Ishiwatari: With Guilty Gear: Strive, we wanted to put importance during development on appealing to people who don't really play fighting games
Interview with 4Gamer reveals more about Arc System Works' intentions for the upcoming Guilty Gear title
While there's been an abundance of excitement, there's also been a decent amount of trepidation surrounding the upcoming Guilty Gear: Strive as fans continue to question the directions developers appear to be going with the franchise.
Though it's still admittedly early, a recent 4Gamer interview with GG creator, Daisuke Ishiwatari, isn't exactly doing much to quell fears that oversimplification to usher in new players might create a rift when it comes to gameplay expectations of legacy players.
This isn't a new fear that fighting game players are having. Most of the franchises that have been around for the last few decades have had releases in the recent "eSports" years, and in just about every case the respective communities have questioned whether or not developer decisions to mitigate the genre's traditionally high barrier of entry will wind up hurting a game's competitive integrity.
It's very important to keep in mind that simplification does not innately correlate with a loss of competitive integrity, but it's also not hard to see how easily the latter could result from an unnuanced approach with the former.
We already know that Strive will include fewer and less complicated mechanics than previous GG titles, and so the following bit from the interview wasn't all that big a surprise to hear.
4Gamer: "We got to try the game out too, and the first impression was that it feels extremely easy to play compared to previous titles. Please tell us why you decided to change the game feel so greatly."
Ishiwatari: "With this game, we wanted to put importance during development on appealing to people who don't really play fighting games or those who enjoy the current trend of fighting games."
It was in this next portion, where 4Gamer directly speaks about how this game feels like a departure from Ishiwatari's recognizable style, that may cause a few red flags to potentially go up.
4Gamer: "Ishiwatari-san, you often talk about liking older fighting games and it feels like your own style is often well reflected in the games you work on. To be honest, the ease of play for this new game feels pretty out of character from someone like you."
Ishiwatari: "It's true that for the Guilty Gear series up until now, my own thoughts and views on fighting games have been clear in the titles, and this has also been part of the high threshold for beginners to try to overcome. In this title, we decided to reset that part entirely and made it our goal to make a game that as many people as possible could enjoy.
"With that said, we have no intention of compromising our product. We have a goal set of creating a game with intricacies and depth that can only be acquired simply because it is being made by us here at Arc System Works, and every member of the staff has a full understanding of this goal.
"This is a new installment in the Guilty Gear series, and as such, we feel it's imperative to preserve the feeling of Guilty Gear within it. Various members of the staff have thrown a ton of suggestions that are new to Guilty Gear at me, and I've been standing like a dam trying to make sure that not all of them leak through to the product itself, haha."
It does sound as though Ishiwatari is fully aware of the kinds of reservations some of the GG community is experiencing and taking them into account as development continues. That they are preserving "the feeling of Guilty Gear" is reassuring, but also doesn't fully match up with what we've been hearing from people that have gotten to play Strive.
We do already have a few early reports of what the Strive experience is like thanks to both Woolie and Maximilian, both of who are sure to clearly point out that this is definitely a departure from traditional Guilty Gear.
Whether or not the new experience is enjoyable for the competitor and the casual player alike widely remains to be seen, and making too much in the way of judgments before one has had the opportunity for firsthand experience is always ill-advised.
We still have a good while before Strive's 'late 2020" release window, and we'll be keeping a close ear to the ground so as to garner plenty of additional information between now and then. How are you feeling about Strive at this point in the development process? Feel free to chime into the comments with your opinions and let us know.
Thank you to Nick "MajinTenshinhan" Taylor for translating.
