qwerty

No thanks. I'd rather not have to deal with AC Testament or Venom ever again.

AC+R for me. It really is the finality of the XX engine. It combines the focused character design philosophy of Slash with AC's superior system and expanded options. I would argue that XX got better as it went along, really. Even Slash, for all the shit it got, was a necessary step in the evolution of the series, and undeniably a better game than #R, even if it was less ambitious. As for Xrd, I'd put Revelator somewhere between #R and Slash. Like #R it suffers from some serious character and system issues, but not to such an extent that it renders the game unplayable. I would really like to see the blockstun and pushback on moves to be lowered at least a little, that way the dynamics of instant blocking would more closely resemble that of the XX games. There's a lot that relies on the game being exactly how it is, though, so I don't know if that's ever going to happen. Besides that, GG2 is a cool game for what it is, and even Judgment is alright. The only bad Guilty Gear game in my book is Isuka.

For anyone who's interested, I'll be hosting monthly events at my place in Yokohama. I've already hosted a few and they've been great, but more people are always a welcome addition. Everyone that's attended so far plays +R, but I have pretty much every game and don't mind playing anything.

For the Holy Order ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

RESURRECTION Finally added videos to the first post, after all these years. I was reminded of this thread as I was going on a matchvid binge and figured I'd finally update it. Unfortunately, most of the +R Johnny players have either moved on or quit altogether, so it's not going to be easy to find more videos from here on out. I certainly don't play as much as I used to, either.

Slight addendum to brett's post: 6P is more or less identical in terms of its properties on hit, but like many returning character's 6P's the hitbox is not nearly as useful as before. It can still be used as an anti-air against low jumps but its utility as a counter poke is fairly limited compared to before. It'll still whiff/trade against f.S type moves but no longer beats moves like Mappa for example. Better pokes all around though make this nerf more or less irrelevant, just something worth noting so you don't die due to pressing the wrong button. Regarding matchups, I feel like Johnny doesn't really struggle against anyone besides Sin; everyone else gives you ample opportunities to hit them. You've heard it a number of times already but his new 2S is really insanely good, it reaches really far and can convert to huge damage at level 2. 6H is honestly broken, once that move is out it is not losing to anything lol. If you're getting hit by low profile it means you're either too close and/or starting too late. 5H is also a really good move too, you can legit walk up and 5H people now (especially useful against characters that normally can poke at those kinds of ranges, such as Sol). I still stand by my earlier post in that this version of Johnny is by far the easiest. Your only real weakness as a character is that you don't have easy/reliable ways to disrespect people, but if you played Johnny before you should be used to that by now. Just IB/FD and jump out and you'll be fine. If you wanna live life on the edge, I guess you can Blitz Shield or depending on the situation 2H, but really the risk is not worth the reward compared to landing a Zweihander/j.S/j.H on your way out of the corner.

I don't typically like to comment on this kind of thing, but Sol is very clearly one of the better characters in Revelator. For the most part everyone seems to agree that Millia, Zato and Sol are top or close to it. Past that though this game is really hard to call. Charged Blitz is a game changer and people are still trying to figure out when it's best to use it. A lot of characters seem dumb at first (Elph, Jack-O) but once you learn how to fight against them you realize how vulnerable they can be. Honestly I don't think it's worth having this discussion at this point in time. Japanese players are still figuring the game out and nobody else can even play it yet. The difference between Sign and Revelator is bigger than it would seem on paper.

Honestly, I think this is by far the easiest version of Johnny. New inputs and combos will take some getting used to but past that he is incredibly easy compared to any previous version of the character. Spacing is way easier thanks to his new normals and your corner oki is as one dimensional as it seems. Anyone who had a decent handle on this character in the past should have no issues picking him up in Revelator, and even new players or people who've never used him before can probably get the hang of things pretty quickly.

It doesn't seem (too) height dependent actually. 5K works on characters f.S doesn't work on and the timing is pretty similar. You want to hit them right as they bounce. Played a lot of the mirror match today, 6K is really fucking good against Johnny. Because of its frame advantage you can do almost anything after normal block, including but not limited to just doing 6K until they get hit. Obviously other characters will have invincible moves that make 6K less appealing but it is still a good move. 6H is obviously great too, catches Johnny doing anything at the right range.

Learned a lot last night. First off it is possible to combo off of airthrow even midscreen! Saw someone do f.S Lv2 Mid for corner carry. I'll have to try this for myself to see how hard it is but yeah. Also a universal follow-up for Lv2 Low: dash 2S coin f.S Lv2 High etc. Lastly I came up with a dirty trick that works really well: 2H Air Low MF YRC into instant overhead j.K. Should work on everyone.

Karinchu, and yes, 2H does put you airborne. Your options on block are height dependent so you'll have to figure out the best Mist Cancel timing for what you want to use it for. At level 1 I sometimes have difficulty with timing the MC correctly for a high/low mixup so I usually either just land and block or cancel into low MF. At level 2 however it's pretty easy to get the perfect positioning for a mixup so you can just do whatever you want. Pretty sure mid and high air MF are overheads, I've seen people TK them in the corner, but maybe they just aren't being blocked.

I agree that all of his new normals are good, but 2S and 6H particularly stand out for me. 2S now reaches farther than 2D, which I believe is a first for Johnny. Combined with the frame advantage from Mist Cancel it's basically the old 2S on steroids. 6H is really something else though. It gives him frametrap ability at nearly half screen and beats a lot of moves you wouldn't think it would (it beats Elphelt's slide clean!). It will still lose to low profile moves but past that it is really something to be feared. I like 2H a lot too, I just don't have a good handle on it yet. It seems like a good meaty for when the opponent can't Blitz Shield and it can lead to a high/low mixup even at Level 1. Pretty good anti-air too.

To be honest, I'm trying to minimize my coin usage outside of combos as much as possible. Already you're spending 2-3 coins per combo on average and if you want a mist setup that can beat Blitz Shield you can add another to that. That's why I've been focusing on poking and pressuring using mostly normals, which has become much easier than before since new 2S and 6H are both really, really good. Sorry for the confusion, I guess you can't believe everything you hear at the arcade lol.

Upon further investigation, that does appear to be the case. I stand corrected.

@brett: That's what I've been told and that's definitely what it feels like when I do coin -> IAD combos. Using AC/+R timing I was always airdashing way too late, but once I was told it's a cancel and started doing it with cancel timing it worked just fine. I know for a fact that coin is FD cancelable towards the end of recovery so it being jump cancelable isn't too far out there. I should confirm this at some point by just trying it in a blockstring, that never occured to me before now lol.