Well, what else can be said about the latest development news of the creators of Guilty Gear making a new game for the DS other than I doubt anyone would have expected this. Guilty Gear really is a great 2D fighting game – it has wonderfully unique characters, great music, great art and animation and a fun combat system. When I started reading about the possibility of a new addition, the first thing that I envisioned was Guilty Gear with updated sexy PS3 / Xbox360 graphics akin to BlazBlue, the creators’ latest fighting game franchise. I suppose it was silly of me to get my hopes up, really.

The last title that adorned the Guilty Gear name was GG: Overture. It was a horribly reviewed action/real time strategy (RTS) game that few people expected either. Oh sure, it had some iconic Guilty Gear characters, but that was about where the similarities ended. So they got their little failed experiment of a spin off out of the way so one would expect that they would go back to the original format.

Oh, but you see, this isn’t just Guilty Gear, it is Furo Jump!! Guilty Gear Gaiden!? As in a side story…and yes the exclamation and question marks are part of the title. So the idea here is that you play as Chimaki (a rice ball, normally wrapped in bamboo) that is having back problems. Apparently, Chimaki was a secret item in Overture and so this now is the chronicle of HIS adventure.

Okay, so now that I fleshed out the craziness, let me get to saying this. The game is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that looks really nicely animated and has a certain zany charm. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong or out of place with it except for its NAME. Why in the world they decided that they should attach the Guilty Gear name is way beyond me. I’m sure that the game could have sold on its own (and at only $5 at that), but I can’t help but think that they just slapped the name on there for some publicity.

Of course, considering how many people now know about the game just based on the title and how completely off base it is for a Guilty Gear title, I also can’t help but feel like there is a little bit of genius behind all of that insanity.

On a side note, the punch line for this week is a little dicey – but it’s the only one that genuinely had me laughing. All my other prospective punch lines I felt really lacked that je ne sais quoi. I guess it is because you can’t help but do a double take at the mess in panel 4 with the Hitler Onigiri and laugh as you wonder what the HELL Bear is thinking.

Drawing this comic kinda makes me want to play Guilty Gear again. It's a really cool franchise! XD I used to be really into it, but I've never gotten to the point however to which I can consider myself as being "good." I was looking through some Guilty Gear art while working on the comic and I was thinking that it's kind of a shame that it's over. '_' I'm highly doubtful Sammy will do anything more than pachinko machines with the Guilty Gear license now that Arc System Works (creators of the Guilty Gear games) has moved on to doing other things. I guess you can say that Blazblue, Arc System Works new big fighting game franchise, is the new "Guilty Gear," but I personally don't think the characters are as cool or charming.

Thinking about Guilty Gear reminds me of my high school and early college days when one of my best high school friends would come over. He usually wanted to play fighting games (often times King of Fighters) and would almost ALWAYS trounce me. I only found myself getting decent at using certain iconic characters which I really tried not using because I really HATED seeing everyone repeatedly using the same characters whenever I saw people playing arcade games; it can get really tiring. Honestly, more than half of the Street Fighter player matches I've seen seem to have players being either Ken or Ryu.

I haven't seen and don't know many people who play King of Fighters games, but I still try to stay away from the Fatal Fury team even though I think they're really fun to use; they're just TOOO good! Terry, Andy, and Joe are all fast characters with easily executable moves which are unique from one another and all seem to be very useful in common situations. To top it off, their specials and supers look really cool and are satisfying to pull off too! -Anyhow, the point I was getting to was that it's much cooler seeing someone beat the game using a unique character like Karen in Street Fighter Alpha 2 than it is to see someone beating it using Ken. >_>