Guilty Gear. One of the best fighting game series out there. A memorable cast, incredibly fast-paced action and it’s just plain awesome. Now Sega got the license for all the characters. So Arc System Works is left with few characters to use. And they decided to go in a completely different direction with this one gameplay-wise.

So can a Guilty Gear fan like a GG game that does something completely different? Read on!

Looks, sounds and stories
The graphics feel like early Xbox 360 graphics. Like when the companies were still getting used to it and weren’t really using the hardware the most they could. It does, though, perform quite well when there’s a lot of things going on on the screen. The game also uses really Guilty Gear-like visuals considering it’s in 3D instead of High-Res 2D. The new characters could pretty much fit in a 2D GG game and not feel out of place. Overall the game looks okay, just not spectacular.

The sounds… Well I was happy to see a lot of Guilty Gear sounds being back. Hits, blocks and various others are back. The voice acting is a bit weird. I don’t really like most of the voices other than Sol’s. They’re not bad, but they’re not great either. The music… Well it’s a mixed bag. Some of it is just… clichéd RPG music, and there’s a few rock/metal tracks that fit the GG style. Not my favorite GG music that’s for sure.

As for the story… Well, first things first: it sucks that only 2 old Guilty Gear characters are present in the game. You get Sol Badguy in his Holy Order outfit(or something similar to it) and Ky Kiske. That’s it. No Millia, no I-no, no Bridget, no Potemkin, no Slayer… No one! The only other characters mentioned from previous games are Justice and That Man. The new characters aren’t bad, but seeing SOME old faces would’ve been nice.
As for the story. Well, from what I understand it takes place before all previous GG games. And it’s a jumbled mess. Not exactly complicated, but just… random. Something about Gears disappearing and some girl hunting them and things involving That Man… Blah. I could’ve paid a bit more attention but never seemed to actually care about it. The cutscenes were dull and never really made me interested in caring about the story. Sore about that, no info on the story here.

Gameplay
But the biggest change from traditional Guilty Gear is in the gameplay. Guilty Gear games are usually fighting games. 2 people fighting it out until one of them has nothing left in his life bar. Well… Forget all of that, Overture is completely different. Kinda.
The basics make the game seem like a Beat ‘em up, and the first few missions do little to convince you otherwise. But after a few missions, you realize that the game is actually a strategy game! Yeah, weird huh?

The basics are simple: You have something called a Masterghost, which you have to protect, and your opponent has the same thing. In between the 2 Masterghosts  on the map are a bunch of ghosts (towers of sort). capturing ghosts (by hitting them) makes them automatically spawn capture units and boosts your resources over time. Capture units make capturing ghosts a lot faster. As time goes on you gain mana (the more ghosts you have, the more mana you have). Mana will be used for various things. Summoning units (called Servants), unlocking different types of Servants(there’s a rock-paper-scissors relationship between various types of Servants), or making items(various effects like healing or dragon install and bombs and stuff like that). 

You have SOME control over your servants. You can give simple commands like “Advance”, “Retreat” and “Stay there”. You can also go in your menu and select groups of Servants and tell them which ghost to go to (or the masterghost if need be). And you can take Servants in your item bar to re-summon them wherever you want. Capture units are automatic and you have no control at all on them. They spawn when a capture unit gets into a ghost and multiplies.

As for Sol (or any other character you might control in VS mode, just using Sol as an example), he’s basically a super unit. He can run, drift ( to take those tight turns), jump, attack, open chests and use items. His attacks on ghosts are weak and ineffective, and attacking the Masterghosts with him is completely useless. The proper use of servants to take control of ghosts and taking down Masterghost barriers is really important. Sol is basically there to hit the Masterghost a last time to destroy it (Servants can’t do that), and he’s relatively effective against enemy Servants. As for his controls, they’re relatively simple. Normal attacks, special attacks, combos(which you have to learn), and if your bar below the health is full you have a super attack for MASSIVE DAMAGE. Combos here are a bit weird to execute but can look pretty good.

Overall the gameplay is actually fun. Simplistic compared to other strategy games, but the mix between Strategy and Beat ‘em up is actually pretty well done.

Overall
If you’re a Guilty Gear fan, this is a rental. The lack of previous Guilty Gear characters is disheartening. The complete change in gameplay a bit weird and if you don’t get used to it, it won’t be very fun to play. On its own it’s not a bad game. The gameplay is varied and interesting. But the game is still expensive and hard to find, so it’s hard to recommend purchasing it. As for people who aren’t GG fans, I say it’s also a rental at most. The story is confusing and the setting might not be interesting to them.

It’s an interesting game, but maybe not enough to warant a full-priced purchase.

jobocan Games, Review