Guilty Gear, subtitled The Missing Link (ザ・ミッシング・リンク, Za Misshingu Rinku?), is the first entry in the Guilty Gear series. It was first released on the PlayStation in 1998, and would see a re-release on PlayStation Store ten years later. A port for i-mode was released via the Guilty Gear Club website. It was released on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam in May 2019 alongside Guilty Gear XX Λ Core Plus R; the games received a dual physical release in the Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Pack.
Despite being the series' first release, the game itself reveals little of its context, or the character's backstories; it is not until later material and games that the history of the Guilty Gear universe is thoroughly explained.
Design[]
Guilty Gear is a 2D fighting game, similar to Street Fighter and The King of Fighters, but is fast-paced and focuses more on the use of combo techniques. Featuring thirteen playable characters and their respective stages, combat is one-on-one, set in best-two-out-of-three rounds. The main menu has four options: Normal Mode, Versus Mode, Option Mode, and Training Mode.
Normal Mode is a series of battles that pit the player against the CPU; by defeating all opponents, the player gets to view their selected character's ending, and earn a number of trophies in the Anniversary release. Versus Mode is a fight between two players; before choosing fighters, the background can be selected by pressing Start. Training Mode allows the practice of combos, and pressing Select will enter the Training Config menu. Option Mode allows to alter various aspects of the game.
While movement uses the directional buttons, basic attacks use a six button layout: Punch 
, Kick 
, Slash 
, Heavy Slash 
, Taunt, and Respect. Special Moves use directional buttons plus one of these attack buttons. Taunts can be canceled, while Respect is a "reverse taunt" that cannot be canceled. Some available techniques are: Throw (
+ ) is done standing close to an opponent; a launcher attack ( + ) is used to initiate aerial combos, and if it connects, one must immediately hold 
to follow up with a Chase Jump. Regarding defense, a Dead Angle Attack (done with a Special Move command) allows to attack immediately after blocking, and a Perfect Guard (hold 
while blocking) so as to not lose health during an attack.
The bar located below the characters, called the Chaos Gauge, fills up every time the character connects an attack. Its main purpose is allowing a character to perform a Chaos Move. These take a full gauge to use, although some can be performed when below 50% health (when the life gauge turns yellow) as the character is surrounded by a red aura.
All but three characters can charge one attack to do extra damage. Charging is done by pressing the specific move commands and holding down Taunt or . The character will stand there and build power, and a number will appear above their Chaos Gauge showing Level 1, 2, or 3. At any time, a character may stop charging, and release the attack. Finally, all characters have access to one Instant Kill move, not shown in their command list in-game, which will win them the match regardless of the round.
Story[]
Summary[]
The backstory for Guilty Gear is presented in its manual: Set in the 22nd Century, mankind succeeded in developing a natural, limitless energy supply, and brought about the Age of Magic. Science and industry, sources of environmental pollution and weapons of mass destruction, were thus outlawed. However, this did little to soothe mankind's suffering. A war erupted, fueled by rapidly developing magical theory, that saw the birth of powerful biological weapons known as Gears. Used as little more than slaves, the powerful military state that monopolized their manufacturing process brought countless other lands under its control.
Yet among their ranks, a rebel appeared and announced herself to be self-aware: Justice. She gathered an army of fellow Gears and declared war on all mankind. Despite heavy initial casualties, humans put their differences aside and formed the Sacred Order of Holy Knights to combat the Gear menace. After one hundred years of brutal war, the Crusades came to an end when the Order sealed Justice inside an impenetrable dimensional prison, and the masterless Gears that became dormant were rounded up and destroyed. Afterwards, the Holy Order was then dissolved.
In 2180, five years later, the walls of Justice's dimensional prison have unexpectedly begun to erode. Assessing the threat before them, the world's leaders quickly organize an international fighting tournament to select members for a proposed Second Sacred Order. Few take notice of its suspicious rules—permission to shed blood during the matches—, but the prize is tempting: The victor gets to make a "single wish... any wish at all".
Sol's ending.
In-game, once the combatants fight through all stages of the tournament, the true meaning behind is revealed: Testament appears before the combatant, saying they only need the blood of one more "sacrifice". Although Testament is defeated, their own blood is all that is needed to achieve Justice's complete resurrection. She awakens, ready to fight, and must be defeated. The tournament's winner and the one who kills Justice is Sol Badguy.
For the rest of the contestants: Ky Kiske trades words with Justice, but is shaken by the realization that no single truth governs everything; May is reunited with Johnny, who has freed himself from prison; Dr. Baldhead, remembering his patient's last words, regains his sanity; Sergeant Gabriel frees Potemkin and recruits him for the upcoming revolution in Zepp; Chipp Zanuff remembers his master's teachings and realizes that he has traded one vice for another; Millia Rage defeats Zato-ONE but is unable to kill him, leading to complex feelings; Zato himself, suffering from physical and mental weaknesses, is taken over by his own shadow; Axl Low is flung through time once again; and Kliff Undersn faces Justice in battle once more, but it proves to be his last. His child, Testament survives and, freed from Justice's control, flees to parts unknown.
Characters[]
- Playable characters
- Non-playable characters
Development[]
Daisuke Ishiwatari conceived the world of Guilty Gear while he was in vocational school, having the whole plan for it worked out.[2] Although he was a fan of Street Fighter II[3] and Fatal Fury,[4] he felt that there was no fighting game that had truly "cool" characters in it; furthermore, he wanted to create a game with a light fantasy setting similar to the manga Bastard!!,[3] and hoped it would appeal to both videogame and anime fans.[5] After Ishiwatari joined Arc System Works, while working on other projects for the company, one day he told president Minoru Kidooka that he wanted to make a fighting game, and Kidooka approved the idea.[2] Ishiwatari thus started the project, but as there was no one on staff, he gathered friends from his school days and others with little-to-no experience at making games[6] to form a team of about twelve people,[2] "Team Neo Blood".[3] Four people ended up doing the main work for it.[7]
Early illustration of Sol and Ky.
In 1996, the game was publicly announced along with the characters,[8] but actual development did not start until the company reached a point when they had a software development environment capable of handling the game.[3] Starting sometime in 1997, the development cycle lasted about a year and a half.[2] Early in development, the game was designed with rendered 3D visuals,[9] using machines by Silicon Graphics,[10] but this was later replaced by hand-drawn artwork[9] as Ishiwatari disliked the result.[7]
Keenly aware of Super Street Fighter II X and Tekken,[3] Ishiwatari was convinced that the game had to be "something difficult" but would satisfy its players. They implemented a different layout of buttons because they wanted, and felt necessary, to come up with something different to other games. For this reason, Instant Kills were added; they would add tension to the fight as someone who was winning could be defeated suddenly, which they "really wanted to be a strong theme for the game".[11] It was included because the game would be limited to home consoles, but he and main programmer Hideyuki Anbe eventually came to the conclusion that it was not needed; however, it was too late to make any major revisions.[3]
For the original North American release, handled by Atlus,[12][13] the company let players choose the game's box art by voting for their favorites from three available covers,[14] and released it on November 10, 1998.[15] In the PAL region, the game was published by Studio 3,[16][17] who later re-released it under their "Play It" label sometime in 2002. It was also re-released on April 12, 2001, under the "White Label" budget imprint by Virgin Interactive. Meanwhile, in Japan, the game was re-released as Guilty Gear Reprint Edition (復刻版, Fukkoku-ban?) in September 22, 1999.[18] This second version was digitally released on May 31, 2007,[19] via PlayStation Store's Japan-exclusive Game Archives for PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable.[20] The PlayStation 3 version was also available in Europe.
Material[]
- Guilty Gear Complete Bible
- Guilty Gear Original Sound Collection
- Guilty Gear Comic Anthology
- Guilty Gear Trading Card Game
- Guilty Gear 2xLP album
Allusions[]
- The game's subtitle comes from The Missing Link, an album released by the German heavy metal band Rage in 1993.
Trivia[]
- Justice is referred to as a male in-game and the manual despite being female.
- Computer-controlled characters can use Taunts and Respects, which does not occur in other games in the series.
- As was common in enhanced CDs at the time, file formats are read differently according to the device used. Placing the game disc in a computer or CD player allows the player access to a bonus audio track composed by Takahiro Uematsu, "Meths".
- This and two other additional tracks—"Suspicious Cook (Bonus Remix)", also by Uematsu, and "GunGun"—can be played in the game's BGM Select from Option Mode.
- Since the original European version supported five languages, its instruction manual was "...exceptionally thick" according to GG World.[21]
- On June 1, 1999, at the White House Rose Garden, U.S. president Bill Clinton issued a speech on video game violence and marketing and showed the game's English flyer, which reads "Kill your friends guilt free."[22][23]
Gallery[]
External links[]
References[]
- ↑ System 3 | Guilty Gear [PS1]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Games That Can't Be Duplicated: Arc System Works' Ishiwatari Speaks - Game Developer
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Guilty Gear - 1998 Developer Interview - Shmuplations
- ↑ From Guilty Gear to Dragon Ball: The 30-year history of Arc System Works | VentureBeat
- ↑ Anime Expo 2009: interview with Daisuke Ishiwatari and Toshimichi Mori
- ↑ Minoru Kidooka And Daisuke Ishiwatari On The 35th Anniversary Of Arc System Works - Forbes
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Guilty Gear Complete Bible, pg.150-155
- ↑ Dengeki PlayStation Vol.10 (Oct. 1995), pg.8-15 - "ギルティギア（仮）" (link)
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Guilty Motivation - The X Button - Anime News Network
- ↑ Guilty Gear Almost Used The Same 3D Graphics Technique As Donkey Kong Country | Time Extension
- ↑ GamesTM 108 (Apr. 2011), pg.140-145 - "Behind the Scenes: Guilty Gear" (link)
- ↑ Atlus Consumed By Guilt - IGN
- ↑ Atlus - Guilty
- ↑ Consider Yourself an Art Critic? - IGN
- ↑ Guilty Gear - PSX.IGN.COM
- ↑ Guilty Gear - Studio 3 Interactive
- ↑ Guilty Gear - Press Release - Studio 3 Interactive
- ↑ [GGWorld - "Guilty Gear (Reprint)"]
- ↑ PLAYSTATIONStoreで「ゲームアーカイブス」11作品が本日販売 - 電撃オンライン
- ↑ GUILTY GEAR シリーズ一覧
- ↑ [GGWorld - "Guilty Gear (Generation 1)"]
- ↑ Children, Violence and Marketing
- ↑ GUILTY GEAR: Clinton show ad during June 1, 1999 speech on Video Game Violence #TechThrowback