#its just baiken related

[bloodykora]

Kora: Baiken, I have some serious news.

Baiken: Hmm?

Kora: They diagnosed me. As... your wife.

Baiken: Well, hold on now.

Kora: Yeah they said its terminal with no cure and you have to stay with me fore-

Baiken: Who the hell is they? Was it Testament?

[broken-clover]

I like thinking about crossovers with guilty gear and samurai shodown because of baiken's dlc status in the latter but whenever I come back to the concept it ends up making me profoundly sad and it's basically always for one of two reasons

One is the fact that from the get-go, Samsho in part shows off its archaic setting by having a character, Ukyo, that's contracted tuberculosis, in a setting where it's more or less a guaranteed death sentence. Of course his repeated presence as a playable character means he has a bit of plot immunity and has had at least one death retconned, but still, a lot of his character relates to the fact that he's a terminally ill man who's deeply suffering from something that will, inevitably, kill him. Guilty Gear, being a futuristic setting with magic means that even if conventional treatments were potentially wiped out, TB very likely is something that's relatively trivial to cure. And I could see that being either a happy-sad or just a sad thing whether or not it's something that Baiken would be capable of fixing.

And one is the fact that, suddenly, Baiken is home. It's not the place she grew up in, she's a couple of centuries early, but the grass and dirt and rock beneath her boots belong to a place that, in her world, was literally blasted out of existence. Even if it isn't the same people and exact places she lost, she suddenly sees her own culture alive and thriving. Everything in her world that was destroyed or died off or banned is just...right there.

But at the same time, what does that mean for her sense of vengeance? The place she's mourned for decades and fashioned into a deep well of fury and will to survive is fine. It's all been undone. Even if she may or may not have come to terms with the loss, suddenly the thing you've devoted so much of your life to, used to power your will to go on, and it meant nothing. And in having her old existence handed to her on a platter, would she even fit into it anymore? Baiken the person, who she exists as now, owes so much of that to rising from the ashes of her homeland. She isn't the happy, innocent little girl she was when her home was still standing. Adult Baiken has only ever had a burnt-out husk of a home. How do you just suddenly pretend everything is fine when everything you've done has suddenly been made completely pointless?

[jamlabs]

to celebrate bridget’s transgendersm I’m making a list of my gg gender headcanons

Sol Badguy is a nonbinary man. Gender takes too much work so he just stopped. Epitome of appearance and pronouns do not equal gender (still uses he/him exclusively)

Axl is a transman to me.

Baiken is canon agender but also gender apathetic. Don’t care didnt ask

Faust is goofysillygender . it’s a doctor! It’s a doctor :]

Like all gears Justice was formerly nonbinary / was beyond gender but specifically chose to become female. So transwoman

Testament is canon nonbinary and agender. they/them exclusively

Zato-1 is nonbinary (cis man > nonbinary specifically). uses he/they. Eddie is. Eddie. whatevers going on with that dude is a gender in and of itself

Anji is genderqueer, just kind of goes along with the flow of whatever.

Dizzy is intersex.

Venom’s gender is tied very deeply to his sexuality, he’s a gay man

Bridget is a canon trans woman!

I-no is genderqueer and also a slut (important part of her gender.)

Robo-ky is technically assigned male due to being a robot version of ky BUT is male in such a specific way that it doesn’t reflect Ky at all. like you look at him and you go yeah that’s a guy or a dude but will never think of him as a man

Slayer is a transman and his wife Sharon is a transwoman. t4t bi4bi rights. Slayer also probably uses archaic pronouns just to for the fun of it

Zappa has so much pathetic tboy swag. him being a system via possession is not reflective of his own gender identity. each ghost has their own gender that is totally separate from his

Dr Paradigm: gear, nonbinary. They/he plus probably any neos that catch their fancy

Izuna is a yokai and has genders humans wouldn’t get in a million years. he/they for human convenience

Sin is genderfucked due to being raised by Sol. Never learned traditional gender roles so does whatever he wants.

Valentine is an artificially created woman. Girl but a “too perfectly exhibiting female gender roles and presentation” way.

Answer is a secretary and genderfluid. (He/She/They)

Elpehelt is an artificially created woman and is perfectly content with that.

Ramlethal is an artificially created woman and is discovering if she likes that or not. Questioning.

Jack-O is artificially created to resemble Aria. Cis.

Kum Haehyun is so transcoded its barely even reaching (forced to live as a man and greatest fear is living as a man forever)

Giovanna is intrinsically tied with Rei. Has some wolf/beast related neopronouns and her gender is Girlbeast.

Goldlewis is cis but the greatest ally of all time. will drone strike a TERF for free.

Happy Chaos is WTFgender. It uses any/all pronouns and wants people to mix it up. literally just here to have a good time

Nagoriyuki is inherently fruity by virtue of being a vampire but considers himself cis.

If not mentioned just assume either I haven’t hit them with my transgender beam yet or that they’re cis

[solradguy]

Since so many characters have recently been given different gender identities, I’m curious if you have any guesses as to what future characters may have new genders as well. For me, I honestly feel like Robo-Ky may be given more ambiguous pronouns if he ever appears again, and this probably won’t happen but I feel like Zappa’s own gender identity could also change. I mean, Zappa has ghosts who possess him, that’s his whole thing. Though the fact that the main ghost who possess him, S-Ko, is a woman, I feel could lead to maybe somewhat of a gender crisis? Since while Zappa himself may not be a woman, there is more or less a woman living inside his body half the time, and honestly that’s perfect material for a genderfluid Zappa.

Zappa being genderfluid could be really cool, I agree. It would be interesting if we got a character that used it/its pronouns too, but since Zappa is like multiple people in one body, maybe it's more likely he would also use they/them (like Testament) except in a plural way instead of a singular one? There isn't really any one else on the cast where, headcanons aside, I could see them mixing up their gender identities if they came back though... But Baiken, Testament, and Bridget all having confirmed non-cis gender identities is amazing and ArcSys have said they want to add completely new characters to Strive still so we might yet get some more trans characters!! Fingers crossed ;^)

I'm really hopeful we'll get some more characters with confirmed non-hetero sexualities too. At the moment, I think we've only gotten Raven and Venom? I get they kinda wanna keep these ambiguous so people can have fun projecting/relating to them (& for shipping reasons, I guess) but so many of the characters are obviously not straight rofl. I need ArcSys to just come out and be like "yeah that homoerotic Sol/Ky art from 2005 was for real gay actually. they're both bi." Can you imagine a game where both of the main box art guys are LGBT lol

Other than Robo-Ky's like basic lore, I actually don't know him super well so I'll let someone else expand on that in the reblogs, if they'd like to.

Idk where else to put this but all of my thoughts come with Bonus DLC Thoughts™️ and it's kinda related to all this so I'll put it here, but I really genuinely love how ArcSys have been handling their LGBT, especially trans/nb, representation. Waaaayyyyy too often it boils down to being the ONLY aspect of a character's personality but with Bridget, Testament, and Baiken it's like idk the 5th most important part of their character? Most people probably don't even know about Baiken's whole "throwing away gender" thing. It's really refreshing, imo

[guiltygearofficial]

What are the characters like on social media?

Sol Badguy has only one Social Media and it is Myspace. He has two friends on there, one of which is Axl who made a Myspace before other options were available and the other is a bot. He only posts once a year to review a Queen album (all 10/10) or to post a picture of his motorcycle.

Ky is a christian facebook mom. He has a “No Swearing on my Profile Please” banner.

May sometimes posts pictures of the dolphins or group photos with the other jellyfish pirates, but she’s mostly here to play browser games. Flash never died in the world of Guilty Gear.

Zato is considered one of the funniest people on twitter, none of which is intentional. He posts shit like “Eddie ate a rat today...effervescent.” and everybody loves it. He isn’t verified so everybody assumes that he’s some kind of parody account.

Millia runs a beauty instagramm that’s mostly just her explaining how to take care of your hair when it’s A) more mass than your entire body and B) Alive

Potemkin runs an art account, where he posts pictures of the paintings he drew. Most of his tweets are garbled messes of text however, due to him being forced to author all his tweets in text to speech, since his fingers are too large for a keyboard or touchscreen.

Chipp has a twitter account on which he posts government reforms and anime reviews. There’s a 50/50 chance if his next tweet will be “We’ll be raising taxes on cigarettes and alcohol” or “Alter Memory didn’t really hook me. Had only one ninja. 3/10″

Faust runs a blog in which he gives medical advice to anyone who asks. Its become an urban legend that if your symptoms are vague enough, the blog owner will break down your door and treat you personally.

Axl has 20 different twitter accounts, all of which are from different timelines with different email addresses. Usually by the time he manages to log into one, he gets thrown into another timeline.

Kliff mostly posts really outdated memes like “Me and the boys awake at 3 AM looking for GEARS” while tagging every single member of the Holy Order.

I-no was a casuality of the tumblr p*rn ban.

Testament has a social media account on which he posts pictures of the grove and the local wildlife. He has only one person in his contacts and its. Whenever anybody else tries to interact with his account or comments on his pictures, they’re instantly blocked.

Justice used to have a twitter, Apparently trying to wipe out all of humanity gets you banned from twitter thought. She’s still active on facebook however.

Baiken only posts pictures of cool swords

Anji has nothing but sockpuppet accounts which he uses to join antivaxxer/flatearth conspiracy groups so he can debate them for shits n giggles

Venom only follows Zato on twitter and is sure to like and retweet everything he posts. Without fail, the top comment on everything Zato posts is venom saying “Banger tweet milord.”

Johnny lost his social media priviledges because he kept infecting the mayships board computer with viruses since he refuses to stop clicking on the horny ads.

Jam runs an account for her restaurant, doing her best to advertise herself on social media. 

Dizzys page is filled of pictures she has taken with people around the Kiske household. It gained a lot of followers one day when somebody noticed that both Ramlethal who declared war on the world like a month ago and two kings of Illyria were in one of the pictures she posted.

Bridget is forced to make memes for Jams social media account. They’re the only reason anyone follows the account.

Slayer runs Haikubot on tumblr. 

Zappa has found much popularity with the youths, due to them misinterpreting his posts screaming for help as self deprecating humor. Most of his posts are something like “My body is a screaming wreck being haunted by 12 different spectres and I will never know peace.” and every single reblog is tagged as #Mood

Robo-Ky runs the bakeries actually succesful meme page. Most of his posts are vaguely bread related deep fried images and weirdly horny posts. They have 200k followers but most aren’t convinced they’re an actual real bakery.

Bedman posts all his hot takes on the internet and has sworn vengeance against twitter for limiting him to 280 letters.He constantly gets into arguments with people, none of which actually engage him in debate due to the fact that everything he posts is atleast 7 pages long.

Daisuke Ishiwatari runs this blog

Sin runs a tumblr blog where he pretends to be Ky, making satirical posts bullying his dad for being a nerd.

Ramlethal made an account after Elphelt and Sin pressured her into doing so. She posts pictures of her magehound and nothing else. 

Elphelt is currently on her 12th account due to the fact that she keeps getting hacked. No matter how many times she’s told to block them, she keeps falling for horny spambots every single time. 

Raven has been banned from every social media website in existence.

Leo posts whatever he feels like at the time, which consists of rants about Ky, new definitions to his dictionary or pictures with whoever happened to be nearby in Illyria castle. There are three different “Whitefang Out Of Context” accounts currently active.

Answer does damage control for Chipp. Whenever Chipp ends up getting into an argument with another world leader on Twitter due to differing opinions on anime, he DM’s them to apologize. His actual posts mostly consist of pictures of his frogs.

Nagoriyuki posts pictures of his haikus on social media. While they are fairly popular in their own right, most of his fanbase comes from people thirst following him from that time his reflection was visible in one of his pictures.

[nemrut]

Has been a long while since I posted anything Epic 7 related.

So, still playing the game, although at a way lesser intensity than before. I even missed doing the dailies once or twice but I can’t say I am that unhappy with that. If anything, being less bound by gacha has freed me up a bit, for better sleeping habits and in general productivity.

That said, still fond of the game. The FMA collab leak is interesting, because I really like Roy and Riza, but apparently, from what I have heard, without looking deeper into it, it seems that Riza is the free unit, and historically, the free unit of the collab has been the worst unit of the bunch. Not unusuable, mind you, but still. The free unit of the Guilty Gear collab had some very niche pvp utility and some hunt/abyss utility, the RE: zero unit could be used in banshee hunt and I actually think no one has used the unit from the slime collab for anything.

Similarly, Kizuna Ai has been rather lackluster as well. So, who knows, Riza may buck the trend and be actually a good unit, but probably not.

That said, each collab also had a unit or two that absolutely defined the meta for a long time. Dizzy was a terror for over a year, Baiken had some usage in PVP as an opener, although that is impossible nowadays, but she is still the best unit for banshee oneshots, since she has the lowest gear requirements. Rem and Emilia are dominant in their respective classes, Milum is very strong and Rimaru is borderline broken.

So yeah, if Ed and Roy are collab units, odds are good that we will be seeing the two having dominant positions within the game for a long time.

I didn’t roll for the new Soul Weaver, because I need my bookmarks and skystones for the summer charlotte unit and the collab that will follow after that. I like the idea of a debuff soul weaver, but her kit feels outdated already, since we have two very strong cleansers running around who do not need effect resistance (ER), and most people seem to have at least one, and even those who do not, can still run a cleanser with high enough ER to deal with that.

But from what I have seen, the venom debuff doesn’t seem to be that good anyway, so it’s hardly something that troublesome.

The issue is, it is a pure damage debuff, with nothing really else to it. Sure, it does more damage than poison, twice as much, I think, but so what? It won’t kill most units immediately, nor will it stop them from doing anything, which should be the two main priorities of debuffs. More damage is always nice, but in that case, it seems better to run a dmg dealer who will actually kill a unit or two, rather than someone who will slowly poison the enemy to death.

It just seems like a wasted unit, and while the cooldown increase for the enemies is solid enough, it is, at the end, not enough. She doesn’t do enough to harm or hinder the enemy and she doesn’t do enough to support or enable your team, so, as of now, using almost any other unit, for any other purpose, seems to be the smarter choice.

So yeah, not going to roll for her, especially seeing that she isn’t limited, so she might come home at any time. If she gets a buff that makes her broken, which is entirely possible, i will still be able to get her at a later stage. Collab units and limited units are still worth saving for.

I did summon and get ML Vivian though.

I am still building her. She is doing decent enough dmg, but since she wants to be on the field for as long as possible, thanks to her S2 and all of its dmg reduction and the cd reduction coupled with it, I want to switch to a lifesteal set.

I am also not super happy with the artifact. Right now, I am using the one that has like a 40 % chance of reducing the CD by 1, which I think has decent synergy with her abilities, since she wants to use her S3 as often as possible and has a skill that reduces her CD as well. This artifact increases the chances and speed of that happening and the more often she uses her S3, the more dmg it does since its attack power increases with each use.

But the cost for that is, that the artifact never does anything on the first turn, since her CD is not in play there, and afterwards, there is a over 50% chance of not doing anything, and the RNG likes to screw you over in this game.

That’s always the issue with the RNG in epic seven in particular. There are some units where its worth taking those risks. Rem, for example, or Belian. Sure,  it is not 100% guaranteed to trigger the effects, but when they do, it so so worth it because their attacks can cripple enemy teams.

With ML Vivian, well, it might not be. If the artifact triggers, the 4 turn cd becomes a 3 turn cd, which is fine, I guess, but also not really that awesome? Not when you could have run her with the artifact that provides you with 20 souls, which allows you to use her S1 as an AOE attack twice.

Or even provide those souls for another team member who could make good use of them like Specter Tenebria.

The other option which I have seen is the old artifact that has good odds of providing a barrier. That is, of course, useful combined with her S2 which already reduces the dmg she takes, so having additional protection ensures she stays on the field longer. It can be stripped from her, and she can be made unbuffable, so it is not guaranteed. Since there is RNG involved again, it’s not even guaranteed without debuffs, so there is that.

Again, the question. If the artifact triggers, is worth that sometimes it will not? Especially when you weigh it against the 20 souls which you are guaranteed unless the enemy runs Belian.

There will definitely be situations where the shield is preferable, but there will also be situations where the artifact will not do anything. So, I think I just might switch to tagahels and go with the souls.

When I go lifesteal, I also want to increase her HP and DEF. Her dmg reduction is neat and all, but 9k HP is just not enough. The trade off will of course be less dmg and with that, less healing.

She is difficult to built, since she wants basically every stat except effectiveness. ER can be neglected as well, but an ideal character would always have 200 %ER, only you can’t have every stat be that high, so most dmg dealers forsake ER alltogether.

Still, I like her core idea, of a tanky dmg dealer that punishes the enemy for attacking her. She doesn’t seem to be meta defining or oppressive like ML Ravi or Hwayoung.

Speaking of which, because I got so many dupes during the ML bookmarks refund thingy, I also had enough coins to buy another ML 5 star from the shop, so I actually went ahead and got ML Ravi.

Mine isn’t that great yet either. She is decent, don’t get me wrong, ideall I would be replacing ll the lvl 88 gear with lvl 90 gear. Or she would have roughly the same stats but also have like 100 % ER, so that I can go with a more offensive artifact, but for now, this will have to do. I don’t like her that much, but she is unfortunately necessary for RTA. ML Ravi is just one of those units where you have to have an answer for her or your team is just done. Her passive is just too unfair, since she regenerates health whenever she is getting hit and she heals herself when she counters. Most of the time, not every unit in someones team is a dmg dealer, so there will be tanks or supports or even aoe units with unimpressive S1s that will have to attack her if she is the last unit standing and she will heal more than she is being damaged. Combine that with her S3 which gets stronger the more people die AND the fact that she can revive a unit of yours with it, well, that makes her a bit of a nightmare unless you one shot her.

And there are only like 3 or 4 units that can reliably do so, and the rest of the team can cover for those.

Before I had her, ML Ravi was always my go to ban, simply because that was easier than having to deal with her. LQC and Hwayoung are the best answers to her, and the enemy bans Hwayoung too often and LQC requires another unit to set her up, preferably two. She absolutely needs an atk buff and a cr push, or risks of being killed herself before she can take out ML Ravi, so yeah, it always sucks when you have to dedicate half of your team to get rid of one enemy unit.

Another unit I am lowkey exited for because of an upcoming buff is Penelope.

She is a three star, which actually means her stats are rather bad and she shouldn’t really be viable in high end RTA and there are other untis who can do what she does better.

I still want to use her, though, mainly because of the upcoming change to Double Edged Decrescent. Its new effect will be 

Increases Evasion by 20%.

After successfully evading, has a 15-30% chance to counterattack.

And while everyone is eying Riolet for this, and I can’t blame them but I don’t have the guy, I feel there is potential with Penelope’s S1. Her S1 gives her a 15 % Cr push when she attacks and, if she defeats an enemy, it gives her an additional CR push of 75% on top. Each S1 use increases her attack as well.

Penelope is getting a lot of mileage out of her S1, so having evasion plus a counter option actually sounds really good for her. If she actually manages to kill a unit, she can actually steal a turn. Her s2 also gives her a barrier, which on top of the evasion will actually give her sufficient protection to survive quite a bit. Sure, it is still RNG, but with her, I feel it’s worth it. I have no idea if this will pan out, but I want to try.

So yeah, still playing the game, still interested, but doing less so. Farming Banshee atm as well, but am behind the story and behind a few SCs, so will need to catch up there as well.

I even rebuilt my Banshee team, by swapping out my high speed Bellona for Leo. So, right now, my team consists of Vivian, Leo and Baiken, which makes it a very basic team for Banshee, but it is relatively easy to hit the required gear to do so. Lots of people do so, and this has been a staple team for a while now. Had to throw a like 5 mola at Leo to get his S2 running, but yeah, it is a very reliable roughly one minute clear.

The speedy Bellona was more elegant, but it was a) less stable and b) required a very fast Bellona, which is gear that is better used on PVP units.

Guess I can also share my thoughts on the Balance Adjustment patch overall, but I don’t really have anything to say that most others didn’t.

The ML Lidica changes are better than nothing but don’t seem to be enough to make her viable in the current meta. She still wants to be an opener and she is too slow to do so, especially since she still wants high effectiveness AND 1oo% crit chance. And we have a few units that are simply faster than her. I don’t think ML 5 units are getting exclusive equipment, but she would need that with a flat stat in speed in order to matter or a fundamental change to one of her skills, which grants her a CR push or a different purpose other than opener.

But yeah, right now, she can be an interesting last pick, but it does seem like most people would usually have better options than her.

Ervalen’s change is a bit of an insult, as it is essentially ruining the character. His PVP purpose and identity will be gone and in turn, he will become a Banshee farmer, which is something he could already do. So, I am not seeing the purpose in this change. I hope they reconsider, since there has been heated pushback against this change.

Senya’s buffs seem to make her the one who got the best changes. Getting rid of the RNG aspect of her S2 and instead getting a barrier based on her tremendous attack power, on top of her special equipment providing additional barrier strength should give her a barrier that rivals Hwayoung’s and her barrier is so strong.

Fire Yufine’s change seems okay, don’t really have any opinions there.

Alencia’s artifact change also seems good, since that makes it best in slot for her in particular. Honestly, I think it makes it useful for only her, I don’t know who else would benefit from it, but yeah, it’s good for her since that frees up the Draco Plate that most people were running her with.

I am rather happy with Alencia atm, ever since she got her last buff, she has been in a really good place. She had been dead for a while, so am happy for her return. Same with Diene.

So yeah, that’s my current epic seven status.

[mirroroftheworld]

okay hold on lets make one neat little post for this

delilah: please be last season dlc

slayer: like 90% chance hes the last dlc character? there are files in the game relating to him and there have been a few mentions to vampires in strive already and his files were found alongside baikens and baiken is in strive now. so. slayer nation rise up

asuka: its like a 50% chance of him being the last season dlc. its 90% if we just count dlc in general but for this current season hes like. half. his files were in the game for a while but then they got removed. if hes the last season dlc im going to eat a shoe

jam: shes not even relevant to the story at large i think and her files were her xrd model so she was probably just a test character. im sorry jam fans :(

bridget: possible? he ranked n1 in the japan popularity pool. he topped baiken of all characters and baiken won all the other 3 pop pools. im pretty sure if he got into strive arcsys would make some mad cash so

testament: okay i dont know about testament actually. theres a chance because he APPARENTLY got a whole new model in strive for the credits scene, and bear in mind he was completely absent in xrd so there was no xrd model to be based on, but i also heard that testament in the credits was actually a drawing? like when you put transparent pngs in the background to give the illusion of population and stuff? so. sorry testament fans we cant be sure

venom: hes too busy making bread

aba:

[gear-project]

One Character versus THE ROSTER

This issue has been on my mind of late: the idea that people are so focused on one singular character in fighting games that that single character is what defines whether or not they like the game or not.

I hate to break it to most of you newcomers to fighting games, but... Ryu isn't the only character in Street Fighter.

Just like Sol Badguy isn't the only Guilty Gear character, or Baiken, or Chipp, or Jack-O', or even Elphelt.

I want you to understand something: hating on characters is just as bad as focusing on ONE singular character.

Now I get it, as fans we sometimes obsess over one particular character we relate to... I know there's plenty of people like that, I was like that once too when I was younger. I matured and grew out of it, though.

But nowadays everyone's so quick to be opinionated: I hate this character, that character sucks, this character's broken, I can't fight against this character, etc etc, whining endlessly.

I had an argument recently with someone about why they hated Xrd, and they always go on and on endlessly about why they hated Leo Whitefang as a character.

Let me ask you a VERY IMPORTANT question: unless said character is pure Paywall "Expensive" DLC... is the game preventing you from playing as that character? For any reason?

Even if you don't own the character, that's not necessarily a guarantee that someone might one day gift you some DLC for your Birthday/Christmas, whatever... right?

What's the difference between playing AS a character versus fighting AGAINST that character?

Have you ever really pondered that question?

Even in a mirror match, no two Leo Whitefangs are the same. Unless you're complaining about what color they picked, which is purely for aesthetics (and laughing, apparently).

But, even then, the playing field is more level than it will ever be in other situations.

Even if you have a hard time fighting against someone like Leo... playing AS Leo means you have the same advantages (and disadvantages) THAT HE DOES!

Brilliant!

But hey, I'm not saying it's a braindead counter-pick... you still have to learn how to use him just like any OTHER CHARACTER IN THE ROSTER... YOU STILL HAVE TO TAKE THE TIME TO LEARN THEM.

Even Sol Badguy, for as much time as people spend hating on him... Sol has been hated since the very first Guilty Gear... no one could beat him in Arcade Mode even... I mean c'mon, you guys need to seriously learn the game if you want to win.

But that's just it.

You need to learn the game. To STUDY the ROSTER.

Instead of bellyaching about what a character can do AGAINST you... learn what they can't do. Learn what weaknesses they DO HAVE.

"Why can't I win?" Simple: You don't know how to win. Learn HOW to win.

"Why can't I play the way I want to?" For as much freedom as Guilty Gear has afforded us over the years, Roman Cancels, Dead Angles, Charge Cancels, Instant Kills, Burst Overdrives, Forcebreak Abuse, even something as simple as jump cancels or Instant Airdash in someone's face... it takes a bit of creativity on your part to come up with something substantial.

But, it's your own fault if your Opponent can see right through it. Don't make it too obvious. Keep your Aces close to the chest, put on that Poker face.

If you're fighting someone who is more skilled than you, OF COURSE you're gonna have a hard time.

But that's the best time to ask questions: what CAN you do? What CAN'T you do? What SHOULD you do? How can you get sneaky?

"Why can't I have fun?" That BEGS the QUESTION: what is your definition of fun?

This all boils back in to my main topic: ENJOYING THE ROSTER AS A WHOLE.

Yeah sure, that one character is super strong, or that other character is annoying to deal with...

But they aren't the only characters worth spending your emotions and time on, are they?

How many characters can you say you've put in your pocket and studied? How many characters have you even TRIED?

Mmm, okay, yeah, some are difficult to learn at first... but I'd wager that once you pick up a key nuance of a particular character, all the pieces of how they play will fall in to place.

There is NO CHARACTER that is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN.

I'd actually state, that with GGStrive, most characters are boiled down to their most BASIC OF BASIC ELEMENTS. Some might argue they are TOO BASIC.

But learning the basics is always important. That's why they're called "Fundamentals".

Picking up a random character, pushing buttons, and exploring what they can do isn't hard at all.

The next question you need to ask is... how far do you want to go with this character?

Every character I've fought with always has a tough matchup or two... that goes for ANY character, and even the strongest characters (like Justice, or heck, Leopaldon), have situations they cannot handle.

But rather than dwell on the things they can't do... looking at everything they CAN do and handling the situation when its in your favor to WIN... is the most ideal outcome.

So why focus on the ROSTER instead of ONE CHARACTER?

In my case, I don't dwell on specific situations because that only happens with one or two events/situations. I like to look at the OVERALL SMELL OF THE GAME.

Yes, of course characters have a hard time in some situations... but it's when they SHINE in OTHER situations... situations that you've practiced for, situations you've studied... even situations you found were interesting. Studying the MATCHUP in other words: is where things become less "effort" and more "fun".

How many times have you abused a character who had a hard time against the character you picked? I'm sure it's a guilty pleasure to a lot of people. We can be just as brutal to people on the dishing end as we often complain about being on the receiving end.

But even THAT is a learning process, it's a learning experience for both the abusee, and the abuser.

Even if it looks like I'm "bored" kicking the bejeezus out of some poor loser who can't fight back... that's only what it looks like on the outside:

On the INSIDE, I'm expecting them to find a way to fight back. To turn the tables on my methods. To flip my strategies on their ear. To make my attempts at fighting look like I pushed the wrong button.

That's what META is... looking at the same situations over and over and seeing what different THINGS you can DO in those situations. How will you respond if you somehow manage to block Volcanic Viper? How will you respond if I were to wiff this attack?

But, again, THIS IS WHY THE ROSTER AS A WHOLE IS SO INTERESTING!

Why can't people SEE this????

Each character has their own responses to unique situations... and they can, in turn, create their own unique situations.

But you have to know how to handle those situations if you want to win.

The only other excuse you'd have for hating a character is if you hated their wardrobe and color choices... that's just a fashion opinion at the end of the day.

But, to me... it's not about winning... it's about enjoying each and every situation.

To enjoy the "world" of Guilty Gear, not just one person in it.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Guilty Gear has always been a series just dripping with style thanks to the wildly varied talents and tastes of Ishiwatari Daisuke.  But in the sizable cast of rock’n’roll and heavy metal inspired fighters, one of my all time favorite designs has been the dramatic redesign of Baiken in Guilty Gear Xrd.  Let me break down why!

So starting with her design in general, the origin story goes that Ishiwatari Daisuku saw an illustration of Himura Kenshin, from the manga Rurouni Kenshin, and liking the design, but mistaking Kenshin for a woman, based Baiken’s early art off of that.  Her earliest art seems pretty in line with that, right down to the red hair, but notably that hair changed colors, shifting towards more of a deep pink.  Her name, Baiken [梅喧] is written with the kanji meaning “Plum” and ”Noisy/Uproarious.”

Like many flowering plants, the word can refer directly to either the fruit, the tree, or the flower; and many common girls names in Japanese use the names of flower.  The name Baiken thus reads as a kind of self descriptor, communicating the idea of a “Loud & rambunctious woman.”  The plum blossom is also where her hair color and various emblazoned clothing designs come from.

 Her one-eyed, one-armed swordswoman gimmick is also a direct reference to a number of sources.  Initially the overt reference in her design is to the character Tange Sazen, a character from a series of films from the 30s, 50s, and 60s.  (themselves, spinoffs of a serial novel from the 20s.)  But there have also been three Lady Sazen films, further spinoffs depicting a genderbent version of the iconic character.

In her updated Xrd design, she covers her scarred eye with a curious kind of accessory: a katana crossguard (tsuba) under the lens of a single-eyed aviator goggle.  The eyepatch is a reference to another famous swordsman character, Yagyuu Juubei.  Unlike Sazen, Juubei was in fact a real historical figure, although much of his reputation is built upon folk lore or pure fiction.  Juubei has become a name synonymous with eyepatch wearing swordsmen (sometimes samurai, sometimes ninja), whether they are meant to be the legendary character himself, or simply named after him.  And the distinctive tsuba eyepatch is derived from his portrayal by martial arts actor Sonny Chiba in various chanbara films and TV shows from the 70s and 80s.

The aviator goggles are a bit more obtuse, in part because they aren’t entirely accurate, but the flight goggles (as well as the combat boots) are evocative of Japan’s kamikaze pilots.  The small issue is that the WWII model goggles were larger and rounder, where as the particular flat angled lens are more distinctive of the British RAF.  The combat boots, also evoking a bit of a soldier aesthetic, are cut into sandals in the style of a samurai’s suneate and waraji.

But of course the most noticeable addition to her wardrobe is the school uniform she wears over her shoulders like a half-cape.  The school uniform itself is an older, and nowdays lesser used, style called a gakuran; once a fairly ubiquitous style, in modern Japan it’s relegated to middle schoolers, rather than high schoolers.  The particular open style of it however is derived from equally outdated Yankii and Banchou aesthetics: a kind of high school delinquent archetype that was popular in manga and even film in the 70s and 80s.  Of note here is that she still leans on the Banchou look with the boys’ uniform, and not something from the image of the Sukeban (the girl gang archetype of the same era) lending her a bit of an androgynous vibe. (one somewhat unfortunately offset by her enormous breasts.)

She’s also sporting a fun skull design that is a pretty obvious attempt at a legally distinct spin on the Misfits logo.  It’s a nice way to compliment the delinquent theme while also tying her to the Punk genre.  Most of the Guilty Gear cast are themed around various rock bands and musicians, but Baiken has always been one of just a handful that are curiously non-musically themed.  Kind of a shame they don’t throw more of the Horror Punk aesthetic in there, though.

Additionally, while she wears a pretty normal looking kimono and kind of silly sarashi (the body wrap that confusingly ISN’T binding her gigantic breasts into place), her belt and makeshift half-cape are tied with a kind of braided and tasseled cord called a Fusa-himo.  A Fusa-himo is generally not an article of clothing; it can be used in decoration and for binding a sword sheathe, but as clothing it’s generally considered a synonym for a western aiguillette, used in military uniforms.  I can’t really tell if its more evocative of a soldier or of a katana decoration in the way it’s used here.

And speaking of accessories, just a handful of other little samurai goodies that really give her character some flavor and texture:

Samurai strut: a distinctive chin up(looking down on others), chest out swagger originating in the character acting of Kabuki theater, but taken more directly from the body language of actors on film in classic chanbara film.

Tatami-Gaeshi: “Mat block.”  A film cliche of samurai and ninja fiction where an ambushed warrior upturns a tatami mat from the floor of the room he’s in to defend himself.

Nuguigami: Wiping paper used in traditional sword cleaning (which she of course has to used with her mouth, mixed with the Falling Paper/Leaves/Silk cutting cliche from samurai fiction.

Kiseru: The traditional Japanese tobacco pipe with metal bowl and mouthpiece.  The Kabuki-mono (a sub-culture of gaudy, rowdy, and generally socially disruptive samurai in the 1500-1600s) were known to carry large Kiseru as one of their many ways of showing off, but given how prone to bar brawls they were, it was said some were so large (and considering their metal components) they could be used to fend off attacks from a sword. 

Hyoutan: The hollowed Calabash gourd used to store sake.

Manriki & Tekko-kagi: The weighted chain weapon and hand claw she keeps concealed in her empty sleeve.

Kanabou: In her Xrd design, the simple metal claw was changed into an iron club with retractable clawed joints.

O-zutsu & Taihou: Her lacquered handcannon and full size cannon that she pulls out of her loose sleeve.

The fullsized cannon is decorated with a Shisa head: an Okinawan guard dog statue, related to the Chinese lion-dogs, but identifiable by its distinctive tightly curled mane pattern.

[shenlongshao]

GG Strive Thoughts: Part 3

Welcome to the last part of my Guilty Gear Strive thoughts!^_^ I'll be focusing on the art-style and character designs, so there will be lots of pictures in this post. I hope you enjoy reading!

Art-Style & Graphics ---------------

Guilty Gear's visuals always had a detailed, Sci-Fi fantasy anime look with creativity of the 1990s and early 2000s. This mostly stayed the same until Xrd SIGN, which introduced 3D cel-shaded graphics in a new way. The art-style also changed a bit from previous games, although it has kept its creativity.

GG Xrd SIGN and the following games(Revelator and Revelator 2) look beautiful, but it took me a while to get used to the art-style because of those dreaded chins. The characters should've just used their chins to fight cause of how long and pointy they are; just go "SLLASSHHHH!" XD  Certain features of characters were exaggerated like Sol's shoulders being a bit too wide for his body or how Baiken's hair is thicker and spikier. Some people say it's "too anime", but that isn't the right word for it. I would say "whimsical" is main trait from the art-style, which is fitting for how funny the interactions are in-game and lighter tone in story.

Guilty Gear Strive keeps the cel-shaded 3D graphics, but manages to expand it further. Instead of its presentation akin to an anime TV series, it's now akin to a high-budget anime movie with detail given to both the characters and the environments. It's less whimsical this time, giving the impression the story will be darker in tone. I'm really happy the art-style was changed to being closer to the older GG games like X2; no more ice-cream cone chins!XD  The characters also got redesigned to match the essence of the new game. I'll be talking about eachone in order from least to most in terms of design changes. I'll also rate them in Guilty Gear style grade form. POTEMKIN ------------------- There seems to be mixed reactions when Potemkin got revealed for GG Strive. Some were happy he looked generally the same while others were a little disappointed and asked, "How come he didn't get a huge redesign like the other characters?!" The answer is he already did; this is how Potemkin originally looked like in the GG series.

This design relates to Potemkin's story in the beginning. The Zepp empire in the past was a very corrupted, technology advanced nation. It contained battle-slaves with strength enhancement steriods and bound them with a special limiter. Potemkin was one of these battle-slaves with his huge, red metal color being the limiter. If he ever took it off, it would explode. However, Zepp was changed when Gabriel became President and freed all the Zeppian slaves, including Potemkin. He now serves as Gabriel's bodyguard out of genuine loyalty, gratitude, and care for his mentor and the renewed Zepp.

Judging on his old design by itself, I think he looked average(based on what he's wearing). His features definitely fit the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" because Potemkin is actually a gentle giant who's very intelligent. But the way he looks(except when interacting with certain characters), it's like he wants to break someone's bones, lol.

In the concept artwork in Guilty Gear X Plus(Japanese exclusive game), it hinted of what Potemkin will eventually developed into look-wise and story-wise. Even the pose from this pic was used later in Xrd SIGN. I really wish the design of the boots was used instead those weird looking ones he's wearing now, XD.

Now to look at Potemkin's design in Xrd SIGN.

This is Potemkin's drastic redesign needed because of the changes in his life and his resolve being tested. I love this design so much because it accurately portrays Potemkin's personality. The first is his steel helmet with a spike at the top, accented with the Zepp symbol at the center of his forehead. His face is mostly shrouded in darkness except for the glowing lens. The yellow ponytail fur attached adds to the essence of a modern steel knight. Next is the black collar having spikes at the front; he also has on spiked shoulder plates to emphasis his strength. The power part is also in the round-shaped limiters attached to the upper parts of his uniform and glove compartment of his gauntlets. The design of his gauntlets is derived from the GGX Plus concept art, except the gloves completely cover his fingers and has a robotic aesthetic to it. I notice green is the most dominant color in Potemkin's design and there's a reason why besides it being Zepp's uniform.

Here is the Green Personality taken from Color Psychology (https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-green.html):

You are a practical, down-to-earth person with a love of nature. You are stable and well balanced or are striving for balance - in seeking this balance, you can at times become unsettled and anxious. Having a personality color green means you are kind, generous and compassionate - good to have around during a crisis as you remain calm and take control of the situation until it is resolved.

You are caring and nurturing to others - however you must be careful not to neglect your own needs while giving to others. You are intelligent and love to learn - you are quick to understand new concepts. You are a good citizen and like to be involved in community groups. You have high moral standards and doing the right thing is important to you.

There is more, but I only taken pieces that describe Potemkin's personality, showing why green is his main color. Now onto his look in GG Strive starting with his helmet.

On the forehead of the helmet, the Zepp symbol is no longer a design mark, but an carved symbol with the words "Armor-clad faith" underneath. Instead of just darkness on his face, it accentuates the robotic aesthetic with the gears and the lens having an orange tint. Next is a full body screenshot of Potemkin.

The spiked shoulder plates is less noticeable and his uniform is more formal. There's now a maroon-red collar with white trim and yellow buttons. The spikes on the black collar part of his outfit is gone, there's thick pockets on the lower part of his suit and has a brown belt instead of black. His boots is also brown instead of black and the plates around his feet is orange instead of red. There's additional limiters on his upper back that is revealed when doing certain attacks, showing his power has grown more. His muscle mass has also gotten super HUGE to the point I wouldn't be surprised if he reached Sentinel(X-Men) size, XD.

Design Rating: S++(Fantastic!) SOL BADGUY ------------ ---------- Sol Badguy is the main protagonist, so there was never a worry or surprise of his GG Strive design. There's also the fact his design isn't really new; it's heavily derived from the artwork of Guilty Gear 2:Overture. But first is looking at Sol's most iconic design from the GG series.

I'll always love this design because I think it's stylish, cool, and timeless. He's handsome in the traditional tough-guy way and perfectly fits the anti-hero type. His metal red headband acts as a limiter for his Gear powers and has the words "Rock You" in the center of his forehead. Besides it symbolizing his love for Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack" music album and controlling his Gear powers, it also symbolizes how he keeps his inner thoughts to himself and close-mindedness. He wears a black undershirt layered with a sleeveless, chest-length red jacket with a buckle strap. This style is very unconventional, which is exactly Sol is; he doesn't follow typical conventions. His red and black gloves conveys his toughness while his belt with the "FREE" tells of his philosophy. This also hints complexity to his nature since the belt is from when he was in the Holy Order, an aspect of his past. This shows he's inwardly caring and values the people in life along with his experiences. Lastly, is his white pants accented with buckles and red shoes.

The GG2:Overture Short Stories goes into some detail of the events before the game like how he was entrusted to raise Sin(Ky & Dizzy's son), etc. The major difference with Sol's design from the short stories is he's wearing a sensible red jacket similar to his old one, but its design still has traits of being its own style. His black undershirt is slightly different with a small V-shape cut-out in the middle, longer sleeves, and slightly loose around his stomach instead of fitted. His gloves has more of a biker vibe to them and no aspect of red nor buckles within them. He still wears red shoes on his feet, though tweaked in its looks. While this did hinted of Sol's character development, it wasn't a large factor because alot of the huge events at the time and before were placed on him rather than him confronting it by himself. It's why for Xrd SIGN, he primary reverted to his iconic look, though his GG2:Overture Short Stories look did get tweaked and used within the game's Story Mode. Now for his GG Strive look.

His GG Strive design blends both his GG2:Overture Short Stories look and aspects of his iconic design, which I really like. The red jacket with black trim conveys his free-spirited persona, yet also comfortable and relaxed. There's also a little bit more white seen on the cuffs of his jacket, meaning his heart is more open. This relates to his character development of finally confronting his past, his feelings, and his relationships. But he's still Sol Badguy and there's much for him to find out and explore, especially since red and black is still his main colors. There is deep meaning to this too.

Red Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-red.html):

You are action oriented and physically active - sex is a necessity to you - you have strong survival instincts. Lovers of red are the explorers and pioneers of the world, the entrepreneurs and builders who like to be first in discovering new physical realms. You are always in a hurry, wanting to do everything right now. Patience is not one of your strong points. Red people can be aggressive and easy to anger, often exhibiting a violent temper - this is negative passion and energy. You flare up instantaneously but calm down quite quickly once you get it out of your system and then forget it ever happened. You have a strong need for power and control which is connected to your basic survival instincts.

Black Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-black.html):

You are independent, strong-willed and determined and like to be in control of yourself and situations. You may appear intimidating to even your closest colleagues and friends, with an authoritarian, demanding and dictatorial attitude. You hold things inside and are not good at sharing yourself with others, possibly out of fear. You may be retreating behind black during a difficult time in your life such as a serious illness or a period of grief - black protects, allowing for a deep inner healing without interference from others. I'll add traits of the color White since there's a noticeable amount on Sol.(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-white.html): Positive traits of White: Simplicity, self-efficient, growth/new beginnings, open, equality, rescuer, and sense of completion. These traits describe Sol. Overall, I like the design and feel it suits him well. Design Rating: S+++(Perfect!) MAY ----------- So far, May is the only female character revealed for the initial roster of GG Strive. There's mixed reactions with May's redesign for the new game. Some are happy she finally looks like she's in her early to mid teens(like 14 or 16) instead like a little girl. But others aren't happy with the changes to her outfit, saying it's bland. Let's look at May's iconic design. 

In my opinion, May is the coolest looking child character. Her open-sides style coat with side slits layered with a skin-tight bodysuit blends both cute and stylish. Adding to it is the tricon pirate hat, silver plating on her wrists and neckline, and orange short boots with black trim. Lastly, a black belt is around her waist while buckles accents her orange coat. This shows she's spunky, cheerful, and deceptively strong. In the story, her origins was unknown at the time, which perfectly fits due to there's black as part of color scheme(one of the meaning for black is mystery). Story-wise, May's development gradually grows from finding Johnny and later recruiting Dizzy as a member of the crew. Her curiosity of her heritage surfaces, causing some changes in her design.

In Xrd SIGN, Her skin-tight bodysuit is gone and replaced with just a black, fitted tank underneath her orange overalls. Her pants is loose-fitting along with having a big buckle around her waist and different boots still in orange with black trim. She doesn't have the silver plating collar, but other aspects of her iconic look like her pirate hat is kept. May finally finds out she's Japanese and dealing a mysterious condition that (currently) can't be cured. This is a huge story development for May that leads to be expanded further and another redesign. First is looking up the facial shot of May for Guilty Gear Strive.

May's facial features is the first noticeable difference. The art-style is a strong factor in this, but May looks physically older. She still has big, cute brown eyes, though not as large as in Xrd SIGN. This makes her face appear a little longer face to convey a hint of maturity. Yet, she still hasn't escaped being just cute in an innocent way. Another difference is her hair is slightly shorten to halfway to her back instead to her waist. It's also loose instead of a thick ponytail within her pirate hat, which I think it's a nice little change. Her hat is shaped more round instead of oversized tricon while still retaining the pirate skull at the front. The anchor design on the sides makes it both simple, yet stylish. Now to see the full body of May's new look!

.....Lol, May is wearing a dumb orange hoodie, XD. What's worse is the hoodie has no special designs pertaining to May's personality or style; it's overly casual. There's also no shape, making her look like a fat fish. The skin-tight black short-shorts doesn't help with how oversized the hoodie is, which if it weren't for certain angles, it gives the illusion she isn't wearing anything on her lower body. It looks like lounge wear meant to be worn around the house instead of clothing a person would wear going on an adventure. Speaking of adventure, she has a backpack.

The backpack itself is cute because it's Chimaki(mascot of GG) and do see the the letter J with a heart; meaning love for Johnny. But other than this, this backpack also doesn't really relate to May. Besides being the mascot for the series, Chimaki is specific to Sin because it's favorite toy. None of May's official art ever showed her having a Chimaki toy or accessory. The casual look gives me the impression she quit the Jellyfish Pirates, but her winning animation of her saying "Jellyfish victory!" and Leap(the elderly lady who cooks) being there disproves this theory. Besides the hat, the only things kept from her iconic look is her gloves and boots. There's a heart on one of her thighs; a fitting aspect for a pirate.

Now to look at the Orange personality since it's May's main color(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-orange.html): 

With orange as your favorite color, you are warm, optimistic, extroverted and often flamboyant. You are friendly, good-natured and a generally agreeable person. You are assertive and determined rather than aggressive - having a personality color orange means you are more light-hearted and less intense than those who love red. You thrive on human social contact and social gatherings, bringing all types together.

You live your life based on your 'gut reactions'. You are an adventurer - you love the outdoor life, camping, climbing mountains and indulging in adventurous sports such as sky diving and hang gliding. You are the daredevil, always looking towards your next challenge, your next great adventure. 

This definitely fits May's nature. My impression of her simpler look probably hints of May is unsure of herself and trying to figure something out. Her expression in her new character portrait has this too; it's the first one of her not smiling. But I still think this new look for May is bad(except for the hat,  the boots, and the gloves). Her design should've been something like this picture link below.

https://imgur.com/Ue1XdhT The top would need to cover her stomach, but this design perfectly fits with May's nature and role as a Jellyfish Pirate. It also conveys she's adventurous and can easily implemented the backpack as part of the design. But it wasn't used... I'm nicknaming her May of the Jelly-Fat, lol. Worst design so far(and hopefully the only one). Design Rating:D(for Derailed) KY KISKE ----------------- Ky's radical redesign for GG Strive was such a huge shock to everyone. At first, people thought it was Sin(Ky's son) until examining him closely. It's funny how many people are saying "Ky's handsome now" and saying he has an athletic body when in reality, he always did, XD. It isn't the first time Ky got big changes to his look based on the events in his life, but I'm going to focus on Ky's iconic design.

Ky is the opposite of Sol; the traditional knight-in-shining-armor type hero. This is another design I'll call timeless and my personal favorite look for Ky. He's very handsome in a princely way, which is fitting since Ky is a French noble. He wears a white shoulder cape containing a high collar with blue trim. It's attached to the blue knight-tunic with black trim in the front, accented with a white, trench-coat like detail. There's twin belts attached to his blue and black gloves while one is on his matching boots. Layered underneath his uniform is his black and white, sleeveless turtle neck and fitted detached sleeves. The belt around his waist with "HOPE" conveys Ky's philosophy. This attire is the Holy Order uniform, which conveys how strongly Ky holds onto the teachings and experiences he had during those times. His story at the time was about fulfilling his duty and doing what he knows and believes is right. Blue and white has always been Ky's main colors, which tells alot about his personality.

Meaning of White Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-white.html): 

Having a personality color white means you are neat and immaculate in your appearance, in the presentation of your home and in your car, almost to the point of being fanatical. You are far-sighted, with a positive and optimistic nature. You are well-balanced, sensible, discreet and wise. You think carefully before acting - you are definitely not prone to impulsive behavior. You tend to have a great deal of self control. You may appear to be shy, but you do have strong beliefs about most things and love the opportunity to air those beliefs. The challenge for you is to be open-minded and flexible and to communicate your needs and desires. Meaning of Blue Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-blue.html):   You are conservative, reliable and trustworthy - you are quite trusting of others although you are very wary in the beginning until you are sure of the other person. At the same time, you also have a deep need to be trusted. You are not impulsive or spontaneous - you always think before you speak and act and do everything at your own pace in your own time. You take time to process and share your feelings. You are genuine and sincere, and you take your responsibilities seriously. Having a personality color blue means you have a deep need for peace and harmony in your everyday life - you don't like having your feathers ruffled. You would benefit from daily meditation and quiet time for reflection, introspection and self-discovery.

You appear to be confident and self-controlled, but may be hiding your vulnerable side. Being a personality color blue means you are generally fairly even-tempered, unless your emotions take over - then you can become either moody and over-emotional, or cool and indifferent. You are sensitive to the needs of others and caring with your close circle of friends. While you are friendly and sociable, you prefer the company of your own close group of friends.

You are a rescuer and love to be needed but one of your lessons is to learn to love yourself first - you live from your heart and are always busy putting the needs of others first. You can be rigid - you like to stick to what is familiar to you and it is hard to sway you from your path - you stubbornly do things your way even if there is a better way. You need to have direction & order in your living and work spaces - untidiness and unpredictability overwhelm you.

You are approachable and friendly, always making people feel welcome in your life. You have a thirst for knowledge in order to gain wisdom and appear knowledgeable in whatever area interests you. You are spiritual or religious with a high degree of devotion to family, God, or other causes that are important to you. If reacting negatively, you are prone to self-pity. These perfectly fit Ky's personality and has mostly stayed with him throughout his character development. Now to look at his GG Strive redesign beginning with the head.

One of the obvious difference is Ky's hair is short, reminiscent of his iconic look. But it raises the question of how since according to the story, it's stated his hair grows rapidly no matter how many times he tries to cut it(due to heavily implying he's part Gear). I'm guessing either Ky followed Sin's method of cutting his hair every 3 days or he found a special hair product to prevent rapid growth, XD. I notice the style of his hair is a bit different; the strands of his bangs is shorter and thicker. It creates a boyish look instead of a young man, which doesn't fit Ky. It doesn't seem noticeable during gameplay, but cutscene-like sequences it's the opposite. His hair should've been exactly like GGX2.

His facial structure and eyes in GG Strive is exactly like in GGX2 except for one part; his chin. While Ky's chin was never wide like most male characters, it usually isn't this narrow either. The narrower chin makes him look younger and with how the hair is styled, it gives the impression it's Ky from an earlier timeline. If his chin was similar to how it was in GG X2, it will improve his look alot and show he's mature and sophisticated. Next is examining the full body picture of his new look.

This is a huge departure in many ways. The only aspect inspired from his iconic design is the shoulder cape, but it lacks the blue trim around the helms and collar. Instead, there's black trim at the helms and hints of blue at the back with the words "Illyrium". His semi-fingerless gloves with fingernail plating is something he doesn't usually wear, but the back of his hands does have plating saying "Nothing can be done without hope". It shows he still generally has the same philosophy and key traits he's known for. The fact his "HOPE" belt is replaced with 2 standard belts(one black and the other brown) implies his mindset he carried from the Holy Order is gone and became open-minded. His open, V-neckline shirt with a single sleeve is inspired from this.

I do find it interesting how this reveals(pun intended) a different side of him, XD. It adds a sense of sensuality that leading men from romantic novels have and obviously it being sexy. Next is his fitted pants accented with blue crosses at the front then his boots with blue trim at the bottom. The most significant change is how Ky's dominant color is now black, which has important meaning to his character development.

Positive traits of Black: Include protection and comfort, strong, contained, formal, sophisticated, seductive, mysterious, endings & beginnings.

Negative traits of Black: Depressing and pessimistic, secretive and withholding, conservative and serious, power & control, sadness and negativity.

All of these fit Ky and since he's wearing alot of black instead of blue and white, this implies he has or going to have an internal struggle. I haved mixed feelings about his new design.

I love the concept of it and think it's nice to see Ky wear something different as his main attire. By itself the outfit is good and easy to adjust to, it's just not as unique as his original design. The design of blue crosses from his GG Accent Core Plus ending should've been implemented in the new design and add some gold trim to balance out all the black. I think his gloves should be changed to be more stylish along with the silver plating. If it had these tweaks, Ky's new design would be perfect.  

Design Rating: A(Great!) CHIPP ZANUFF ------------------------ The reveal of Chipp's redesign has mostly been positive, but all of us immediately said "He is so BUFF!" People say he looks handsome now and have joked he worked out at the same gym as Chris Redfield, XD. Let's look at Chipp's previous design!

Chipp's iconic look definitely displays the street-punk style and rowdy persona. This perfectly fits with his dark past of being a former biochemical drug dealer and addict. He has wild spiky hair, small red earrings, and a leather choker around his neck. The fishnet undershirt is both punk-style and those who practice ninjitsu wears. He has fingerless gloves with silver, square-shaped plating. This aspect is also on his belt and short-length boots. There's two leather buckles strapped around the right leg of his white pants and has on a loose-fitting ninja vest with silver buttons. This highlights his newly adopted values he got from his mentor and father-like figure Master Tsuyoshi. Chipp even has on black eyeliner around his eyes to emphasizes the punk look. Since he primarily wears black and white with hints of red, this tells about his personality. Black and white together obviously means viewing things in a straightforward way instead of complex like gray. Red conveys of his hot-headed masculinity, passion, and impatient nature. Combined with the other colors, it shows Chipp's other side of having pure intentions, even though it doesn't always come across right.

In Xrd SIGN, only minor tweaks were made such as adding a red sash attached to his belt, extra detail on his pants and boots, and slightly thicker eyeliner. Ever since becoming president of a (currently) unofficial nation dubbed "Eastern Chipp Kingdom", Chipp's personality seemed to have mellowed some, though still has his impulsive tendencies. Chipp has been through alot of character development since the beginning. Now for his redesign for GG Strive starting with his face.

One of the things I notice about Chipp's face is while it's still narrow, it's a little fuller and smoother with slightly higher cheek bones. His chin is also about an inch or 2 wider than how it was in the Xrd series. His eyes still has the same defined shape, but the eyeliner isn't as thick. These tweaks to his facial features makes him look handsome and approachable instead of angry and rough. But his fiesty side is still there because besides his eye shape, his upper teeth now has some small fangs. Now to see a full body picture...

Chipp's hair also got tweaked; tt's still spiky, but more stylish instead of wild. Instead of strands of hair rest on his forehead, he has noticeable asymmetrical bangs. Besides his red earrings, Chipp's 2 main colors(black and white) is kept along with a little more red from the strings attached to his ninja gauntlets and strapped sandals. He still has the red sash attached to his belt, though this time he has a thick, rope belt(I think it's called "Obi"). His white pants is very loose-fitting and no longer has twin buckle straps, but does have a little more detail with the side silver buttons. On his upper body, Chipp has on a leather vest with a form-fitting, sleeveless turtleneck. The height of the collar covers his mouth and contains buckle straps. This look is inspired from his design in "The Butterfly and Her Gale".

It has aspects of the high collar, gauntlets, and boots, even though the boots was tweaked to be sandals. This redesign shows Chipp fully embraces Japanese culture and the ways of ninjitsu. I think it may also hint of him being or becoming a master himself and training others, especially with how he's gotten so muscular. The way they mixed old and new with Chipp's redesign is amazing and love the tweaks to his face and hair. I do think his pants maybe a bit too wide along with the rope-belt, but other than that his look is perfect.

Design Rating: S++(Awesome!) AXL LOW ------------------- "Axl got PANTS!" is the main reaction people had when he got revealed and the majority agree it's a much needed upgrade. This is the 3rd time Axl has gotten major design changes since GG:The Missing Link. His look from GGX and onwards greatly emphasizes he's heavily inspired from real-life singer Axl Rose. For Axl, I'm going look at his redesign for Xrd SIGN.

In comparison to the others, Axl's design was never high-fantasy or elaborate, but it makes sense he's from the 20th century. His look in Xrd mixes aspects from the 1st GG and GGX, which conveys his easy-going nature and trying to adapt to the future he's in while maintaining his values of the past. He still has his signature UK cap, brown fingerless gloves, and matching shoes. His white shirt has a unique black zipper tie that adds a hint of contemporary along with his blue jacket. Attached to his black belt on the hips is cloths of the UK flag and has on blue shorts. Red and blue has mostly been his main colors(with some white) that tells of his peaceful, friendly, and passionate nature. In the story, Axl is finally confronted about why he time-skips and must make a hard decision that forever change his life. The choice he made leads him to major character development along with what role he will play in the story, so he needed another redesign to reflect this.

This design shows Axl has embraced the current timeline while maintaining his love for his country. His fingerless gloves is a lighter brown along with his ankle-length boots. He wears a red plaid jacket with white sleeves and black with orange trim at the helms. Underneath is his a sleeveless, form-fitting tank with 3 zippers at the front and a brown buckle at the mid-section. On his lower body is a belt with a UK buckle and fitted, detailed black pants with zippers on the side. This look is inspired by the concept art.

I notice his new design as a mixture of colors compared to before, though it seems black is the most dominant color. One of the meanings for black is power and control, which fits with how Axl now has control over his Time powers. He also has an aura of confidence compared to his uncertainty in the past games. This is the perfect design for Axl because he looks amazing and conveys his personality well.

Design Rating: S+++(Perfect!)

Thank you for reading this! I'll make a series of this as more characters of the game are revealed in the future!^_^

[tranxendance]

Tranxendance’s Tags

I file things in a way that should make it easy enough to search my garbage fire of a blog for things.

BLOG RELATED CONTENT:

#mod ramblings - When I, the person behind this blog, is speaking directly to you, the reader. These are my personal thoughts and opinions only.

#almost original content - When I make something with my own two hands and brain and image editor. I call it ‘almost original’ because it’s almost always derivative work.

#jams - Music related posts. These may be music videos, audio posts, or just me talking about music. I basically like heavy metal more than god so this tends to be kind of a limited tag.

#shitposting - The memes go here. If you hate dumb shit, or aren’t in the mood for it, you can block this one and not miss much. I try not to use this one too much if I can avoid it.

#fanart - Art from a non-official source for a particular media. See also: the ‘fandoms’ section below.

#fan animation - Same as above, but animated, whether that be with 3d models or digital animation tools, or what have you.

#fancomic - Same as above, but told as sequential art with speech bubbles and narration boxes.

#ask responses - Whether this is an ask I sent to another blog and got an answer, or something someone asked me that I responsed to, this is where those go.

#long post - Block this if you’re on mobile because these are posts that you’d probably have to scroll for a very long time to get through. Also block this if you hate scrolling on desktop for some reason.

#cosplay - Costumes and clothing articles done to look like a character from a piece of media.

FANDOMS:

Rather than a comprehensive list, here’s an example and small sample of how I tag fandoms. I try to use the title as closely as possible as the tag. For Japanese media I try to use the official English title if any, unless I started the tag before there was one in which case I move ahead with what i’ve already been tagging. For videogames, I often also tag the developer’s name if it’s a company I follow and there is a noticeable ‘style’ similar between all of their work. A small sample of these are: boku no hero academia, nier, drakengard, girls’ last tour, berserk, bloodborne, fullmetal alchemist, bayonetta, metal gear solid, jojo’s bizzare adventure, komi-san, fist of the north star, galko-chan, hellsing, doom modding, fight knight, streets of rage, hello neighbor, final fight, dark souls, street fighter, persona, dragon ball, fighter z, golden boy, mob psycho 100, dragon’s crown, warhammer 40k, warhammer fantasy, yakuza.

ARTISTS NAMES:

Followed artists are tagged roughly by their URL, so that you can browse their work that i’ve reblogged. Exceptions are made for those who’ve changed their URLs since I began their tag, in which I tag as both their previous and current URLs for as long as I can remember to. I follow many artists, several of whom draw NSFW, so even though I do my best not to reblog anything too risque, there are no guarantees if you go to the artists’ blog itself. Some examples are:

ryuji-goda, bigmsaxon, gyarusatan, kiiryukazuma, tavoriel, ylwkirby, bb, qsy-draws-a-lot.

LESSER USED TAGS:

D&D and D&D Stuff: I used D&D tag if it’s directly related to the D&D pen & paper roleplaying game, and D&D Stuff for either something that seems to be tabletop related, or if it’s not 100% clear if it’s definitely intended to be from it.

Urban Fantasy - for Shadowrun and other monstrous or fantastic characters in a postmodern setting.

Fantasy Art - Art which depicts fantastical or mythological creatures, magic, or other imaginary things.

vikings but shorter and more ornate  and  orcs are the best people - art of Dwarves and Orcs respectively. Very likely to cross over with the above tags.

character writeup - when I design a personal, original character I write a little profile for them in this tag.

chickens cows sea life - Animal-related tags. Guess which animals I like a lot? I owned and raised egg-laying chickens for 5 years, and I’ve aspired to own a cow or ten someday, since they’re so expensive. I’m also a Florida kid so I like da oshun.

webcomics - I used to do a weekly thing where I’d repost and link to webcomics, back when I had to sit in a coffee shop or at mcdonalds for 2-4 hours a day waiting on my ride to get out of work. Rarely I still talk about webcomics

Killer pun - Posts with a pun in them. I like puns.

skeleton - Posts about skeletons. I think skele-mans are funny and awesome.

trigger warning: suicide and tw: suicide - I deal with suicidal ideation and sometimes I think its useful if you are at risk of harming yourself to tell other people, but at the same time, people reading about it can be hurt too. I don’t really do trigger warnings other than this one, as I don’t know what all post traumatic stress triggers people could potentially have.

CHARACTER NAME TAGS:

Good frog: Asui Tsuyu from my hero academia

Alien queen: Mina Ashido from my hero academia

Skull Dad: skull knight from Berserk

Aigis: Aigis from persona 3

Kanna gives me life: Kanna from Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

THE QUEEN: Camilla from Fire Emblem

Kanji Tatsumi is my spirit animal: Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4

Badass Amputee: Baiken from the Guilty Gear series.

[exclamatia]

Could you explain to me why you call GG characters trans or binary? For the longest time I have never understood why people say this kind of stuff. For the record, I don't want to come off as an ass or that I'm harassing you. I just scratch my head when see extreme things like "the Sun is trans." I just want to see this from a different perspective.

its to make the characters we love more relatable. when I say baiken is trans, it’s like.she’s such a fearless and beautiful character. shes someone that I look up to. being trans is scary and hard. but baiken doesnt take shit from anyone. she’s strong and willing to fight for herself and those she protects. seeing her as trans makes my struggles her struggles. and if she can do it, maybe i can too.theres nothing at all wrong with lgbt people having lgbt headcanons. like if there’s no canon stating that a character is cis or het, then i can honestly interpret them however i want.it’s a positivity thing.to use your example, the sun is bright and powerful and beautiful. nobody fucks with the sun. just like trans women. anyways im awful at explaining things, if anyone else wants to chime in on this, feel free.(also the term is ‘nonbinary’. male and female is the gender binary. nonbinary means outside of the gender binary. neither male nor female.)

[broken-clover]

maybe its my bias talking but im certain Anji is like the one person on earth aside from Sol that can piss Asuka off. Like he knows just enough about the guy to really get under his skin, and has spent enough time with him while he was still That Man to really know how to push his buttons. Asuka is the same, he KNOWS Anji in a way not even Baiken does. I keep thinking of them fucking each other up because Sol and Asuka patched things up but SOMEONE needs to punch asuka in the face

I think it would be fascinating to see Asuka pissed off. And, in a related note, I feel the same about the idea of him getting physically dirty. Here we have character whose entire presence has to do with being physically and psychologically removed from the series' main events, so he has the luxury of calm. Sure, at times he gets harried or flustered, but never full-on loses his temper or properly lashes out. I think it could make for an interesting grounding moment to see someone who's spent a century keeping to himself and putting on a facade of rationality and logic and superiority suddenly be unable to contend with something as basic as his own emotions when the right buttons get pushed by someone who actually knows how to prod them.

[gear-project]

Alright, since i can't play the Demo i can't be sure, but from what i've seem; Baiken's new stage is the 'Boat ride' one, and the other new one seems to be Hayehun's new homestage, still can't figure out which one is Awnser's, but the point is, what ARE those new stages? is the city one another part of the Colony, or some other place entirely? what relations do they have to the characters they're home to? and whose boat is that?

Jeon Reok (pronounced “Jonryoku”) Residence appears to be Kum’s home in Korea, though rather than simply call it a ‘home’ it is like a castle or mansion!  If you think about it though, the Kum Clan would be considered “well-off” because of their status as professional Tuners known worldwide.

I’m sure it’s because of this very reason Haehyun has had to hide her real identity from the public because of that heavy expectation.

There are a great deal of housemaids, who seem to be celebrating something with festive Zeal-themed Balloons.  At the center of this residence  appears to be a mysterious oddly-shaped monolith.  If I had to guess, it may have something to do with Haehyun’s training and development as a Tuner.

That is the summary of Kum Haehyun’s stage.

Ogre Valley (this stage is shared by Baiken and Answer) is actually located within the geography of the Japanese Dimensional Colony itself (the Colony is located near the Himalayas)!

The first thing you will notice are the very fanciful-looking 'statues’ on the boat alongside some luggage from various travelers, but as the boat begins its tour of the river, things are not as they seem…

The first clearing you see is evidence of a large-scale battle that seems to have taken place some time ago within the colony(!)  Why would a haven for the Japanese become a battleground despite the war on Gears raging beyond their borders?

Recall that in Guilty Gear Xtra, the Japanese weren’t the only individuals sealed within the Colony.  War Relics of various levels of danger, and other 'undesireables’ were sealed in with the Japanese because of the danger they represented.  It was expected that the Japanese would have the ability to deal with any issues that might arise because of their spiritual roots.

Upon closer inspection of one of the nearby gate-posts, one can see what has happened here: all the creatures on the battleground, demon or otherwise have been turned to stone!

But just as we enter yet another clearing, a new truth is revealed: off in the distance is a massive stone island, though rather than just call it an 'island’, it is this place’s very namesake.  A giant Ogre has been sealed in the very stone of the island, but something is amiss…

The birds of the area scatter in fear as they sense danger is coming: there is a “crack” in the stone, and the Ogre’s eye blinks and glances around.  It may not be much longer before its seal becomes undone.

Then the realization hits you: you’re standing right next to several unusual 'statues’ yourself!  Were they sealed creatures from a forgotten war?  Were they protective deities or demonic creatures the Japanese had to seal away?

Remember, Tyr was bound in a stone dragon statue before Magic unsealed him, and while he promised to protect Mizuha, the same can’t be said of the other 'undesireables’ lumped in with the Japanese!

As the true past of the Japanese comes to light, it seems war was unavoidable.  Humanity’s future remains uncertain!

[gear-project]

Do you know the heights of the GG cast? I know most of them are listed but not all of them. For example Baiken. My only ideas have been just to find shots of the characters standing next to other characters (who's heights we do know) and go from there via estimations.

Now that you mention it, I haven’t made a full list of the Arena Bios since Revelator added its DLC.

http://gear-project.tumblr.com/tagged/Arena (Vanilla Revelator)

I’ll post a fresh list once we get Rev2 on May 26th.

For now, you’ll have to settle with my GG Bios.

http://gear-project.tumblr.com/tagged/GG-Bios

Related to this is Digital Figure Mode, though that isn’t very accurate because  of character posture issues (Faust is one of the tallest, but he stoops and slouches).

http://gear-project.tumblr.com/post/151552701719/gg-bust-size-comparison-the-doctor-will-see-you

http://gear-project.tumblr.com/tagged/Digital-Figure-Mode

Officially, GG Bios would be the best resource to compare heights with though, otherwise you’d have to rely on production drawings.

To my knowledge very few height comparison charts exist and those that do are not of the main cast.