GGAC+: Part the Second
Mar. 27th, 2008 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rallamajoopAccent Core Plus is out today! In fact, it seems like they did the sneaky thing again and sent it out a day early since I’m already hearing there are torrents out there for it on the web and spoilers turning up on assorted message boards in at least two different languages (ooh, temptation in all its flavours >.>). Which leaves me feeling a bit embarrassed, because I did have this giant extra post of story-related wild guesses and rampant speculation predictions I was writing and which I still haven’t posted yet (blame a combination of cons and too many weeks of sleep-deprivation). So I’ll just sneak it out now before the main raft of spoilers hit.
Anyway – to begin, what makes guessing what we might get out of a new Guilty Gear game so interesting is that it’s not so easy to say exactly what happened in the previous one. Guilty Gear XX had twenty different playable characters and three different endings for each (plus Justice, who got one story ending to herself). That’s a total of sixty-one different story paths – some of which didn’t even touch each other, others which contradicted in every important detail. They can’t all have actually happened in any timeline worth continuing, but fortunately, the GG plot as we know it has had plenty of practice at ploughing right on through contradictions like that. Sol might be the only character who officially got to go down in history as beating Justice after the first game, but that didn’t stop other elements of other characters’ endings becoming important to their story from GGX onwards (like Eddie taking over Zato and Dr Baldhead regaining his sanity, to list a couple of examples). Likewise, GGX may have given us a dozen different stories about how Dizzy joined the Jellyfish Pirates, but the details didn’t matter as long as she did join in the end. Of course, there’s also a good few completely random ending where Dizzy winds up in Zepp or something instead, but in context it’s pretty easy to sift those out.
Same is true of GGXX. Included in those 60 endings you’ve got multiple different versions of what obviously had to happen (Dizzy gets knocked off the May ship, and goes nuts, but eventually gets the sense knocked back into her and gets sent home; I-no causes all kinds of havoc before That Man finally puts her out of action, etc), a handful of standalone events which have such giant plot significance they demand continuation (Ky finding out about the PWAB; Axl finding out about Raven, etc), and a bonus bunch of things which obviously didn’t happen (main characters like Venom or Millia dying are pretty obvious here). Quite a lot of endings – Faust or Slayer meeting That Man, for example – sound plausible and interesting in theory but don’t include anything that the story ever really needs to refer back to again directly, so whether they happened or not is practically irrelevant. At the end of all that you’ve got just a few leftover weird ones like I-no kidnapping May or That Man capturing Eddie which could fit into the timeline somewhere, but will more likely wind up in the scrap canon pile.
The fun part, if you share my love of ridiculous levels of over-analysis, is figuring out which is which. More importantly, that also means guessing what will get a direct follow-up in the sequel. It doesn’t matter who helped Dizzy get home or who might have beaten I-no to a pulp, but Anji and Axl’s meetings with That Man have got to have long term consequences. And there's plenty more odds and ends I'd like to see followed up on even if it's not always so obvious whether I'll be in luck.
So what this whole intro has been leading up to is the bit where I get to discussing probably story direction from GGXX-AC+ – for all 25 characters individually. I don’t know whether anyone’s going to bother reading it all – I seriously would not blame anyone who doesn’t. This may well turn into one of those virtual write-only posts made largely just to get all my thoughts written down in one place so I can come back after the game is out and find out how much I got right. But if anyone does get through it all (or even just skips to the bit about their own favourite character then jumps to the end) I would love to hear other people’s takes on things too. Speculating is fun, but discussion can be even better – and where the GGXX plotline goes, this is about last chance we’re ever going to get. ^^;
The Characters: In order of appearance...
(For a reminder about any of the GGXX events here's the complete game script link. Lord knows even I wouldn't have remembered what happened in half the endings I talk about without it.)
Sol
In GGXX, Sol discovers I-no’s on the move at the start of his story mode, and everything from there on is him hunting her down – the only question deciding which ending he winds up in is how sidetracked he gets on the way. In one ending, he beats I-no and encounters That Man; in another he beats Dizzy and sends her home, and in the third he meets Slayer and learns the PWAB is on the move. There’s nothing particularly important in the Dizzy one, but it’s pretty damn obvious from his interactions with characters in other story paths that he knows a lot more about the PWAB than the rest of us do, and I would be very surprised if what That Man tells him about Sol being needed against a greater threat to come doesn’t turn out to be important. He’s the main character – he’s got to be centrally involved in where the two main plotlines from the series end up. Doesn't even need much analysis really, it goes without saying how important Sol's story is going to be.
Ky
Ky is handed a suspicious new bounty list by Slayer at the start of his story mode and spends most of the rest of it hunting down everyone who’s on it to warn them they’re in danger. In his first ending, he encounters Johnny and they come to an agreement to investigate what’s going on from their own sides of the law. In the second, he runs into an army of Robo-Kys and hears about the PWAB. In the third he encounters I-no and then Sol, and fails miserably to convince Sol to let him in on what’s going on. I will be very disappointed if AC+ doesn’t follow up on all of these endings some way or other.
There’s ample reason to assume all three could be important. The second one is the most obvious – it ties in very neatly to events in a couple of other characters’ story paths in which Ky shows up to help fight other Robo-Kys (or be mistaken for them, much to his horror), and the existence of the PWAB is such a blatantly important thing for him to find out that it would make no sense for this to be a non-canon event. I may be biased on the first ending since I do so love seeing Ky figure out when he has to bend the rules a bit for the greater good, but going beyond personal bias it also ties in vaguely with Johnny’s third ending (although in other respects that ending contradicts everything else we know happened) and even better, would give them a very nice opportunity to tie two of the bigger elements of the story together (Ky and the Jellyfish Pirates) in the next game. I’m probably biased even more about the third ending (hello, Sol and Ky!) but it’s one of only three partially animated endings in the game, and that’s got to mean something, right? =D And again – it’s one of the main protagonists talking to the other main protagonist about the main antagonist of the series and contains a lot of nasty hints about just how big everything that’s going on is.
That said, it is the sort of event that there’ll probably be no reason for them to refer back to directly, but if Ky’s not at least peripherally involved in whatever goes down with That Man, I’m still going to feel gipped.
May
Like the other Jellyfish Pirates, May’s story starts when I-no kicks Dizzy off the ship and follows the journey to find her again. May finds Dizzy in all three of her stories (and miraculously even gets away without fighting her in any, unlike a lot of the rest of the cast). In her first ending, she hits a little misunderstanding with Potemkin. In the second she meets and (somehow) makes friends with Bridget. Actually, there are so many endings where Bridget meets and generally makes friends with various members of the Jellyfish Pirates that I’d be surprised if this doesn’t get some kind of mention in the next game. But that’s more a Bridget thing than a May thing, so more on that later.
The most interesting thing to come out of any of May’s story paths is in the third pathway – a meeting between her and Anji where he tells her a bit about the significance of her Japanese heritage – and if you needed more reason to believe it’s important, that same scene is repeated line-for-line in Anji’s storyline too. She tries to ask Johnny about it at the end, but gets rudely interrupted by a Robo Ky at the crucial moment – yeah, that figures. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that one of Johnny’s own endings features him thinking about how he’ll have to have a long talk with her before too long. There’s clearly something important about May we don’t know yet. Whether it’s just the general mystery of the Japanese or whether there’s more to it even that that is hard to guess, but the PWAB is out after her in force, and she even gets brainwashed by them into fighting the other characters in a couple of other story modes. Methinks this would be another character on who’s account we’re well overdue for some real answers.
Millia
Three games into the series, and Millia’s still hunting down Zato – or rather, the parasitic shadow beast that’s manipulating his corpse. Millia is a very rare case of a character with only one ending that makes any sense – this being the one where she meets up with Slayer and is warned off pursuing Eddie any further. In both her second and third ending she encounters and defeats Eddie herself – the only crucial difference is whether she also meets I-no and settles her past contentedly or collapses of her own near-mortal wounds in the process. Either way that involves the death of at least one character who the writers will want alive for the next game, so they’re easy to rule out.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m quite fond of Millia, but if they drag out her hunt for Zato/Eddie without any conclusion in AC+ as well it’s going to start getting seriously stale. She could have some involvement in the bigger plot – both I-no and the PWAB would rather have her out of the way, but she’s not especially high up on either’s priority lists. Maybe the more interesting point they raised was what Slayer hints to her that if she continues on her current path, she could be in as much danger from her own forbidden beast as Zato was from his. I honestly don’t know where they’re likely to go with that – which only makes me all the more interested in finding out.
Eddie
Eddie’s whole story can be summarised down to basically one fact – he’s dying. He dies in more different endings in the game than any other character I can think of. He spends his storymode searching frantically for a new body powerful enough to support him, and on the way gets tricked into helping I-no and going after Dizzy, but it never ends well for him. In one ending he tries to overtake Sharon but discovers she’s even more invulnerable than he’d counted on (‘scuse me while I have a little Slayer/Sharon fangirl moment here… okay done). In another he gets captured by That Man. The third is one of those rare, partially animated endings where he taunts Venom with the fact Zato was using him all along before taking off again.
Much as I might’ve liked that first ending, it’s clearly out of the question – Eddie’s got to be alive in the next game. The animated one was very interesting, though more from Venom’s perspective than from Eddie’s, and I think we’d have to be very lucky to see any direct reference to a scene like that in the next game. The third one is solidly in the leftover uncertainties category – it could be really interesting to see them follow up on this. I can only imagine what That Man might want with Eddie, or what how it might affect Millia and Venom. However, it doesn’t link up to anything else from any story mode, so I’d honestly be very surprised if we ever see it mentioned again.
Potemkin
Potemkin’s one of those awkward characters who’s basically had their main source of conflict resolved before the start of the second game, and who’s stayed relevant by working as an agent of Zepp in the stories that followed. There’s nothing too telling in his story mode – his main goal is to track down Dizzy after Slayer sends him off with a helpful tip about her, and his other endings have him either meeting Bridget or encountering that never-ending army of Robo Kys. There’s stuff there they could follow up on, but nothing too obviously important.
On the other hand, Zepp is probably the only major world power now that isn’t secretly under the control of the PWAB, and that’s reason enough for him to be involved in events to follow. He’s unlikely to be a major player in any particular plotline in AC+, but there’ll be easily space for him to have his role.
Chipp
Another one of those awkward characters. The novel The Butterfly and her Gale pretty much resolves most of Chipp’s central story and about him getting revenge for his master’s death, but we don’t know yet whether AC+ will be set before or after that, and it’s safe to say his antagonism against the Assassin’s Guild will still be intact wherever we are in the plotline. He’s also connected to the Japanese cast thanks to his mastery of Ki magic, which is more than enough to get him the full attention of the PWAB – the poor kid is even brainwashed by the Robo Kys in several story paths. His own story paths in GGXX have him either settling up with the Robo Kys after regaining his mind, encountering Slayer and being warned to stay out of his business with the Guild, or encountering Venom and insisting he’ll have Venom work for him after he becomes president (XDDD Hey, I’d vote for Chipp!) Anyway, like Potemkin, he’s got nothing major he needs resolving in AC+ and he isn’t likely to have central importance to any particular plotline, but he’s got plenty of reason to be involved wherever the PWAB or the Assassin’s Guild show up. And some kind of direct follow up to that scene with him and Venom probably isn’t out of the question either.
Faust
…okay, so I’m going to start this one by taking a moment to point out that I think both Chipp and Faust are forged from shear awesome and are both well up there with my favourite characters from the series, because otherwise all I’ve got to start with is the phrase, “And here’s another character who’s main remaining story is some ongoing antagonism against the Assassin’s Guild.” Faust meets I-no in one ending (just more of the same there), Zappa in another (more on that when we get to him), and Venom and our good ol’ army of Robo Kys in the third. The third scene is the interesting one – Venom admits plainly that the Guild were behind the incident that sent ‘Dr Baldhead’ crazy, but goes right on to hint that even the Guild itself are little more than pawns to the PWAB these days. I’m not much of a Venom fan generally, so understand me when I say he is damn cool in this scene. And after he’s revealed something so important to Faust, I think we’ve got a very good chance of seeing some kind of follow up. I’d sure hope for one.
Baiken
It’s a bit hard to know exactly what they could do with Baiken – I doubt she’s ever going to be allowed to destroy That Man outright, but she’s not just going to give up her revenge either, and that only really leaves the options of sending her off on a tangent or leaving it all in a stalemate. Her storyline is another one of those fairly generic ones – she’s after That Man, the PWAB is after her – and hey – so’s Anji, but he’s got different motives. Baiken gets one ending with each of the three of them (That Man, Anji and the Robo Kys) – all very interesting in their own way. The one with Anji especially so, but that’s better left until I get to his section to elaborate on, so let’s stick with the fact that it’s pretty safe to guess that when AC+ opens, Baiken’s still going to be after That Man and on the run from the Robo Kys, but unless my inner Baiken/Anji shipper is very unlucky, we can probably count on a good share of her having to put up with her witless admirer along the way.
Jam
Still in with the less important characters. Jam’s complete self-absorption is so central to her character that there’s not a awful lot that could be done with her to tie her into the larger plots – but she’s got one ending establishing that the PWAB is very much interested in her (and spawning all kinds of great fannish fun with Robo-Jam theories), and another establishing that she now knows that the PWAB are the ones responsible for burning down her restaurant, and I really don’t see her taking that kind of insult lying down. Actually, y’know, I’m not much of a fan hers usually, but the image of Jam charging into the PWAB headquarters and wrecking all the havoc she can is one beautiful mental scene. XD Hey, I can hope, can’t I?
Johnny
Ah, finally we’re back to the more plot relevant characters. Johnny may seem like just a shameless, womanising Robin Hood wannabe, but his crew includes a sentient Gear and an escaped Japanese girl, and Johnny himself knows a hell of a lot more about the big secrets of the GG world than he’s letting on. Johnny has two endings in GGXX where he brings Dizzy home, but also this random third ending which contradicts absolutely everything else (being based on a scenario where Dizzy never gets knocked off the ship in the first place) but has more interesting plot points than the rest of his story put together. This is the story path where he meets Slayer, finds out the PWAB are in action, doesn’t quite come to any useful agreement with Ky and is left talking to his cat about how he’s going to have to reveal May’s past to her sooner or later. Contradictory or not, this is the kind of stuff I’d really hope to see developed with Johnny in AC+, and enough of those details correspond with events from Ky or May’s storylines that I think I could be in luck on that account. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t have to be canon in the traditional sense – it’s the sort of ending that’s just there to remind us what the important themes are, and it does that very nicely.
Axl
…just what exactly is Axl doing this far down the official list? He’s been in the game as long as May and Millia, and he’s definitely more important than Jam, right? Eh, well anyway, nitpicking aside, Axl’s story mode is all about him looking for That Man in the hope of getting some light shed on his time-slipping problem, and in the process he discovers that the ‘alternate existence’ that started it all was one of That Man’s servants. This is very high up on my list of Things I Really Really Hope AC+ Explains. It may be too much to hope that they’ll ever bother to explain exactly how Axl knows Sol or where he recognises I-no from, but there’s got to be a hell of a story behind the Axl-Raven connection, and I only hope the writers actually know what it is*.
Aside from that, Axl’s got one cute little ending where he meets a future version of himself that assures him everything is going to be alright, and one where he meets Zappa. The one with Zappa could actually be important, but that’s something I’ll get to under Zappa’s section. The one where he meets his future self raises some very interesting possibilities – not least the implication that future-Axl can timeslip himself around at will, but it’s one of those endings that’s much more likely to fall into the ‘doesn’t matter’ category, so even if canon doesn’t ever do anything to either confirm or contradict it, there’s no particular reason why it should ever need to be mentioned again.
*Hey, if ever there was a series that makes me worry they’re just making shit up as they go along… (well, other than the X-files – that was just a whole other class of special)
Anji
If ever a game had a wildcard character, that would be Anji. He doesn’t even get an appearance until the second game in the series, but he’s an escaped Japanese, he’s one of only three characters to own a piece of the Outrage, he has more idea about the truths behind the Gear Project than almost anyone else on the cast, and he’s searching for That Man apparently out of shear curiousity. The ending where he meets That Man is one of the most potentially important in the game – just what did he reveal to Anji after the screen faded out? There’s apparently some fan-speculation that he was offered the chance to become a Gear, and given Anji’s issues with his own age and obvious interest in Gear-immortality, that’s not a bad theory. On the other hand, there’s that ending of Baiken’s which plays like a direct follow up to that event where he appears in front of her and is eventually talked (or beaten) into telling her what he’d learned, and while that adds a lot of weight to the idea Anji’s meeting with That Man was important, it also looks like a pretty solid contradiction to the Gear-Anji theory. Still, we’ve got to be due some explanation of what went on in that conversation in the next game, or I am going to be very disappointed with them all.
His other endings both deal with him discovering that the PWAB is out after the Japanese, and it goes without saying that that’s bound to continue on into the next game too.
Venom
Counting all the characters with axes to grind with the Assassin’s Guild, Venom’s got nearly as many people as That Man out after his neck – and then there’s the link between the Guild and the PWAB, and not to forget those little unresolved issues with that zombified old mentor of his. He’s all over the place in the various GGXX story modes, though his own focuses on him trying to strengthen himself enough to be a match for Slayer after the Guild’s old founder shows up to shut them down. His endings are much like Millia’s in terms of plausibility – they have him either defeating Eddie and dying (nope), defeating both Eddie and Millia (another nope) or encountering Slayer and reaching a stalemate (sound familiar?). At any rate, he’s got some loose connection to so many plotlines from GGXX that he could turn up pretty much wherever, but naturally it’s his main story I’m most interested in seeing resolved, and that means finding out what role he’s still got to play in Eddie’s eventual fate.
Seriously, I have no idea where they’re going with this one, and I’m kind of hoping to be surprised. But we’ll see.
Testament
Testament’s story in GGXX is all about him hunting for Dizzy after she falls off the May ship. He can either find he’s too late and she’s already dead (automatically non-canon), help bring her home (cute but typical and unimportant) or get side tracked and run into Slayer and Sol and find out the PWAB is on the move. Testament may generally take a backseat to the ‘important’ Gear characters like Sol and Dizzy, but damn if he isn’t even more mysterious than them in his own way – a perfectly humanoid Gear who served Justice but still maintained enough free will to continue functioning after her defeat? The information revealed in that last story path – that the PWAB were the very organisation that made him a Gear in the first place – is far and away what I most want to see followed up on. We know the PWAB consider That Man their enemy, so what the hell were they doing making their own Gears during the war – let alone Gears who’d go straight in Justice’s service? So we’ve got to the mystery behind Testament and a major hint about the mystery behind the PWAB all in one here, and that’s got to deserve some follow up if there’s any mercy in the world.
Dizzy
One of those characters who’s a mystery even to herself – mostly regarding that big question of just where the hell she could possibly have come from. She’s got one ending where she gets to meet That Man and he hints very strongly that he knows exactly what the answer is (a meeting Dizzy inconveniently ‘forgets’ afterwards) and another ending which hints strongly that Sol is her father. However, this was before the GGXX drama CDs came out and revealed that Justice is officially her mother, and the logic that Gear mother + Gear father != Half-Gear-half-human daughter would seem to rule that possibility right back out again. Whatever the truth is, there’s got to be some kind of story behind her seriously unlikely origins, and I sure hope they’re going to get around to telling us about it (and not just so I can cross off a question mark or two in the Relationship Diagram of Doom either).
Dizzy’s remaining ending is the one where she meets Bridget, so again we’ve got Bridget making friends with the Jellyfish pirates. Can’t help but feel that something about that bounty-hunting career of his isn’t quite getting off to the best start… XD
Slayer
Slayer’s very interesting – he could be the oldest, most powerful character in the whole cast, but he’s far more interested in nudging other characters in the right direction than getting involved himself. His role in the game is to cause trouble for the assassins and warn other characters about the PWAB (though it’s interesting that Sol and Testament are the only two he mentions the name to – those same characters who’d heard of them before) and that Dizzy’s in trouble. Slayer is one of those especially odd cases of a character who is clearly very important, however, most of his own story mode blatantly contradicts his roles in everyone else’s. For example, we know from multiple story modes that Potemkin goes looking for Dizzy, and from Potemkin’s own story that Slayer was the one who first nudged him that direction; however, in Slayer’s story mode it’s Potemkin who sends him after Dizzy – the exact opposite. Slayer’s ending with Chipp is similarly contradictory to Chipp’s corresponding one. He’s also got endings with Eddie and That Man, however, his story mode as a whole is so inconsistent that I’m happier to ignore all of it and stick with his role in everyone else’s stories as his more important contribution to the plot.
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Slayer, but it’s not the sort of mystery that the series necessarily needs to clear up. Anyway, I’d expect his role in AC+ will be much the same, with his role in other characters’ stories being the more important part, but we’ll see. A character like Slayer could be used to reveal any number of mysteries…
I-no
And speaking of giant mysteries, now there’s I-no. As a boss type character her role in other characters’ stories is more important than her own, but at least I-no’s story mode is a lot more consistent. Inasmuch as she has a ‘correct’ ending, it’s the one where she fights Sol, before her employer shows up and helpfully explains that no, actually h e wants all these people she’s been going after alive thank you kindly, and makes her go sit in the corner and have a good think about what she’s done for a bit. There’s another ending where she pushes Dizzy too far and winds up paying for it, and one last ending where she knocks May out and brings her home to That Man for study – the last being a typical case of interesting if true, but seriously unlikely to ever get followed up on.
It isn’t obvious what might happen with I-no in the next game. It’s not likely she’ll make the same mistake of acting without orders twice, but predicting what That Man might instruct her to do is well beyond me. What I really want where I-no’s concerned is some answers regarding just precisely where she got all that power in the first place. There’s a story panel in the GG manga that suggests she’s been around ever since magic was first discovered – I mean, ho-ly-shit that’s a long time – but to all appearances she is still technically human, and she didn’t even go to work for That Man until much later. A little explanation would go a long way.
Zappa
You know you’re really getting to the bottom of the character-barrel when you hit someone like Zappa. Even the PWAB isn’t interested in him, so Zappa’s story is entirely about his own journey to find someone who can tell him what on earth is wrong with him. He fulfils his goal of finding Faust in one of his GGXX endings, though he doesn’t learn much in the process. You’d have to hope there’ll be some kind of resolution for poor Zappa (even if I personally suspect he’s probably never going to get to find out exactly what keeps causing his weird blackouts even if he does get himself fixed) but it’s hard to imagine what, or how it’d connect to anything else in the story.
That said, there is one interesting fan theory based on an ending where Axl runs into Zappa and randomly starts thinking about Megumi after he wins the fight. The scene spawned the fan-idea that perhaps S-ko is none other than the ghost of Megumi herself, and her anger against men is a result of her being ‘abandoned’ by Axl when he disappeared. The neat upshot of this is that if Axl ever does get himself home to Megumi, that would logically mean that Zappa’s problem would be retroactively solved. It’s a lot to read into such a minor scene though, so I wouldn’t put much money on anything coming of it.
Bridget
Ah, another character made entirely from plot-lint – not that you’d guess it considering his Internet-notoriety. Bridget’s whole story mode is based on him being handed a fake bounty list at the start and not finding out it’s not for real until the end, whichever path he takes. He can either meet Ky and find out officially, or meet Dizzy and find out unofficially, or traumatise Johnny terribly with his infamous gender ambiguity. What he doesn’t do in any version of canon is join the Jellyfish Pirates, contrary to a rather ridiculous fan notion which I can only guess is based entirely on someone taking one look at his second ending image and not bothering to read any of the text that goes with it (he’s got a home and a family and he’s working as a bounty hunter, for crying out loud! Why on earth would he go live with pirates, really?) However, that said, Bridget does meet and befriend members of the Jellyfish Pirates (generally Dizzy) in enough different endings that I fully expect that connection to warrant some kind of mention in the next game. I have to admit I’d like to see it too – a ridiculous little cross-dressing bounty hunter socialising with a bunch of equally ridiculous bounty-heads of the likes of Dizzy and May? Illogical, adorable, comedy gold.
A.B.A.
After being so neglected story-wise since her introduction in Isuka, A.B.A. is up for a proper story appearance at last. She’s not likely to be any more important to the main plotline than the likes of Zappa and Bridget, but she could stir up her own brand of trouble. What they’re going to do with her story-wise is a very good question, but we know she wants to get her beloved Paracelsus a real human(oid) body, and I’ve seen it suggested at least once that she may very well go about that by ripping through the main GG-cast and assessing their bodies for the task. Then again, as A.B.A. must be aware her own body is artificial, she may just as well take the more sociable means of simply trying to track down someone who’d know how to make a body from scratch, which could go just about anywhere. We don’t know nearly enough about her to guess, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Holy Order Sol, Kliff and Justice
These three all get to go together because none of them got story modes in GGXX – excepting Justices single path, but since that ends with her canonical defeat, that’s certainly not going to get any kind of follow up that I need to worry about. What was obvious even before the official site confirmed that we’d be seeing a chunk of story set during the Holy War is that anything done with these three will happen in the past and would have to involve each other. War-era story possibilities won’t be limited to just these characters, however – Ky’s bound to make an appearance too, and characters like I-no, Slayer, Axl and maybe even Testament could show up just about anywhere they like.
What they’re actually going to tell us with this chunk of story is the big question. They could cover events we know like how Sol joined or left the Order, how he discovered I-no was working for That Man, how Kliff retired and Ky got promoted to Danchou – but they could just as well go into events we’ve never even heard of before. It’s hard not to speculate what sort of light they might be able to shed on those big questions about the history of the PWAB and the truth behind the Gear Project and the war with this chunk of the storyline too. Definitely something that could be worth looking forward to here.
Robo Ky
The official promise from ArcSys is that all 25 playable characters in AC+ will have fully voiced story modes. That’s 25 characters including Robo Ky. I don’t know quite what we’re in for on this front, but I do know I’m scared to find out. XD
In conclusion
The trouble with a game like AC+ is that what all its predecessors did was to set up a whole lot of big mysteries, and it’s a whole lot easier to get people interested in a mystery than it is to give them an equally satisfying resolution. For which matter, as I said in my last post, we’ve got no idea how much plot they’re planning to resolve in AC+, or how well they’re likely to pull it all off at this junction when so much time has elapsed since the last big installment. In a lot of ways I’d rather have the mystery left unresolved than be handed a second-rate conclusion that ruined the series for me, but at this point I’m still relatively hopeful that won’t be the case.
Now all I have to do is make up my mind whether I want to read the spoilers or dither around until someone gets a full translations done. >.>
Anyway – to begin, what makes guessing what we might get out of a new Guilty Gear game so interesting is that it’s not so easy to say exactly what happened in the previous one. Guilty Gear XX had twenty different playable characters and three different endings for each (plus Justice, who got one story ending to herself). That’s a total of sixty-one different story paths – some of which didn’t even touch each other, others which contradicted in every important detail. They can’t all have actually happened in any timeline worth continuing, but fortunately, the GG plot as we know it has had plenty of practice at ploughing right on through contradictions like that. Sol might be the only character who officially got to go down in history as beating Justice after the first game, but that didn’t stop other elements of other characters’ endings becoming important to their story from GGX onwards (like Eddie taking over Zato and Dr Baldhead regaining his sanity, to list a couple of examples). Likewise, GGX may have given us a dozen different stories about how Dizzy joined the Jellyfish Pirates, but the details didn’t matter as long as she did join in the end. Of course, there’s also a good few completely random ending where Dizzy winds up in Zepp or something instead, but in context it’s pretty easy to sift those out.
Same is true of GGXX. Included in those 60 endings you’ve got multiple different versions of what obviously had to happen (Dizzy gets knocked off the May ship, and goes nuts, but eventually gets the sense knocked back into her and gets sent home; I-no causes all kinds of havoc before That Man finally puts her out of action, etc), a handful of standalone events which have such giant plot significance they demand continuation (Ky finding out about the PWAB; Axl finding out about Raven, etc), and a bonus bunch of things which obviously didn’t happen (main characters like Venom or Millia dying are pretty obvious here). Quite a lot of endings – Faust or Slayer meeting That Man, for example – sound plausible and interesting in theory but don’t include anything that the story ever really needs to refer back to again directly, so whether they happened or not is practically irrelevant. At the end of all that you’ve got just a few leftover weird ones like I-no kidnapping May or That Man capturing Eddie which could fit into the timeline somewhere, but will more likely wind up in the scrap canon pile.
The fun part, if you share my love of ridiculous levels of over-analysis, is figuring out which is which. More importantly, that also means guessing what will get a direct follow-up in the sequel. It doesn’t matter who helped Dizzy get home or who might have beaten I-no to a pulp, but Anji and Axl’s meetings with That Man have got to have long term consequences. And there's plenty more odds and ends I'd like to see followed up on even if it's not always so obvious whether I'll be in luck.
So what this whole intro has been leading up to is the bit where I get to discussing probably story direction from GGXX-AC+ – for all 25 characters individually. I don’t know whether anyone’s going to bother reading it all – I seriously would not blame anyone who doesn’t. This may well turn into one of those virtual write-only posts made largely just to get all my thoughts written down in one place so I can come back after the game is out and find out how much I got right. But if anyone does get through it all (or even just skips to the bit about their own favourite character then jumps to the end) I would love to hear other people’s takes on things too. Speculating is fun, but discussion can be even better – and where the GGXX plotline goes, this is about last chance we’re ever going to get. ^^;
The Characters: In order of appearance...
(For a reminder about any of the GGXX events here's the complete game script link. Lord knows even I wouldn't have remembered what happened in half the endings I talk about without it.)
Sol
In GGXX, Sol discovers I-no’s on the move at the start of his story mode, and everything from there on is him hunting her down – the only question deciding which ending he winds up in is how sidetracked he gets on the way. In one ending, he beats I-no and encounters That Man; in another he beats Dizzy and sends her home, and in the third he meets Slayer and learns the PWAB is on the move. There’s nothing particularly important in the Dizzy one, but it’s pretty damn obvious from his interactions with characters in other story paths that he knows a lot more about the PWAB than the rest of us do, and I would be very surprised if what That Man tells him about Sol being needed against a greater threat to come doesn’t turn out to be important. He’s the main character – he’s got to be centrally involved in where the two main plotlines from the series end up. Doesn't even need much analysis really, it goes without saying how important Sol's story is going to be.
Ky
Ky is handed a suspicious new bounty list by Slayer at the start of his story mode and spends most of the rest of it hunting down everyone who’s on it to warn them they’re in danger. In his first ending, he encounters Johnny and they come to an agreement to investigate what’s going on from their own sides of the law. In the second, he runs into an army of Robo-Kys and hears about the PWAB. In the third he encounters I-no and then Sol, and fails miserably to convince Sol to let him in on what’s going on. I will be very disappointed if AC+ doesn’t follow up on all of these endings some way or other.
There’s ample reason to assume all three could be important. The second one is the most obvious – it ties in very neatly to events in a couple of other characters’ story paths in which Ky shows up to help fight other Robo-Kys (or be mistaken for them, much to his horror), and the existence of the PWAB is such a blatantly important thing for him to find out that it would make no sense for this to be a non-canon event. I may be biased on the first ending since I do so love seeing Ky figure out when he has to bend the rules a bit for the greater good, but going beyond personal bias it also ties in vaguely with Johnny’s third ending (although in other respects that ending contradicts everything else we know happened) and even better, would give them a very nice opportunity to tie two of the bigger elements of the story together (Ky and the Jellyfish Pirates) in the next game. I’m probably biased even more about the third ending (hello, Sol and Ky!) but it’s one of only three partially animated endings in the game, and that’s got to mean something, right? =D And again – it’s one of the main protagonists talking to the other main protagonist about the main antagonist of the series and contains a lot of nasty hints about just how big everything that’s going on is.
That said, it is the sort of event that there’ll probably be no reason for them to refer back to directly, but if Ky’s not at least peripherally involved in whatever goes down with That Man, I’m still going to feel gipped.
May
Like the other Jellyfish Pirates, May’s story starts when I-no kicks Dizzy off the ship and follows the journey to find her again. May finds Dizzy in all three of her stories (and miraculously even gets away without fighting her in any, unlike a lot of the rest of the cast). In her first ending, she hits a little misunderstanding with Potemkin. In the second she meets and (somehow) makes friends with Bridget. Actually, there are so many endings where Bridget meets and generally makes friends with various members of the Jellyfish Pirates that I’d be surprised if this doesn’t get some kind of mention in the next game. But that’s more a Bridget thing than a May thing, so more on that later.
The most interesting thing to come out of any of May’s story paths is in the third pathway – a meeting between her and Anji where he tells her a bit about the significance of her Japanese heritage – and if you needed more reason to believe it’s important, that same scene is repeated line-for-line in Anji’s storyline too. She tries to ask Johnny about it at the end, but gets rudely interrupted by a Robo Ky at the crucial moment – yeah, that figures. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that one of Johnny’s own endings features him thinking about how he’ll have to have a long talk with her before too long. There’s clearly something important about May we don’t know yet. Whether it’s just the general mystery of the Japanese or whether there’s more to it even that that is hard to guess, but the PWAB is out after her in force, and she even gets brainwashed by them into fighting the other characters in a couple of other story modes. Methinks this would be another character on who’s account we’re well overdue for some real answers.
Millia
Three games into the series, and Millia’s still hunting down Zato – or rather, the parasitic shadow beast that’s manipulating his corpse. Millia is a very rare case of a character with only one ending that makes any sense – this being the one where she meets up with Slayer and is warned off pursuing Eddie any further. In both her second and third ending she encounters and defeats Eddie herself – the only crucial difference is whether she also meets I-no and settles her past contentedly or collapses of her own near-mortal wounds in the process. Either way that involves the death of at least one character who the writers will want alive for the next game, so they’re easy to rule out.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m quite fond of Millia, but if they drag out her hunt for Zato/Eddie without any conclusion in AC+ as well it’s going to start getting seriously stale. She could have some involvement in the bigger plot – both I-no and the PWAB would rather have her out of the way, but she’s not especially high up on either’s priority lists. Maybe the more interesting point they raised was what Slayer hints to her that if she continues on her current path, she could be in as much danger from her own forbidden beast as Zato was from his. I honestly don’t know where they’re likely to go with that – which only makes me all the more interested in finding out.
Eddie
Eddie’s whole story can be summarised down to basically one fact – he’s dying. He dies in more different endings in the game than any other character I can think of. He spends his storymode searching frantically for a new body powerful enough to support him, and on the way gets tricked into helping I-no and going after Dizzy, but it never ends well for him. In one ending he tries to overtake Sharon but discovers she’s even more invulnerable than he’d counted on (‘scuse me while I have a little Slayer/Sharon fangirl moment here… okay done). In another he gets captured by That Man. The third is one of those rare, partially animated endings where he taunts Venom with the fact Zato was using him all along before taking off again.
Much as I might’ve liked that first ending, it’s clearly out of the question – Eddie’s got to be alive in the next game. The animated one was very interesting, though more from Venom’s perspective than from Eddie’s, and I think we’d have to be very lucky to see any direct reference to a scene like that in the next game. The third one is solidly in the leftover uncertainties category – it could be really interesting to see them follow up on this. I can only imagine what That Man might want with Eddie, or what how it might affect Millia and Venom. However, it doesn’t link up to anything else from any story mode, so I’d honestly be very surprised if we ever see it mentioned again.
Potemkin
Potemkin’s one of those awkward characters who’s basically had their main source of conflict resolved before the start of the second game, and who’s stayed relevant by working as an agent of Zepp in the stories that followed. There’s nothing too telling in his story mode – his main goal is to track down Dizzy after Slayer sends him off with a helpful tip about her, and his other endings have him either meeting Bridget or encountering that never-ending army of Robo Kys. There’s stuff there they could follow up on, but nothing too obviously important.
On the other hand, Zepp is probably the only major world power now that isn’t secretly under the control of the PWAB, and that’s reason enough for him to be involved in events to follow. He’s unlikely to be a major player in any particular plotline in AC+, but there’ll be easily space for him to have his role.
Chipp
Another one of those awkward characters. The novel The Butterfly and her Gale pretty much resolves most of Chipp’s central story and about him getting revenge for his master’s death, but we don’t know yet whether AC+ will be set before or after that, and it’s safe to say his antagonism against the Assassin’s Guild will still be intact wherever we are in the plotline. He’s also connected to the Japanese cast thanks to his mastery of Ki magic, which is more than enough to get him the full attention of the PWAB – the poor kid is even brainwashed by the Robo Kys in several story paths. His own story paths in GGXX have him either settling up with the Robo Kys after regaining his mind, encountering Slayer and being warned to stay out of his business with the Guild, or encountering Venom and insisting he’ll have Venom work for him after he becomes president (XDDD Hey, I’d vote for Chipp!) Anyway, like Potemkin, he’s got nothing major he needs resolving in AC+ and he isn’t likely to have central importance to any particular plotline, but he’s got plenty of reason to be involved wherever the PWAB or the Assassin’s Guild show up. And some kind of direct follow up to that scene with him and Venom probably isn’t out of the question either.
Faust
…okay, so I’m going to start this one by taking a moment to point out that I think both Chipp and Faust are forged from shear awesome and are both well up there with my favourite characters from the series, because otherwise all I’ve got to start with is the phrase, “And here’s another character who’s main remaining story is some ongoing antagonism against the Assassin’s Guild.” Faust meets I-no in one ending (just more of the same there), Zappa in another (more on that when we get to him), and Venom and our good ol’ army of Robo Kys in the third. The third scene is the interesting one – Venom admits plainly that the Guild were behind the incident that sent ‘Dr Baldhead’ crazy, but goes right on to hint that even the Guild itself are little more than pawns to the PWAB these days. I’m not much of a Venom fan generally, so understand me when I say he is damn cool in this scene. And after he’s revealed something so important to Faust, I think we’ve got a very good chance of seeing some kind of follow up. I’d sure hope for one.
Baiken
It’s a bit hard to know exactly what they could do with Baiken – I doubt she’s ever going to be allowed to destroy That Man outright, but she’s not just going to give up her revenge either, and that only really leaves the options of sending her off on a tangent or leaving it all in a stalemate. Her storyline is another one of those fairly generic ones – she’s after That Man, the PWAB is after her – and hey – so’s Anji, but he’s got different motives. Baiken gets one ending with each of the three of them (That Man, Anji and the Robo Kys) – all very interesting in their own way. The one with Anji especially so, but that’s better left until I get to his section to elaborate on, so let’s stick with the fact that it’s pretty safe to guess that when AC+ opens, Baiken’s still going to be after That Man and on the run from the Robo Kys, but unless my inner Baiken/Anji shipper is very unlucky, we can probably count on a good share of her having to put up with her witless admirer along the way.
Jam
Still in with the less important characters. Jam’s complete self-absorption is so central to her character that there’s not a awful lot that could be done with her to tie her into the larger plots – but she’s got one ending establishing that the PWAB is very much interested in her (and spawning all kinds of great fannish fun with Robo-Jam theories), and another establishing that she now knows that the PWAB are the ones responsible for burning down her restaurant, and I really don’t see her taking that kind of insult lying down. Actually, y’know, I’m not much of a fan hers usually, but the image of Jam charging into the PWAB headquarters and wrecking all the havoc she can is one beautiful mental scene. XD Hey, I can hope, can’t I?
Johnny
Ah, finally we’re back to the more plot relevant characters. Johnny may seem like just a shameless, womanising Robin Hood wannabe, but his crew includes a sentient Gear and an escaped Japanese girl, and Johnny himself knows a hell of a lot more about the big secrets of the GG world than he’s letting on. Johnny has two endings in GGXX where he brings Dizzy home, but also this random third ending which contradicts absolutely everything else (being based on a scenario where Dizzy never gets knocked off the ship in the first place) but has more interesting plot points than the rest of his story put together. This is the story path where he meets Slayer, finds out the PWAB are in action, doesn’t quite come to any useful agreement with Ky and is left talking to his cat about how he’s going to have to reveal May’s past to her sooner or later. Contradictory or not, this is the kind of stuff I’d really hope to see developed with Johnny in AC+, and enough of those details correspond with events from Ky or May’s storylines that I think I could be in luck on that account. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t have to be canon in the traditional sense – it’s the sort of ending that’s just there to remind us what the important themes are, and it does that very nicely.
Axl
…just what exactly is Axl doing this far down the official list? He’s been in the game as long as May and Millia, and he’s definitely more important than Jam, right? Eh, well anyway, nitpicking aside, Axl’s story mode is all about him looking for That Man in the hope of getting some light shed on his time-slipping problem, and in the process he discovers that the ‘alternate existence’ that started it all was one of That Man’s servants. This is very high up on my list of Things I Really Really Hope AC+ Explains. It may be too much to hope that they’ll ever bother to explain exactly how Axl knows Sol or where he recognises I-no from, but there’s got to be a hell of a story behind the Axl-Raven connection, and I only hope the writers actually know what it is*.
Aside from that, Axl’s got one cute little ending where he meets a future version of himself that assures him everything is going to be alright, and one where he meets Zappa. The one with Zappa could actually be important, but that’s something I’ll get to under Zappa’s section. The one where he meets his future self raises some very interesting possibilities – not least the implication that future-Axl can timeslip himself around at will, but it’s one of those endings that’s much more likely to fall into the ‘doesn’t matter’ category, so even if canon doesn’t ever do anything to either confirm or contradict it, there’s no particular reason why it should ever need to be mentioned again.
*Hey, if ever there was a series that makes me worry they’re just making shit up as they go along… (well, other than the X-files – that was just a whole other class of special)
Anji
If ever a game had a wildcard character, that would be Anji. He doesn’t even get an appearance until the second game in the series, but he’s an escaped Japanese, he’s one of only three characters to own a piece of the Outrage, he has more idea about the truths behind the Gear Project than almost anyone else on the cast, and he’s searching for That Man apparently out of shear curiousity. The ending where he meets That Man is one of the most potentially important in the game – just what did he reveal to Anji after the screen faded out? There’s apparently some fan-speculation that he was offered the chance to become a Gear, and given Anji’s issues with his own age and obvious interest in Gear-immortality, that’s not a bad theory. On the other hand, there’s that ending of Baiken’s which plays like a direct follow up to that event where he appears in front of her and is eventually talked (or beaten) into telling her what he’d learned, and while that adds a lot of weight to the idea Anji’s meeting with That Man was important, it also looks like a pretty solid contradiction to the Gear-Anji theory. Still, we’ve got to be due some explanation of what went on in that conversation in the next game, or I am going to be very disappointed with them all.
His other endings both deal with him discovering that the PWAB is out after the Japanese, and it goes without saying that that’s bound to continue on into the next game too.
Venom
Counting all the characters with axes to grind with the Assassin’s Guild, Venom’s got nearly as many people as That Man out after his neck – and then there’s the link between the Guild and the PWAB, and not to forget those little unresolved issues with that zombified old mentor of his. He’s all over the place in the various GGXX story modes, though his own focuses on him trying to strengthen himself enough to be a match for Slayer after the Guild’s old founder shows up to shut them down. His endings are much like Millia’s in terms of plausibility – they have him either defeating Eddie and dying (nope), defeating both Eddie and Millia (another nope) or encountering Slayer and reaching a stalemate (sound familiar?). At any rate, he’s got some loose connection to so many plotlines from GGXX that he could turn up pretty much wherever, but naturally it’s his main story I’m most interested in seeing resolved, and that means finding out what role he’s still got to play in Eddie’s eventual fate.
Seriously, I have no idea where they’re going with this one, and I’m kind of hoping to be surprised. But we’ll see.
Testament
Testament’s story in GGXX is all about him hunting for Dizzy after she falls off the May ship. He can either find he’s too late and she’s already dead (automatically non-canon), help bring her home (cute but typical and unimportant) or get side tracked and run into Slayer and Sol and find out the PWAB is on the move. Testament may generally take a backseat to the ‘important’ Gear characters like Sol and Dizzy, but damn if he isn’t even more mysterious than them in his own way – a perfectly humanoid Gear who served Justice but still maintained enough free will to continue functioning after her defeat? The information revealed in that last story path – that the PWAB were the very organisation that made him a Gear in the first place – is far and away what I most want to see followed up on. We know the PWAB consider That Man their enemy, so what the hell were they doing making their own Gears during the war – let alone Gears who’d go straight in Justice’s service? So we’ve got to the mystery behind Testament and a major hint about the mystery behind the PWAB all in one here, and that’s got to deserve some follow up if there’s any mercy in the world.
Dizzy
One of those characters who’s a mystery even to herself – mostly regarding that big question of just where the hell she could possibly have come from. She’s got one ending where she gets to meet That Man and he hints very strongly that he knows exactly what the answer is (a meeting Dizzy inconveniently ‘forgets’ afterwards) and another ending which hints strongly that Sol is her father. However, this was before the GGXX drama CDs came out and revealed that Justice is officially her mother, and the logic that Gear mother + Gear father != Half-Gear-half-human daughter would seem to rule that possibility right back out again. Whatever the truth is, there’s got to be some kind of story behind her seriously unlikely origins, and I sure hope they’re going to get around to telling us about it (and not just so I can cross off a question mark or two in the Relationship Diagram of Doom either).
Dizzy’s remaining ending is the one where she meets Bridget, so again we’ve got Bridget making friends with the Jellyfish pirates. Can’t help but feel that something about that bounty-hunting career of his isn’t quite getting off to the best start… XD
Slayer
Slayer’s very interesting – he could be the oldest, most powerful character in the whole cast, but he’s far more interested in nudging other characters in the right direction than getting involved himself. His role in the game is to cause trouble for the assassins and warn other characters about the PWAB (though it’s interesting that Sol and Testament are the only two he mentions the name to – those same characters who’d heard of them before) and that Dizzy’s in trouble. Slayer is one of those especially odd cases of a character who is clearly very important, however, most of his own story mode blatantly contradicts his roles in everyone else’s. For example, we know from multiple story modes that Potemkin goes looking for Dizzy, and from Potemkin’s own story that Slayer was the one who first nudged him that direction; however, in Slayer’s story mode it’s Potemkin who sends him after Dizzy – the exact opposite. Slayer’s ending with Chipp is similarly contradictory to Chipp’s corresponding one. He’s also got endings with Eddie and That Man, however, his story mode as a whole is so inconsistent that I’m happier to ignore all of it and stick with his role in everyone else’s stories as his more important contribution to the plot.
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Slayer, but it’s not the sort of mystery that the series necessarily needs to clear up. Anyway, I’d expect his role in AC+ will be much the same, with his role in other characters’ stories being the more important part, but we’ll see. A character like Slayer could be used to reveal any number of mysteries…
I-no
And speaking of giant mysteries, now there’s I-no. As a boss type character her role in other characters’ stories is more important than her own, but at least I-no’s story mode is a lot more consistent. Inasmuch as she has a ‘correct’ ending, it’s the one where she fights Sol, before her employer shows up and helpfully explains that no, actually h e wants all these people she’s been going after alive thank you kindly, and makes her go sit in the corner and have a good think about what she’s done for a bit. There’s another ending where she pushes Dizzy too far and winds up paying for it, and one last ending where she knocks May out and brings her home to That Man for study – the last being a typical case of interesting if true, but seriously unlikely to ever get followed up on.
It isn’t obvious what might happen with I-no in the next game. It’s not likely she’ll make the same mistake of acting without orders twice, but predicting what That Man might instruct her to do is well beyond me. What I really want where I-no’s concerned is some answers regarding just precisely where she got all that power in the first place. There’s a story panel in the GG manga that suggests she’s been around ever since magic was first discovered – I mean, ho-ly-shit that’s a long time – but to all appearances she is still technically human, and she didn’t even go to work for That Man until much later. A little explanation would go a long way.
Zappa
You know you’re really getting to the bottom of the character-barrel when you hit someone like Zappa. Even the PWAB isn’t interested in him, so Zappa’s story is entirely about his own journey to find someone who can tell him what on earth is wrong with him. He fulfils his goal of finding Faust in one of his GGXX endings, though he doesn’t learn much in the process. You’d have to hope there’ll be some kind of resolution for poor Zappa (even if I personally suspect he’s probably never going to get to find out exactly what keeps causing his weird blackouts even if he does get himself fixed) but it’s hard to imagine what, or how it’d connect to anything else in the story.
That said, there is one interesting fan theory based on an ending where Axl runs into Zappa and randomly starts thinking about Megumi after he wins the fight. The scene spawned the fan-idea that perhaps S-ko is none other than the ghost of Megumi herself, and her anger against men is a result of her being ‘abandoned’ by Axl when he disappeared. The neat upshot of this is that if Axl ever does get himself home to Megumi, that would logically mean that Zappa’s problem would be retroactively solved. It’s a lot to read into such a minor scene though, so I wouldn’t put much money on anything coming of it.
Bridget
Ah, another character made entirely from plot-lint – not that you’d guess it considering his Internet-notoriety. Bridget’s whole story mode is based on him being handed a fake bounty list at the start and not finding out it’s not for real until the end, whichever path he takes. He can either meet Ky and find out officially, or meet Dizzy and find out unofficially, or traumatise Johnny terribly with his infamous gender ambiguity. What he doesn’t do in any version of canon is join the Jellyfish Pirates, contrary to a rather ridiculous fan notion which I can only guess is based entirely on someone taking one look at his second ending image and not bothering to read any of the text that goes with it (he’s got a home and a family and he’s working as a bounty hunter, for crying out loud! Why on earth would he go live with pirates, really?) However, that said, Bridget does meet and befriend members of the Jellyfish Pirates (generally Dizzy) in enough different endings that I fully expect that connection to warrant some kind of mention in the next game. I have to admit I’d like to see it too – a ridiculous little cross-dressing bounty hunter socialising with a bunch of equally ridiculous bounty-heads of the likes of Dizzy and May? Illogical, adorable, comedy gold.
A.B.A.
After being so neglected story-wise since her introduction in Isuka, A.B.A. is up for a proper story appearance at last. She’s not likely to be any more important to the main plotline than the likes of Zappa and Bridget, but she could stir up her own brand of trouble. What they’re going to do with her story-wise is a very good question, but we know she wants to get her beloved Paracelsus a real human(oid) body, and I’ve seen it suggested at least once that she may very well go about that by ripping through the main GG-cast and assessing their bodies for the task. Then again, as A.B.A. must be aware her own body is artificial, she may just as well take the more sociable means of simply trying to track down someone who’d know how to make a body from scratch, which could go just about anywhere. We don’t know nearly enough about her to guess, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Holy Order Sol, Kliff and Justice
These three all get to go together because none of them got story modes in GGXX – excepting Justices single path, but since that ends with her canonical defeat, that’s certainly not going to get any kind of follow up that I need to worry about. What was obvious even before the official site confirmed that we’d be seeing a chunk of story set during the Holy War is that anything done with these three will happen in the past and would have to involve each other. War-era story possibilities won’t be limited to just these characters, however – Ky’s bound to make an appearance too, and characters like I-no, Slayer, Axl and maybe even Testament could show up just about anywhere they like.
What they’re actually going to tell us with this chunk of story is the big question. They could cover events we know like how Sol joined or left the Order, how he discovered I-no was working for That Man, how Kliff retired and Ky got promoted to Danchou – but they could just as well go into events we’ve never even heard of before. It’s hard not to speculate what sort of light they might be able to shed on those big questions about the history of the PWAB and the truth behind the Gear Project and the war with this chunk of the storyline too. Definitely something that could be worth looking forward to here.
Robo Ky
The official promise from ArcSys is that all 25 playable characters in AC+ will have fully voiced story modes. That’s 25 characters including Robo Ky. I don’t know quite what we’re in for on this front, but I do know I’m scared to find out. XD
In conclusion
The trouble with a game like AC+ is that what all its predecessors did was to set up a whole lot of big mysteries, and it’s a whole lot easier to get people interested in a mystery than it is to give them an equally satisfying resolution. For which matter, as I said in my last post, we’ve got no idea how much plot they’re planning to resolve in AC+, or how well they’re likely to pull it all off at this junction when so much time has elapsed since the last big installment. In a lot of ways I’d rather have the mystery left unresolved than be handed a second-rate conclusion that ruined the series for me, but at this point I’m still relatively hopeful that won’t be the case.
Now all I have to do is make up my mind whether I want to read the spoilers or dither around until someone gets a full translations done. >.>
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i have no idea why I'm still awake
Date: 2008-03-27 04:44 pm (UTC)Re: i have no idea why I'm still awake
Date: 2008-03-28 12:18 am (UTC)*blinks at timestamp* WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING AWAKE? You need your sleep
for all that betaing you have to do!no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 01:10 am (UTC)But I am curious as to A.B.A's story mode since, like you said, she's been awfully neglected. Also, I'm having my hopes up for a bit of comedy relief sort of thing for Robo-Ky's story mode. I mean, really, he was one of the only things that made me laugh for hours while I had been playing XX. (Shame that they changed his voice in the first AC, it doesn't sounds as animated... But I guess that was what they were going for since he's a robot)
But on any case, I'd want to read up on this as soon as there's any signs of any info regarding the plots! XD
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Date: 2008-03-28 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 12:35 pm (UTC)Although it may be too late now, I hope GG's not going to end up like that. Sin and Dizzy are already making the diagram look like a game of cat's cradle.
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Date: 2008-03-28 01:18 pm (UTC)And I'm, I'm not sure if anything can really keep up with Genji, though if anything will come close it's likely to be this series. Especially if you included links to things that only take place in these assorted debatable canons!
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Date: 2008-03-28 03:04 pm (UTC)Given how these 20+ GG characters have multiple story endings, who knows? Some Japanese are already (jokingly, I hope) calling Sol and Sin 'Grandpa and grandson'.
IIRC, someone did a SolxKyxSin doujinshi too.Hopefully AC+ will at least answer the parentage questions before piling up new mysteries.no subject
Date: 2008-03-29 02:35 am (UTC)Part of me is still hoping they don't cover everything, because that way we have a better chance that there'll be future games in the GGX series, but we'll really have to see where it goes. They must have enough space in the story to cover a lot of important stuff though. The real question is how they've handled it.
A.B.A. did actually get some story in the Night of Knives drama CDs (only wish I'd had time to translate it properly). From what I could understand it sounded like backstory - mostly set shortly after she first got hold of Paracelsus (she was really creeping the hell out of him by insisting they were married and all XD), with some other involvement by Slayer who seemed to have met Paracelsus before. But this'll be her first really proper story involvement, so there'll be lost of expectations there. And trust me, I too will be very disappointed if Robo-Ky's story isn't entirely comic relief. *g*
There is quite a lot of info coming out already, I'm just still doing my silly dithery thing about whether or not I want to check it out yet. ^^;
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Date: 2008-03-29 02:47 am (UTC)(Never read Genji myself, but thanks to