This is an anime for only the most hardcore of Guilty Gear fans. Even if you've played the latest game in the series, Strive, and loved it, you're going to be lost when viewing this anime unless you're already fully acquainted with every other game in the series. While this anime will occasionally throw you a bone when it comes to some specific past event or character, it largely assumes you're fully caught up with over two decades of lore—and even then, the flow of the story is anything but friendly.

The best way to describe the story structure of this anime is to imagine you're watching a movie with a friend who keeps fast forwarding to “get to the good parts”—be that action scenes or emotional ones. Thus, this anime feels like it's jumping from climax to climax—ignoring pesky things like rising or falling actions. To make the bare minimum of sense, however, we are graced with either expository dialogue (which often devolves into technobabble) or literal narration.

Moreover, the anime seems aware of its storytelling issues—to the point that it doesn't trust the viewer to be able to follow along with what's being shown on screen. The most egregious example of this is when the narrator speaks up in the middle of the series' climax to explain what is happening. This series bucks all conventional wisdom and goes with “tell, don't show” whenever possible. And honestly, while this is in no way “good,” this might be for the best considering how schizophrenic the visuals are.

Sometimes, this anime looks great. The action is fast, fluid, and well-choreographed. Other times, it uses every budget-saving trick in the book to poor effect—e.g., speed lines, static close-ups, cutting away at the moment of impact, etc. There's even a scene in the final climax where the action becomes a literal slideshow—where the frame rate drops to 1 per second. This seems crazy for an anime that has high-detailed CG character models to work with.

Then we get the backgrounds. Sometimes they are hyper-detailed. Other times, they are basically rough sketches that have been colored in. There's simply little rhyme or reason to the art quality—just like with the animation.

Even the character designs aren't spared from this strange conglomeration of styles. Apart from Unika, the characters created for this anime clash with those from the Guilty Gear games. The main bad guy, Nerville, is the epitome of this. In his human form, he looks plain—even compared to the other human characters in the story. And when he becomes a monster, the design feels lazy and lacks the kind of over-the-top style the Guilty Gear series is known for.

However, all that said, Nerville might be the best original aspect of this anime. It's a breath of fresh air to have a completely new villain—especially one that has no connection to any of the previous ones. Moreover, the Nerville is human (or at least starts that way) and reminds us that humans, with their pride and ego, are as big of a threat to the world as Gears, Valentines, and the Backyard.

The only real issue with Nerville (other than his character design) is the fact that his evil plan is far from necessary. Had he simply attacked with his full strength right from the start (like he does in the film's climax), he would have won easily. His attack would have been a complete surprise, and none of the people or objects that facilitated his downfall would have been in place. Perhaps this is supposed to be an example of the foolishness of human ego—but given the rest of the quality of this anime, I find bad writing a more likely explanation.

In the end, the pessimist inside me sees this anime as nothing more than an extended commercial to sell Strive DLC. After all, beyond Sol (and a few scant scenes with Rramlethal, Ky, and Leo), every main and supporting “playable character” is from one of the game's four DLC seasons. But even if that's not the case, this anime is a failure on pretty much every conceivable level. It's got poor pacing, plotholes, and uneven art and animation. It's focused on pandering to the lowest common denominator rather than weaving a compelling or emotional story. If you want to watch a Guilty Gear anime, you'd be better just buying the Strive game. Its story mode is, for all intents and purposes, a 9-episode anime (10 if you include the DLC episode)—and one that's superior in both the visual and story department.