I’m not deep enough into GG to say I really dislike Strive, I question a lot of decisions tho.
In the worst case I’m forever stuck with BB and have to dream everyday about the “Yeah we’re making a FGO FG” comment from Type-Moon once.
Just want to slap people around with Nero tbh.
I respect the gg team for being straight up and saying they want this to be different than other GG’s…
They’ve pretty much been making the same game over and over for 15 years
Lol, tell that to the people who hate Xrd because is not their prefered XX game.
That is as dumb as saying that every SF is pretty much the same.
Edit
Also, once you make a game so different that the only thing in common is the name., by that point wouldnt it better to make a new game instead of soiling the game by giving an uphill battle for allienating the stablished fanbase?
Just look at games like DmC, for example.
I fully understand the concern regarding changing the GG franchise in terms of visuals ( character design ) and gameplay if you are a seasoned GG player.
I do however see what the devs are going for with the new title ,most likely trying to expand their user base and draw in new faces. I can only speak for myself but as a player that is not familiar with the GG franchise i can honestly say that Strive looks fun. I have not played it myself and there is no guarantee that i will enjoy it but it did it’s job making me,a new player interested in picking it up.
The problem is that while trying to bring new faces and “expand” the fan base they alienated the old one.
This kind of shit NEVER works.
Every time you ditch your identity for the sake of “expanding” you only end either killing the game/movie/series, etc, or at best creating a divisive work that fractures innnecesarily the fanbase and in the best case scenario, ends being its own thing separated of the old media, without succeding in growing, just having to sub series that barely coexists with each other.
In many cases, is really rare to see the new fanbase being enough to sustain the new take.
Of all the times that has “worked”, you have cases like NFS, that has a very separate type of fans.
Those who like the classic games and games similar to them, like NFS Hot Pursuit 2010, NFS Most Wanted 2011; those who like The Tunner era games and its succesors, and the weirdos who like Shift for some reason.
They barely overlap, so you rarely see massive numbers in each direction, except for Shift, that is very small, which is why we only have 2 games of that sub series.
So you always have sale slumps because once they start leaning in a direction, those who prefer one over the other just move on until the game types they like come over again.
So, imagine something like that happening to GG, wher both styles manage to survive.
You being brought in for the Strive Formula, never touching old games, or any new one in that vein, and old players not touching StriVe and its succesors.
They created a fracture, one that could be the very end of the franchise, or at least put it dormant once again for who knows how long.
I respect your opinion.
Do you think that the current userbase age factors in as a problem for GG ? Take for example WoW ,it was a super popular game but it has issues drawing in new players because it’s such an old game, it pretty much lives on because it’s old core of dedicated players, but this in an MMO so it’s userbase is big by default so it still makes money.
GG however ? If the devs make the game only for the die hard fans from 10 / 15 years ago will that be enough to justify creating the game from a financial point of view ?
I mean, in the end it all comes down to money and in the goal of the game IS to have a big userbase to get more sells in it’s lifetime.
Keep in mind that i am not familiar with the popularity of the series, so i don’t wanna say it’s current core of players is small,just that if it is,i can see why the devs are trying to branch out a bit.
But NFS Most Wanted 2011 is my favorite NFS game with Underground just below it. 
You should try Burnout then.
Most people who like Most Wanted 2011 also like Burnout.
BLUR is a godlike underrated game.
I love the Burnout games…wish they’d make a new one
There are ways where they can expand the franchise without ditching its identity.
Just from the top of my head, they could have streamlined systems like the gravity, RISC, and the wakeup and wight of the chars to be more newcomer friendly.
They already had worked with systems that could easily work as either substitutes of the Roman Cancel, at least the most exotic ones like the yellow and purple one with the ForceBreaks.
They also had stuff like the stylish system that basically works like DBFZ and BBTAG, so they could work a more viable version of it, so the game could have somthing akin to grooves/variations.
After all, one of the reasons why GG is intimidating is because the overexagerated, by many people, difficulty it supposedly has.
So they can always add ways to make the game seem more accessible, but retaining its core.
There is also ways of making the game more accessible by reducing the cost entry, like having a free version with functional online and rotating cast where you can buy just the chars you like.
It worked for DOA5 and DOA6.
The key problem here, is that they are basically throwing away everything that was GG so they can attract people who doesnt like GG for whatever reason.
You already said it, you were never interested on GG until they ditched everything and make this GG in name only.
All while many other fans simply wrote off the game entirely because is no longer what they liked.
Imagine the next SF being a MVC like game, that works like BBTAG, sure, there will be people who will like the idea, but the old fanbase will surely move away because the change doesnt longer cater to them.
The RC system in strive actually looks legit. Gives a lot of different options. I’m glad there isn’t any cancel that you can do with 25% meter so you get that wack slow down every couple seconds like xrd
Again, i fully understand the concern and that is a fair example.
If the next SF game will be tag based , endless juggle combos and so on i wouldn’t even bother buying it as that thing would not be a SF game to me.
Which is why i said there is barely an overlap.
I do like the OG Most Wanted and Carbon Games, like how i love the Criterion games for example, but neither you or me are the rule.
Most tuner fans stick to the tuner games, and the Arcade Super Cars usually stay with those games.
Which is why you see EA now trying to balance both type of games so they can bring sales of the different fanbases when the sales of the current focus start to fall again.
Exactly.
And while it will surely bring a new fanbase, and maybe there will be an overlap, the move would be totally pointless as a way to try to attract and expand the fanbase because it only created a divide between those who like the og, and those who like the neo game.
We dont need to go with hypotheticals to see how the majority of the time this kind of move is usually a big fail, we had plenty of example in games, series, comics, movies, even fucking sodas.
You know what is better than creating a fucking divide on your product and potentially killing it?
Making a new product instead.
It is what Capcom did during their heydays of fighting game kings.
Instead of trying to reinvent SF, they made new games with new ideas that attracted new players and sometimes expanded their old games.
Is what ASW has also been doing until now, although, with how most of those games were more like licensed games where they were contractors, the benefit hasnt been the same as what capcom had with SF, DS, VS, etc, etc.
Stive for all we know can be a very competent game, but by carrying the GG name, it is obviously compared to what came before, the expectations that the name carries, and since is a HUGE departure of its predecessors is now needlesly having an uphill battle, because is no longer judged by its own merits, but by how different is from what it came before.
By being its own thing it would be probably better recieved and without dramas and controversies.
Strive could be the alpha to gg X series
And you know what is the dumbest thing on all this excercise?
That for all the talk of making the game that is both newcomer friendly and something that the old fans could like, they created this frankenstein that with each new announcement of its mechanics, it feels like it is becoming more and more obtuse, all while making the chars feel gimped, limited and overall weak when compared to other version of them.
Outside the superb graphical presentation, the game feels that doesnt have much going for it.
As it is, si very likely that people will buy it out of the curiosity of this new take and by how it looks, and probablywill sell well at the beginning because of that, but it will be abandoned rather quickly because every design decision is in odds with all the talk of making a game that is a fresh start for newcomers and veterans.
The high damge will be a deterrent for any noob to stay since they will be booped more quickly than before.
The mechanics are more obtuse now becaue they are trying to cram a lot of stuff in few places.
The characters and gameplay feel stiff.
The fluff like the zoom in on counters and the stage transitions will become old in few days.
The fluff also gets in the way on how the info is presented to the players.
For example, the stage with snow now affects your visibility of the chars, something they always avoided, because they knew that clarity was the most important thing for the player, but now, we have stages hiding what the chars are doing.
The whole game is selfsabotaging itself in every step they make.
Like they say they will add rollback, but then put the stupidiest lobby they could have imagined.
The difference is that Alpha coexisted with SF from the very start.
You had games of both series coming out at almost the same time.
Alpha was never a replacement, but something to help expand the appeal of SF by adding an alternative for those who wanted something more than SF2
Strive is not a companion, this is a hard reboot in everything.
It is meant to replace what is GG moving forward.
Well the Burnout devs were the ones who did Most Wanted 2011.