Don't Gears have the right to live?

Hola, tirones.

Continuing on from this morning, lets jump ship to By Your Side and its ilk!

Guilty Gear X: By Your Side
2001 - Arcade/Dreamcast/PS2

Characters introduced: Venom, Johnny, Anji Mito, Jam and Dizzy

Story: A year after Justice's death, though the world is in peace, everyone is still shakened up.  And to make matters worse, a brand new Commander Gear was spotted in the countryside.  The world governments quickly put a bounty on her head, offering 5,000,000 world dollars to whoever can defeat her.

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So if The Missing Link is Street Fighter 1, then this is clearly Street Fighter 2 of Guilty Gear.  Or perhaps the Missing Link is the first Terminator.  It has a vision, but no real budget.  Then Terminator 2 comes along with a budget, but the vision is kind of scewed.

But none the less, By Your Side is what made Guilty Gear popular.  It features some of the most biggest, most detailed hi-res sprites in a fighter (okay, a good fighter not counting Art of Fighting), beautiful backgrounds, a crips (yet flat sounding) metal soundtrack, smoother controls and better, a more refined fighting system.  Now you wont be losing to cheap AI that decides to instant kill you the second you're about to win!

Five new characters where added, six if you count Baiken being unlocked from the outset (how many people honestly unlocked her in the original game?).  This is also where the Assassins Guild subplot started to get more interesting, with the introduction of Venom, more or less forming a seperate storyline running coherently with the main plot.

I replayed it a bit for the sake of this article, and in a way it hasn't aged very well.  Not due to gameplay, graphics and what not, but because GGX is just devoid (obviously) of all the stuff found in it's successors.  Though the Japanese got a few updates with things like story mode and Kliff and Justice being unlockable characters, ours is just a barebones port of the arcade game, but with the arranged soundtrack.  Which I just want to state, despite some of the superior compositions By Your Side has over the Midnight Carnival ("A Solitude That Asks Nothing in Return" and "Bloodstained Lineage" for example) , I can't stand it's flat guitars, clicks for drums and non-existent bass.  I honesty like the arcade soundtrack more, despite being synth.

It's even more weird to go back and play without the Burst gauge or the false roman cancel.

Whole heartedly, you should just skip this and find any of the XX titles.  Midnight Carnival (or Accent Core Plus if you can read Japanese) if you want story mode, or Accent Core on the PS2 or Wii for all of the characters sans Kliff and Justice (who show up in ACPlus).

Guilty Gear X: A.E.
2002? - Gameboy Advance

A GBA port of a PS2 game.  Uhh...?  Well, it's not so bad.  In fact, I kind of like it a lot despite the fact I can play #RELOAD or Accent Core Plus on the PSP instead.

Lets just get the bad out of the way.  Once again, A.I. issues.  Though this time it's a complete reversal from the Missing Link, there is no real challenge.  Even on hard.  And also the controls can be kind of wonky at times, but that's just because the GBA is built for people with petite hands.

Anyways, other than that, it's the complete PS2 game, plus a few additions such tag battles, 3-on-3 battles and a sprite editor which is pretty cool.  All of the characters and moves are still present, with their respective backgrounds (albeit very dark looking) and their theme songs (albeit 8-bit, which is kind of cool).

I recommend you hunt this sucker down if you don't have a PSP to play the XX games, and only own a DS.  It's far superior to Dust Strikers in every way possible in terms of gameplay, and I would hate for you to play that expecting a real GG experience.

Now we got those out of the way, lets tackle the new characters!

Jam Kuradoberi
Theme songs:
Babel Nose (all games)
Sticks and Stones (#RELOAD)
Lady Facination (Isuka)


Jam.  The only character I actually don't like from Guilty Gear.  She's boring, loud and obnoxious.

Her goal in life is to become a master chief.  With the large bounty placed on this new Commander Gear's head, she decides to take this chance to collect the money and start her own resturant.

She eventually winds up being presured by the P.W.A.B. for her abilties in Ki in the Midnight Carnival.

Anji Mito
Theme song:
Fuuga (all games)
Ride the Clouds (#RELOAD)
Drumhead Pulsation (Isuka)


Another rare full blooded Japanese person still alive, Anji hates living inside the Colony where the rest of his "kind" are kept away to make sure they don't die out.  He constantlly escapes the Colony to satisfy his curious mind on the outside world, and seeks out the creator of the Gears for all the answers he desires.

He weilds the "Stopping Fans", Anti-Gear weapons he stole from the Colony that Sol created 100-years ago as part of a larger weapon called Outrage (with other componets such as the Fireseal and Thunderseal).

His theme song, "Fuuga" (Elegance) is Motley Crue's "Live Wire" sans lyrics.

Venom
Theme songs:
A Solitude that asks Nothing in Return (all games)
Keeper of the Unknown (#RELOAD)
Irony of Chaste (Isuka)


A member of the Assassins Guild, and one of the few, if only, respectable homosexual characters in video games that don't embarrass me with flamboyance, he is downright devoted and in love with the leader of the Guild, Zato-1 for saving him from execution when he refused to partake in the killing of others.

He sets out to find Zato-1 after he disappeared from the previous game, only to constantly find himself fighting Millia Rage who is also looking for Zato-1.

By the time the Midnight Carnival takes place, the Guild is in ruins with Slayer, the founder, attempting to disassemble it only to have Venom fight to keep the Guild together in honor of Zato-1, and he eventually becomes the new leader.

He fights with a poolstick, and is able to summon cue balls to aid him in combat.  Despite what various idiots say on the internet, thats hair hanging over his face.

Johnny
Theme songs:
Liquor Bar & Drunkard (all games)
Desert Dust (#RELOAD)
Exceptional Routine Work (Isuka)


Runner up for being the "pinnacle of badasses", Johnny is the leader of the Jellyfish airpirates and subject of Mays unbreakable love.

In the first game, he was behind bards the entire time, but managed to esacpe jail by swooning over the police woman watching over him with his admirable womenizing skills (though he tells May that he heroicly broke out).

Now that he's out, he continues on with his Robin Hood-esque ways he learned from his father, by helping out everyone who needs a hand, regadless of what they are, even Gears, despite his father being killed by them when he was younger.  When he hears of the new Commander Gear, he sets out to find her and save her from harm.

Dizzy
Theme songs:
Awe of She (all games)
Tears are Forever (#RELOAD)
Exceptional Routine Work (Isuka)


The new Commander Gear spotted in the country side, despite Dizzy being the daughter of Justice, she has no wish to harm and enslave humans, only wanting to live in peace.  But due to the fear of what she is, the world governments placed a large bounty on her and now she is constantly hunted by opposing forces.

But thankfully, Testament (still alive, despite his arena being "Hell"), found her before everyone else and wishes to protect her from outsiders.

She is not fully Gear though, as the other half of her is human.  She sometimes loses control of her powers and her angel wings, both of which are seperate entities, one being a grim-reaper like figure and the other being a angelic woman, take over her body.

Dizzy is eventually taken aboard the Jellyfish pirates ship, and Jam uses her sudden absense to claim that she defeated her to take the bounty money on her head.

Anyways, that's all for now.  Tomorrow, XX and it's ilk!