First off: Would I recommend this game? Yes and no.

First thing to consider is that this is a rather old PC port of a spinoff 'experimental' title of the main Guilty Gear XX series. It's unfortunate that the more traditional Guilty Gear XX #Reload wasn't placed on steam, however, the publisher of that title for the PC either no longer exists or is not interested in selling it here. Secondly, as it's a fighting game, Guilty Gear Isuka pretty much relies entirely on a controller to play the game to any reasonable extent that it is actually fun. That isn't a problem for myself, but for many people who are 'hardcore' PC gamers and lack a compatible device, that can be a dealbreaker. Third, as mentioned earlier, this game is very 'experimental' and as a result isn't nearly as polished as much of the other games in the series.

However, despite all these flaws, the game can still be very enjoyable, and in some ways, more enjoyable than the main series (in certain situations).

Guilty Gear is a series that is famous for it's intense speed, strange characters, and technical complexity. That last one is the reason a controller is necessary; the inputs required to perform even basic combos is just way too clunky on a keyboard. Whereas slower fighting games can be casually played on a keyboard if you're really hard up for cash, Guilty Gear is simply too fast paced and complex to do without a controller. In fact, an arcade stick is suggested for most players. While the series briefly pops into the general spotlight once in a while when a new title is released, it often fades out of the public eye for the most part soon afterwards. Despite this habit of people seemingly forgetting this series existence, there is a thriving community of players from all around the world-- surprisingly one of the most stable and best gaming communities I've ever been a part of. The community is driven by competition. Guilty Gear may be famous for it's quirkiness and speed, but in the fighting game community, what really sets it apart is how amazingly well balanced the game is. Every character can win, with enough skill; Tier listings are merely a suggestion of relative strength of a character based on how often that character wins tournaments, not whether a character is overpowered or too weak to compete; Strong system mechanics tie together interesting character mechanics into a cohesive battle system that is both intuitive and deep; And if you enjoy the game, putting in the time to get better becomes infinitely more rewarding and fun.

This is all true of nearly every Guilty Gear game, particularly the ones starting from #Reload and after. This does include Isuka, but with a grain of salt.

For Isuka, the developers attempted an idea that hadn't really be executed in a 2D fighter before: 4 player simultaneous combat. In 3D fighters this has been done many times, and there have been tag team games for ages, but this was the first time in a 2D fighter where 4 players could simultaneous duke it out. Unfortunately, these characters are carbon copies of their #Reload versions (with the exception of the first appearance of A.B.A.) and therefore were not designed to play in a 4 player environment like this. The only appreciable difference between the versions of the characters is that they have additional attacks and animations to change 'lanes' on the stage to determine who they want to attack. These attacks aren't exactly good or efficient to any extent, making them pretty useless in actual gameplay. In fact, the addition of a background lane was poorly executed itself, as seeing what's happening behind the foreground players is difficult due to the style of animation used, which executes a lot of special effects and can cover a great deal of the screen.

This isn't to say the game isn't without it's merits, however. This game makes a great party game; however, lack of internet play means you're gonna have to find some buddies to hang out and play on your PC with. The game is quite old now, however, so theoretically it should run on most laptops without much of an issue, so it's pretty portable in that respect. Free for alls can be hilarious and silly (especially if everyone chooses Potemkin), and 2v2's can be intense and produce surprisingly awesome combos and mixups. 1v1 feels wonky because the addition of the background lane and the turn button is clunky when there's only one person to focus on; it's unfortunate that a regular 1v1 mode like #Reload was not included. Another addition was the Robo Ky Mk. II, which is a second edition of Robo Ky that is highly customizable, allowing you to equip practically any special move that any character in the game possesses. The animations for this are often hilarious and absurd, such as pulling out a gigant electrified fly swatter for Anji's command grab attack, or a giant frying pan for Zappa's Raou Bellow's Malice super, and flinging bacon at the enemy. You could level up and earn points to purchase these moves and stat bonuses from the games 'GG Mode', which is essentially an adaptation of the normal system inside a beat'em up like stage. The better you perform (higher damage/longer combos, not getting hit, etc.) grant more points and even unlock special things like Kakusei Sol and Kakusei Ky, which are incredibly broken and fun characters. The enemies for the GG Mode are not full characters at all-- most have a total of three attacks, however, they too are unlockable. For the arcade mode-- which is probably incorrectly named, considering it's much more like a survival mode, you can play through 50 levels at a time of increasingly difficult battles. You can play with a friend or alone, and every 50 levels you can increase to the next 50 levels, which culminates at 1000 levels of gameplay. This may sound like a walk in the park, however, the opponents get incredibly difficult, and the final boss for every 50 levels is a 'Gear' named Leopaldon. He's big, mean, and has super armor and autoblocks, making him quite difficult to beat. Unlocking Kakusei Sol and Kakusei Ky are very difficult but eventually become your best bet for combatting the level 1000 monster of a boss.

The game suffers from a lack of foresight, however. Several characters fail to function properly (Zappa and his Dog summon, Eddie and Little Eddie-- the summons only attack in the direction the main character is attacking, which severely limits the functionality they presented in #Reload. e), and you sort of have to trick the button configuration to set the Dust and Turn buttons to single button inputs instead of multiple button presses-- which there are multiple of in Guilty Gear anyways. The attacks for the characters weren't modified to better suit fighting multiple opponents, even when it seems appropriate, and attacking teammates makes them 'get hurt', although they take no damage, but can easily lead to them taking damage from opponents. This is likely why they added a background lane for the second pair of characters, but it's a lazy solution that could have been avoided by thinking a little harder about the concept. As a result, the game can be... frustrating, at times. Moreso than simply losing in a normal fighting game, because you may lose because your character simply doesn't function properly, or because your teammate hit you. It's an unfortunate departure from the usual level of quality we often see for Guilty Gear (and indeed, any games from Arc System Works in general).

This is all well and good, but is the game fun? Is it worth your money? Potentially. If you're looking for something you can play with your friends, or to see if you might enjoy the Guilty Gear series, this isn't a terrible option-- not the best, but it's not completely awful either. Maybe buy it to see if you like the style and playstyle, then buy one of the other games (Preferrably Guilty Gear XX Accent Core + on ps3 or xbox 360, or Guilty Gear XRD coming 2014). Cheers!

I blindly bought this because it was Guilty Gear, and I was starving for either Guilty Gear or BlazBlue to come to Steam. Little did I know that this was the four-player all-at-once Guilty Gear.

The first problem is that this seems like what is called a Lazy Port. This is a port where very little in terms of changes are made. This is shown in the Configuration Menu that you must visit in the game's folder before you can play in order to configure your controller to that of a PS2 Controller, plus the fact that the copyright on the Title Screen is 2004. There is no in-game option to exit the game, which exists in EVERY PC GAME EVER!

Speaking of the Config Menu, you MUST visit this in order to play. For same reason, I was getting some error concerning Direct 3D and some gibberish. All I could conclude was that I had to play in Window Mode, which I don't like to do. And the fact that I cannot use the full screen options on this game with a brand new computer furthers my theory about this port. My system is just too new for this game to handle.

To make matters worse is the game itself. When set aside the rest of the Guilty Gear games, this one seems like the odd one out. Performing moves became very confusing due to the turning mechanic. You don't turn automatically when you press left or right. You have to press a button to tirgger it. This is made harder in the Arcade Mode when, in the middle of a battle, once you somehow reach Survival Level 20, you instantly encounter two opponents who want to kill solely you, and they have just as much health as you. They do not have less health or do less damage. It's just a two on one and there's nothing you can really do except either improve with this broken system or to continue and hope that your next set of opponents, which will shuffle even on continues, will not be as brutal.

If you are looking for the Guilty Gear experience, look elsewhere. This isn't the game you're looking for. Don't be suckered in like I was. Pass it by and look for a better fighting game.

Guilty Gear Isuka is... difficult to recommend. On one hand, Guilty Gear will always be a great fighting game even with a few detriments, and the soundtrack is arguably worth the price alone. On the other, besides the unique soundtrack, this particular version of Guilty Gear is pretty much pointless to have now that there are others on Steam. It's really just Guilty Gear, with a more novel than truly enjoyable four-player gimmick (that I will admit I never played with four people) that's bogged down by a flawed (though necessary) change, namely the need to press a button to turn around. There is a beat-'em-up styled mode along with it, but again, it feels more novel than fun, never really feeling fleshed out to something good. Even the new characters aren't worth it alone, with A.B.A. being in a standard Guilty Gear game now, and Robo Ky Mk. 2 feeling more like a gimmick than a character. The included soundtrack isn't even the full one, missing songs like A.B.A.'s theme (which is my favorite track, so that's a downer). I just can't recommend it unless you really want all the Guilty Gears on Steam, you don't mind an incomplete soundtrack, and it's on a decent sale. Otherwise, go with one of the X2s that are available, or Xrd -SIGN- now that it's here too.

Do not buy this. Do not even pirate this!

This is the black sheep of the Guilty Gear franchise and for good reason. It's a mess. For whatever reason, they decided to mimick the GGX controls, but still keep all of the GGXX mechanics (Dusts are S+HS again, for example.). That's fine, but they also added manual turning, lane switching (like in Fatal Fury) and teams (which are completely irrelevant because you can hit your allies!). The end result is a confusing nightmare. GG is hard, but with all that extra crap added it becomes downright impossible to play.

The modes are pretty bad too. Arcade Mode is like Survival Mode for some reason (and the final boss makes I-No look like a joke), GG Boost Mode is extremely boring and the Robo Ky Factory would have been a cool idea if the game wasn't so bad.

The character graphics also look terrible, but it's just the Isuka colours. You can unlock the #Reload colours and then everyone looks good again. Why would they make all the default colours look so bad, I have no idea.

If they had simplified the controls and designed it as a party game rather than "#Reload, but with 4 players", it might have actually been fun!

The only good thing that can be said about Isuka is that the music is amazing, but that's not enough to justify playing it.

Not sure why they released Isuka instead of, say, XX reloaded or even Acent Core. Why in gods name did they make a button to change the way you face? Perhaps if they just had a button to cycle through intended target rather than changing directions. Even the 1on1 matches are more difficult because of this bad design.

This game DOES have local multiplayer, which is misleading in steams classification, but NO online multiplayer. Also the graphics look very choppy on this port. Best thing about this game is the sound track.

*Edit* Looks like steam updated it to LOCAL CO-OP, which is misleading since there is also versus. local multiplayer would have been better used.

Guilty Gear Isuka is more of a party game, rather than a straight up fighter in my opinion.
But I feel the game plays great for what it is and could potentially be a great game to play with a bunch of mates.

Buyers beware! Local multiplayer only!

Make sure to use the config of GG Isuka in the steam apps folder! This will save you a lot of pain when setting up X360 controllers or any other peripheral. Enable the zAxis to enable the use of triggers. Have fun!

A surprisingly shoddy port of one of the weaker (but not terrible, or even that bad) Guilty Gear titles. Somehow has less graphic options then the console version did and no updates to multi-player in any way shape or form.

The actual game is sort of interesting as an experiment with Guilty Gear's formula and the added characters and little extra gimmicks like Colour Edit and the Robo-Ky Factory are still pretty nice too.

The turning system takes a bit of getting used to but for about 7 quid (GBP), it's not that bad a pick. That said; online retailers will have both this and Guilty Gear X2: #Reload availible for about the same price, so I can't reccomend the poor as ♥♥♥♥♥ Steam port here unless you have no alternative or you just really want to make I-No's outfit match her skin tone

Guilty Gear Isuka is a non-canonical entry in classic 2D fighting game series created by musician and composer Daisuke Ishiwatari. It is considered as the worst game in the franchise, however it has some unique features. Originally it was released in 2004 on arcades, then in 2006 on PC and Playstation 2. Steam version had been released in 2011.

Isuka possess no story at all, it focuses on chaotic battles between 4 fighters, also introduces mode called GG Boost, which kinda reminds Tekken Force from Tekken 3. Also the M.O.M mode returns and Robo-Ky factory mini-campaign has been added. You will not fond online mode here.
We can choose from 24 fighters, including a newcomers A.B.A, Leopaldon and Robo-Ky mk.II. Every one of them is using a different style, has they own abilities and themes.
Worst part of this game are controls, they are hard, ridiculous sometimes. Have you ever needed a separate button to just turn yourself back? And do not try to play on Xbox 360 controller, it is pointless.
Graphics are typical for 2003, which means terrible in comparison to our standards.

As Isuka was fun and very cheap on sale, I think giving it 7/10 would be appriopriate.

PS: Isuka means Crossbill in japanese, it is a name of bird known also as Loxia in some other languages.

I hate to rate things poorly, but this unfortunately is one of the weaker Guilty Gear titles.

The issues with this aren't tied to the game however, it's tied to the weak port.

There is little controller support (I still haven't figured out how to set up a controller to player 1), and more importantly, there was nothing done to add an online component.

That's right, this is local multiplayer only.


If you're in it for the nostalgia, go ahead and grab, just don't expect to be able to do much outside of local on a keyboard.

All in all, this is basically a port of the PS2 version of the game. You pick a character, you customize it and then you enter a tournament. But for some reason this game seems endless as opposed to a plot driven script as in Guilty Gear X2 Reload. There are lots of character challenges and lots of opportunity to level up your characters. Although the play can get confusing if your on the screen with mutiple people. Be aware that the character does not automatically change the way it's facing on the screen depending on what side you are on. You have to click the shoulder buttons in order make them face the way you are on the screen. I guess its strategy really.

I do love arcade games and publishers love for PC ports. Especially when it's hard to track down a physicial copy before. At least its a worldwide release (So I seen) and everyone can enjoy the game. Just remember there is a lot of button mashing to do and you may find yourself in the computer for a couple of hours.