Suzaku

Posted a more detailed summary of the interview on the GG subreddit:

A big chunk of the improved fidelity can be chalked up to running at a higher resolution with different shaders. I'm sure the old models would look similar if they were ported over. Proportions are all about the same. They use a scalable vector technique for most of the "lineart" on the body and the decal textures don't seem to be higher resolution than those in Xrd. The biggest difference I can see in terms of polycount is probably in the hair. Sol's changed stances completely for the first time in the series, though. That doesn't necessarily require new hitboxes, but it probably means his animations are almost, if not entirely, new. It's hard to tell if the same is true for Ky, but with such a drastic redesign he probably requires significant tweaking either way. I'd certainly love to see the entire cast get the same treatment, but I'm not sure I'd take it over keeping the entire Xrd roster. Even if it means some characters don't get a visual upgrade, I'd rather everyone be in here than only some of them with redesigns.

I've only been gone since there hasn't been anything new to talk about. Not that this trailer gives us that much to chew on. Art style has definitely shifted a bit, the animation looks a tad smoother and the camera moves a lot more freely, assuming that's not just for the trailer. Colors are more saturated, and they're making some use of depth of field. Character models are similar to Xrd's, though surprisingly are redesigned and a bit higher fidelity. I honestly expected them to give us the GGX-to-GGXX treatment, just lifting the roster and stages and bringing them into UE4. I do hope they're just retouching the old models and not scrapping everything to start fresh, since it'd be a real shame to have to abandon a chunk of the Xrd roster. The new character looks fucking rad. Honestly it feels like we're really living in the era of Woolie bait. Not really much else to say. Only some brief glimpses of gameplay; they've added some FighterZ-esque stage transitions, in which you can "break" the corners of the stages, which should have some implications in terms of corner combos. Still only has a working title (NEW GUILTY GEAR), and none of the Japanese articles reporting on the game have any real details beyond what Arcsy has already shared. I guess I could pitch a title of my own: GUILTY GEAR deXth (ギルティギア デクス, Giruti Gia Dekusu). Combining Death (デス, desu) with X (ゼクス, zekusu) and 4th (フォース, fōsu), while simultaneously referencing the fact that in Japanese, "four" (四, shi) and "death" (死, shi) are homophones. Edit: While I'm thinking of it, Ishiwatari did show up on Saturday as the guest for the Arc System Works live drawing panel, with Ono, Harada, Mori, and Higuchi. There were no reveals, but some fun questions, and Ishiwatari did some quick illustrations of characters requested by the audience (Dizzy with E-Honda, Morrigan, Celica). https://www.twitch.tv/videos/461760081

BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War was already announced as a mobile title (though they failed to hit their preregistration goals and haven't released an update about the game since February), and Mori has hinted that it's not the only BlazBlue project he's working on.

I think you mean Ringo Starr 2cave.

I really liked his design, but unfortunately it seems like he's probably not on par with the rest of the cast, given how terrified of Venom he actually was. Side note, this is probably just a coincidence, but the guy Zato's talking to in this old illustration for the original PSX Guilty Gear bears a pretty strong resemblance to him:

You're doing the Lord's work.

What if Delilah is actually the new Jack-O', and Robo-Ky attaches his head to Bedman's bed?

Wasn't going to post these since we'll have the liner notes in a few days, but here's what I've been able to make out, as best as I could:

Agreed. It reads like a first pass that needs to go through some editing and proper localization. Just looking at the victory quotes, a lot of it is pretty iffy, and some phrases weren't really translated properly. One I just saw that bugged me a bit, Raven vs Johnny win quote, "Your swordsmanship is too precise...I can barely feel any pain. Next time,bring a battered sword." Note the messed up punctuation -- or maybe that's just the font? Either way. After localization, I'd expect it to be something more like, "With swordplay that sharp I can't even feel the cuts. Try a rusty blade next time." I can't help but feel like this is another problem that crops up when you don't dub a game. When the dialogue is being voiced it needs to sound natural which means it goes through some extra quality checking. When there's no dub it becomes much easier to overlook issues with the phrasing or choice of words.

Don't think it's available yet but it should be available on the official 4gamer wiki when they update it: http://www.4gamer.net/guide/ggxrd/031723018/ There's also this, for anyone interested in a complete visual rundown of his attacks and specials: http://www.4gamer.net/guide/ggxrd/031723038/

I played the original Chinese version a month or two ago when I found it randomly while browsing through QooApp for some other game. It's surprisingly well made, but ultimately felt really repetitive due to a lack of variety in gameplay and enemy types. It also felt a bit chaotic and overly complex, with lots of upgrade systems, currencies, and F2P elements layered one on top of the other. It does do a really good job of capturing the look and feel of the games, though. If you're really hankering for some BlazBlue on your phone or tablet it might be worth your time.

Listening to Tsuki no Shihai, I can't help but feel somehow validated for him always being my favorite Guilty Gear character. I may be biased, but I think this is by far my favorite new character theme in Xrd so far.

Arc System Works started localizing their marquee titles "in-house" (I suppose in reality contracting Strangely Compelling) beginning with Continuum Shift Extend, I think it was. Which is a shame because Aksys Games really went the extra mile. Aksys does still work on the localizations to a degree, but they don't have nearly as much control over the product so issues have made it through to release. They've been doing their best to ensure that the localizations are as good as possible, at least.

It seemed like he got roped into doing the vocals for those songs because he speaks fluent English. Something similar happened on the FFXIV team, they got one of the members of the localization team to do the vocals for Shiva's boss battle theme.

Seems like it's probably more safe and impactful to use it earlier in the fight, since the gauge never seems to drain (as far as I can tell). I suppose it's also a matter of confidence. You might be able to tank an Overdrive and then immediately launch into a combo, and regen the lost health while you're doing it. But if you fuck up you would probably have been better off blocking. I think it'll take a lot of experimentation to get it figured out.

That speculation about Naoto and Ragna being Chronophantasma sounds a bit needlessly complex to me. Not that BlazBlue isn't fairly convoluted, just that... It's already been sort of hinted that Ragna, Jin, and Saya were created in a lab, probably as clones of the Black Beast after its defeat during the Dark War. Bloodedge Experience pretty clearly takes place between XBlaze and the start of the looping timeline. So, before the first loop, you had Naoto Kurogane, whose birth name was Naoto Terumi, along with Saya Terumi and (probably) Yuki Terumi. Three siblings, all with obvious parallels to Ragna, Saya, and Jin. If you think of all the loops as occuring sequentially, which is technically what happened (at least from the perspective of an observer), then of course you still need the first version of history that set the loop into motion. Which means you need a Black Beast that isn't Nu-13, a Bloodedge that isn't Ragna, and a Haku-men that isn't Jin. Well, Saya Terumi's drive is Souleater, Naoto Kurogane's drive is Bloodedge, and Yuki Terumi once occupied the Susano'o Unit. Of course, there's also Touya, Es, and the other XBlaze characters to consider. And, obviously, Naoto's gotten himself in some weird time travel stuff with Central Fiction, in that he seemingly leapt through time and wound up completely avoiding that hundred year-stretch of looping timeline. I frankly wouldn't be surprised if he winds up taking something from the post-loop world back into the pre-loop world that helps set the original loop into motion... but, who knows? At this point I can't really tell how all the pieces fit together, but the parallels between those characters seem too strong to just be coincidence.

Follow up to that previous question about Haehyun: Her profile on the official site states outright that she was born in Korea. Justice was created from Aria, somehow, but what exactly that means isn't clear yet. During the original phase of the Gear Project, after Frederick was converted into the first Gear prototype, there was an incident in the lab and Frederick, Aria, and That Man all went missing. About 30 years later the Gear Project resumed with That Man's involvement, and after another 30 years That Man completed Justice's exoskeleton (the Outrage Armor) and activated her. They used Justice to explore the Backyard, but some sort of self-aware conciousness -- the Universal Will -- made contact with Justice and started using her DNA data to multiply (likely the first Valentines). During this incident, That Man called Justice "Aria" and tried to calm her by reminding her of Frederick. However, she was unable to resist the Universal Will, so That Man activated a manual override of Justice and attempted to to prevent the rapidly multiplying Aria/Universal Will copies from materializing in Japan by vaporizing it with her Gamma Ray. After that Justice seemingly went nuts and took control of the Gears in an attempt to wipe out mankind, possibly under the influence of the Universal Will. It's worth noting that the incident where the Universal Will contacted Justice and started multiplying was said to be the same as what happened during the Dawn of Revival in 1999, which resulted in the malfunction of all electronic technology and the proliferation of the knowledge of Magic by the Original and his five acolytes (Ariels and the four members of the Conclave). So it's entirely possible that Ariels knows something about the Universal Will or is somehow connected to it, though it's extremely unlikely she's a Valentine, since she was around decades before the Universal Will came into contact with Aria/Justice.

1. Most professional translators are paid per word or per page, or by the hour, with a rate in the range of $0.12 per word, $60 per page, or $36 an hour. 2. Depends on the translator and how willing/desperate they are, and whether or not its a "full time" project. If they're doing it for a living, they will want to be making some kind of living wage. 3. This is pretty standard in the translation business, for obvious reasons. 4. I'd certainly be interested in proofreading, localizing, and editing, but translating an entire novel is probably not something I'd have the time or skill to do. 5. The books are available on kindle through Amazon Japan, for about $5 each, and probably other ebook retailers. 6. Every chapter would be ideal. 7. Phase Shift 4 / Bloodedge Experience 8. Knowing Aksys Games and Arcsy, I would say there's no concern for any sort of legal ramifications, particularly since there's probably no intention of releasing them in English.

It doesn't state outright that she's Korean, but yeah, she's probably Korean. Her name, her puppet's name, and several of her attack names make it very likely. It seems that the Koreans were nearly wiped out along with Japanese and have settled in Japanese colonies.

The GGXrd library says that Junkyard Dog was designed by Sol and built by a dog-human gunsmith that Paradigm introduced to him. So, probably either a Gear or a Backyard resident like Izuna. The label on the motorcycle looks like it says "Fire-Wheel Mk-II" and it has the same logo as the Junkyard Dog, so it was probably designed by Sol and built by the same guy. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it also winds up being a housing for the OutRage or something similar.

That's Sol in the foreground, with Sin, Ky, Elphelt and Ramlethal around the edges (left to right). And this is Sol, Jack-O', Johnny, Jam, Kum, and Raven (front to back). The "girl with the red eyes" in the trailer is Ariels, the Sanctus Maximus Populi.

It occurs to me that Jack-O being both one of That Man's lieutenants and a Valentine might work as an in-universe explanation for Raven commanding Valentine's Vizuel as his servant tribe in Overture.