Gear up: Arc System Works teaming with SuperGroupies to bring Guilty Gear, Blazblue-inspired apparel to Japan

Backpacks, cardigans and cell phone cases based on the designs of popular Arc System Works characters are coming as part of the company's new collaboration.

The items will be coming from SuperGroupies, a Japanese apparel company that seeks to merge anime and gaming style with that of normal clothing and accessories. 

On the Guilty Gear side, there will be a backpack, iPhone case and Cardigan with colors and designs referencing Sol Badguy, Ky Kiske, Ramlethal Valentine and Elphelt Valentine. For BlazBlue, Ragna the Bloodedge, Jin Kisaragi and Hazama will all get phone cases, while Ragna receives a backpack, Jin a smaller should bag and Hazama gets a messenger or laptop-style pack. 

All items are now available for preorder but they don't come cheap, with the cell phone cases costing 5,800 yen (roughly $50) while the cardigans are 12,800 (~$115) and the bags vary from 12,800 to 17,800 (~$115-160). Prospective buyers outside Japan will also need to jump through extra hoops as SuperGroupies does not ship internationally. Those still interested can check out the collection at SuperGroupies.

Arc System Works announces ArcRevo World Tour

The makers of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue have announced a new circuit of events that will put more than $100,00 into the pockets of players.

ArcRevo World Tour will see players competing for cash prizes in BlazBlue Central Fiction, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle and Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 at tournaments across the globe. The action will start in the fall of 2018 and run for one year, culminating in the finals at ArcRevo America 2019 in Los Angeles, California.

So far 10 events have been named as ArcRevo qualifiers—Evo, Frosty Faustings, CEO and Texas Showdown in the U.S.; Revolution, Brussels Challenge and Headstomper in Europe; ArcRevo Japan and Evo Japan; and South East Asia Major—with more to be announced.

For more information on the ArcRevo World Tour, readers can check out the series' official website and watch the trailer after the jump.

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Original Guilty Gear coming to PS4, Switch, Steam

In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary, Arc System Works will be bringing the original Guilty Gear to PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam.

During a stream on the official Japanese ASW channel on the game's 20th birthday, the company revealed the new version and showed some of the ridiculous combos players could perform in the first GG game.

No release date or pricing was given at this time. Guilty Gear was first released on PlayStation in Japan on May 14, 1998.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R coming to Nintendo Switch

During a presentation at the Nexon Developer's Conference 2018, Arc System Works announced that the final iteration in the Guilty Gear XX series will be coming to the Switch.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R currently has no release date for the console, but ASW announced that the game will include the Korean soundtrack from Guilty Gear XX #Reload.

There is no other information available at this time. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R is currently available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and PS Vita consoles.

UYU signs Cloud805, Kizzie Kay

UYU has added two more players to its roster with the additions of Jonathan "Cloud805" Morales and Keenan "Kizzie Kay" Kizzie.

Morales was the 2017 Battle for the Stones champion in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, as well as a player with many tournament victories in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Kizzie, meanwhile, has posted victories in major tournaments for both BlazBlue and Guilty Gear Xrd in recent years.

While dominant players in their own right, both players have now set their sights on the burgeoning Dragon Ball FighterZ scene with hopes to prove their strength across titles. Morales is scheduled to attend the upcoming NorCal Regionals 2018, while Kizzie is in the brackets for this year's Anime Ascension event.

Morales and Kizzie are the two most recent acquisitions of UYU, a team that has been adding players from all games across the fighting game community. Before these signings, UYU had most recently signed 2017 Tekken World Tour champion Qudans. 

AnimEvo 2018 lineup announced

AnimEvo has announced the 19 games that will be a part of its event during Evolution 2018.

Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code, Under Night In-Birth EXE:Late[st], Gundam Versus, Hokuto no Ken, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, Koihime Enbu, The King of Fighters XIV, Samurai Shodown V Special, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Blazblue: Central Fiction, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Puyopuyo Tetris, Catherine, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Six Stars!!!!!!, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, Vampire Savior and Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm will all be side tournaments run by the community in Las Vegas.

Registration is not currently open, but the staff behind AnimEvo has put out a call for game suggestions, as well as a call for volunteers that can be found on Google Documents.

For more information as it becomes available, players can check out the official AnimEvo website or message AnimEvo on Twitter. AnimEvo takes place on Aug. 3-5, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Console update for Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 launches March 1, 2018

The most recent patch to Rev 2, which released on Feb. 14 in Japanese arcades, will be coming home for console players at the beginning of March.

Arcade version 2.1 includes changes for all members of the cast, with varying numbers of alterations and levels of significance.

For now, the revision will only be launching for the PlayStation 3 and 4 iterations of Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2. The Steam version currently has no release date at this time.

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 version 2.1 released

The newest revision to Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 has landed in arcades in Japan, bringing with it a list of changes to each character in the game.

The main news coming out of the patch is that seemingly all the changes that were made for the location test have been retained in the update. This means big changes for both Baiken and Answer, and buffs for characters such as I-No while Chipp has gotten nerfs.

These tweaks and alterations have been translated by GreatFernMan and can be found on Evernote. While the update is only in arcades for the time being, it is scheduled to be released on PC and console platforms sometime in March 2018.

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 version 2.1 comes to arcades on Feb. 14

After a short location test, the next update to Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 will be released in mid-February.

The new version will arrive roughly a month after Arc System Works announced its existence during the ASW Fighting Game Awards 2017. The company added a lengthy list of changes to the game for the location test (translations by GreatFernMan), but it is unknown which modifications have stuck for the update and which have been discarded. Hopefully ASW will provide a document listing the changes closer to or on release of the patch.

Although the update will also roll out to the console and PC platforms, no date was given for its release at this time.

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 changes revealed, location test ongoing

The balance update coming to Guilty Gear Xrd has started its first location test, and Arc System Works has posted the character changes online.

Rev 2 version 2.1 will bring alterations to every character in Guilty Gear, although the number and depth of the changes will vary across the cast. The test began in Japan on Jan. 29 at three arcade locations and will run for an unannounced length of time.

Arc System Works has made the changes available in Japanese on its website, and GreatFernMan is currently translating and compiling them on Evernote.

New balance update coming to Guilty Gear Xrd

After the Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 tournament at its Fighting Game Awards 2017 event, Arc System Works announced that a new balance patch will be coming to the game.

This will be the first major update to Guilty Gear Xrd since Rev 2 launched in May 2017.

The company confirmed that all characters will receive changes as part of the new patch. No time frame or any other information about the update was made available at this time.

Mikado's Tenkaichi Budokai returns for third series

Mikado arcade in Japan will once again be holding its eight-person Guilty Gear league, Tenkaichi Budokai, this time from December 2017 into January 2018.

Tenkaichi Budokai is an arcade-based, offline league where eight of the best Guilty Gear players in the world are split into two groups in a round-robin format. The player with the most points in each group is then moved into the final round. Those two players will be joined by a third player who wins a "last chance qualifier" comprised of the next-highest-placing competitors.

Omito (Johnny), Ogawa (Zato-1), Zadi (Raven) and Haaken (Sol) will make up group A, while Nage (Faust), Tomo (Leo), Tourio (I-No) and Fumo (Elphelt) will make up group B.

The first round of competition begins on Dec. 23, 2017, with Omito squaring off against Zadi. All the action will be broadcast on Jonio's Twitch channel, with English commentary by MajinObama.

For more information on Tenkaichi Budokai 3, including small player profiles, readers can head to TwitLonger. Readers can also follow MajinObama and Jonio on Twitter for updates including potential schedule changes.

Archive of Godsgarden 12, all about Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2

The long-running Japanese tournament series Godsgarden continues on with Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 being the focus in this latest iteration.

The twelfth edition of Godsgarden took place on Oct. 8, 2017, at Tokyo, Japan's Ikebukuro Storia. The stream archive, found after the jump, features part of the initial preliminary matches and all of top eight. Much like past editions of Godsgarden, this tournament is running on consoles setups instead of arcade cabinets.

Featuring the best players from Japan, including Samitto, FAB, Nage and more, the six-hour archive of Godsgarden 12 is something to watch if you play Guilty Gear!

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BeautifulDude joins InTheSkies

One of the Tekken scene's biggest teams is making a foray into the world of airdashers by signing Julian "BeautifulDude" Franco.

Known most for his Zato-1 play in the Guilty Gear Xrd series, Franco has become a constant in the Southern California airdash scene with many top three placements in his history. Since 2016 he has also become a multigame performer, showing off strong performances in BlazBlue with Relius and picking up Tekken 7 with its release in June 2017.

"[Joining ITS is] an extremely exciting oppotunity, to say the least," Franco said in a statement to IPLAYWINNER. "I'm a bit nervous, but I'm eager to show what I can do with Zato and Relius! There'll be Dead Man's Hands for everyone!"

BeautifulDude will be representing ITS for the first time at SoCal Regionals 2017 on Sept. 22-24 in Anaheim, California.

Revolution 2017 to offer Arc Revo qualifier for Europe

Five spots in Arc System Works' vaunted Arc Revolution Cup will be available to competitors during NGI and Rice Digital's Revolution 2017 in London, England.

The top three placers in Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 and top two in BlazBlue Central Fiction at the qualifying event on Oct. 7-8 will have the opportunity to form teams and represent Europe at Arc Revo Cup.

Along with qualifying for ARC, prizes at Revolution will also include travel and accommodations for the players courtesy of both games' European publisher PQube. According to rules of the event, players must be at least 18 years old with a valid passport that they must bring to the event. Japanese players are allowed to qualify from the event.

For more information on Revolution 2017, including registration for the event, readers can head over the event's official website. Meanwhile, Arc Revolution Cup 2017 is part of Taito's Toushinsai event, which takes place Oct. 21, 2017, in Tokyo, Japan.

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 update adds new digital figures, improvements

A new patch has been released in Japan for the PlayStation 3 and 4 versions of Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 containing a big update to Digital Figure Mode along with improvements and bug fixes.

The update brings new characters and poses to Digital Figure Mode, including nonplayable characters such as Ariels, Zappa, Robo-Ky, Gabriel and more. These can all be earned through fishing like other models.

The rest of the update includes small changes, like the ability to see a combo's list of inputs in training mode via "Combo Recipe Display," and fixes to bugs that prevented players from receiving the money bonus for clearing Answer and Baiken's combo trials or sitting at a machine in an online lobby. 

Though currently not available outside Japan, the update should be heading to other regions soon. Arc System Works did not reveal details on when the Steam version of the patch is coming, but did note that more story mode content will be added to Rev 2 in a different upcoming update.

"Tension Pulse" Rev 2 exhibition series debuts on June 22

The successor to the "Super Steam Xrd Exhibition League" will have its first event as June 2017 nears its end.

Originally scheduled to begin with the release of Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 on June 1, "Tension Pulse" was delayed because of unstable connections in the Steam version of the game. Now that Rev 2 has been patched, the exhibition series is ready to start again.

The first matches will see Blaze's Raven take on Woocash's Baiken and Faultydefense's Answer will fight TheArm's Ramlethal. The matches will take place starting at 9 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. PDT) with commentary from BeautifulDude and Samifish on Silva's Twitch channel.

'Execution Woes' takes on micro-dashing

Guilty Gear player and commentator Samifish's ongoing journal dedicated to improving his own execution in fighting games has now added an entry on micro-dashes.

While simple in theory—a micro-dash is just a small dash used to make moves combo when they otherwise would not—micro-dashes can be a tough concept for players to understand and execute properly.

Much like in his first entry, Samifish breaks his problem with a micro-dash combo into pieces and describes the thought process by which he tackles each issue individually until he is successful.

Readers can check out the article at Medium.

Rev 2 league brings online Guilty Gear to Europe starting June 13

With the release of Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, a European league looks to bring the strongest players in the continent together with online play.

MechaGS and Dr_McN1njer will present the competition, which features 96 players broken up into 16 groups. Two players will advance out of each group to form top 32, and all matches from top 16 matches on will be streamed. 

The league will run every Tuesday and Thursday starting on June 13 at 7 p.m. British Summer Time (12 p.m. PDT, 2 p.m. EDT) with streaming on MechaGS' Twitch channel. For more information, readers can message Dr_McN1njer on Twitter.

'Execution Woes' explores Guilty Gear's jump install mechanic

Guilty Gear player and commentator Sami "Samifish" Nash has started a new journal chronicling his attempts to get better at combos and advanced techniques in Xrd.

Traditionally a Ky player, Nash realized that he had never needed to learn how to properly perform a jump install, and discusses his thought and playing process while trying to complete one of Chipp's trials. Nash first defines what a jump install is—with the help of Dustloop—and then breaks the whole sequence down into pieces that it was easier for him to later put together in the full combo.

Nash's take is an interesting read for players new to Guilty Gear or just those wondering how other competitors look at system mechanics. Readers can find it on Medium.