Finally a new Guilty Gear is out. Beautiful and with a revamped feel. This time around the game has many systems to extend your characters options, while being more rooted in using normal attacks. This game has been released on PC, PS4, and PS5. As of typing this the Arcade version is delayed. Guilty Gear Strive has some major differences which I think could make this the most interesting entry in the series to speedrun yet.

-Instant Kills

Most interesting to note is that Instant Kills are not available in this version. This means there is a lot of room for discovery in your time attacks.

-Arcade Mode

Arcade Mode speedruns have no system settings. Instead this time the game changes based on how well you play, sometimes (most of the time), lowering in difficulty if you lose a round. So far the difficulty paths are NORMAL, HARD, and EXTREME. A still confusing note to me was the game seems to start you at random difficulties but I wasn't sure what impacted them. If anyone finds out I would be curious to know.

I decided against splitting the leaderboard for difficulty currently because of this. Since its not a dip switch or setting the variables are difficult to rate. There is also the issue of dropping up and down a difficulty path, as well as a chance that sometimes a partner will come help you. The other reason was losing on purpose can arguably take more time, even if the game is getting easier, while extreme, the game gets harder its really only the last boss Nagoriyuki (Can we call him Extreme Nago san?) who is overpowered and VERY difficult. So technically blasting through everything and somehow steamrolling would be the fastest path.

-Mission Mode

Clear all the missions from start to finish, Every mission gives you 5 attempts so an interesting thing to see would be how everyone fails 2 times on purpose, since sometimes failing could be faster since you only need to clear 3 of the 5 attempts each missions.

-Mission Mode Levels

Mission mode levels are set to individual leaderboards so not to clutter the leaderboard.

-Versions

Having experience with another Ark Sys Game, DBZ Fighterz, I really am strongly against separating versions. Its impossible to manage in my opinion. Even people playing on PS4 and PS5 can run the game of solid state drives, reducing the load times between fights. PC is even worse, with sometimes load times not existing at all, this is the issue with newer games with no real load screen built in as far as I understand.

I also am at a disadvantage because I am running on the OLD version PS4. The only way to make this fair would be to have someone time EVERY run, this was tried on other boards and it is a lot of work eventually leading to major problems. If someone out there wants to volunteer to this position I am happy to accept, but again I don't think its a long last or good solution. I don't want to do that because it would take time from playing this game competitively and speedrunning, verifying other games. I realize the version issue is unfair to certain degrees.

The best solution is if we got a list of people who wanted to speedrun, and asked Ark Sys Works to please put a timer in the games Arcade, so no matter which version it would be tracked the same.

Leave a comment below if thats something you want. I would actually translate and send it to contacts at the company. Also please comment if you want to discuss rules or anything posted above or related to the game.

Im using Faust currently so I will post my runs shortly after, everyone in this game has great combos, so I know there are even crazier times to be seen and faster characters strategies.

I did a run, but I wasn't sure if the time starts once you select your charter and ends on the final blow like most fighting game speed runs

I know for a fact theres a lot of submissions, and we're probably losing people who would be running the game now to a slow moderation process. Please involve another mod. I volunteer but if not me then find someone else who can do more approving.