YMMV / Guilty Gear -STRIVE-

• And You Thought It Would Fail: During the prerelease cycle, many fans were skeptical of the game's merits as a sequel given the radically different gameplay compared to XX and Xrd, a sentiment that only got more divisive with each playable build and beta. Come launch, and it went on to become the single highest selling entry in the entire franchise by a pretty large margin.
• Base-Breaking Character: While the vast majority of the LGBTQ community had embraced Bridget as a character, among other fans, the change to her character has stirred a fair bit of controversy, a lot of it being centered around how it was executed and/or if it was a good idea or not with this particular character due to present lore. Some like it, some call it a retcon, some question the potentially problematic undertones it creates due to Bridget being raised like a girl already despite vocally identifying as a boy for a long time, to others it is about reassigning an icon that fit a different kind of non-gender conformity; the numerous arguments go on and on with all kinds of takes. Of course, there is yet another camp who simply hates the idea of queer characters in any capacity, but they can safely be written off as a minority, albeit a vocal one.
• Broken Base:
  • The massive changes to series gameplay naturally caused a rift among the existing fanbase before and after the game's release. Some felt the series needed to reinvent itself to some extent if it wanted to succeed rather than survive. Others felt changing the gameplay doesn't really do anything to push sales or appeal to new people, similar to arguments surrounding Street Fighter V early on. In the end -STRIVE- became the best-selling Guilty Gear in its launch window by a huge margin with 500k units shipped, and lifetime sales of over one million. How much the gameplay affected this result and how much of it was due to the increased marketing, rollback and a certain pandemic is a matter of debate.
  • Whether the game's massively simplified mechanics compared to Xrd and XX are a positive or not is a primary point of contention among the fanbase. Older, more veteran players see it as an overall "dumbing down" of what makes Guilty Gear special to make it accessible for a general audience, whereas other players, especially newer ones or players introduced to the series because of -STRIVE-, accuse the veterans of being elitist gatekeepers who want Guilty Gear's gameplay to be so arcane that no one but them can play it successfully and alienate more casual players as a result.
• Common Knowledge: A very pervasive misinterpretation of Another Story is that Faust died saving Delilah and the "Faust" left behind is his shambling corpse which persists in healing the sick due to Faust's will being just that strong. This is completely contradicted by both Word of God and his bio, which state that he simply overexerted himself and his sacrifice has given him the courage to return to his proverbial roots. While what exactly the specifics of that mean have yet to be seen and fully understood, he is not dead in any literal capacity.
• Contested Sequel: -STRIVE- is the biggest success the series has ever seen. However, opinions among more dedicated fans are mixed. The game's success and popularity mean you can find no shortage of people who love the game, even among longtime fans. However, the overhauled game mechanics and movesets have left many other players in the cold, with only rollback updates for XX and Xrd as consolation prizes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Malcolm Myers, the criminal that Sol and Jack-O' defeat at the beginning of Story Mode, has garnered quite a bit of popularity due to having basically no role in the game's greater story but still being a hilarious Butt-Monkey who tries to fight the Flame of Corruption and a Valentine at once, and many have semi-ironically called for him to be added as a playable DLC character to the point that Arcsys themselves got on on the joke when they released a fake DLC character trailer for him as part of an April Fools' Day prank.
  • The Phalanx Knight from the Another Story DLC. Many fans expected he would be a returning character after Sin Kiske was revealed to be such, but in the end, he is just a faceless knight from the White House that happens to be involved with events. He endeared himself to the fanbase with moments like his deadpan reaction to Sin's version of where babies come from, exchanges with Ramlethal, and helping pull his weight during the final confrontation. Calls to see him as part of Season 2 of DLC were loud right after Another Story came out.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Despite making his first official onscreen appearance in this game, Happy Chaos became an immediate fan favorite, even placing very high (above many established characters, in fact) on a Japanese survey polling fans about their favorite character in the game. His absurd demeanor and incomprehensible motives have earned him a devoted fandom.
  • While he's not evil by choice, Nagoriyuki also qualifies. A massive vampire samurai wielding a bloody katana, cool design, brutal fighting style and honorable personality made him very appealing to fans. It helps that he's one of the few characters to put Sol against the ropes in a fight.
• Fanon:
  • It's very commonly thought that Bridget was/is being helped with the process of her physical transition by Faust since some time before the events of the game, since Faust is a seemingly omnidisciplinary Back-Alley Doctor and it would be a nice bit of heartwarming characterization for him.
  • Once A.B.A's reveal trailer dropped, fans quickly assumed the reason for her hair color changing from copper-red to blueish-green is that her hair is literally copper and, much like the Statue of Liberty, her hair turned green from oxidization. ArcSys debunked this rumor in a recent interview, explaining that she merely dyed her hair green as she is experimenting with new looks and fashion in order to fit in with the outside world.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Even though the vast majority of the Guilty Gear fandom has accepted Bridget's transition, several Image Booru websites — used by many fans of anime and Japanese video games to search for fanart unless one is well-versed in Pixiv tags — chose to ignore her transition, and their mods will reject and revert attempts to replace tags like "1boy" with their feminine counterparts. This is done due to fears of tag poisoning on the sites, even though Daisuke himself wrote Bridget as trans, and stating it was always meant to cap her character arc. Danbooru, one of the largest such sites, had lengthy discussions about this, and ultimately settled on only applying feminine tags to her -STRIVE--era fanart if there's physical evidence in the image itself indicating as such.
  • Like with many newer fighting game sequels, the game itself is sometimes rejected by more hardcore fans as a result of the vast amount of changes done to the series formula, both in terms of characters and gameplay. Specifically, the series used to appeal to a very niche audience and the changes are seen as having watered down what made the series special for the sake of mass appeal, with simpler gameplay, more subdued characters and designs, as well as more pop influenced music. And while it did accomplish its mission of some semblance of universal appeal, it left much of the pre-existing fanbase feeling alienated, and as a result some have even declared Rev 2 as the last "true" Guilty Gear. For these reasons, it's not uncommon to see players of XX and Xrd who have no interest whatsoever in -STRIVE-.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The version 2.00 patch gave May the ability to increase the distance her dolphins travel by holding down whatever attack button was used. However, if you do this during a super flash, you can end up teleporting to the other side of the screen.
  • Happy Chaos' guns normally have a brief delay between pulling them out and firing them. However, if the opponent uses Purple or Blue Roman Cancels, that delay may be eliminated entirely, causing the shot to come out immediately.
• Growing the Beard: When the game first released, its Arcade Mode was (while not hated) considered below average and a missed opportunity compared to previous games' "Story Mode", since most of the characters' dialogue boils down to them tracking down and having a short conversation with Nagoriyuki rather than providing any meaningful characterization. Then came Bridget's Arcade Mode at the start of Season 2, which is when the Arcade Modes really started to become a place for overlooked characters to receive introspection and characterization with their own unique story lines and boss fights. Arcade Modes which would come out after Bridget, such as Bedman?'s, Asuka's, Elphelt's, and A.B.A's, would similarly be held in a higher regard.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In March of 2022, someone on Gamebanana named Ghost1512201 made a mod that allows you to play as Sin's Xrd incarnation in -STRIVE-. Guess who was added to the game that November as part of Season Pass 2?
  • This fan-made joke trailer for Bedman's bed became more hilarious on March 11, 2023, when Delilah was announced as a DLC fighter. The kicker is that she doesn't actually sit in the bed, as it moves autonomously to protect and fight for her, so you really are just playing as the bed!
  • This montage video commenting on Johnny's playstyle also mentions in the title it's why he will never get into -STRIVE-. Then August 6 arrived, and the video was proven wrong.
  • During 2022, while "-STRIVE-" was still fairly new, a mod existed that model-swaps Happy Chaos with Elphelt, who was absent from the mainline roster at the time. Can you guess who eventually made it to the game a year later?
  • This "trailer" announcing A.B.A as the third character to be added to the Season 1 pass, complete with Stylistic Suck is now rife with comments on how it aged very well now that A.B.A is actually in the game (and the third character in a pass no less). The original uploader went back to it just to update "Season 1" to "Season 3" for more accuracy.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: This criticism is often levelled by players who enjoyed the series for its relative complexity compared to other fighting games. While every fighter requires a good degree of skill to play well, -STRIVE- is a notably simplified entry in a pretty dense series. Furthermore, Xrd based most of its core gameplay on a modernized version of the XX gameplay system (which had been the series standard for over a decade), while in comparison -STRIVE- uses a brand new, much simpler set of mechanics. That being said, the lower barrier of entry seems to have paid off, as -STRIVE- went on to become the highest selling game in the series.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • Two fighters caused a sizeable number of queer gamers to take a look at -STRIVE-. The first was Testament receiving a more androgynous design befitting their non-binary status, and the second was Bridget coming out as a transgender girl. As a result, the game and both LGBT characters received quite a bit of attention from LGBT players.
  • Goldlewis has a substantial LGBT fanbase, both because he helps Bridget decide to come out and because there are (more ambiguous) hints that he might be queer himself. The fact that his older-gentleman Stout Strength build evokes the Bara Genre doesn't hurt, either.
• Memetic Mutation: -STRIVE- is probably the entry with the most memes, which you can see here.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Goldlewis Dickinson. His name sounds outrageous, he's a large and fat Southern man, and his weapon is a metal coffin containing an alien. He looks like an anime Eagleland stereotype, but that's the thing: he only looks like one. His weight is never used for cheap laughs nor does it define his fighting style (something common in fighting games), he's got a cool personality and voice, and as a bonus, he's very supportive about Bridget being transgender. As a result, he has a good and respectable fanbase in the west.
• Narm: Bridget undergoing her Trans Tribulations in her story arc with Goldlewis and Ky is appropriately dramatic. The moment where she decides that she's done running from who she is, with Goldlewis and Ky encouraging Bridget to stop worrying about what anyone else thinks of her and promising to support her, is also suitably triumphant. But all of this happens while Bridget is still doing her usual idle animations, which involve her moving and grooving to the music with exaggerated and passionate dancing. It turns what should be a beautiful moment of acceptance and character development into one that's unintentionally silly.
• Narm Charm: Elphelt Valentine, the queen of cutesy Girly Girls everywhere and a woman obsessed with getting married, becoming a Death Metal vocalist sounds so ridiculous and silly on paper, and yet it somehow works due to her going through a massive Break the Cutie in Xrd and how earnestly she falls into the role without losing any of her original personality in the process.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: While Bridget coming out as a transgender woman caused some controversy, this only helped more people find out about the Guilty Gear series, resulting in many comments from people claiming that they discovered this series and became fans because of Bridget.
• Older Than They Think: While changes to established movesets have proven divisive, Arc System Works actually started experimenting with them as early as the second entry in the series. Originally, Sol's Gun Flame was a standard grounded projectile rather than the mid-ranged fire burst that it's known as today, while characters such as Zato, May and Axl debuted with very different movesets than the ones they've famous for. Of course, this brings up the debate as to whether this merely counts as an example of Early-Installment Weirdness or if it's just par for the course.
• Polished Port: The PC port is widely considered the definitive version because on top of working and running well, it has less input delay than the console versions (Less so after updates improved the delay for PS4 Pro and PS5 versions, but still ahead). Its only major problem has been a bug known to the developers and unfixed since launch where running the game in 4K causes massive frame drops for both players when a big counterhit happens. It also didn't have the Tron Costumes unless you used a mod until they were finally added as DLC on Steam alongside a price drop for the game, but that's minor in comparison, especially considering that you could mod it (and the game has a thriving mod scene).
• Porting Disaster: On launch, the Playstation 5 version had around eight frames of input delay, as opposed to the PS4's four-ish, and the PC version's almost none. To put things into perspective as to how bad this is, all fighting games worth their salt aim for a smooth 60 frames-per-second to maximize player control, so 8 frames of delay meant over a tenth of a second between you inputting and the game responding. The PS5 version reportedly had the most delay out of all of the entire genre. This has thankfully been addressed after launch as the PS5 version had its input delay drastically reduced across several updates, bringing it in line with the PS4 Pro version to about three frames of delay. Still slightly behind the Steam version a bit but far more manageable. Now the PS4 native version is laggiest with five frames.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • While a lot of things were divisive during the betas, the online lobby system was universally despised by players. Instead of a traditional matchmaking service or a 3D lobby like other Arc System Works, -STRIVE- uses a sprite-based 2D lobby system that caused constant headaches for players. In order to start a match with another player in the betas, one had to whip out their weapon and then meet another player who also have theirs out. Problem is that, due to the 2D structure, sprites and players can overlap making it nigh impossible to challenge a specific player especially if there is a lot of de-syncing going on. Add in various other small functional and aesthetic issues and it is no surprise the lobbies were so derided. Unfortunately, despite the massive amount of derision, the only major changes made to the Lobby system after the negative feedback was a return to Duel Stations like previous games and the addition of a rematch feature (Maximum of three games and a Rating Update will cancel the set early no matter what). It is telling that pretty much every review out there docks points from their final score because of the lobby system.
  • Fishing is also disliked due to the tedium of only being able to fish one or ten items at a time, with the animations just being long enough to grate. You need to fish if you want to customize your avatar, private lobbies, or Digital Figure mode. It's also where all of the legacy music is hidden so you if you want to put on old favorites, get fishing. While much of this was already present in Xrd, players in that game are also given the option to purchase many gallery items directly, something absent from -STRIVE-
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: To make the game more welcoming to beginners than Xrd and XX, movelists have been shortened (with some remaining specials having easier inputs) and various mechanics, including character gimmicks, have been either simplified or dropped entirely. The Wall Break mechanic also serves as a combo-ender that brings both players back to the center of the stage, potentially giving whoever has been attacked more of a chance to make a comeback if they survive the extra damage from the Wall Break.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Bridget coming out as a transgender woman completely upended all of the Unsettling Gender-Reveal jokes and memes that defined her character in the fandom for decades.
  • Story mode reveals that "That Man" is actually two people. There's the Gear Maker himself, Asuka R. Kreusz, and Happy Chaos, who travelled the world creating disasters under Asuka's identity. The reveal that he's also The Original Sage also qualifies.
• Signature Scene: From the story mode, Sin's "where babies come from" story is considered one of the more memorable scenes.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Sol's theme "Find Your One Way", compared to Nickelback's "Something In Your Mouth".
  • May's theme "The Disaster of Passion", compared to Paramore's "Misery Business".
  • Giovanna's theme "Trigger", compared to Beastie Boys' "Sabotage".
  • Elphelt's theme "Extras" borrows from Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You", with a nod to the Christian hymn "Amazing Grace".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: -STRIVE- features a newer, less complex gameplay style than its two predecessors, naturally this did not sit well with some veteran fans. It should be noted that Xrd directly based itself on the mechanics of XX, meaning that this particular style of Guilty Gear lasted from 2002 all the way to 2021.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The main story mode features no appearances whatsoever from May, Faust or Ramlethal until the credits sequence that features all of the playable cast. This is rectified with the DLC story, which puts them center stage alongside Baiken.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The long-awaited confrontation between Sol and That Man ends up being resolved rather anticlimactically, despite over two decades of build up. Asuka erases Sol's Gear modifications, turning him mostly human again just for the sake of giving him back a normal life. It might be justified due to Sol having little reason to blame Asuka for the whole Gear fiasco that originated the series' Myth Arc by that point, but it's still a jarring example of subverted expectations.
  • Story Mode is heavily focused on ending Sol's story arc, to the detriment of most of the cast. Only I-No, Ky, Axl, Nagoriyuki, Jack-O', Happy Chaos, and Goldlewis (the latter three not even playable in the base roster) do anything significant. Giovanna, despite being a newcomer, is more of a glorified chauffeur. May, Faust, and Ramlethal don't even show up in the main story proper, only in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue. Thankfully, Another Story remedies this slightly by having them take part in a side mission that takes place co-currently with the main story.
  • Some criticism has been leveled against Bridget's story with how the story threads set up in the end of Accent Core were ultimately simply resolved off-screen and the story instead simply jumps to her current predicament.
  • Many fans who took issue with Bridget's story pointed out that Bridget has a twin brother we've never seen who would have made an excellent transgender character, as the scenario of each child growing up desperately wanting what the other had would have been tragically ironic.
• Viewer Name Confusion: In the original XX games' localizations, the mansion where A.B.A was born was known as "Frasco". With the new localizations from Arc System Works themselves, as of -STRIVE- the name has been properly translated and spelled as "Flask".
• Watched It for the Representation: The return of Bridget and her coming-out as a transgender woman garnered an influx of transfeminine fans.
• Win Back the Crowd: Arc System Works had started becoming notorious for unstable online play after the release of Dragon Ball Fighter Z. From the moment -STRIVE- was announced and known simply as Guilty Gear fans were begging to know if the series would finally make the switch to rollback netcode. The developers were either avoidant or excusing why rollback would not be a good fit for a fast game like Guilty Gear. Thankfully by the first beta (which was still played on the old delay netcode and was unstable as expected) they had changed their minds and committed to having rollback netcode for launch, and it became one of the most-complimented features of the game on release.

---