Back in the days before Web 2.0, social networking sites had spread like social diseases, and you could design a website in tables without getting stoned by snotty committees or interactivity nuts, I wrote a gushing review about Guilty Gear XX. Then a less glowing one about Guilty Gear Isuka. Then an ambivalent one about Guilty Gear Dust Strikers. Then a half assed review for the half-assed Guilty Gear Judgement. As remarked in that last one, I’m pretty aware that the Guilty Gear series has been kind of collapsing in on itself. About the time I discovered BlazBlue I pretty happily moved onto bluer pastures, so it seemed like a bit of a blessing in disguise that Arc System Works had lost the rights to the series to Sega. But something deep inside me missed the darkness, the bizarre designs, and oh yeah, the METAAAAAAAALLLLLLL of the original. So when I had ten bucks burning a hole in my PSN wallet after getting the last New Vegas expansion, I decided “what the hell,” and downloaded the PSP version of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus Maximum Alpha EX Turbo Championship vs Capcom 2.

Since the series has spent a long time in the Street Fighter trap of adding words and non-words to the end of GGXX without just giving us a GGXXX, I was a little surprised that Accent Core takes place shortly after GGXX and had all-new storylines for everybody. This got me curious and I finally got around to seeing (wiki-ing) what happens to the cast in Guilty Gear 2: Overture, the 360-exclusive installment that took a bizarre turn into Dynasty Warriors territory. And, as expected it was weird and anticlimactic. Ky becomes King of Wherever, ruling with a just policy of “Whatever,” until he gets captured by the forces of Whoever. And after years of wondering, they finally revealed That Man in broad daylight, and made him a story boss, right alongside Raven, and uh… well, that’s about it. It’s one of those ‘far-future’ sequels, so not enough of the cast gets real conclusion (that we get to see, anyway) past learning that Ky (probably) hooked up with Dizzy then entrusted his son to a lifetime of being drug around on a chain by Sol, which adds a new and creepier vibe that makes me forget all about cracking jokes about how bad the former wants the latter’s red hot Fireseal Sword.

I suppose you could say similar things about any game series that goes on for about a craptillion installments and ports; too much of the same thing gets stale.  When Guilty Gear debuted, it managed to stand out among a craptillion other fighters of the time by not jumping on the polygon bandwagon or coming off as yet another half assed fighter in the vein of Power Instinct or Justice League Task Force. If anything came close in terms of style, it was a little like a metalhead take on Darkstalkers with its cartoony style. It sort of ripped off MK fatalities, but gave you the chance to pull them off at any time if you were good enough. The original Guilty Gear was rough around the edges, but polished greatly in its sequel Guilty Gear X. GGX really gelled the things the series would become famous for. High resolution 2-D sprites, a deep fighting system packed with cancels and all sorts of other mechanics I’ve never fully mastered, and of course, a rocking soundtrack to back it all up. Soon after, another incremental sequel appeared in Guilty Gear XX, which again tweaked the system and expanded the roster while continuing to move the storyline along.

So far, so good, right? So what happened afterwards to lose me? Well, for one thing, its cult status kind of vanished. Snooty as it probably sounds, there was a certain something to Guilty Gear as the underloved stepchild of fighting circuits. About the time they started getting into spinoffs and iterations of XX, it went from “ambitious, artsy series” to well… Street Fighter. Not to say no good came of the later installments since we got A.B.A and Robo-Ky blossomed from a recolor into a defined character in its own right, but for some reason by the time #Reload rolled around, even though they ditched the gimmickry of Isuka, something felt kind of flat. Maybe it was the OST changes. I had the soundtrack to GGXX ripped and had a track or two from it on every mix CD I burned, so I had a pretty strong idea of what should be playing when what character was on screen. It could be the crackly audio too on the portable versions since I went through a heavy portable-only phase about the time the series entered the Guilty Gear XX EX Plus Final Millenium Match 2001 era.  Or maybe the whole novelty of a series based around hand drawn anime people with gimmicky weapons had worn off for me.

Having mostly moved onto Blazblue as far as 2-D fighting goes, Guilty Gear feels kind of jerky and weird. A few years of fine tuning and plain old experience will do that to a game. Comparing the two side by side in terms of play style, Blazblue just feels more intuitive. I’m not just saying that since I’ve been playing it more, both games feature characters who are by and large centered around a ‘gimmick,’ BB just assigns that gimmick to a button by itself, whereas GG always has you do a set-up move to prep your next. Take Venom for example. Would you rather do input motions for billiard balls to set up his projectile attacks, or just tap Drive and have them there so you can focus on what to do with them, rather than making them in the first place? I do find myself missing the more wild characters from the Guilty Gear ‘verse while playing Blazblue at times, though. Arakune may be weird and unpredictable, but he’s no Faust, and even though both of them use transforming magic weapons, there’s not much comparing A.B.A and Platinum in originality. Who knows what future installments might hold for Guilty Gear since the name has been returned to its rightful owners, but considering the first game they made upon getting it back is called “Pro Jumper! Guilty Gear Tangent!?”, we’re probably in for a few more random false starts before we get an all new full on title. Regardless, just like Mega Man X made me constantly double-tap the D-pad in hopes of triggering a dash in every game I play, or how I automatically try KOF controller motions every time I try a new fighting game out, Guilty Gear left a mark with me. So, in all likelihood I’ll probably continue to blindly try out all the forthcoming installments, and you’ll get to come here and read my petty complaints about each and every one.

ROCK YOU