guilty gear strive may be the most profound combination of "game i enjoy playing" to "game that feels like im swallowing nails" ive ever personally encountered. it's like the game was created with the sole purpose of trying to see how much bullshit in the metagame and ui systems i'm willing to put up with to try get to a core experience i do ultimately enjoy

like even if you ignore the fact that online multiplayer has been practically unusable for two months basically every aspect of the menus and progression and lobby systems are designed to make it a frustrating experience to both get into and finish matches. aaagh

_{this post brought to you by me managing to get one set of matches after failing to connect to duel stations for five minutes, getting demoted to floor nine, which put me on an empty floor, that i then had to leave to go rejoin a floor with people on it, which was completely broken and i couldnt connect to anything, so i had to restart my game, then managed to find a match, which disconnected due to network errors in the second round}