Recently friends got me to go back into Guilty Gear Strive and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R. I love the Guilty Gear aesthetic in general, but mechanically Strive is still a challenge for me. It is funny though as one of the complaints of people coming from older gear games, "Strive has not gatlings", does not apply to me since Ramlethal in Xrd does not have traditional gatlings anyways (gatling being characters can combo punch into kick into slash into heavy slash). The pacing of Strive is very different, but that could be because I am still in my inefficient learning process. My general method is mash a bit, see what works and then be more selective with mashing, gradually refining knowledge of when I can poke with what, what buttons are good, what buttons are situational, etc. It probably does not help that I am trying to learn Zato, but they changed Ramlethal too much for my liking, so I am still not sure who to play.
As for +R, it is the opposite when it comes to speed. Very fast paced, the Force Break moves (EX moves in most other games) are an interesting additional use for meter. Since Ramlethal does not exist in +R, I have decided to go with Bridget. He fits some of the Ram needs of 'I am going to throw my weapon out on the screen, and I can activate it later, so yay for giving my opponent something else to think about'. He also has interesting air movement options which I enjoy. The game still feels a bit too fast for me, and my friends were much more experienced with it so I did not take many rounds, but it was fun exploring options and finding things that work.
Between the two, I will probably practice +R a little more since I feel like I have found a character I like in it, though both are gorgeous and fun in their own ways. I do feel that +R has more of the "everything in this game is bull crazy", though that could just be because it feels more familiar than Strive does currently.
Xrd is still my favorite, even with the bad netcode.
