety-Nine Nights or Dynasty Warriors, and strategy RPGs that require you to think before mindlessly mashing buttons. In a nutshell, there are some fantastically complex RTS elements sprinkled on top of some fine brawler gameplay, and in theory the game should play like a dream. However, it all ends up feeling like a very dull ripoff of games done to much more detectable completion in the past.
The premise is quite simple. On each map that you’ll be sent to investigate, there are multiple control points referred to as “Ghosts.” You can think of them as a sort of flag or generator that is invaluable to your opponent’s success. If you can control a Ghost, you’ll be supplied with overflowing mana with which you can spend like cash on beefing up your minions. Of course, running out of mana is always possible. That’s why you’ll need to seek out and capture as many Ghosts as possible in order to efficiently run and maintain a competent army. You may also use mana to power up your playable character. Aside from relying on your squads and personal power in order to accomplish tasks, you can summon pawns known as “servants” to do your dirty work. While there is much to keep in mind while putting the smackdown on your enemies, you’ll find that the action moves quite fast, and you may have trouble keeping up. Despite the frenetic pace, however, most missions are carbon copies of each other. There is little variation to keep things fresh, and this equates to little motivation to keep plugging away until you reach the end. However, if you’re feeling dedicated and you want to see the story through til its end, Overture does provide an engrossing and appropriately-paced beat-em-’up with a twist.
Occasionally, you’ll utilize character-specific powers such as Sin’s dash ability, which is more trouble than it’s worth. You’ll navigate Sonic-inspired stages in order to arrive at a specific destination before enemies in a designated time limit more than a couple times, which is executed quite horribly. The controls are decidedly wonky in these side-quests, and drag the rest of the game down with them. You’ll grow to abhor these specialized detours, and rack your brain in an attempt to decode who ever thought they would be a good idea. Guess what? They weren’t. Perhaps with a bit of polish they would have been a great addition to some polished and entertaining mechanics, but left as-is, they’re quite disappointing.
Visuals
While Guilty Gear is famous for its crisp 2-D goodness and colorful character models, in 3-D the effect doesn’t translate so well. These are some decently rendered character models, and while the cut scenes are appropriately smooth and gorgeous, the actual in-game graphics are nothing to write home about. In short, they look quite depressingly average for a system that is considered to be part of the cream of the current-gen crop. What made the 2-D fighters unique, such as over-the-top, brilliantly animated special moves and poses has been completely omitted in this entry. It’s sad, but it seems it could have been an attempt to make this part of the series a more “adult” and “sophisticated” excursion in order to attract a different audience.
More traditional Guilty Gear graphics are indeed much more varied and colorful.
Audio
Get ready for some unbearably cheesy hair metal in various scenes, because you’ll be getting a double-shot of it. It’s not as embarrassing as what we were subjected to in a certain boss fight in Blue Dragon, but shouldn’t we expect a bit more than some particularly unmemorable tracks on the OST? The grungy and dry feel of the graphics seem to have carried over to the aural department, leaving us with some wholly uninspired backing tracks to score the carnage. Long story short, you probably won’t want to rush out and obtain the soundtrack anytime soon after playing this. At the very least, there are some talented and spirited voice actors onboard. Some particularly hilarious lines are delivered, and rather than becoming a farce, they end up becoming brighter parts of the game. That’s admirable in an age where members of the publishing team are called on to double as voice actors (I’m looking at you, Chaos Wars).
Multiplayer
Since this is a fairly older game, there is quite the dearth of players on Xbox Live who you can find yourself matched up against. You can take the very same gameplay mechanics as seen in the story mode on the road via the multiplayer matches, but it’s not worth it unless you’re quite the skilled player. Most of the gamers left online who play Overture religiously will wipe the floor with you. Simply playing through the campaign will not prepare you for those who have mastered the full gamut of combos and strategy, so unless you plan on playing every night to get some practice in (or with friends), you may not enjoy the multiplayer aspects.
Lifespan
There’s little to do beyond completing Overture at higher difficulties save for the scant multiplayer options. You’ll be able to complete the campaign mode in about 10-12 hours, depending on how quickly you pick up on how to fine-tune your strategy to fit certain situations. Once you’ve milked this cow, though, you’ll likely be finished with it for good unless you form some kind of bond with the characters that you feel the need to play and replay in order to keep it fresh.
Recommendation
If you’re a fan of the Guilty Gear series like myself, this entry will be a shock to your system. Still, it’s an interesting and complex contender for other strategy RPG/fighter hybrids. If you enjoy either genre and the charm of Guilty Gear, then this would make a great rent. It’s not without its issues and it’s decidedly much more bland than previous iterations, but it’s still worth a try. Perhaps in the future we’ll have another go at this side-quest, and it won’t feel so dull. There’s so much potential here.
Guilty Gear 2: Overture
System: Xbox 360
Developer: Arc System Works
Publisher: Aksys Games
Find: Amazon, Gamefly, Goozex
All reviews are based on final retail code unless otherwise noted.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Aww only on Xbox.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
It’s disappointing to hear that they tried to sober it up to put it on xbox. What made the game appealing and different was the graphics and characters. It’s so strange that they’d want to diminish that. I have it for my DS. I think I’ll just stick with that.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
It definitely was an interesting concept with its fair share of shortcomings. Guilty Gear is notorious for its sequels and tweaked re-releases, and I actually hope that Overture gets a more refined sequel along those lines.