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Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers DS 
Release date: Apr 2006
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Double Reversal
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Guilty Gear fans can look forward to a double helping of the cult-hit series with Guilty Gear Judgment on the PSP and Guilty Gear Dust Strikers on the DS. Guilty Gear Judgment goes with the traditional, but equally fast-paced Guilty Gear style found in X2 #Reload on the Xbox. On the other hand, Guilty Gear Dust Strikers (ironically) takes many of its features from the PS2’s Guilty Gear Isuka, which is more of a departure from the series’ strictly serious gameplay and goes down the road of the party game.
Isuka on the PS2 had a mildly entertaining, though disjointed and often frustrating, four-player versus mode. While it wasn’t really balanced, or perfected, Dust Strikers bases the whole of its gameplay on this style, but adds several interesting tweaks to make it more interesting. While in Isuka, all four of the characters played on a standard side-scrolling level, but Dust Strikers adds a Super Smash Bros. element by pitting the players against each other in multi-platform stages as well as throwing in items for an even more arcade-like feel.
The Super Smash Bros. parallels don’t end there. Instead of the normal quarter circles and half circles to do special moves, techniques are now used by simply pressing a directional button with the attack buttons. Veterans of the series will be happy to know that all twenty one of Guilty Gear X2 #Reload’s cast is included in this, with a surprisingly intact move set (ABA from Isuka is absent, however). As with the other Guilty Gears, each character on the field has a bar of health, once depleted, the unit is no longer able to fight. In addition, they have the Tension gauge, used in Overdrives, and various other techniques. Dust Strikers also maintains all the intricacies that made the other Guilty Gears so incredible, like the Roman Cancel (a technique that takes 25-50% of the tension gauge in order to cut off an attack mid-way, allowing for a whole new combo to get started), the Psycho Burst (a wave that is released from the character that can cut off an opponent’s combo right there, saving them from heavy damage), the Dust Attack (an attack that knocks the opponent high into the air, where the user can follow them and pelt them with attacks along the way), among others.
In all likelihood, this will add quite a bit of much-needed depth to this title, and will definitely help with the Guilty Gear feel as a whole. There is one critical wildcard to this whole scheme, though, and that is the how well the platform element and the character’s attacks sync up, which will definitely be the key factor that will determine if this game reaches must-have status.
Dust Strikers does throw in some other various features of interest as well. Isuka’s Robo Ky factory, which allows for some customization of Guilty Gear’s most unique character. Another noteworthy addition is the slew of mini-games that revolve around the Guilty Gear cast, like May’s dolphin hoop, where two hoops appear on the touch screen, and they must be placed so her dolphins can cleanly jump through them. There are other, more interesting mini-games like cleaning Bridget’s yo-yos (using the stylus to buff out stains), catching falling plates, mice, and food while balancing them with Jam, a whack-a-mole knockoff where Faust pops out of doors, an I-no music game where notes fall from the sky and must be caught and rearranged, a Venom pool game, among others. High scores in these games unlock more boosts for the customizable Robo Ky.
Graphically, Dust Strikers pales in comparison to PSP’s Judgment. The backgrounds, animations and sprites are noticeably downgraded from what is arguably the best-looking 2d fighting series in gaming history, and the resolution as a whole was bumped down because of the DS’s constraints. While it still looks pretty good, and the characters are distinguishable, it isn’t as top-drawer as its counterparts in the series. The music doesn’t quite live up to the series’ standard hardcore guy-wailing-on-an-electric-guitar, and instead uses a more synthesized style. However, both the graphics and sound are good enough to keep the game looking and sounding good, and the voice acting remains intact, so there isn’t much to worry about.
Guilty Gear Dust Strikers for the DS is set to be released on April 3. Expect a Mygamer review later this year.
Preview by Steven Rondina on 13 Feb 2006
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