Description:

At its core, Guilty Gear X2 is a lot like its predecessor, which in turn was clearly inspired by countless other 2D fighting games from Capcom and SNK. It's the standard drill: You can engage in one-on-one, best-of-three-round bouts against the computer in numerous single-player modes or against a friend. Yet while the structure and basic design of Guilty Gear X2 may be conventional, its cast of characters is pretty exceptional, featuring everything from a pirate girl wielding an enormous anchor to a hunched-over white-clad doctor who seems to be wearing a brown grocery bag on his head. A good number of new characters join the fracas this time around, including a debonair vampire smoking a pipe, a scantily clad witch wielding an electric guitar, and an androgynous British lad who looks and sounds like a lass and fights with a yo-yo. You know we couldn't make this stuff up if we tried, and it's good to see that the designers decided to keep moving in the direction of "weird" rather than introduce more-conventional sorts of characters.

Like its predecessor, the game is brought to life with vibrant hand-drawn 2D character sprites and backgrounds, making Guilty Gear X2 look as much like an anime episode as a video game. In fact, the legions of fans of anime series like Dragon Ball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh! really ought to take notice of Guilty Gear X2, which has a similar sort of style and sensibility to it. Meanwhile, the presence of a hard-rocking electronic guitar soundtrack further helps set this game apart, and while the tracks may not sound drastically different from one to the next, it's great that the designers have given Guilty Gear X2 such a cohesive musical style.

(Description written by: Greg Kasavin)

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