Guilty Gear XX Accent Core

THE BAD:
hard to find
no online game play
very high difficulty
wackiness might turn off players

SUMMARY:
Guilty Gear Accent Core is a 2-D/anime fighting game by Arc System Works. This is the latest rehash of Guilty Gear X2: The Midnight Carnival. For those who played X2, you already seen what this game has to offer. Fast paced yet very complex fighting system, lush backgrounds and animations. However AC has a few things in store for vets and newcomers alike. 2 New characters, improved combat system, and new art work and reworked voice overs.

The 2 new characters: Order Sol and A.B.A are not new characters despite being said on the back of the game box. A.B.A was seen in ISUKA and Order Sol was in SLASH. Order Sol is another version of Sol-Badguy, with a new yet simplistic weapon, a charge gauge and a few new moves. A.B.A is slow, yet powerful when she transforms her key. Both these Characters were improved upon to allow players to play with them without frustration.

The fighting system was also reworked. The slash-back, the escape throw, force break are all new to the series. Slash back is a counter that fills up your tension(hyper gauge) when being pressured by constant enemy attacks. All of the characters have force breaks, which are moves that were either improved upon or new all together and requires energy to pull off. The escape throw is what it says: to escape a throw. This however requires perfect timing.

The old characters that Guilty Gear players know and love are still here. From Sol-Badguys brash and heavy hitting sword play to the lighting fast combos of Chipp Zanuff.. The cast of characters is..... unique. Ranging from a paper bag, scalpel wielding witch doctor, a guitar wielding hottie, to a guy that is possessed by ghosts is only the tip of the ice berg of the wackiness that fills the roster of characters. On a side note, some of the moves for the characters have been changed and some even got new animations.

The animation is very fluid. It hardly ever lags and is very smooth. The detail of the characters is amazing. It really brings them to life and fleshes out their unique personalities. This is good news because the series is known to have top notch animation and it continues this trend in AC.

Though this games got ton to offer, i just felt that Guilty Gear hasn't seen a real sequel in a while. Though most fans will eat this one up, some who played X2 and SLASH have already been there and done that. The audio picks up static if you put your volume too high and the difficulty might drive some people away with their tails between their legs. Those who enjoy online matches, this is not the game to turn to. Its more of a friend v.s friend sorta thing. All the voice work has been redone, but the announcer will disappoint believe me. He sounds like a person who is trying to fit in with a cool peoples group, though overall the new VO's are still good.

Despite a few problems, they can be overlooked because this game is so damn fun. Diverse characters, strong game play, bonus art work, provides a challenge and awesome music among others things, this is a must for a fight game aficionado or someone who wants a challenge out of their game.