Notable features:

• Extensive tutorial
  
• Frankly excellent online lobby system
  
• A woman who cannot be killed by vampires' preferred means of attack
  
• At least one sword
  
• Production value
  
• A tenuous grasp of what a number is
  
• 3D models that do a really good job of pretending to be 2D sprites
  
• One-liners

I'm still very bad at fighting games. That doesn't really matter with Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, though, because this game is deceptive. Steam, user reviews, and promotional material may lead you to believe that you are putting down money for a fighting game, not an unreasonable assumption at first. As you pick up the game, in fact, the deception continues. You will swear you are playing a fighting game. It's interactive, fast-paced, sidescrolling. There are quarter circles. Potemkin is there. Don't be fooled, however. What you are really paying for is around 12 episodes of an anime set in the Guilty Gear universe. And it is awesome.

OK, I'm being facetious as usual, but the above paragraph is quite accurate. Arcade mode begins the story, and then there are a solid 6+ hours of cutscene. They split it into its own menu option. Not being a Guilty Gear veteran, said "story mode" didn't make a ton of sense to me overall, but I had a blast nevertheless. The characters are decently developed and play off of each other quite well. There's plenty of over-the-top action and I watched the whole thing in one sitting, eager for more. As for the gameplay, it's pretty much standard for fighting games. There are five distinct attack buttons, you hit the opponent until they fall down twice, some moves flow into each other, you know the drill. Despite my ineptitude, I can tell that this game is solid. The controls are very responsive, and the sound design is top-notch. I would recommend this game to anyone who's even remotely interested, because even if the gameplay turns out to not be your thing the story mode is substantial enough to justify the purchase on its own. And that is not a claim I make lightly.

It's pretty.
It's fluid.
It's complex yet intuitive.
It will make you hate women with long blonde hair.
It has an awesome soundtrack.
And most importantly ...
It's fun.

Great game with a pretty good netcode (just make sure you're playing on a 2-3 bar connection) and with tons of features, such as excellent trials (unlike other fighting games, Xrd actually teaches VIABLE combos and conversions), great tutorial and even matchup specific tutorials which explain you how various characters work and what to watch out for.

The game is pretty niche though, which has a small drawback that almost everyone you'll meet online is already pretty good - but no worries, even though the game seems very complex, it's actually really intuitive and easy to learn.

10/10 would Dragon Install and Ground Viper into Eddie Drill and get insta-killed by a Zato main again.

Talking seriously now, there's a lot about this game and it's intricacies that I simply do not know how to put down into a small, digestable review that someone like yourself might scroll down the store page and read to see if you want to buy it.

I'll start with myself I suppose. Before I bought this game I had little to no experience in fighting games other than the original Super Smash Bros. and Brawl. I've heard of the Fighting Game Community and Street Fighter peaked my interest a few times but it never really hooked me into it.

So exactly why did I decide to buy Xrd? A fighting game that really shouldn't be recommended for newcomers? Because of the MOTHER! ♥♥♥♥ING! SOUNDTRACK!!! The OST in this game is absolutely amazing for any rock and even metal lover. Guitar riffs are almost always original and most songs feel like they could be seperate video game themes simply from how good they sound. Diva of Destruction, Give Me A Break, Starry Story, Just Do It are all particular songs that I just can't listen to enough.

But what of the rest of the game?
Well the designs and functionality of each character is extremely unique even within the game's universe. One character does not feel like the other and usually has their own unique playstyle. You have the Big Brooding Badass Sol Badguy who uses a sword more like a hammer and can bust out his Dragon form when ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan and then you have the (21 year-old) Japanesse Loli Pirate May who is basically the equivalent to Anime Aquaman in terms of power but is actually impactful to the story and is quite useful. From a design standpoint you have a crap ton of variety of characters so you're almost gaurenteed to find someone you like.

The gameplay itself is as solid as I've ever seen. Almost anything can be answered with anything else. The mechanics of Roman Cancel, Faultless Guard, Jump Cancel, Burst and much more intricate mechanics make sure that literally no match is decided by character selection it's all skill and the community as far as I've seen backing this game will do everything in their power to make sure you git gud.

Would I recommend this to someone interested in the fighting genre? Yes. Absolutely yes. Even if you don't take the game seriously enough to be competetive the characters and art style of the game is unique of itself and deserves to at least be tried. I believe anyone who's in the FGC and hasn't at least played a few matches of this game is sorely missing out.

Would I reommend this to just any casual video game player though? No. As I said before there is a lot of stuff to take in when you first pick up this game and it can easily get overwhelming. I studied this game and it's mechanics months before it came out on Steam and the tutorial still overwhelmed me because of how much I needed to consider in a match. It's ultimately fair but at the same time it can be grueling and even cruel at times to newbies.

If you're thinking of buying this game though then go for it. You won't be disappointed I promise. The soundtrack is amazing, characters are great, artstyle and graphics mesh really well together with the combat and ultimately this all comes together to make both the game itself and it's individual battles between players fun to watch and fun to play.

Currently, I'm waiting for SFV to be released so I can get into another fighting game and then after that I'm going to be waiting for BlazBlue ChornoPhantasm Extend (another game I've been hyping myself up to since it's from the same developers that makes GGXrd.) I can wholeheartedly say that this game is the game that got me into the Fighting Games Community and for that I couldn't thank GGXrd, Daisuke Ishiwatari and Arcsys enough.

A word of advice to the newbies from a fellow newbie though. YOU WILL GET YOUR ♥♥♥ KICKED IN! But do not fret. In fact embrace the ♥♥♥ kicking. Learn from the ♥♥♥ kicking. The only way you're going to ultimately get better is to find a character you like with a playstyle to match your mindset and then just go online and fight. At first you might be discouraged but do not quit. You ARE getting better and you will eventually see your struggle come to fruition when you land your first dust-to-knock down combo in a match, then when you land a perfect Roman Cancel and then finally you'll score your first few wins. And the best part about all that is that you know you did it yourself with no handholding.

Well that was a much longer review than I'd hope.

The game is really good. It has nice graphics, varied set of memorable characters, amazing tutorial for beginners. It even contains mini-vn. Unfortunately there are some connection issues... for example I'm not able to connect to some lobbies and even to lobby created by one of my friends. Hopefully devs will fix it soon.
Anyway I still recommend this game.

-Intro:
I am just going to get it out of the way; Guilty Gear is the king of airdashers, or anime fighters. The first Guilty Gear on the PS1 is the one that started the madness of jump blocking, clashing, dashing through the air, and instantly killing the opponent in a fun anime fashion. I got into the series recently after watching the Guilty Gear XRD Top 8 at Evo. There were many amazing moments, and some shameful upsets, (I am looking at you, Woshige), so I was instantly hooked. I had the delight of starting from the beginning with an emulator and experiencing the series' growth. I worked my way up through Guilty Gear X, XX, Accent Core, and now we are here, (I am sorry that I didn't play you, Overture).

-Graphics:
Guilty Gear XRD is the revival of the series after ages of experimenting and releasing revisions of XX, and boy, it delivers. How much? Enough for it to be my favorite fighting game of all time. Enthusiasts say that fighting games are all about gameplay, but I cannot ignore what this game does with its graphics even in my horrid CRT monitor and bad system specs. The game looks like a drawn anime, but the catch is that it's actually rendered in full 3D with cel-shading that makes it look like an anime. You can see glimpses of this everytime you perform Dust attacks (Which are basically full-screen launchers), when you perform Overdrives, when the round is over, and with Instant Kills. The Instant Kills are pretty hard to hit, so they aren't broken; they are pretty damn rewarding tho, and I always compared them to Mortal Kombat fatalities as they get easier to use when the enemy is about to lose the match. Everything in this game is gorgeous and full of personality, however, the framerate on model animations is pretty jaggy, (Apparently because they wanted to make it similar to the animation of anime).

During the following paragraphs I will go over all the new mechanics that the game has, so if you are not interested in reading that technobabble you can skip to the content section:

-Mechanics:
XRD revamps the Roman Cancel system, as XX's was kinda unreliable with its forced roman cancels. RC's cancel attacks and slow down time significantly, giving you time to use them effectively. Now Roman Cancels are divided into three versions, Red, Yellow, and Purple. Red RC's are used when linked after an attack that hits the opponent and can extend combos, but they cost half of your Tension bar (The bar used for Overdrives), they are often better than overdrives because they are already hit confirmed and are usually friendlier for hit scaling. Yellow RC's are used after an attack that doesn't hit the opponent yet or at all; they cost 25% of the bar, so you can use them often to cancel out of punishable moves and slow down time like a vampire. You don't want to use Purple RC's, as they are just like the Yellow ones but cost 50% bar, they happen when you are late to do a YRC. There are many other new mechanics, like the Blitz Shield, which is a parry that leaves the opponent open to combos (It costs 25% of the gauge, but you usually get 12.5% back from the combo, so it's very good), and the R.I.S.C. Gauge, which punishes overly defensive play with forced counter attacks and stun.

The best thing about this game is that there isn't just multiple variables to everything, such as the above uses of RC's, the two uses for the Burst attack (One to get out of combos and the other to attack and get a full bar of tension), and the R.I.S.C gauge decreasing with hits as a secondary hit scaling, but additionally, there is an answer for everything as well, such as Bursts being thrown, Blitz Shield follow-ups being Blitz Shielded back, and the usual Block>Attack>Throw>Block. What Arc Sys has made a system deep as an ocean, but it isn't inaccessibly complex, everything that I just told you is in the in-depth tutorial which explains every single system of the game. Anything that isn't said in the tutorial, such as Jump Installs and Faultless Defense Cancels, are explained in character Challenges for those who have them. It may sound like a lot to keep in mind, but you can always revisit the tutorial, learn combos in the Challenge mode, and practice the systems and matchups in Mission Mode.

-Content:
I mentioned the Tutorial, Challenge mode, Mission mode, but there is also a Training mode; all of these are part of the Practice section and there is 600 challenges and 50 missions, more than enough to provide a great learning experience. Additionally, there is a singleplayer Arcade mode, which has cutscenes for each character (Except the three bonus characters and the arcade boss). These cutscenes serve as a prologue to the game's Story mode, a 5 hour long anime "Movie", or rather, an animated visual novel, which is the closest thing you will get to an actual Guilty Gear anime. The Story has no gameplay so there is no forced fights that ruin the pace of the story, which happened to me with Mortal Kombat; you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy watching the chaos unfold. The last Single Player mode is M.O.M. mode; a survival game where you can costumize your character with extra special moves, stats, and equipment. To get the items you have to fight for money and loot against opponents with many low health bars (Don't worry, you get multiple health bars as well with score level ups). When an opponent is at his or her last health bar they activate "boss" mode where they get anti knockback armor, attack in patterns, and basically become a Megaman boss. I don't have much experience with this mode, but I really want to play more of it; it's great for practicing Bread n' Butter combos as too!

There are 17 characters, 3 which used to be DLC and you have to unlock with in-game money. I heard unlocking them takes $200,000 for each character (The games currency), but I had them unlocked when I bought it because I got it in the first month, but be prepared to finish every arcade mode to unlock all characters. In total it's a pretty small fighter roster, but considering it's the series' first jump to 3D and the game will have 6 more characters when the new installment comes out (Johnny, Dizzy, Jam, Jack'O, Kum, and Raven), it's not such a big flaw, especially with so many unique and interesting characters. Speaking of which, Revelator is coming out soon so you may want to use this review for that game instead, but be warned, its story is going to be a continuation of -SIGN- so you may want to play this first.

Finally, there is the Online mode. There are Ranked matches, where matchmaking gets you an opponent to fight, and Player matches, where you go to a virtual arcade to fight, spectate, and chat in a lobby with 4 arcade machines and 8 players. Honestly, I have virtually no experience playing on Ranked (Only 2 matches) because I want to be really good before getting a bunch of losses. Nevertheless, the Unranked format is my favorite and is done in many Arc Systems games. Some people don't dig it, but it's really fun to play King of the Hill on one arcade and land an Instant Kill with everyone commenting "OOOOOOH NO HE DIDN'T!". My connection experience varies depending on the location of the person I am playing with, thankfully you can see their connection bars, the host's country, and even the frame delay you are gonna get. You can also set your room to training, private, and M.O.M.

-Music:
Butt rock to its finest: (Parody) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUZxR-k186I
But in all seriousness, as a metalhead, I couldn't be more pleased with this games' soundtrack. Every character gets his/her theme and it fits them well. There are songs from previous games too.

-Overall:
9.5/10
+ Extremely deep gameplay.
+ Gorgeous graphics.
+ A lot of modes and learning tools.
+ Fun story.
+ Interesting and colorful characters.
- Jaggy FPS for animations.
- Small Roster.

This is my first review so sorry for it being badly written. Thanks for your time!