If you want to play fighting games, start here.
No, really. I see people recommend things like divekick and footsies for beginners, and those are fine if you really only care about learning fundamentals, but they won't prepare you for jumping into something real. Strive is a full-fledged, popular fighting game that is nonetheless particularly accessible to players who are interested in the genre, but haven't found something to get them into it yet. Let's talk about why.

- The Damage
You're going to see a lot of people talking about how high the damage is in Strive, and this is true- However, Strive's damage is unique. Every individual move in Strive will chunk off your HP, but successive moves in combos scale (as in, decrease in damage) much faster than most FGs. What this means for you is that unlike most fighting games of this type, you are still rewarded for pulling off short, simple, bread and butter combos. It's still optimal to do long combos, but they don't tack on so much damage output that you're dealing out absolutely nothing as a beginner.

- The Roster
Guilty Gear's roster has always been described as archetype-defining, and Strive is no different. Strive's characters are effective introductions to their character archetypes, while also having enough extra spice to be entertaining twists on the archetypes themselves. If you want to learn how to play a grappler, Potemkin will teach you. A rushdown, Sol or Giovanna will teach you. A zoner, as much as I hate to say it, Axl will teach you. Strive has characters that will effortlessly familiarize you with every other character like them, and that's invaluable for new players.

- The Multiplayer
Okay, look, I know the lobby system sucks. Duel Stations are broken, navigating the lobbies themselves is confusing, and the aesthetic is generally just silly- However, Tower as a whole is a great system for learning players. The ability to play on lower floors without worrying about higher floors being around to dunk on you, while also being able to choose to move to higher floors to challenge people above your skill whenever you want, is extremely good for learning players. The lobbies themselves are bad, but the way the multiplayer is structured is very useful if you're in the process of improving yourself as a player.

- The Systems
Strive has, in essence, two unique mechanics that you will have to know immediately- Roman Cancels, and Burst. Both are easy to grasp, yet have immense depth in how they can be applied. There is no GRD system to spend an hour trying to understand, no character Overdrives to sift through and figure out, Strive's system mechanics are easy to understand, yet able to be infinitely expanded on and learned about over time. As a new player, all you need to know is that you press three buttons to cancel any move while it's happening, provided you have the meter, and you press any button + Dust to stop your opponent from comboing you, provided you have the Burst gauge. These are easy to learn, and very hard to master, unlike most arcane system mechanics in FGs.

- The Documentation
Admittedly, this is not so much a point to the game as it is a point to its community, but it's worth mentioning: There is no other reference in the fighting game community quite as useful as Dustloop. The community-managed Dustloop Wiki is essentially a boon in itself to every game it covers, it's extremely comprehensive yet formatted simply enough to be an amazing reference for beginners and advanced players alike. Its strategy pages are well-maintained, its description of each move and their uses are life-saving for players trying to learn about their characters, and its explanations of basic fighting game terms and their uses are simple and comprehensive. Dustloop is so good that the fact that it covers Strive is basically a point towards Strive in itself

So, that's why Strive is the perfect place to start if you're brand new, or new-ish and still waiting for the perfect game. People will talk about how fighting games aren't accessible, but the extent of the solutions I hear are simply "better tutorials"- Strive proves that more can be done than that. Strive is a game that is built from the ground up to be a fighting game for everyone, and for that reason, I can't recommend it more highly than I do to people who don't play fighting games.
So, get the game, okay? It's one of the best fighting games I've played in years, and if you're looking for something that will hook you into the genre, this is it.
Rock on.