Archive / Ramblings / Guilty Gear Strive Season 4 (7/22/2024)

Season 4 of Guilty Gear Strive was announced yesterday, and many people have mixed opinions on it. I have spent a ton of time thinking about it, and will share it now.

First of all, it got leaked. Which is very sad for the devs. It seems everything is getting leaked now, which really kills the hype they want to build. ESPECIALLY at Evo. And it was leaked by themself, too! Luckily, it seems most of the evo crowd was unaware of the leak...

Now, for myself, I have a very complicated relationship with leaks. On one hand, it obviously sucks to have the surprise completely ruined. I stayed off twitter during A.B.A's leak, and I think thst was for the best. On the other hand though, I think the Elphelt leak actually increased hype just because of how uncertain it was. Some things about it just seemed off, making many question if the leak was true. I think it benefited her release.

In this case, I am actually glad it got leaked, but for a different reason, which I will discuss more when I talk about Lucy. But the base idea is that my negativity towards her was much easier to diminish while able to easily do research, without worrying about missing the top 6. I feel very bad for those that got spoiled unwillingly though. I knew what I was doing when I clicked the trailer link, and anyone that just got shown an image with no context must be very unhappy about it.

The other thing before the characters is the fact that the entire season was revealed ahead of time. I am against this, though I do understand why it is done. It allows people to know if the season pass is what they want, or if they only want a specific character. For me though, as someone who buys every character regardless, it just kind of kills some of the anticipation going forward. But not all of it. There was still a decent amount of hype for Slayer's actual reveal, even if we knew it was him. So I hope they are able to do the same with these characters.

Dizzy was my guess for the next character. It just felt right. She is super popular and highly requested, making her perfectly fit at Evo. And I like her new design! It fits her way better than her old one. Also someone pointed out (link) that she seemingly has magnolias in her hair, tying back to Ky's Xrd theme. Which is a really good detail! I also saw a comparison to Ky's beta design, which is also cool! Overally happy with the choice, I'm surprised it took this long.

Venom was my secondary guess, and ended up being the second character. How fitting. I like his new design, but don't have any strong opinions on if it is better or worse. Really my main concern with Venom will always be Robo-Ky. If Robo-Ky ends up just being a super for Venom, or part of his moveset, I would be pretty disappointed. Equally as disappointed as if they aren't married in the next story. Come on ArcSys! You know what we want! Gay robot!

I did not expect Unika to be this early. I figured she would be a Season 5 character. I do wonder how her release correlates with Dual Rulers' release. It really makes sense from any point. Releaseing it before her allowa people to get to know the character, and therefore build excitement for how her moveset willl work. Releasing it after her allows for her existence to build hype for the anime. And releasing them at the same time just makes logical sense.

The main point of controversy. First of all, I am completely against guest characters. I think they have no place in fighting games unless it is the entire point (Smash, MvC, etc.). I think Homelander shouldn't be in Mortal Kombat. I think Mega Man shouldn't have been in Street Fighter. Terry being in Street Fighter 6 is pretty much the limit (As I think he kind of fits the world, though also having Mai is a bit much). Gurst characters take away roster slots from older returning characters that people really want to return. This is especially a problem with characters from other fighting games, since if you really wanted to use that character you could just play that game (I'm talking to you, people that wanted Ragna or someone else from BlazBlue). Guilty Gear is no exception to this, in addition to having a complex story that takes itself seriously. I play Guilty Gear for the Guilty Gear world, story, and characters, no one else. I want the older characters to come back that people have been asking for since the game came out, and the characters that still haven't been made playable yet. Such as...

Returning Characters

Answer
Dr. Paradigm
Fanny
Izuna
Jam Kuradoberi
Judgment
Justice (Dead, could be a clone)
Kliff Undersn (Dead)
Kum Haehyun
Leopaldon
Order-Sol
Raven
Robo-Ky
Robo-Ky II
Valentine (Dead)
Zappa

New Characters

Ariels
Chronus
Crow (Possibly in a Delilah situation with a Justice clone?)
Daryl
Gabriel
Malcolm Myers
Vernon E. Groubitz

Once they are all here (which would take 6 seasons), I would STILL rather not have guest characters, but would be very slightly more open to it. The lore problems with it are just too high.

With all of that being said, I did know that a guest character was probably inevitable. And I think Lucy was not a terrible option considering that fact. I know nothing about Cyberpunk Edgerunners except that all the other characters are dead and therefore she was the only choice. But that then leads to the question of why edgerunners was chosen in the first place. I think the most likely option is just that Daisuke really likes it, seeing as all of his other (mainly musical) interests made it in through references. And I trust Daisuke more than pretty much any other developer. He will make her fit in this world. He cares way to much about it to just let it fall apart for a crossover. So I will trust in Daisuke's Vision^TM.

The glorious return of Xrd 21!! It is quite good. I hope they do more gimmick colors like this and 12 - 15. Especially if they decide to bring back the Eclipse colors (Xrd Color 23).

It looks pretty similar to Area 42 from Xrd. I assume that is the idea behind it given that it was Dizzy's stage.

Not seeing anything familiar, but it looks good. Might be from Dual Rulers?

I think this will be a really interesting season. My main problem besides Lucy is only really the length of time between now and Dizzy. I think this will all work out, in the end.