There are two big Guilty Gear Xrd events happening this weekend! First up, a-cho is holding the Guilty Gear 12th anniversary event, which lasts for 3 days starting from 10/11. The schedule so far is:
10/11: GGXrd Same character 3on3
10/12: GGXrd 3on3
10/13: GGXX AC+R, GGXX #R, and GGX singles tourney

The entire event should be streamed on a-cho’s ustream channel. You can also expect the videos to eventually be uploaded on their zero3japan and GAMEacho Youtube accounts as well.

On the Eastern side of Japan, Mikado will be holding their next Mikado Masters event, which is going to last 2 days. The schedule so far is:
10/11: GGXrd 3on3, Beginner’s only tournament
10/12: GGXX AC+R 3on3, GGXrd random team tournament

As usual, you can expect everything to be streamed on Jonio’s twitch channel and Nico community.

It is great to see Accent Core Plus R get some love again!

Like I mentioned in a previous post, Guilty Gear Xrd is featured in this year’s Tokyo Game Show! Console exclusive characters Sin and Elphelt are going to be playable throughout the expo, and a fair number of videos have surfaced. First up is a TGS trailer for the console port of the game which also shows both new characters in action.

Next up, 4gamer has a video interview with Pachi, and he gives a deeper look into Sin and Elphelt with some actual gameplay footage.

Madcatz had a special FT10 exhibition set between FAB and Hasegawa on their Saturday stream! It is also uploaded on their Youtube channel.
FAB(Potemkin) vs Hasegawa(I-No)

GGXrd was also featured on the main stage with some exhibition matches with FAB(PO), Rion(KY), Hasegawa(IN), Ain(KY), Nage(FA), and Gazou(FA). Pachi also played some matches using Sin and Elphelt

It has been announced that a Guilty Gear Xrd demo will be available for Japanese Playstation Plus subscribers from October 15-28. No details are available on what is actually in the demo, but it is for PS4 only at the moment.

Inside Games has an interview with Daisuke Ishiwatari, and he confirms that the console ports will have the ability to save offline replays!

Dengeki has two camera videos of people using the new characters.
Sin vs Elphelt 1
Sin vs Elphelt 2

Famitsu also has two camera videos
Ky vs Sin
Sol vs Elphelt

Inside Games has two cam videos
Testing Elphelt
Testing Sin

Finally, here are some articles that various sites are running on Xrd at TGS.
Famitsu
Famitsu 2(includes story mode images)
Famitsu 3
Dengeki

I will update this post throughout the week as more information becomes available!

Slayers by Suzuki

Slayers by Suzuki

The finals for the Arc Revolution Cup concluded this weekend, and the GGXrd results are:
1. Gazou(Faust)
2. Nage(Faust)
4. Hasegawa(I-No)
4. Uki(Sol)
6. Daiji(Ramlethal)
6. Toruso(Millia)
8. Tejinashi(Faust)
8. FAB(Potemkin)

All of top 8 was streamed, and only a few of the preliminary matches were shown. But not to worry, because eventually the entire tournament will be uploaded on the official Arc Revo Youtube channel. There were several upsets in this tourney, like Woshige losing his first round match against saryu Ramlethal. saryu was also part of last year’s Arc Revo, and he was one of the few qualified Bridget players. But he was the lowest ranked player who qualified this year, and many people were expecting Woshige to take the whole tournament, or at least make top 8. But the biggest upset is Gazou! As you might remember, he won the Heisei last chance qualifier, which was intended to give new players a chance. I’m sure most people were banking on Nage to win out in the mirror, since he’s the #1 ranked Faust, but Gazou was able to clutch it out.

In Gazou’s winning speech, he did a good thing and tried to encourage the new players to continue playing the game. Apparently in Japan, Guilty Gear Xrd is not as popular as people were expecting it to be. Many predicted that it would blow up and become the biggest ASW game, bringing in tons of new players. It is certainly popular, but Blazblue is still bigger at the moment. One of the reasons is that there aren’t that many new players who are sticking with the game. Even though Xrd was simplified and slowed down to appeal to them, they still get destroyed by the veteran players. Which is to be expected in any game, but it is easy to see how the difference in experience can be discouraging. On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of veteran players were turned off by Xrd, either because 1)their character did not make it in or 2)the drastic change in the game’s direction. But back to Gazou, he mentioned something along the lines of him being living proof that it is possible for newer players to triumph against the veterans. But as I mentioned in the last post, Gazou is definitely not a new player, as he has been playing since at least Accent Core!

The top 8 videos are already uploaded on Nico, and I am not going to mirror them on Youtube because of the chance that they will get flagged. This happened last year to certain uploaders, so I’m just going to play it safe.
FAB(PO) vs Nage(FA)
Uki(SO) vs Tejinashi(FA)
Toruso(MI) vs Gazou(FA)
Hasegawa(IN) vs Daiji(RA)
Uki(SO) vs Nage(FA)
Hasegawa(IN) vs Gazou(FA)
Gazou(FA) vs Nage(FA)

People were expecting a new character or some other big announcement for Xrd at Arc Revo, and although it didn’t happen on that specific day, it did happen a few days later! Elphelt has been announced as the second console character, and she will actually be a pre-order bonus. She is the extremely pink girl with the Valentine style hat who was shown in the 4gamer article I wrote about in a previous post. She fights with 2 guns: a shotgun and a rifle, and can switch back and forth between them. She also appears to have some kind of reload mechanic, which is a 1st for the Guilty Gear series. Elphelt and Sin will also be available to play at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. You can see more images of her in the following magazine scans provided by Kurushii:
Dengeki
Famitsu

Ruu and Kedako have been tirelessly testing the system mechanics of Xrd since the game’s release. They now have the frame data for every character compiled for everyone to see on Ruu’s blog! There is also data on system mechanics, which I translated a little bit of in an earlier post. This is the closest thing we have right now to an Xrd mook, so it’s a great resource to save!

Bridget by Sowel

Bridget by Sowel

As the title says, this is the 5th and final post with GGXrd qualifier vids from the Arc Revolution Cup. Unfortunately, all of these videos are shakycam this time around. Famitsu also ran an article on the Heisei and Last Chance qualifiers, including interviews with the winners Gazou and Haaken.

Before we get to do that though, another reminder that this weekend is the actual Arc Revo Cup event! It is on the 30th, which corresponds to Friday night the 29th for people living in the US. Mikado is also holding their pre Arc Revo Mikado Masters event in the two days leading up the tournament. More details have also been revealed about the Mikado All Stars event. It will be a tourney with a special restriction: only players who have won a gold or silver Arc Revo ticket are allowed to join! Should definitely be an interesting tourney. Remember again that Jonio will be streaming all of these events on his Twitch channel and Nico community, so check those in the next 2 days if you’re interested in watching.

4gamer has been doing a very informative series of articles about the making of Guilty Gear Xrd. Specifically, it is an interview with the developers over the methods they used to make the game look so amazing. No matter what you think about the game, it is impossible to deny how beautiful it looks. So far, there are 2 articles up, and Chev on the Polycount forums has kindly done an English translation on them. For those of you who are into graphic design, these articles are a must read. I’m not into it, but the main takeaway I got from the articles was that it really shows why Xrd had to cut down the cast size. The methods that the developers used to make the characters look so good in 3d are incredibly time consuming and require a ton of work, and it is already known that there is only a small group of people at ASW that are actively working on Xrd. Normally, making models is cheaper and faster than hand-drawing sprites, but that is clearly not the case with Xrd. They are really going to extreme lengths to make real time cell shading look perfect.
4gamer Article 1 English translation
4gamer Article 2 English translation

As usual, videos are posted after the break!
continue reading…

The Guilty Gear Xrd qualifiers for the Arc Revolution Cup have officially ended this weekend! The final 2 spots have been taken by Gazou Faust, who won the Heisei(only born after 1989) qualifier last weekend, and Haaken Sol, who won the last chance qualifier today. So the final character counts are:

5
Faust: Nage, Defure, Tejinashi, OsakaB, Gazou

4
Millia: Kanata, Toruso, Nakamura, Woshige
Ramlethal: Daiji, saryu, Karinchu, Day

3
Chipp: Samitto, Endou, Raigou
Venom: Isamu, Fino, Mortal
Sol: 012, Uki, Haaken

2
Bedman: Tsubu, LOX
Potemkin: Konsome, FAB
Ky: Rozu, Ain
I-No: Hasegawa, U-Zen
Slayer: Taka, Hase

0
Zato
May
Axl

Interestingly enough, even though last weekend’s special qualifier was intended to give new players a chance, Gazou is hardly new. He’s just younger than the average GG player I guess. You might even remember Paper Bag, his AC Faust combo video!

In addition, the Arc Revo Cup 2014 website updated with the brackets for all 3 games! I’ve went ahead and translated Guilty Gear’s below:
A Block
Endou(Chipp) vs Day(Ramlethal)
Nage(Faust) vs Mortal(Venom)
012(Sol) vs Rozu(Ky)
Fino(Venom) vs FAB(Potemkin)

B Block
Raigou(Chipp) vs Uki(Sol)
Hase(Slayer) vs LOX(Bedman)
Haaken(Sol) vs Tejinashi(Faust)
saryu(Ramlethal) vs Woshige(Millia)

C Block
Karinchu(Ramlethal) vs Kanata(Millia)
Toruso(Millia) vs U-Zen(I-No)
Gazou(Faust) vs Samitto(Chipp)
Ain(Ky) vs Defure(Faust)

D Block
Konsome(Potemkin) vs Daiji(Ramlethal)
Nakamura(Millia) vs Tsubu(Bedman)
Taka(Slayer) vs Hasegawa(I-No)
OsakaB(Faust) vs Isamu(Venom)

Just like last year, Jonio has been planning for the next Mikado Masters event to be during the days leading up to Arc Revo. It is going to be a 3 day tourney from the 27th to the 29th.
August 27: Beginner/Intermediate tournament
August 28: 3on3 tournament, special exhibition matches
August 29: 2on2, West vs East Japan event

Since there will be a ton of players from other areas during the week, there is also an All Star tournament planned for the 29th. No details about the format have been ironed out yet, though. I’ll make another update as more information becomes available!

Famitsu magazine recently had an article about some of the features included in the upcoming GGXrd console port. A tutorial mode is confirmed, which is a first for the Guilty Gear series. Mission mode returns, and the network mode has ranked and player matches like all the other ASW games. Most importantly, the netplay includes 8 player lobbies, which also have an upgraded version of the free-for-all mode from console BBCP! So there can be 4 simultaneous matches going on in a full lobby. The upgrade is that the FFA mode creates a “virtual arcade”, so that players can move their avatars over to one of the four cabs to play. So it is a lot easier to queue up to play against your desired opponent.

Famitsu and 4gamer have posted articles giving more information about the story mode. It’s an upgrade from what the previous ports have had to offer, since cutscenes are now included. Apparently, they are also rendered in the game’s engine. There appears to be a new story mode only character who wears a Valentine styled hat. One of the screenshots even has Ramlethal wearing a maid outfit.

The article also reveals more details about the Japanese LE, which is PS4 only at the moment. It includes a special 6 button GGXrd controller, which is clearly modeled after a standard Saturn pad. A Guilty Gear Xrd Vocal Collection album is in the package as well.