GGWP: A Revelator Review

It’s been roughly a year and a half since the return of Guilty Gear with the release of Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- on December of 2014 (technically it came out earlier that year in February, but just for arcades in Japan). So here we are, a year and a half later, and the update/sequel/whathaveyou to -Sign-, Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator came out last month. So what’s new/different with Revelator in comparison to its predecessor?

First of all, to address the elephant in the room, yes, this review is a bit late; the North American version of this game was released only in June. As it was relatively new, it naturally would take awhile to completely assess the new balancing, match-up (with new characters and all), and mechanical changes. Even at this year’s Evo Championship Series GGXrd tournament, not everyone was still accustomed to Revelator‘s changes.

Alright, so what IS new with Revelator? Well, to start off, the game has (probably) THE BEST tutorial of any fighting game out on the market today. Rather than a traditional fighting game-esque tutorial, the type that teaches you the basics like movement, blocking, attacking; it operates more like a platformer. The player is given several challenges, including things like jumping over obstacles, and attacking opponents in a certain sequence. In short, the tutorial was made for complete fighting game newbies, whom should be the target of the tutorial in the first place. Which makes it, a very smartly made piece of content, that could help people who aren’t versed with the genre to transition into it.