Releasing as the final addition of Guilty Gear Strive's Season Pass 2 following Sin, Bridget and Bedman, Asuka R# is by far the game's most complex character, beating out even other resource and mental-stack heavy characters like Happy Chaos and Jack-O' Valentine. However, the variety of unpredictable options that these resource mechanics give him allow him to dominate the battlefield and stop opponents from ever being able to read his next move.
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With a whopping thirty different spells available as part of each of his Test Cases which he can cycle through, as well as an oft-depleting Mana bar that he must maintain in order to utilize his special moves, Asuka requires an intimate knowledge of his own moveset and how it interacts with his opponent's options in order to come out on top in Guilty Gear Strive.
As the most complex and resource-reliant character in Guilty Gear Strive, Asuka needs to stay on top of his Mana bar at all times to operate effectively. As all of Asuka's Spell special moves require Mana, running out will put him in an incredibly precarious position, with very few offensive or defensive options. As such, Asuka players should use his Restore Mana special move (Down, Down + Punch), or certain spells such as Recover Mana (Instant) or Recover Mana (Continous) to keep his gauge up whenever possible.
Ideal times for this would be when opponents are knocked down such as after a Ground or Air Throw, after hitting them with a long-reaching projectile such as his Howling Metron spells, or during the opponent's hard knockdown period after successfully breaking the wall with his High Compression Submicron Particle Sphere Overdrive.
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The variations of Restore Mana which speed up the restoration time at the cost of Tension or health, performed with the same directional input but with Kick and Slash respectively, can get the player's Mana back in a pinch but run the risk of losing meter for Roman Cancels-or one's life itself. In addition, Asuka also takes considerably more damage if hit while his Mana is depleted, meaning even a little Mana left over can be the difference between an opponent's combo winning the round or not.
Asuka is able to access three separate Test Cases, each containing an average of twelve different Spells, with some shared between Test Cases, such as the simple projectile Spell Howling Metron or the explosive Metron Screamer 808. Each Test Case contains roughly thirty individual consumable uses of Spells. For example, in Test Case 1, Asuka can access six uses of Howling Metron but only two uses of Bookmark (Full Import).
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Test Case 1 is primarily focused on firing a variety of projectiles to lock the opponent down at a distance, such as the wide-spreading Howling Metron MS Processing, the quick overhead Accipiter Metron, and the invincible reversal Aquila Metron (especially useful due to Asuka's otherwise poor defense). Test Case 2, as well as some of the aforementioned projectiles, offer Spells that improve Asuka's mix-up game to keep opponents guessing, such as the projectile trajectory-altering High-Pass/Low-Pass Filter Gravity and Delayed Tardus Metron, a slow multi-hitting projectile for Asuka to follow and hit opponents with low or overhead attacks while the projectile is still forcing them to block.
Test Case 3 is more of a roulette, containing some Spells from Cases 1 and 2 in addition to wildcard options: Go To Marker, which allows Asuka to teleport anywhere on screen, Sampler 404, which gives him an extra use on the next Spell activated, and Chaotic Option, which draws a random powerful Spell from his entire deck, regardless of which Test Case is active. Knowing how each Spell can be implemented into a game plan and switching Test Cases to adapt to the situation is vital to succeeding as Asuka.
Asuka is able to access two Overdrive super moves: High Compression Submicron Particle Sphere [left] and Bookmark (Full Order) [right]. Particle Sphere is a fairly simple high-damage projectile attack, ideal for adding damage onto the end of combos and breaking the wall to gain Tension-boosting Positive Bonus and a hard knockdown on the opponent.
Keep in mind that Particle Sphere has two versions: the version activated with Kick will always move in a straight line forward, but the version activated with Punch is affected by Spells that are out on the field. For example, placing a Gravity Rod near the opponent before using Particle Sphere will cause the projectile to hit the opponent, curve back around due to the gravitational pull, and hit the opponent again, tacking on more damage and leaving them in a juggle state for Asuka to continue with a combo.
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Bookmark (Full Order) is a utility super, giving Asuka a short window to change the Spell in each of his four slots as many times as he wishes until the move ends. Note that the Spells drawn are limited to the current Test Case. This lets Asuka refresh his Spell slots quickly if the Spells drawn manually were not ideal for his current situation. It also instantly fills up each slot if they were empty when activated, making it very useful in keeping Asuka's offense or mix-ups going when all Spell slots have been used.
'Top-decking' is a collectible card-game term that refers to drawing a card from the top of one's deck in the hope that the random card drawn is useful for your current circumstance. In this case, it means using Bookmark to summon a Spell and instantly casting it without taking time to consider its specific use.
Unlike Faust's similar random summon move What Could This Be, Asuka has no Spells that can actively put him in a disadvantaged state or deal damage to him, meaning even beginners can use top-decking effectively if the player's mental stack is too overwhelmed to consider the exact effects of the Spell drawn.
Guilty Gear Strive is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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