Arc System Works deserves credit for trying something new with Guilty Gear Isuka. Instead of going the usual route of adding a new type of move and a new character or two, they've added four-player matches to the mix, making for a genuinely different fighting game. The problem is that this game isn't a lot of fun; the additions to Isuka turn it into button-mashing chaos, ruining the Guilty Gear flow.

Guilty Gear is the Johnny-come-lately of 2D fighting games, blowing onto the scene in a genre long dominated by Capcom and SNK. The Guilty Gear series has memorable music, attractive anime-style character designs, and, most importantly, enough complexity and depth to keep hardcore fighting fans enamored. Isuka more than delivers graphically and musically, but the fighting is what's different, not entirely in a good way.

Most of the sequels to the original have been minor updates, as with any fighting game sequel, but Isuka is dramatically different, with the addition of up-to-four-player matches and two planes of combat. To go along with this addition, a button has been added to turn around, since turning around to face the opponent is no longer automatic. These multiplayer matches can be free-for-all, or set up with any combination of teams. Two-on-two, one-on-three, two-on-one-on-one, whatever you like. Unmatched teams are balanced by longer health bars for the member of smaller teams, which is nice, but it doesn't solve the biggest problem with matches larger than one-on-one.

Guilty Gear has always been fast-paced and frantic, and Isuka is doubly so, in the three- and four-player matches. Too much so. Combos and easily-dodged super-powerful moves have always been Guilty Gear staples, but the split of attention disrupt them. Combos become useless, as pounding on one opponent leaves you helpless against any others. The threat of being hit by a well-timed Super or Instant Death attack means that everyone hops around madly, using weak pokes to try and whittle things down to one-on-one, where the normal fighting game patterns take over.

The flashy Guilty Gear graphical style does a lot to obscure things, too. Combat is actually conducted on two planes, Fatal Fury-style, to allow for four players at a time. This is a bad fit, unfortunately, as the frequently-large character sprites often obscure each other when they overlap, and it can be a pain to tell which plane an opponent is on. Even when both players are on the same plane, it can be hard to tell what's going on if your character the one pounding or being pounded upon.

While Isuka's focus is on the larger matches, one-on-one still works admirably. Requiring a button tap to turn around makes it easier for a fast character to cross up and strike from behind, but the two planes make it easier for large, slow characters to avoid attacks. It's mildly interesting as a variation on the formula set by Guilty Gear X2#reload, but as Guilty Gear X2 and GGX2#r are both available as budget releases.

The story mode from those two previous games has been excised from Isuka, and it is missed. In its place is Boost Mode. Boost Mode is a throwback; you take your favorite character and beat down hordes upon hordes of mostly brainless goons. It's mildly amusing in a look-how-many-characters-are-on-the-screen kind of way, but there isn't any skill required and little variety, so it becomes tedious quickly.

You'll have to slog, and slog, and slog through the Boost mode, if you want to take advantage of Isuka's other new feature. A new character, Robo Ky II, is able to learn the moves of any other character in the game, and executes these moves in his own unique way. Unfortunately, the only way to earn these moves is through the Boost mode, and that just plain isn't any fun.

It isn't that Guilty Gear Isuka isn't any fun. It's still plenty entertaining when played one-on-one. The problem is that Guilty Gear X2#reload is $20, includes all of the fun parts of Isuka, adds Story mode and online play to this mix, and doesn't include the largely unbalanced four-player fights. Dedicated Guilty Gear fans might want to give Isuka a look for the variations on the theme, but everyone else can simply play the superior predecessors.