Guilty Gear Judgment

Monday, 03 September 2007 00:00

Are you ready to rock?! Beat-em-up's have had different guises over the years, different styles to make them look .. different and yet, none have pulled off such a style like Guilty Gear.

You're not only getting one game with Guilty Gear Judgment, you also get Guilty Gear X2 which means if you've had enough of the side-scrolling 'story mode' style of play of Judgment for a while, you can have some good old classic 2D beat-em-up action with X2.

The purpose of Judgment is to make your way through 18 side-scrolling levels while fighting off enemies of all shapes and sizes, then defeating bosses in what is now the standard definition of story mode play. You have 5 characters to choose from at the start and more become available as you progress through the game.

Some stages seem really long, some are long and some are quite short, but it's not going to take just two minutes to flit through each level. Each one has at least three or four stages and a boss stage, so there's plenty of gameplay to be had, although, you may not feel like replaying through the game more than twice. The storyline can get a bit saucy at times with I-No almost seemingly gagging for it in parts with responses to her comments mostly consisting of "..." due to wondering what she said has to do with the plot, but even by the second level, you realise the plot suffered a coronary at the end of the first level.

Despite the story not making any particular sense, the action is all good with plenty of moves for each character and while you may have just kicked, blasted and through the stages, the bosses require a bit of strategy. I found myself getting drained of energy pretty quick by just going in like it was just another enemy, not realising that waiting and striking at specific moments would benefit me better.

You soon pick up how to do certain moves that are effective and building up combos becomes easier as you work out some simple tactics. One thing I liked is how the special moves are nice an easy to perform with a classic down, down-right, right type of combination, none of the silly up, down, around and X+O stuff that some games confuse you with.

It had been a while since playing a beat-em-up of any kind, so I didn't last too long while playing Survival mode in GGJ or GGX2. Playing Guilty Gear X2 brought back some good memories of playing the likes of X-Men: Children of the Atom and Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge in the days of the SEGA Saturn. Not only because of the gameplay, but the graphics too which are nice and colourful with great backgrounds and character detail.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed playing both Guilty Gear Judgment and Guilty Gear X2 for several reasons, mainly that it's a game worth getting if you want a good portable beat-em-up that can also be played in co-op (GGJ) or against another player (GGX2). Also, it's just good, honest gameplay all the way through which is what you want and the loading times are quite short, which is an added element to enjoying the game even more.

It seems the PSP is starting to get some quality games lately and this is one worth adding to your collection. Plenty of characters to play with that fans of the Guitly Gear series will know and even if you don't, it's easy to get into.

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