Suppose you're not super into fighting games. In that case, you'd be forgiven for guessing that fighting game players would probably love the Nintendo Switch—after all, what community is known more for feeling passionate about finding a way to make a tournament work anywhere at any time than the fighting game community? The console's unique portability should be a boon amongst such a player base. It might come as a surprise to you to learn that despite that, and despite the Switch being one of the best-selling game consoles of all time, most of the major current-gen fighting games aren't currently available on the Switch. There's a handful of reasons why, but if you were to go around asking fighting game players what the main one is, almost every time you're bound to hear something along the lines of how the Switch's hardware and online quality simply aren't as good as its competitors.

When I heard that GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- (henceforth GGST) was getting a Switch port, I had mixed thoughts. On the one hand, making this game even more accessible is only going to help people potentially discover how cool this game is, and maybe even a love of fighting games in general. That's awesome! On the other hand, the Switch as a console doesn't lend itself as readily to playing fighting games as, say, the PS5 or a well-constructed gaming PC. Is this port going to be any good?

It's been nearly four years since GGST's release. GGST is easily one of the greatest current-gen fighting games on the market. Combining fast-paced (five buttons? four buttons plus dust?) fighting game action, a diverse array of creative play styles and mechanics, graphics that are nothing short of a technical and visual feat, an incredibly charming cast of characters, and a heaping helping of metal, GGST is the gold standard of combining style and substance.

I'd go so far as to say that the visuals of GGST are among some of the absolute best in video games. The seamless blending of 2D and 3D is masterful. Players are also treated to an excellent, metal-filled soundtrack on top of that—and one composed by series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari no less—cherry on top of the sensory sundae.

Another one of the greatest strengths of GGST is the characters. There are many lovable characters in GGST. But even if we're talking strictly within the realm of play, a big thing that sets GGST apart from other fighting games is its range of offensive mechanics, most of which are character-specific, thereby allowing you to express yourself offensively in really inventive ways. These can, admittedly, sometimes be difficult to learn, but they can make playing feel all the more enjoyable and rewarding (not to mention it's a big part of what makes GGST so fun to watch). This dovetails well with the game's universal mechanics erring defensive—-for example, only Zato-1 has Eddy, but everyone can Burst. In other words, it truly feels like every character has an out to most situations.

That's GGST as a game, but let's move on to the Switch edition of GGST as a port. The first thing you're probably wondering about is the visuals, which mostly look fine—comparable to playing GGST on PC on high (but not best). Especially if you're playing in handheld mode and thus getting a closer look, there are times when the images seem at least a little more aliased, but even then, it's not awful. The exception to all this is the Story Mode. I went back and forth playing GGST on handheld and docked. I watched Story Mode docked. At best, it looked a bit blurry. At its worst, however, it was reminiscent of phone videos in the era of the mighty flip phone. To be clear, Story Mode looks perfectly fine on other platforms. But then, looking at some screenshots and recordings I took on handheld, while they still didn't look good, they also didn't look quite so bad as they did on the bigger screen. Either way, it looked markedly worse than it did on PC. This was the only time I thought the visuals looked noticeably worse anywhere in the game. Overall, this port looks good.

How does it play? It feels the same, as far as I can tell. It takes some getting used to if you're playing it with a new type of controller (as I was), but even that's something that can be sidestepped with an adapter. Also worth mentioning: despite what I admittedly expected, the Switch ran the game just fine. There were moments when my fan got a bit loud, but never to the extent that it became a problem. The game never lagged due to the sheer volume of things flying around on-screen (example: Two Fausts simultaneously using W-W-What Could This Be? aka the item toss super).

As for the online, it worked fine for me, but that statement comes with a pretty big asterisk—I barely had any opportunities to test it. Let's back up a bit: there's crossplay for GGST on every platform it's on except for the Switch. Normally, when a fighting game doesn't have crossplay, it's annoying and worth criticizing, but it's still just annoying. The Switch edition of GGST might be the first time in all my days encountered a fighting game for which I'd consider the lack of crossplay a critical shortcoming since barely anyone was available every single time I tried to go online.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, let me be more specific: the most people I ever saw online simultaneously were three people (not including me) on the West Coast server, in the Rank Tower, at nearly 2 P.M. local time on a bank holiday. Every other time I checked, I'd see, at most, one or two other people online, but never more than that. Or at least, that's the case in the U.S. server. There were considerably more people on the Japan server, but these servers—while playable overall, I guess—had a noticeable amount of lag (but bear in mind, I'm in the U.S.), making them far from ideal. To make sure I'm being clear, while I was barely able to play any games in the U.S. server, there weren't any connection issues in those precious few games.

Honestly, I'm at odds with myself over how to rate this port overall. The game itself is excellent. On its own merits, this is a good port—it looks and plays just fine, and those are the main things anyone wants in a port. I love the idea of playing GGST wherever I want. But let's be honest: robust community support is the beating heart of any fighting game. It's not the game's fault there's barely anyone online in the U.S. servers. It's also not exactly difficult to predict that the online community would be small for a port of a nearly-four-year-old game on a massively popular console, yes, but not especially so for fighting games. If you don't plan on going online much (if at all), GGST on Switch is a perfectly fine way to enjoy this incredible game. But as it stands right now, it'll need crossplay before I can give it a full-hearted recommendation.