No spoilers, just vague statements about the story.

As three split into a pair of two, until the remaining one left, and the two split into a pair of ones, a season of White Album would come forth over and over again covering all their scattered emotions, before melting away as spring arrived and being shown to the whole world in all its impurity. This will be less of an analysis piece and more of the remaining thoughts and feelings that have stayed put in my mind since the three months when I finally finished the absolute behemoth that is White Album 2, for I still can’t go even a day without listening to a song from it.

Music, I would like to think, is the great connector between all people, more so than any other form of art. The majority of those that listen to it aren’t necessarily qualified to accurately identify what makes say, this chord progression good or why this particular harmony sounds pleasant to our ears, but regardless of that, they are still able to feel it. White Album 2 understands the essence of music, that past theoretical composition and choice of instrumentation, the most important aspect of it all is the feelings that music imbues inside of us, and what it represents in every aspect of our lives. We listen to music because it turns into a part of us, something that when we hear a melody that sounds nice in our mind, we become happy; something that when we hear, perhaps maybe we are reminded of a time long past, a memory now casted in an immortal light.

Love is something I find nearly impossible to fully write about in all of its confusion between sadness and happiness, and the logical inconsistencies that such a thing brings with it. However, there is one thing that I believe is fact, love isn’t merely a romantical feeling. It could be the love of friendship between life-long friends who have witnessed each other change over the years, or a paternal and maternal love parents have for their child, as there is nothing more they see in the child then the one they now are forced to love second most. These are both very ideal situations, but I think they are good enough examples for what I am trying to get across. White Album 2 is not a conflict of two separate loves for the same person, it is a conflict of three mutual loves they share between all of them. That is the reason why I believe this story to be so emotionally effective, where love battles love in a fight for what they deem will give their greatest happiness.

Originally, I was planning on doing more of a review directly addressing White Album 2 itself, but I don’t think that’s something I am capable of, at least right now. So instead, I wanted to let out this small fraction of feelings that I still hold within me from this work for the world to see. Love and humanity is such a challenging thing to genuinely represent, and were I to be ashamed of it(for some odd reason), I would probably struggle to tell others that the story I found the most of this in is from a 2011 Visual Novel. Fortunately, I am not that person. This story is so, so special, and I hope that were someone to read this, one who hasn’t read it or someone who doesn’t even know what a visual novel is and probably just saw the incredibly high rating, that this capsule of feelings were to touch you, perhaps even getting you just the slightest bit interested in it.

You know, I open Strive every once in several months, ask myself "why did I even do this" and close this game, until I eventually think of getting into it again and the cycle repeats.

It's not really bad. It is a good gateway into fighting game genre, which it was for me and countless people around the world. You'll have fun at first, but after a while the cracks will begin to show. And yes, no game is free from that, but Strive suffers from it more than others.

This game is shallow. Not simple, it's shallow. I actually love simple fighting games, 2019 Samsho is my favorite fighting game. But at some point Strive gets so basic it's painful.

First of all, WHERE ARE JUMP CANCEL ROUTES? Seriously, what kind of anime fighting game is that? I can only think of... 5 characters that retained cool air combos. I'm not a big fan of combos in fighting games(Samsho is my favorite, remember that), but come on, really?

Instead of providing clever simplification for wider audience, while maintaining high skill ceiling, Strive just dumbs down everything, whether it's combo game or character movesets, like turning Elphelt into a fucking rekka character. Some additions are actually nice and interesting like dash macro, but it happens rarely.

Massive issue of Strive is how easily you can run into plateau. There's not that much stuff to learn and it's... not really interesting to learn it after you pass the beginner stage.

And while lots of changes were sloppy, the game had a bright future, it was a massive success in a long while for Guilty Gear franchise! The thought of "beginner friendly" Guilty Gear was a blasphemy, yet it succeeded!

Except the game never became "simplier" nor "complex" in fun ways. Arcsys kept adding questionable mechanics like Wild Assault and Positive Bonus changes, that made already difficult defense game even worse for beginners, character balance consistently sucks, high damage gets "nerfed" at the expense of removing fun combo routes instead of simply you know just lowering numbers, etc etc.

Game is not easy. It's just not fun, or should I say its fun runs out way too fast?

Outside of that... Extremely underwhelming single player(that sadly is a standard in the genre nowadays), mediocre story(Xrds was SO MUCH better) and extremely hit or miss aesthetics and ost, but there's still so much cool stuff missing like VS character themes. Seriously, this is THE FIRST GUILTY GEAR WITHOUT "SOL VS KY" THEME" DAISUKE BE FOR FUCKING REAL

Guilty Gear Strive is a game of missed opportunities. It will still remain popular for a long time, but how many people will stick with it when Strive's time eventually runs out? Will it have small, but loyal community like +R or Xrd? Will someone remember it for its gameplay, instead of cool redesigns of vocal tracks? Will someone love this game for its worth, instead of for being their first fighting game?

I don't think so.

As a game, it must be said that it is very complete. Interesting story, charismatic characters, they have created several characters/designs that have been used for other installments, series, characters from other sagas that have become popular and known thanks to the game...

However, it is a gacha and as such it is very bad because it lacks basic features of current gachas: no auto, skip tickets, pity system that is impossible to fulfill (throw 900 to a single banner which is equivalent to 2700 gems that you can't achieve even saving a year).

If you are a fan of fate you will enjoy it, but you will suffer a lot. You can spend years trying to bring out your favorite character and still not bring him out.

Como juego hay que decir que está muy completo. Historia interesante, personajes carismáticos, se han creado varios personajes/diseños que luego han usado para otras entregas, series, personajes de otras sagas que se han vuelto popular y conocidos gracias al juego...

Ahora bien, es un gacha y como tal es muy malo porque le faltan características básicas de gachas actuales: no hay auto, skip tickets, sistema de pity que es imposible de cumplir (tirar 900 a un solo banner lo que equivale a 2700 gemas que no logras ni ahorrando un año).

Si eres fan de fate lo vas a disfrutar, eso sí vas a sufrir y mucho. Puedes estar años para intentar sacar a tu personaje favorito y aún así no sacarlo.