But man, is that peak up there. I've been playing fighting games since they existed, and and I still had to put in major work just to get anything resembling a combo down. Where I can learn a solid combo for any member of the cast in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 within 15 minutes or so, anything threatening in Accent Core took a couple of solid hours to get down. And that's without getting into the hard stuff. Guilty Gear's input interpreter is as strict as they come, and even normal moves can have a dizzying number of unique properties that become crucial in specific situations. While this may sound intimidating, it's this very depth that's kept players coming back for years to level up their game.While many of the finer points are tucked away under the hood for advanced players to discover and exploit, you don't need an expert's eye to discern what makes these characters special. The biggest freak show of a cast Capcom ever managed to conjure up was for Darkstalkers, but Sol, Ky, and the gang make that lot look like a Saturday morning cartoon. Guilty Gear was certainly the prototype for the Arc System Works games that followed – the origin of the species for the anime-fighter sub-genre. And yet, you'd be hard pressed to find any school girls in short skirts or Vegeta lookalikes. Slayer is a vampire assassin with a “come at me bro” walking animation, and Johnny's cane-sword and fedora helped him define “swag” way before it started popping up on tee shirts. If the original had ever seen a real domestic arcade release, Ky and Sol might very well have been the next Ryu and Ken...or at least the next Scorpion and Sub-Zero.
For as varied as the 25 characters look, their play styles are even more divergent. They wield everything from swords and scalpels to undead dogs and yo-yos, and unlike many other fighting games, even the oddballs can be big-time threats in the right hands. Every member of the cast has some sort of unique mechanic to leverage, or some way in which they appear to break the rules of the game, like Baiken the one-armed samurai who can cancel out of block stun, or Jam who can string her various special moves together in any order she'd like. Sure, it may take some head scratching to figure out how to apply these concepts in useful ways, but in the meantime you're throwing out screen-filling flame punches of doom and riding a dolphin into your opponents face.There's simply no denying Accent Core's greatness as a fighting game. It's deep and technical enough for the biggest elitists to get nerdy over, yet still immediately appealing in a whiz-bang sort of way that brings the boys and girls to the yard. But if you're reading this, there's a good chance you knew all of that already. This isn't a new game. It's an old one, and an HD remake at that, so it's only natural to wonder how it stacks up to more modern games in what has become a brutally competitive market.
Thankfully, GGXX:AC fares pretty well in this department. The art direction is incredibly strong, making its entrance into the high definition era a confident one. While it's a bit disappointing to see it limited to a 4:3 aspect ratio, it was a necessary evil for remaining true to the original's gameplay. Still, there's no mistaking it for a newer game. BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena, Guilty Gear's modern-day offspring, were both built from the ground up with today's consoles in mind and the difference is clear. Not only visually, but in the feature department as well.
The training mode may be incredibly robust, offering tweaks that many of today's fighter's lack, but it's clumsily stuffed together in one big mess of a menu that's irritating to navigate. Move lists lack the detailed descriptions that Arc System's newer games sport, which may sound like a minor detail, but in a game where moves can have so many unique properties, it’s actually quite valuable. As is a combo trial mode, another staple of modern fighters that Accent Core lacks. Also missing is any sort of replay functionality, robbing players of the chance to break down their online losses (of which there will be many at first). Features like this are crucial for giving new players the kind of information and training they need to start sharpening their skills.
That said, you can still learn the old-fashioned way: play people who are better than you, lose horribly, figure out what you did wrong, play some more, and lose a little less horribly. Repeat until you stop sucking. As it turns out, the internet is a pretty good way to do this, so netplay is your friend. With two good connections, Accent Core feels damn close to playing with someone right next to you, and even if one connection is a bit slow, matches remain playable.
