Guilty Gear Strive comes to us courtesy of Arc System Works, the kings of anime fighting games responsible for such recent breakthrough hits as BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Both found success thanks to their use of beloved licensed characters, beautiful artwork and intelligent animation. Strive may not have any characters newbies will be familiar with, but it still has the presentation chops to match—and arguably surpass—its predecessors.

At a glance, you may think the characters are hand-drawn sprites, but in reality, they're fully-fledged 3D models, just ones that look that good. You may be confused as to why they would emulate 2D in 3D instead of just using 2D sprites outright, but this direction allows for tons of advantages that drawn character animation (as much as we love it) simply can't do practically.

The already brilliant graphics are complemented by a beautiful dynamic CG lighting engine allowing for beautiful shading and certain attacks are underscored by choreographed camera movements that emphasize the hell out of the ensuing impact. The visuals remain faithful to their anime inspiration, though, by replicating its most iconic stylings such as an emphasis on powerful key poses, effects animation popping all over the place and an overall disposition to being as kinetic and impactful sure to remind players of their favorite shonen series. Add some equally on-point facial animation to the mix and you've got the best-looking fighting game on the market.

Anytime a game tries to make itself look this wild it understandably creates an expectation in players that it should feel like just as much of a spectacle to play and, based on early reports, Guilty Gear is striving not to make that an empty promise. Movement and attacks flow just as smoothly as they look and have the speed to match. Speaking of speed, Strive has several unique traits that keep matches moving just as fast as your favorite anime fights with the filler shots taken out. Knockdowns are rare, end lag on certain attacks can be canceled into others and counter hits can open up opportunities for massive combos that can turn lifebars to mincemeat.

If that last note made you wince at the idea of having to spend hours learning ultra-precise combo inputs, don't worry as there are many other ways to do crazy amounts of damage like off of risky but rewarding individual moves. It's not all about offense though, as Strive sports several defensive options to make you feel like you're at Ultra Instinct. We're talking about things like the ability to block midair and even mid-dash, automatic combo escapes, the faultless defense mechanic which protects from any attack while pushing the opponent away and other great ways to get overly persistent opponents off of you. This mix of incredibly powerful offensive and defensive options not only fortifies the game's over-the-top allure but promises to welcome all types of playstyles.

Speaking of accounting for everybody, we mentioned earlier that Guilty Gear Strive will not be featuring characters anyone who hasn't played previous entries would know, but everyone can still find a character they gravitate to amongst the immediately likable original cast that covers all the most classic anime archetypes while boasting unique personality traits to help them stand out.

At the time of writing, the confirmed roster members are aloof rebel with a heart of gold and a misleading name, Sol Badguy; his genius justice-abiding bishonen rival Ky Kiske; cheerful young superpowered pirate May, who would not be out of place in the world of One Piece; time traveling ladies-man badass Axl Low; Chipp Zanuff, the quick-tempered classic anime ninja with the after-images and everything; gentle giant with a deceptively high intellect and higher grappling damage, Potemkin; reality-bending doctor Faust who seems to have a Ph.D. in wackiness; a new as-of-yet unnamed samurai character we don't know anything about yet other than his design, which looks sweet; and more promised to come.