If you're not familiar with the Guilty Gear series, it's all about turbocharged 2D anime fighting, complete with a totally over-the-top metal soundtrack and finishing moves which will melt your eyeballs. The new Xrd series stays true to the series trademark formula, and as a fairly casual beat'em up player I find this a lot more fun and easier to get into and play than Arc System Works other key fighting franchise BlazBlue.

Arc are seemingly on a bit of a roll of late, with both this and BlazBlue Chronophantasma hitting Steam earlier in 2016. Visually, BlazBlue is a 2D fighter delivered with traditional 2D sprites, but for the new Guilty Gear games they have gone about things very differently. The visuals here are delivered via Unreal Engine 3. Everything on screen is delivered in 3D, whilst retaining not only the 2D gameplay, but also the appearance of being 2D overall, bar extreme camera shifting moments when you realise it's not 2D at all.

It's a fascinating way of delivering anime-like cartoon visuals rendered in 3D, and the end result is just awesome. Games have strived to deliver this kind of cartoon-like visual presentation for years, but I've never seen it done better than it is here. It's also worth mentioning that in typical anime fashion, the whole game is glittered with excellent moments of comedy. The writing is on point and often funny af. If you're a fan of arcade fighters then it's not to be missed.

If you're not familiar with the Guilty Gear series, it's all about turbocharged 2D anime fighting, complete with a totally over-the-top metal soundtrack and finishing moves which will melt your eyeballs. The new Xrd series stays true to the series trademark formula, and as a fairly casual beat'em up player I find this a lot more fun and easier to get into and play than Arc System Works other key fighting franchise BlazBlue. Arc are seemingly on a bit of a roll of late, with both this and BlazBlue Chronophantasma hitting Steam earlier in 2016. Visually, BlazBlue is a 2D fighter delivered with traditional 2D sprites, but for the new Guilty Gear games they have gone about things very differently. The visuals here are delivered via Unreal Engine 3. Everything on screen is delivered in 3D, whilst retaining not only the 2D gameplay, but also the appearance of being 2D overall, bar extreme camera shifting moments when you realise it's not 2D at all. It's a fascinating way of delivering anime-like cartoon visuals rendered in 3D, and the end result is just awesome. Games have strived to deliver this kind of cartoon-like visual presentation for years, but I've never seen it done better than it is here. It's also worth mentioning that in typical anime fashion, the whole game is glittered with excellent moments of comedy. The writing is on point and often funny af. If you're a fan of arcade fighters then it's not to be missed.