My Thoughts On Overture
Finally sat down long enough to get all my assorted thoughts about the upcoming Guilty Gear title into some kind of order (good thing I did too, because they’ve been *breeding* in here, I swear o_O). Some new info, some old, and a whole of guesswork and opinions about what we might see from the game. I get a little tl;dr when I let myself start editorialising - consider yourselves warned.
So, let's start with some stuff on gameplay, shall we?
I think, at this point, that if I see one more person glance at a trailer and say, “Oh, it’s going to be just like Dynasty Warriors,” I may have to start banging my head on things.
People have been bringing up DW since the very first screenshots came out - way back before we had any concrete info about how gameplay was going to work - but the more we’ve seen since, the less water that comparison holds. Given, I’m not the best person to make this judgement, since my familiarity with the DW series is pretty limited, but the basic premise of that franchise seems to be to pit one superpowered general against an army of slow moving targets. There’s an AI controlled army on your side too, of course, but with the exception of a couple of better equipped bodyguard characters, they don’t seem to do very much to lessen the player’s workload. Hack and slash your way through a few hundred inoffensive enemy troops and an enemy base or two with your own overpowered moves, and eventually you’ll get to the boss for that army. Good fun in it’s own right, but after you’ve mashed your way through the first few hundred soldiers the process starts getting old fast - so it’s understandable why people might feel the world doesn’t really need another game like that. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.
By contrast, Overture is being marketed as something they’re calling “Melee action”, ‘Melee’ being a rather cute little combination of the English word ‘melee’ for close range combat and the Japanese ‘meirei’ meaning ‘command’. The idea is to blend RTS (Real Time Strategy) elements with standard, player-character based combat. Supporting units - the ‘army’ we’ve been seeing in all those screenshots - is where the RTS side comes from, and it’s going to play an important role. According to Gamespot, neither side can command more than 20 Servants at a time, so even if you keep summoning new ones as they get taken down, we’re hardly going to see the cast of thousands that DW is known for. On the other hand, one thing those trailers have made pretty clear is that those supporting units can pack a pretty damn good punch. The game’s been structured so that a lot of features - particularly expanding your territory and capturing bases - is going to be difficult if not impossible without them on your side. Create enough Servants and direct them from behind the lines, and you can get a long way - conceivably even win the round - without your Master character ever leaving their home base. Again, stop me if I’m wrong here, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of RTS elements like that anywhere in the DW series.
So far from the monotonous task of killing hundreds of soldiers solo, we’ve got a whole different focus. Charge into the midst of the enemy Servants expecting to take down a few dozen in one attack, and you’re going to get flattened. The real challenge behind mastering this ‘melee action’ thing is going to be finding the balance between controlling the Master and directing your troops (and since you don’t get to pause the game while you’re doing the latter, official sources are already telling us how important it’s going to be to make sure you’re somewhere out of the way while you’re doing it). I can’t pretend to have the background to know for sure whether it’s truly as new and innovative as they claim, but I certainly can’t think of anything quite like it I’ve seen before. Whatever else may be said about the game, it’s certainly an ambitious leap.
Now, the other big comparison I’ve seen being made along the way is between Overture and the FFVII sequel Dirge of Cerberus (which I don’t think I can better summarise than by saying that ‘dirge’ is accurate). This one doesn’t have so much to do with gameplay as with the fact an established series has produced a spin off title in a completely different genre. Final Fantasy isn’t the only franchise to do this by any stretch of the imagination - but DoC is a pretty textbook example of not only how different it can get (turn based RPG to first person shooter, anyone?) but how badly it can go wrong. Naturally, even without such a bad example in recent memory, a lot of fans and reviewers have responded to this unexpected new of direction for the GG series the way they do with just about everything - by whinging about it, loudly, repeatedly, and with as many uses of words like ‘sucks’ and ‘gay’ as they can find room for. Guilty Gear is a 2D fighter, so naturally if they produce anything for it that isn’t a 2D fighter, they’ve got to be doing it wrong.
Fandom can awfully predictable like that sometimes.
Personally, once I’d had a chance to sit down for five minutes and think about it, it felt it should have been a whole lot less of a surprise. Since the early years, it’s been like some kind of mission to the ArcSys people to try to spread the GG series out as far as possible - apart from the games, they’ve produced drama CDs, novels, a manga and a small library of guidebooks; and game titles for this series on just about every console they could get their hands on. The biggest surprise to me was that they’d have the budget to produce something on this scale. After their last few years of producing increasingly minor updates to the XX series along the lines of Slash and Accent Core, this came completely out of the blue (though in retrospect, this does shed a whole lot more light on just where all the money’s been going lately). And going by the interviews with Daisuke Ishiwatari himself, it does sound like he’s wanted to try something like this for a long time.
It doesn’t help much that so many sites are mistakenly talking about this game as “the first TRUE sequel to the original Guilty Gear,” as if the X series has been invalidated by its very existence, or assuming this means the end of GG as a 2D title. ArcSys do appear to want this to be considered separate from the X series - but suggesting this means no more 2D GG is missing the point. True, they could always have tried this concept as a new title altogether, but they’ve taken more than enough elements from the original games (characters, attacks, combos and even details like psyche bursts and air dashes) to justify developing it as part of the GG continuity. More importantly, versus mode combat is obviously going to remain a core aspect. And one of the nicer things I’ve been seeing since more details have emerged is how many more people are starting shrug off their initial assumptions and get genuinely interesting in playing this game once it comes out.
Which brings us to those big questions: is this actually a good idea, and just how well is this game going to do? Again, being neither an expert nor a psychic, I can only guess, but there are a fair few obvious aspects that could be important in that regard. This is not going to be a gameplay system you’re going to master in an afternoon. Action in those early gameplay trailers looks dizzyingly chaotic. That’s not misleading, there’s just that much going on at once. On top of a moveset not much simplified from the 2D GG fighters, you’ve got Servants to summon and direct, Mana to collect, items and skills you can buy, traps you can set - plus the need to keep one eye on the map at all times to see what bases are under contention and whether half your Servants are stuck in a corner somewhere looking stupid. It’s marginally reassuring that I’ve already seen one official source which admits right off the bat how confusing it looks- and only then goes on to assure us that once you get the hang of all the multitasking involved it’ll make a lot more sense.
They’re trying something quite new here, and that’s always a bit of a risk, and there is a danger that such complicated gameplay is going to put the casual gamer off. On the other hand, if they have managed to make this cool new system into something that works well, we really could have something genuinely different and fun to play here. We’re just going to have to wait until it starts hitting the shelves before we know for sure.
But all this is skirting around the big issue that makes or breaks a game for me - and that’s the Plot.
Titles which keep my attention for more than five minutes or so fall into two basic categories - games with good plot and characters, and Dance Dance Revolution. That’s not to say gameplay doesn’t matter to me, but since I’ve yet to find a game with an engaging plot and clunky controls, it’s never been an issue before. Suffice to say at this point that the gameplay in Overture will be able to get away with a hell of a lot with me just as long as there’s a good story mode involved. Just why do you people think I’m in Guilty Gear fandom in the first place? (No, “pretty, slashy boys” is not the correct answer to this one. If they didn’t come with a good story, I’d be much happier hitting musical arrows with my feet.)
The story from Overture apparently picks up some years after XX. Exactly how long has been left ambiguous so far - the nine year figure that’s been quoted around the place is inaccurate, since in context what that was referring to was the nine years that have passed since the first Guilty Gear came out for the PS1. In any case, it looks like we’ve jumped forward to a point where all major dangling plot threads from the X series have been long since resolved, and that makes a lot of sense if the producers want this game to be accessible to people who might never have played the X series at all. But since XXX is still somewhere over the horizon, and I very much doubt they’d want to spoil it for us now, I don’t expect we’ll get even passing reference to how all that was cleared up. My personal guess is that anyone hoping to see the Post War Administration Bureau or any answers on Dizzy’s mysterious family history in this game are looking in the wrong place.
So what are we getting instead? One interview with Daisuke Ishiwatari seems to describe the story mode as mostly just an omake that functions as a tutorial, which would be pretty disappointing from my perspective if it turns out to be accurate. However, if they’re going to do any justice to all the plot elements we’ve seen so far, there’s going to be plenty to cover.
To begin with, a fair few interesting things have changed in the Guilty Gear world since we saw it last.
Ky
The jury’s still out on how much older he looks, or whether he looks any older at all. Contradictory character art really isn’t helping us out on that count, though it’s interesting that the TGS media pack info still refers to him specifically as a ‘young man’. His inclusion as a playable character in the game may be the worst kept secret ever - I’m not even sure why they’re even trying to keep it low profile (although considering he and Sin are shown commanding the same Tribe in battle, maybe this is a last ditch attempt at keeping their connection less obvious?) But the really big new thing on the Ky front is that since we last saw him, he’s been made king of a previously unknown country called Iluria. The news - like the game - has gotten some mixed reactions from fandom. It gave me an initial moment of utter ‘bwuh?’ but the idea’s been growing on me ever since.
I seem to now be part of a fairly small subset of fandom who actually doesn’t think that War Hero => King is all that incomprehensible as a career leap. Remember, this is Ky, the guy who took command of a major land army at the age of sixteen and lead them to victory to end a hundred years of war. He’s got leadership coming out his ears. Sure he may have worked as a cop for a few years in the middle somewhere - we’ve all got to make a living between major political upheavals. Going by the early story screenshots, I’d say he already looks like he’s been doing this all his life. Maybe the bigger surprise should be that he’s dedicating himself to just one country now and not trying to save the whole world at once.
Whether we’ll found out just how he wound up in that position, whether this happened somewhere at the end of the X arc or if we’ll ever actually find out how he became a king at all we’ll have to wait and see, but it’ll certainly add some different elements to the background of a game like this.
Sin
First of those important new characters, who’s quickly turned out to be not nearly so dangerous as his name or that tantalising first glimpse of him from the ArcSys webpage so many months ago suggested. He goes under the backstory stuff because he’s clearly been in the picture for a while by the time Overture starts, but I really didn’t need the line in his bio from the recent GG magazine to tell me he’s going to have something pretty damn big to do with this story. The fact he’s allowed to tag along bounty hunting with Sol is bizarre enough on it’s own - and meanwhile, since he’s been seen using lightning magic in trailers, the similarities between him and Ky just keep mounting up. Putting my own crack theories to one side for a moment, Ishiwatari is not just being unoriginal here. If there isn’t some giant, plot-crucial connection between him and Ky, I’ll eat my XBOX.
That GG magazine went on to ponder just what could be hiding under that eye patch he wears. I’m guessing the answer isn’t going to be “one slightly mutilated blind eye.” If it’s a Gear mark, don’t expect to see me looking remotely surprised. Finally, we’ve still got that mysterious one thing he won’t tell us about in his likes and dislikes to hear about as well.
Mysteries or no, so far this guy is connected to both my favourite characters, fights with Pants Onna Stick and *collects new adjectives* as a hobby. Don’t know about the rest of you, but I love him already.
The Outrage
One of those first big differences in Sol and Ky’s new designs is that neither of them are carrying their trademark jinki - neither the Fuuenken or the Fuuraiken are anywhere to be seen. This may be of Big Plot Significance, but I’m not counting on it just yet. It may just as well be of Past Plot Significance - for all we know, the Outrage could have been reassembled and destroyed between the X story arc and now, but if so, there’s a good chance they’re not going to want to tell us about it just yet. It’s also possible they’ve been given longer weapons just to facilitate the new fighting system (though considering Izuna’s carrying a measly little katana, that’s a bit of a weak explanation), or even that Ishiwatari just got sick of drawing those old weapons while he was turning out the new character designs or something. The same GG magazine which I talked about above does draw attention to the absence of their old weapons, but unlike Sin’s eyepatch, there’s nothing to suggest they’re going to be important - it’s just mentioned in passing like they’re going through a spot-the-difference checklist. Once again, we’re just going to have to wait and see.
So that’s about it for the background, but there’s plenty more hints about what’s in store in the game itself.
Disappearing Gears
One of the first big plot points revealed for the upcoming game, Gears which have been safely sealed up since the Holy War are disappearing - just fading away right in front of two of Ky’s soldiers’ eyes. The screenshots which came with the TGS media pack from this scene were labelled ‘prologue’ - so I’m guessing this comes up pretty early on in the game, and as a hint as to where things will go, it goes pretty far. Are the Gears disappearing altogether? Are they being taken somewhere else? If so, why? Who’s behind it? Is That Man involved? Valentine? Above all, if regular Gears are disappearing, could one like Sol be in danger too?
Oh yeah, I’m looking forward to finding out where they’re going with this one.
New Characters
With a cast as varied as the GG crew, you’d have to stop and think a bit about what they haven’t done yet, but apparently Ishiwatari went and did just that. And he realised that they’d never done anyone Goth-Loli themed, they’d never done a traditional Japanese spirit, and they’d never done a reptilian-bird-monster professor who floats around in a giant green bubble. I’m pleased to report he’s now fixed all three of those major oversights.
Valentine
Her outfit is something along the lines of ‘goth-loli, with extra goth’, she fights with an evil balloon on a string, commands an army of feminine, zombie-like creatures and carries on a long Guilty Gear tradition of female villains. She’s certainly going to be central to wherever the plot is going, though whether she’s the main villain of the game we don’t know yet. I’d suspect not, since a bio describing her as acting like a an emotionless doll suggests to me that someone else is pulling her strings, but here I am with the guessing again. She’s looking for something she calls ‘the key’, and apparently has seen fit to tear up Iluria with her minions to find it. Just being near any of her Servants gives Sol a headache, and he seems to have some ideas about her, though he doesn’t believe he could be right. Presumably, she’s connected to those disappearing Gears, but we’ve got not the slightest suggestion as to how yet. And is she really just about to kiss Sin in that new poster? The questions just keep on mounting up.
Izuna
More details to share from that magazine - Izuna’s got an official bio at last. He’s 184 cm tall (or 204 cm including the ears), weighs 68 kg and was born on the 3rd of August. His hometown and bloodtype are unknown. Can’t make any sense out of his dislikes, but his likes seem to be his friends and loved ones, and his hobbies include traditional ballads and… fried tofu eating competitions? Actually, given the tradional Japanese belief that Kitsune love fried tofu, that last one makes a little more sense than you probably thought. I’ll be having my own happy little Japanese-mythology-geek moment over here, okay?
Anyway, unless I’ve failed at translating altogether, that bio goes on to describe him as a lighthearted but mysterious man who appears in front of Sol and Sin, and says that although his ears make him an outcast, unlike the Gears he’s not unfriendly towards mankind. Screenshots give us a better idea of what role he’s going to play in the game. He first appears as a mystery voice who plays In Game Tutorial Narrator by teaching Sol and Sin how to work the new battle system. Later on, he meets up with them in person, and accompanies them when the meet Valentine for the first time. And that’s just about everything we know about the guy.
Unless there’s a Shocking Betrayal! in the works, he’s obviously one of the good guys, but that leaves the burning question of just how he’s involved. He helps Sin and Sol against Valentine, but he hadn’t met her before. We don’t even know why he approached them in the first place. He could conceivably be working for Ky, but it’s a long shot.
What little else I can say comes not from the game but the fact he’s obviously a transformed kitsune - a Japanese fox, common to so many traditional legends. Going by his Master Ghost design and those tassels in his hair, it looks like he’s a nine-tailed fox - the most powerful form a fox can attain, and going by his attitude he could well fit the typical trickster fox stereotype, though he does seem to mean well. His main background stage looks very oriental, and his Tribe is made up of other Japanese spirits - kitsunes, kappas, there may even have been an oni at the back. Does that mean the Japanese Colony will be involved somehow? We can hope.
Dr Paradigm
As if we really needed yet another mysterious character, here’s one we’ve got even less information about than Izuna. We know he’s a doctor of some branch of science, apparently not very strong but specialising in long range attacks, but so far we don’t even know what he’s supposed to be. Stranger still, neither does Sol, despite all his prior world experience - his first two guesses are some kind of bird (understandable, looking at his feet and tail) or some kind of Gear. A few people have compared him to some of the small, dragonish creatures from Kliff’s battle stage, but we’re probably all wrong. Why he spends his time perched on a floating pedestal inside a green bubble could maybe use some explanation too. There’s no official bio for him out yet either, though if there was, there’s a damn good chance it would just read ‘well isn’t he a mysterious looking greenish guy what with that giant bubble of his and all?’
There is one other story related screenshot of him, which neatly proves what I miss when I get slack and skip stuff, because it features him talking to Izuna about the science of brainwashing. Whether he’s talking about how to achieve it or how to fix it is going to remain ambiguous until we have some actual context for that scene. He’s almost definitely another good guy though, because apart from his generally friendly appearance, that one interesting little scene from the trailer with all the other main characters (including Ky and an army of his troops, but minus Valentine) features him with them too. His Tribe is made up of a variety of other strange, green creatures of varying sizes, but generally similar to himself, and his stage is some kind of strange city near the sea. Until any new info surfaces, that’s about it for Dr Paradigm for now.
That Man
When that first English article surfaced with the suggestion that we’d finally see the identity of the shadowy figure behind the Gear Project known only as ‘That Man’, I was a little skeptical. There didn’t seem to be any supporting evidence up on any of the Japanese sites I’d seen, and any writer who thinks it’s more important to tell us all about his Bridget tattoo than bother double to check that he’s got the name of Ky’s new country right doesn’t strike as the world’s most reliable source. But I’ve since turned up that same rumour in a Japanese interview, and when I say ‘rumour’, I mean ‘the interviewer asked Ishiwatari himself about it point blank, and his reply sounded a hell of a lot like a big yes’. Now, once we’re all done jumping up and down with yay, we’re right back to all those questions again - How is he involved with the disappearing Gears, or with Valentine? Could events even have something to do with the new menace he alluded to in that GGXX ending? Has anything changed with him since the X arc? Surely there’s no way the story from XX could be resolved without some kind of showdown between him and Sol, but apparently, he’s still around.
If it turns out that Overture actually isn’t going to find space to resolve all these plot elements in one hit, and instead deals us yet another open-ended ending, I don’t think we should be all that surprised.
Other Characters?
The other big issue so many people seem to have with Overture is the lack of recognisable characters from the main series. So far, we’ve got two, and one of them is still supposed to be some kind of big secret. Of course, much as people might gripe, there’s ample reason why they might want a new cast in a spin-off title like this - more freedom to invent characters who’ll work well in the new battle system, less historical baggage to confuse new players. Also, the fewer recognisable characters we see, the less hints they have to drop about what happened with the story after GGXX. That said, there’s every reason to assume the six characters we know about so far won’t be the whole cast. I’d be very surprised if there weren’t at least one or two unlockables left - some of those interviews seem to hint at just as much pretty strongly. Not that that means the extras have to be anyone we’d recognise, but there’s some hope - especially if other characters could share Tribes like Ky and Sin. Could any of the Japanese characters share Izuna’s Tribe, perhaps? But even if old characters aren’t playable in this title, there’s some outside chance they’ll get cameo appearances, or else appear in later titles in the Overture series.
Yeah, that’s assuming there are going to be later titles, but if the game does well, I’d say there’s a pretty damn good chance. ‘Overture’ suggests a beginning, after all, and if I’m reading this interview right, Ishiwatari does seem to be saying they’ll have to add extra characters to continue the story on from here. The interviewer goes on to ask him whether those characters might become available via the XBOX online marketplace. Ishiwatari sounds a bit uncertain about that one, but seems to be suggesting there’s a good chance of that nonetheless.
So what else do we know?
Well, there’s that great little plot bit with those wanted posters. Whatever might have happened since the days of GGXX, Ky’s now willing to call on Sol for help when his kingdom’s under attack, even if he does do it by such the seriously warped method of putting up posters which offer a reward for Sol, dead or alive. Better still, Sol’s got no trouble interpreting them, and doesn’t look to have any objections to giving him that help either. The fun part is that that actually suggests they’re on better terms now than they were a few years ago.
Sol’s bio on the official website says he and Sin are still hunting Gears - a little odd considering just how few should be left out there at this point in time. Actually, it’s a little jarring just how out of his depth Sol’s seemed so far in this title - especially considering he’s well over a hundred and fifty and we’re used to seeing him as the guy who knows just about everyone. The battle system’s new to him, he’s taking a mystery voice explaining it to him without complaining too much, and he’s got no idea what to make of Dr Paradigm. The mere fact he’s so content to let someone like Sin follow him around is pretty unusual on it’s own…
…and, ah, sod it, I’m utterly failing to put aside my cracked Sin theories here. Evidence just keeps mounting up, to a height where if I’m not at least somewhere close to the right track, I’m going to be mildly disappointed.
Stuff I didn’t get to talk to elsewhere in this
*ahem*
You know what my other favourite thing about Overture is right now? The release schedule. This game was sprung on us completely out of the blue. They must have had it in development for years to have gotten it to this stage, and yet all we’d seen of it up to last July was one seriously unenlightening teaser pic of Sin. That’s not even six months between the first announcement and the Japanese release date. But now that it’s finally been confirmed, there’s been new info coming out about it thick and fast. Compared to something like Final Fantasy XIII - which seems to be advancing in tiny, less-than-a-minute additions to a trailer that the public isn’t even allowed to see - I’m finding this a seriously refreshing change.
I’m still a little surprised by the switch to the XBOX 360 as an exclusive platform. Sure, the PS3 may have a bit of a shaky reputation over here, but I’m given the impression it’s still far outselling the 360 back in Japan. However, I’m also given the impression that Microsoft may be doing its darned best right now to fix that little market issue, so they could well be actively encouraging the development of titles like this. Just more questions to be directed at someone more up to date on the console war than I am, I fear.
I’m also guessing they’re not exactly taxing the capabilities of a seventh generation console with the graphics in this game. The backgrounds are gorgeous, but the character models don’t look to me like anything beyond what you’d expect for the PS2 era, and I can’t exactly expect that to boost sales any. But perhaps that just brings us back to innovative gameplay aspects and plot as the main selling points they’re going for.
As for what this means for the Guilty Gear plot as a whole, my first thought was a mad hope this was leading into some final resolution to the X arc, which has been left hanging since way back in 2002 (well before I ever joined the fandom, I know, so I shouldn’t gripe so much, but others are perfectly entitled to do so). There were so many plot elements introduced in that game that how they could ever resolve it all in fighting game story-mode format I really don’t know, so there really was a certain plausibility to the theory that they might be switching to games like Overture for the story related aspects. However, if they’re doing anything like that, it’s not going to happen this game, and after the setup they’ve had so far, probably not at all. Still, thinking more clearly about it, I have to admit they’ve approached it in a sensible way, striking a good balance between including just enough familiar characters and gameplay elements to keep old fans interested without adding so much history as to alienate new players. And maybe we can hope GGXXX is next in line.
Of course, even when the November 29 date rolls around, us English-speaking players are still going to be waiting for our own version to show up. So far there’s been no word on an English release. Even when there is, we’ll have to face a serious probability that a low quality English dub is all we’ll be getting for the voices. But maybe we’ve got a outside hope that Guilty Gear’s history of being left in it’s native language will work in our favour. I’ve found recent game dubs to be often better handled than anime dubs, but they’re still pretty hit and miss.
Conclusion
I think my own conclusion must be pretty clear by now - which is to say that if this game is going to be half as good as it’s starting to look, I’m not even going to regret shelling out for an XBOX 360 just to play it. C’mon, we’ve already got mallets of judgement, pants on a stick, and the most retarded Bat Signal ever imagined. I’m sold.
Oh, by the way, that interview I kept talking about? Ishiwatari’s concluding remarks include asking us all to stop assuming he’s just turning out another Dynasty Warriors -like game. There’s going to be way more to Overture than that. =P
So, that's (finally) it from me on the subject for now. But - assuming I've kept anyone's attention this far - naturally I'd love to hear other people's thoughts as well.
Some of the more relevant related links, in case anyone's missed any:
The official site
GameTrailers page including most of the trailers released so far
GameSpot page - more screenshots and better quality character art than I've seen anywhere else
Pages from GPara:
Character art and bios for Sol, Sin and Ky, and plenty of screenshots
Character art and screenshots for the other characters
Link to the first gameplay trailer
(NEW STUFF!) Videos of a competitive event from the TGS, featuring players pitting a red and a blue Sol against each other
On LJ:
guilty_gear Where I and others have been posting new info as we find it. Something like half the posts on the first page relate to Overture one way or another.
GG2: Overture tagged stuff from my own journal (more fangirling and less relevance than what you'll find on the main comm).
And some more of me collecting links like crazy and editorialising like mad from a while back, though there's no specific Overture relevance in this one.
So, let's start with some stuff on gameplay, shall we?
I think, at this point, that if I see one more person glance at a trailer and say, “Oh, it’s going to be just like Dynasty Warriors,” I may have to start banging my head on things.
People have been bringing up DW since the very first screenshots came out - way back before we had any concrete info about how gameplay was going to work - but the more we’ve seen since, the less water that comparison holds. Given, I’m not the best person to make this judgement, since my familiarity with the DW series is pretty limited, but the basic premise of that franchise seems to be to pit one superpowered general against an army of slow moving targets. There’s an AI controlled army on your side too, of course, but with the exception of a couple of better equipped bodyguard characters, they don’t seem to do very much to lessen the player’s workload. Hack and slash your way through a few hundred inoffensive enemy troops and an enemy base or two with your own overpowered moves, and eventually you’ll get to the boss for that army. Good fun in it’s own right, but after you’ve mashed your way through the first few hundred soldiers the process starts getting old fast - so it’s understandable why people might feel the world doesn’t really need another game like that. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.
By contrast, Overture is being marketed as something they’re calling “Melee action”, ‘Melee’ being a rather cute little combination of the English word ‘melee’ for close range combat and the Japanese ‘meirei’ meaning ‘command’. The idea is to blend RTS (Real Time Strategy) elements with standard, player-character based combat. Supporting units - the ‘army’ we’ve been seeing in all those screenshots - is where the RTS side comes from, and it’s going to play an important role. According to Gamespot, neither side can command more than 20 Servants at a time, so even if you keep summoning new ones as they get taken down, we’re hardly going to see the cast of thousands that DW is known for. On the other hand, one thing those trailers have made pretty clear is that those supporting units can pack a pretty damn good punch. The game’s been structured so that a lot of features - particularly expanding your territory and capturing bases - is going to be difficult if not impossible without them on your side. Create enough Servants and direct them from behind the lines, and you can get a long way - conceivably even win the round - without your Master character ever leaving their home base. Again, stop me if I’m wrong here, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of RTS elements like that anywhere in the DW series.
So far from the monotonous task of killing hundreds of soldiers solo, we’ve got a whole different focus. Charge into the midst of the enemy Servants expecting to take down a few dozen in one attack, and you’re going to get flattened. The real challenge behind mastering this ‘melee action’ thing is going to be finding the balance between controlling the Master and directing your troops (and since you don’t get to pause the game while you’re doing the latter, official sources are already telling us how important it’s going to be to make sure you’re somewhere out of the way while you’re doing it). I can’t pretend to have the background to know for sure whether it’s truly as new and innovative as they claim, but I certainly can’t think of anything quite like it I’ve seen before. Whatever else may be said about the game, it’s certainly an ambitious leap.
Now, the other big comparison I’ve seen being made along the way is between Overture and the FFVII sequel Dirge of Cerberus (which I don’t think I can better summarise than by saying that ‘dirge’ is accurate). This one doesn’t have so much to do with gameplay as with the fact an established series has produced a spin off title in a completely different genre. Final Fantasy isn’t the only franchise to do this by any stretch of the imagination - but DoC is a pretty textbook example of not only how different it can get (turn based RPG to first person shooter, anyone?) but how badly it can go wrong. Naturally, even without such a bad example in recent memory, a lot of fans and reviewers have responded to this unexpected new of direction for the GG series the way they do with just about everything - by whinging about it, loudly, repeatedly, and with as many uses of words like ‘sucks’ and ‘gay’ as they can find room for. Guilty Gear is a 2D fighter, so naturally if they produce anything for it that isn’t a 2D fighter, they’ve got to be doing it wrong.
Fandom can awfully predictable like that sometimes.
Personally, once I’d had a chance to sit down for five minutes and think about it, it felt it should have been a whole lot less of a surprise. Since the early years, it’s been like some kind of mission to the ArcSys people to try to spread the GG series out as far as possible - apart from the games, they’ve produced drama CDs, novels, a manga and a small library of guidebooks; and game titles for this series on just about every console they could get their hands on. The biggest surprise to me was that they’d have the budget to produce something on this scale. After their last few years of producing increasingly minor updates to the XX series along the lines of Slash and Accent Core, this came completely out of the blue (though in retrospect, this does shed a whole lot more light on just where all the money’s been going lately). And going by the interviews with Daisuke Ishiwatari himself, it does sound like he’s wanted to try something like this for a long time.
It doesn’t help much that so many sites are mistakenly talking about this game as “the first TRUE sequel to the original Guilty Gear,” as if the X series has been invalidated by its very existence, or assuming this means the end of GG as a 2D title. ArcSys do appear to want this to be considered separate from the X series - but suggesting this means no more 2D GG is missing the point. True, they could always have tried this concept as a new title altogether, but they’ve taken more than enough elements from the original games (characters, attacks, combos and even details like psyche bursts and air dashes) to justify developing it as part of the GG continuity. More importantly, versus mode combat is obviously going to remain a core aspect. And one of the nicer things I’ve been seeing since more details have emerged is how many more people are starting shrug off their initial assumptions and get genuinely interesting in playing this game once it comes out.
Which brings us to those big questions: is this actually a good idea, and just how well is this game going to do? Again, being neither an expert nor a psychic, I can only guess, but there are a fair few obvious aspects that could be important in that regard. This is not going to be a gameplay system you’re going to master in an afternoon. Action in those early gameplay trailers looks dizzyingly chaotic. That’s not misleading, there’s just that much going on at once. On top of a moveset not much simplified from the 2D GG fighters, you’ve got Servants to summon and direct, Mana to collect, items and skills you can buy, traps you can set - plus the need to keep one eye on the map at all times to see what bases are under contention and whether half your Servants are stuck in a corner somewhere looking stupid. It’s marginally reassuring that I’ve already seen one official source which admits right off the bat how confusing it looks- and only then goes on to assure us that once you get the hang of all the multitasking involved it’ll make a lot more sense.
They’re trying something quite new here, and that’s always a bit of a risk, and there is a danger that such complicated gameplay is going to put the casual gamer off. On the other hand, if they have managed to make this cool new system into something that works well, we really could have something genuinely different and fun to play here. We’re just going to have to wait until it starts hitting the shelves before we know for sure.
But all this is skirting around the big issue that makes or breaks a game for me - and that’s the Plot.
Titles which keep my attention for more than five minutes or so fall into two basic categories - games with good plot and characters, and Dance Dance Revolution. That’s not to say gameplay doesn’t matter to me, but since I’ve yet to find a game with an engaging plot and clunky controls, it’s never been an issue before. Suffice to say at this point that the gameplay in Overture will be able to get away with a hell of a lot with me just as long as there’s a good story mode involved. Just why do you people think I’m in Guilty Gear fandom in the first place? (No, “pretty, slashy boys” is not the correct answer to this one. If they didn’t come with a good story, I’d be much happier hitting musical arrows with my feet.)
The story from Overture apparently picks up some years after XX. Exactly how long has been left ambiguous so far - the nine year figure that’s been quoted around the place is inaccurate, since in context what that was referring to was the nine years that have passed since the first Guilty Gear came out for the PS1. In any case, it looks like we’ve jumped forward to a point where all major dangling plot threads from the X series have been long since resolved, and that makes a lot of sense if the producers want this game to be accessible to people who might never have played the X series at all. But since XXX is still somewhere over the horizon, and I very much doubt they’d want to spoil it for us now, I don’t expect we’ll get even passing reference to how all that was cleared up. My personal guess is that anyone hoping to see the Post War Administration Bureau or any answers on Dizzy’s mysterious family history in this game are looking in the wrong place.
So what are we getting instead? One interview with Daisuke Ishiwatari seems to describe the story mode as mostly just an omake that functions as a tutorial, which would be pretty disappointing from my perspective if it turns out to be accurate. However, if they’re going to do any justice to all the plot elements we’ve seen so far, there’s going to be plenty to cover.
To begin with, a fair few interesting things have changed in the Guilty Gear world since we saw it last.
Ky
The jury’s still out on how much older he looks, or whether he looks any older at all. Contradictory character art really isn’t helping us out on that count, though it’s interesting that the TGS media pack info still refers to him specifically as a ‘young man’. His inclusion as a playable character in the game may be the worst kept secret ever - I’m not even sure why they’re even trying to keep it low profile (although considering he and Sin are shown commanding the same Tribe in battle, maybe this is a last ditch attempt at keeping their connection less obvious?) But the really big new thing on the Ky front is that since we last saw him, he’s been made king of a previously unknown country called Iluria. The news - like the game - has gotten some mixed reactions from fandom. It gave me an initial moment of utter ‘bwuh?’ but the idea’s been growing on me ever since.
I seem to now be part of a fairly small subset of fandom who actually doesn’t think that War Hero => King is all that incomprehensible as a career leap. Remember, this is Ky, the guy who took command of a major land army at the age of sixteen and lead them to victory to end a hundred years of war. He’s got leadership coming out his ears. Sure he may have worked as a cop for a few years in the middle somewhere - we’ve all got to make a living between major political upheavals. Going by the early story screenshots, I’d say he already looks like he’s been doing this all his life. Maybe the bigger surprise should be that he’s dedicating himself to just one country now and not trying to save the whole world at once.
Whether we’ll found out just how he wound up in that position, whether this happened somewhere at the end of the X arc or if we’ll ever actually find out how he became a king at all we’ll have to wait and see, but it’ll certainly add some different elements to the background of a game like this.
Sin
First of those important new characters, who’s quickly turned out to be not nearly so dangerous as his name or that tantalising first glimpse of him from the ArcSys webpage so many months ago suggested. He goes under the backstory stuff because he’s clearly been in the picture for a while by the time Overture starts, but I really didn’t need the line in his bio from the recent GG magazine to tell me he’s going to have something pretty damn big to do with this story. The fact he’s allowed to tag along bounty hunting with Sol is bizarre enough on it’s own - and meanwhile, since he’s been seen using lightning magic in trailers, the similarities between him and Ky just keep mounting up. Putting my own crack theories to one side for a moment, Ishiwatari is not just being unoriginal here. If there isn’t some giant, plot-crucial connection between him and Ky, I’ll eat my XBOX.
That GG magazine went on to ponder just what could be hiding under that eye patch he wears. I’m guessing the answer isn’t going to be “one slightly mutilated blind eye.” If it’s a Gear mark, don’t expect to see me looking remotely surprised. Finally, we’ve still got that mysterious one thing he won’t tell us about in his likes and dislikes to hear about as well.
Mysteries or no, so far this guy is connected to both my favourite characters, fights with Pants Onna Stick and *collects new adjectives* as a hobby. Don’t know about the rest of you, but I love him already.
The Outrage
One of those first big differences in Sol and Ky’s new designs is that neither of them are carrying their trademark jinki - neither the Fuuenken or the Fuuraiken are anywhere to be seen. This may be of Big Plot Significance, but I’m not counting on it just yet. It may just as well be of Past Plot Significance - for all we know, the Outrage could have been reassembled and destroyed between the X story arc and now, but if so, there’s a good chance they’re not going to want to tell us about it just yet. It’s also possible they’ve been given longer weapons just to facilitate the new fighting system (though considering Izuna’s carrying a measly little katana, that’s a bit of a weak explanation), or even that Ishiwatari just got sick of drawing those old weapons while he was turning out the new character designs or something. The same GG magazine which I talked about above does draw attention to the absence of their old weapons, but unlike Sin’s eyepatch, there’s nothing to suggest they’re going to be important - it’s just mentioned in passing like they’re going through a spot-the-difference checklist. Once again, we’re just going to have to wait and see.
So that’s about it for the background, but there’s plenty more hints about what’s in store in the game itself.
Disappearing Gears
One of the first big plot points revealed for the upcoming game, Gears which have been safely sealed up since the Holy War are disappearing - just fading away right in front of two of Ky’s soldiers’ eyes. The screenshots which came with the TGS media pack from this scene were labelled ‘prologue’ - so I’m guessing this comes up pretty early on in the game, and as a hint as to where things will go, it goes pretty far. Are the Gears disappearing altogether? Are they being taken somewhere else? If so, why? Who’s behind it? Is That Man involved? Valentine? Above all, if regular Gears are disappearing, could one like Sol be in danger too?
Oh yeah, I’m looking forward to finding out where they’re going with this one.
New Characters
With a cast as varied as the GG crew, you’d have to stop and think a bit about what they haven’t done yet, but apparently Ishiwatari went and did just that. And he realised that they’d never done anyone Goth-Loli themed, they’d never done a traditional Japanese spirit, and they’d never done a reptilian-bird-monster professor who floats around in a giant green bubble. I’m pleased to report he’s now fixed all three of those major oversights.
Valentine
Her outfit is something along the lines of ‘goth-loli, with extra goth’, she fights with an evil balloon on a string, commands an army of feminine, zombie-like creatures and carries on a long Guilty Gear tradition of female villains. She’s certainly going to be central to wherever the plot is going, though whether she’s the main villain of the game we don’t know yet. I’d suspect not, since a bio describing her as acting like a an emotionless doll suggests to me that someone else is pulling her strings, but here I am with the guessing again. She’s looking for something she calls ‘the key’, and apparently has seen fit to tear up Iluria with her minions to find it. Just being near any of her Servants gives Sol a headache, and he seems to have some ideas about her, though he doesn’t believe he could be right. Presumably, she’s connected to those disappearing Gears, but we’ve got not the slightest suggestion as to how yet. And is she really just about to kiss Sin in that new poster? The questions just keep on mounting up.
Izuna
More details to share from that magazine - Izuna’s got an official bio at last. He’s 184 cm tall (or 204 cm including the ears), weighs 68 kg and was born on the 3rd of August. His hometown and bloodtype are unknown. Can’t make any sense out of his dislikes, but his likes seem to be his friends and loved ones, and his hobbies include traditional ballads and… fried tofu eating competitions? Actually, given the tradional Japanese belief that Kitsune love fried tofu, that last one makes a little more sense than you probably thought. I’ll be having my own happy little Japanese-mythology-geek moment over here, okay?
Anyway, unless I’ve failed at translating altogether, that bio goes on to describe him as a lighthearted but mysterious man who appears in front of Sol and Sin, and says that although his ears make him an outcast, unlike the Gears he’s not unfriendly towards mankind. Screenshots give us a better idea of what role he’s going to play in the game. He first appears as a mystery voice who plays In Game Tutorial Narrator by teaching Sol and Sin how to work the new battle system. Later on, he meets up with them in person, and accompanies them when the meet Valentine for the first time. And that’s just about everything we know about the guy.
Unless there’s a Shocking Betrayal! in the works, he’s obviously one of the good guys, but that leaves the burning question of just how he’s involved. He helps Sin and Sol against Valentine, but he hadn’t met her before. We don’t even know why he approached them in the first place. He could conceivably be working for Ky, but it’s a long shot.
What little else I can say comes not from the game but the fact he’s obviously a transformed kitsune - a Japanese fox, common to so many traditional legends. Going by his Master Ghost design and those tassels in his hair, it looks like he’s a nine-tailed fox - the most powerful form a fox can attain, and going by his attitude he could well fit the typical trickster fox stereotype, though he does seem to mean well. His main background stage looks very oriental, and his Tribe is made up of other Japanese spirits - kitsunes, kappas, there may even have been an oni at the back. Does that mean the Japanese Colony will be involved somehow? We can hope.
Dr Paradigm
As if we really needed yet another mysterious character, here’s one we’ve got even less information about than Izuna. We know he’s a doctor of some branch of science, apparently not very strong but specialising in long range attacks, but so far we don’t even know what he’s supposed to be. Stranger still, neither does Sol, despite all his prior world experience - his first two guesses are some kind of bird (understandable, looking at his feet and tail) or some kind of Gear. A few people have compared him to some of the small, dragonish creatures from Kliff’s battle stage, but we’re probably all wrong. Why he spends his time perched on a floating pedestal inside a green bubble could maybe use some explanation too. There’s no official bio for him out yet either, though if there was, there’s a damn good chance it would just read ‘well isn’t he a mysterious looking greenish guy what with that giant bubble of his and all?’
There is one other story related screenshot of him, which neatly proves what I miss when I get slack and skip stuff, because it features him talking to Izuna about the science of brainwashing. Whether he’s talking about how to achieve it or how to fix it is going to remain ambiguous until we have some actual context for that scene. He’s almost definitely another good guy though, because apart from his generally friendly appearance, that one interesting little scene from the trailer with all the other main characters (including Ky and an army of his troops, but minus Valentine) features him with them too. His Tribe is made up of a variety of other strange, green creatures of varying sizes, but generally similar to himself, and his stage is some kind of strange city near the sea. Until any new info surfaces, that’s about it for Dr Paradigm for now.
That Man
When that first English article surfaced with the suggestion that we’d finally see the identity of the shadowy figure behind the Gear Project known only as ‘That Man’, I was a little skeptical. There didn’t seem to be any supporting evidence up on any of the Japanese sites I’d seen, and any writer who thinks it’s more important to tell us all about his Bridget tattoo than bother double to check that he’s got the name of Ky’s new country right doesn’t strike as the world’s most reliable source. But I’ve since turned up that same rumour in a Japanese interview, and when I say ‘rumour’, I mean ‘the interviewer asked Ishiwatari himself about it point blank, and his reply sounded a hell of a lot like a big yes’. Now, once we’re all done jumping up and down with yay, we’re right back to all those questions again - How is he involved with the disappearing Gears, or with Valentine? Could events even have something to do with the new menace he alluded to in that GGXX ending? Has anything changed with him since the X arc? Surely there’s no way the story from XX could be resolved without some kind of showdown between him and Sol, but apparently, he’s still around.
If it turns out that Overture actually isn’t going to find space to resolve all these plot elements in one hit, and instead deals us yet another open-ended ending, I don’t think we should be all that surprised.
Other Characters?
The other big issue so many people seem to have with Overture is the lack of recognisable characters from the main series. So far, we’ve got two, and one of them is still supposed to be some kind of big secret. Of course, much as people might gripe, there’s ample reason why they might want a new cast in a spin-off title like this - more freedom to invent characters who’ll work well in the new battle system, less historical baggage to confuse new players. Also, the fewer recognisable characters we see, the less hints they have to drop about what happened with the story after GGXX. That said, there’s every reason to assume the six characters we know about so far won’t be the whole cast. I’d be very surprised if there weren’t at least one or two unlockables left - some of those interviews seem to hint at just as much pretty strongly. Not that that means the extras have to be anyone we’d recognise, but there’s some hope - especially if other characters could share Tribes like Ky and Sin. Could any of the Japanese characters share Izuna’s Tribe, perhaps? But even if old characters aren’t playable in this title, there’s some outside chance they’ll get cameo appearances, or else appear in later titles in the Overture series.
Yeah, that’s assuming there are going to be later titles, but if the game does well, I’d say there’s a pretty damn good chance. ‘Overture’ suggests a beginning, after all, and if I’m reading this interview right, Ishiwatari does seem to be saying they’ll have to add extra characters to continue the story on from here. The interviewer goes on to ask him whether those characters might become available via the XBOX online marketplace. Ishiwatari sounds a bit uncertain about that one, but seems to be suggesting there’s a good chance of that nonetheless.
So what else do we know?
Well, there’s that great little plot bit with those wanted posters. Whatever might have happened since the days of GGXX, Ky’s now willing to call on Sol for help when his kingdom’s under attack, even if he does do it by such the seriously warped method of putting up posters which offer a reward for Sol, dead or alive. Better still, Sol’s got no trouble interpreting them, and doesn’t look to have any objections to giving him that help either. The fun part is that that actually suggests they’re on better terms now than they were a few years ago.
Sol’s bio on the official website says he and Sin are still hunting Gears - a little odd considering just how few should be left out there at this point in time. Actually, it’s a little jarring just how out of his depth Sol’s seemed so far in this title - especially considering he’s well over a hundred and fifty and we’re used to seeing him as the guy who knows just about everyone. The battle system’s new to him, he’s taking a mystery voice explaining it to him without complaining too much, and he’s got no idea what to make of Dr Paradigm. The mere fact he’s so content to let someone like Sin follow him around is pretty unusual on it’s own…
…and, ah, sod it, I’m utterly failing to put aside my cracked Sin theories here. Evidence just keeps mounting up, to a height where if I’m not at least somewhere close to the right track, I’m going to be mildly disappointed.
Stuff I didn’t get to talk to elsewhere in this
*ahem*
You know what my other favourite thing about Overture is right now? The release schedule. This game was sprung on us completely out of the blue. They must have had it in development for years to have gotten it to this stage, and yet all we’d seen of it up to last July was one seriously unenlightening teaser pic of Sin. That’s not even six months between the first announcement and the Japanese release date. But now that it’s finally been confirmed, there’s been new info coming out about it thick and fast. Compared to something like Final Fantasy XIII - which seems to be advancing in tiny, less-than-a-minute additions to a trailer that the public isn’t even allowed to see - I’m finding this a seriously refreshing change.
I’m still a little surprised by the switch to the XBOX 360 as an exclusive platform. Sure, the PS3 may have a bit of a shaky reputation over here, but I’m given the impression it’s still far outselling the 360 back in Japan. However, I’m also given the impression that Microsoft may be doing its darned best right now to fix that little market issue, so they could well be actively encouraging the development of titles like this. Just more questions to be directed at someone more up to date on the console war than I am, I fear.
I’m also guessing they’re not exactly taxing the capabilities of a seventh generation console with the graphics in this game. The backgrounds are gorgeous, but the character models don’t look to me like anything beyond what you’d expect for the PS2 era, and I can’t exactly expect that to boost sales any. But perhaps that just brings us back to innovative gameplay aspects and plot as the main selling points they’re going for.
As for what this means for the Guilty Gear plot as a whole, my first thought was a mad hope this was leading into some final resolution to the X arc, which has been left hanging since way back in 2002 (well before I ever joined the fandom, I know, so I shouldn’t gripe so much, but others are perfectly entitled to do so). There were so many plot elements introduced in that game that how they could ever resolve it all in fighting game story-mode format I really don’t know, so there really was a certain plausibility to the theory that they might be switching to games like Overture for the story related aspects. However, if they’re doing anything like that, it’s not going to happen this game, and after the setup they’ve had so far, probably not at all. Still, thinking more clearly about it, I have to admit they’ve approached it in a sensible way, striking a good balance between including just enough familiar characters and gameplay elements to keep old fans interested without adding so much history as to alienate new players. And maybe we can hope GGXXX is next in line.
Of course, even when the November 29 date rolls around, us English-speaking players are still going to be waiting for our own version to show up. So far there’s been no word on an English release. Even when there is, we’ll have to face a serious probability that a low quality English dub is all we’ll be getting for the voices. But maybe we’ve got a outside hope that Guilty Gear’s history of being left in it’s native language will work in our favour. I’ve found recent game dubs to be often better handled than anime dubs, but they’re still pretty hit and miss.
Conclusion
I think my own conclusion must be pretty clear by now - which is to say that if this game is going to be half as good as it’s starting to look, I’m not even going to regret shelling out for an XBOX 360 just to play it. C’mon, we’ve already got mallets of judgement, pants on a stick, and the most retarded Bat Signal ever imagined. I’m sold.
Oh, by the way, that interview I kept talking about? Ishiwatari’s concluding remarks include asking us all to stop assuming he’s just turning out another Dynasty Warriors -like game. There’s going to be way more to Overture than that. =P
So, that's (finally) it from me on the subject for now. But - assuming I've kept anyone's attention this far - naturally I'd love to hear other people's thoughts as well.
Some of the more relevant related links, in case anyone's missed any:
The official site
GameTrailers page including most of the trailers released so far
GameSpot page - more screenshots and better quality character art than I've seen anywhere else
Pages from GPara:
Character art and bios for Sol, Sin and Ky, and plenty of screenshots
Character art and screenshots for the other characters
Link to the first gameplay trailer
(NEW STUFF!) Videos of a competitive event from the TGS, featuring players pitting a red and a blue Sol against each other
On LJ:
guilty_gear Where I and others have been posting new info as we find it. Something like half the posts on the first page relate to Overture one way or another.
GG2: Overture tagged stuff from my own journal (more fangirling and less relevance than what you'll find on the main comm).
And some more of me collecting links like crazy and editorialising like mad from a while back, though there's no specific Overture relevance in this one.