Checking Out Guilty Gear Strive Version 2.0

Guilty Gear Strive has been out for close to 5 years, and it’s seen a number of changes in this time. Be it balance changes or new characters entirely, it’s safe to say that things aren’t the same as back in 2021. Now with the launch of Version 2.0, even more changes have hit the game. Some are welcome (like the removal of Wild Assault) while others haven’t been as effective (Happy Chaos…)

Changes

As mentioned earlier, Wild Assault is now gone. If you didn’t know, this mechanic was available to the entire cast, allowing them to extend combos, approach safely and more. While it differed between characters, all gained the same benefits from landing it. It was essentially easy to use and overly advantageous for little cost.

With its removal, you have to play a little smarter. A lot of combo routes are gone now, and bigger characters can’t use it as an easy approach. It also means players have more meter to work with, since they wont be losing it to Wild Assault any more.

In return, Guilty Gear Strive now has a new Counter Blitz mechanic. Like Wild Assault this uses 50% Burst, but it only works on counter hits. It’s essentially an easy way to get damage off a counter, even if you’d not be able to follow up normally. As a bonus, you even get a wall break if close to the corner. It serves its own purpose, just without the crazy pressure of Wild Assault.

The entire cast in general has been changed, with a lot of nerfs across the board for damage. This, combined with the removal of Wild Assualt, leads to matches generally taking longer. Strive has always been seen as a high damage game, so Version 2.0 tries to tone this down slightly.

For the most part, character changes have been handled well, except for… certain ones. The main outlier is Happy Chaos, who has always been oppressive since his inclusion in Season 1. The intention was to rework his mechanics so that he had a harder time zoning out opponents with relatively little risk.

Instead, he’s now broken in a completely different way. If played correctly, he can force you to constantly be on defence with only small opportunities to fight back. It’s so bad that a notice on the official Strive website a few weeks later specifically singles him out as a problem. This should be fixed sometime soon, though it’s an unfortunate oversight.

Jam Kuradoberi

A fan favourite returns, and it only took 5 seasons to happen. Granted, with how many previous characters needed to make their return (including the upcoming Robo-Ky) I guess it’s not that surprising we had to wait until now.

She’s retained a lot of what you’d expect, though naturally there are some tweaks to have her fit into Strive. This includes a brand new outfit, giving her a slightly more mature vibe. Jam also carries a rabbit with her too, which is part of her new story.

Essentially, Jam makes weird dishes at her restaurant, with her latest having the ability to turn people into rabbits somehow. She’s also on the lookout for a “handsome man” who disappeared after eating her food, leaving only their glasses and a rabbit behind. Yeah, you can probably see where things are going.

It’s a fun addition to her design, with many of her animations taking into account her new human-turned-rabbit companion. I’m a big fan of her new design in general, which applies to a lot of the redesigns seen in Strive.

Otherwise, a lot of Jam’s gameplay is still pretty familiar. She can buff 3 of her moves, represented by the extra UI element by the Tension gauge. By doing this, the moves become much faster and more powerful. Of course, the tradeoff is that you have to actually power up each move beforehand, which leaves you open if the opponent isn’t knocked down.

She’s a pretty easy character to pick up, and you can get by just by forcing your opponent to guess what you’re about to throw out constantly, buffing in-between. Her main weakness is that she has no real ranged options, though she has a few options for closing gaps.

Overall, a solid addition to the roster. I’d imagine Robo-Ky will the one to bring some wilder changes to an existing character, compared to Jam’s more standard iteration.

Season 5 Schedule

Jam is the first character for Season Pass 5, with Robo-Ky following some time in Summer 2026. 2 more characters will join them, in Winter 2026 and Spring 2027 respectively.

Season Pass 5 also includes extra colours for each character, an extra stage, an online wanted poster skin, and a UI skin. UI skins are a new feature to Version 2.0, giving you the option to change the top health bar UI (you can still switch it back to the plain one.)

There’s currently no info on who the last characters will be. Since there’s no mention of crossover characters, they should be part of the Guilty Gear universe. That said, they could still potentially be brand new characters made for Strive specifically.

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A copy of Guilty Gear Strive Version 2.0 and its DLC was provided by the publisher.

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