New to fighting games and playing on PC

[Elodin]

Hello! So I just saw Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- on sale on Steam. I've had an interested in jumping into the FGC for a little while now (I've checked out Evo a few times but haven't done much beyond that.)

Before I drop $24 though, I was just wanting to know a few things.

1. Does Xrd have a good community of players on PC? I know that seems like a silly question to ask on a forum dedicated to it, but since I'm sure I'll almost only be able to play online matches, it'd be a shame if I could never find a game.

2. Is Xrd actually relevant? I know sometimes PC can get the shaft when it comes to releases, so I was hoping that this wasn't a soon-to-be irrelevant fighting game that would be replaced soon with a squeal.

3. Is this a horrible game for a beginner to start with? My experience with FGs mostly involves mashing buttons in Street Fighter, would Xrd be a good place to start or should I hold out for another game? Now that I think of it, I did play Skullgirls some on PC and had a good deal of fun with that, so I'm not completely inept, just inexperienced. 


Thank you for your time ^^ I'm excited to (hopefully) be getting started for real with a genre that's had my eye for a while.

[Airk]

10 hours ago, Elodin said:

Hello! So I just saw Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- on sale on Steam. I've had an interested in jumping into the FGC for a little while now (I've checked out Evo a few times but haven't done much beyond that.)

Before I drop $24 though, I was just wanting to know a few things.

1. Does Xrd have a good community of players on PC? I know that seems like a silly question to ask on a forum dedicated to it, but since I'm sure I'll almost only be able to play online matches, it'd be a shame if I could never find a game.

2. Is Xrd actually relevant? I know sometimes PC can get the shaft when it comes to releases, so I was hoping that this wasn't a soon-to-be irrelevant fighting game that would be replaced soon with a squeal.

3. Is this a horrible game for a beginner to start with? My experience with FGs mostly involves mashing buttons in Street Fighter, would Xrd be a good place to start or should I hold out for another game? Now that I think of it, I did play Skullgirls some on PC and had a good deal of fun with that, so I'm not completely inept, just inexperienced. 


Thank you for your time ^^ I'm excited to (hopefully) be getting started for real with a genre that's had my eye for a while.

I'm not actually a Xrd player, but I'll answer as best I can.

#1: I can't answer this, but it apparently sold pretty well.   I would be surprised if it were desolate right now, since it's a new game.

#2: It's an anime game, so it's never going to have the presence of Street Fighter, and the PC fighting game community isn't the biggest, but it's growing as they get newer releases.  And Xrd is probably the most popular anime game.  On the other hand, the Xrd update/sequel is already out in Japan arcades, and has been for a bit, so it's not unlikely that we'll see a console release of it in Japan in the next couple of months. That'll pull away all the really serious enthusiasts, but it'll be hard to predict what impact this will have on the PC scene.

#3: There are worse games to start with, certainly (I think Skullgirls is one of them. Outdated six button design + tag fighter = tons of complexity.);  I think BB and Persona are both easier, but their communities are smaller - much smaller in the case of Persona, and much smaller in the case of BB on the PC since it's a version behind right now. 

At the end of the day though, to buy a fighting game is to admit that if you want to stay current, you're going to be rebuying it a lot.  Unless it's Street Fighter V, anyway.