What Are the Versions of Guilty Gear XX?

One game, five revisions, ten years: the arcade workshop, version by version.

Fighting games get sequels. Guilty Gear XX got editions. Between 2003 and 2012 Arc System Works returned to the same game five times, each version launched in Japanese arcades, tuned against live competition, and then carried home, most of them to the PlayStation 2. The base game on this shelf is the 2002 original; everything below is its line of descent.

THE LINE

Version by version

Guilty Gear XX, 2002

The original: NAOMI arcade in May, PlayStation 2 in December. Psyche Burst arrives, Robo-Ky is a boss and a rumor, and the story mode runs to 60 endings.

#Reload, 2003

The first revision, in arcades 26 March 2003: a full rebalance, Robo-Ky rebuilt as a proper playable character, and the version that carried XX to Xbox and, in Europe, to PlayStation 2.

Slash, 2005

Arcades 28 September 2005, PlayStation 2 in 2006: two more fighters, A.B.A and Order-Sol, join the cast, and the system is retuned around them.

Accent Core, 2006

Arcades 20 December 2006, PlayStation 2 and Wii in 2007: the deepest revision, with new Force Break moves, throw breaks, and a changed Slashback parry, plus a redrawn presentation.

Accent Core Plus, 2008

The home focused Plus: story and mission content restored and expanded for console players, on PlayStation 2 and PSP first.

Accent Core Plus R, 2012

The last word: a final arcade rebalance a full decade after the original, later patched into the Plus home versions, closing the line where it began, in the arcades.

WHY SO MANY

The arcade as workshop

The pattern is the point. Each version was a tournament season's answer to the last: infinites removed, weak characters rebuilt, one or two new fighters folded in, and the community carried forward rather than reset. Modern fighting games do this with patches. XX did it with new arcade releases and new discs, which is why collectors face a shelf of near identical titles, and why this Library treats the line as one game with five documented states.

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

Guilty Gear XX, the original

Guilty Gear XX · Japan · PlayStation 2

I-No fills the Japanese box for the original XX, the first of the revisions this page sorts in order.

The full story: the history of Guilty Gear XX →

What Are the Versions of Guilty Gear XX?

THE LINE

WHY SO MANY

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

THE FIRST WORD