Location tests for Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2 have started up in Japan and professional Guilty Gear players are flooding the internet with info. While original reports from Arc System Works said there would be no dramatic system changes between Revelator and Rev2, that’s not entirely accurate. There are indeed changes made to the base game mechanics, and while newer players may not notice them at first glance, veterans will instantly recognize that this isn’t the same game they have been playing.

Let’s take a look.

Roman Cancels

Roman Cancels are the mechanic that all high-level Guilty Gear play is based on. They allow you to spend meter in order to immediately stop any move you are doing and return to a neutral state.

There are three types of Roman Cancels to choose from: Yellow, Red, and Purple. Yellow Roman Cancels happen when you cancel a move during its start-up. YRCs, as they are called, cost only 25 percent of your meter and happen nearly instantly. Red Roman Cancels occur when you cancel when a move is active. They cost half of your meter but still occur practically instantly. Purple Roman Cancels happen when you cancel a move during cooldown. They used to cost half of your meter, but had quite a bit of lead-in time making them unsafe. In the new build, however, PRCs cancel in about the same time as YRCs.

Roman Cancels are divided into these three different types due to their usage. Canceling a move after startup means you get no benefit from actually hitting with the move. YRCs are, essentially, the least flexible type of RC, but because they are so cheap they are used most often. RRCs, on the other hand, allow you to hit with a move before canceling, creating new combo opportunities. PRCs are by far the “most powerful” since they can make otherwise unsafe gambles completely safe. But the lead-in time they used to have rendered them effectively useless as they could be baited and punished easier than any other Cancel in the game. Giving them this buff actually makes them worth using. It puts them on par with Red Roman Cancels in terms of meter expenditure to effect.

In general, this is going to make the game much more aggressive. As long as a player has 50% meter, nearly anything he does can be safe. This will lead players to throw out attacks more often and create more complex and interesting pressure strings. It also means that the momentum of battle can now change in an instant. Instead of the normal attack, block, punish dynamic we are used to from fighting games, Purple Roman Cancels will allow an attacker that messes up his pressure to immediately swap roles with the defender, blocking his advances and waiting for a good moment to punish back.

In addition to these new Purple Roman Cancel changes, the input buffer during the Roman Cancel animation has been increased. This means you can press buttons earlier and still have your command come out when the Roman Cancel finishes. In general, this will affect YRCs and RRCs more than PRCs, since PRCs are typically used to start blocking. Simply put, it will make combos after any sort of RC much easier to input, which will make this central mechanic more accessible to newbies.

Blitz Attack

The Blitz Attack, Guilty Gear’s version of the Focus Attack, has also been significantly changed. It allows players to go into a stance that allows them to soak up one hit before attacking. Unfortunately, Guilty Gear is a very offensive game and there was little use for this defensive maneuver. So Rev2 is going to change it to be a more offensive tool.

While originally players could only use this technique while in neutral, now they can cancel into it from normals. The first thing this change does is create new combo paths into characters’ Blitz Attacks. But the more significant thing this change does is turn the Blitz Attack into a sort of “counter breaker”. Now, if you think the opponent is going to somehow punish you from a defensive stance, you can use the Blitz Attack to bait it.

The most common way to hit someone from a guard in Guilty Gear is to Burst. Bursts don’t do any damage but throw the opponent off you, giving you breathing room. Unfortunately, you only get approximately one Burst per round, so wasting your Burst hurts tremendously. Now, if you think your opponent is going to Burst out of a guard (or even in the middle of a combo) you can cancel into a Blitz Attack before the Burst, soaking the Burst hit and continuing into a punish.

But there’s another, character-specific way to attack out of a guard, and appropriately enough one of Rev2’s new characters, Baiken, can do just that. Her “guard cancel” ability allows her to attack the opponent from a block without spending any meter. She’s had this unique ability in prior Guilty Gear games, but many pros wondered if it would be too powerful in Xrd’s system. For example, the Xrd Roman Cancel system would allow her to start a guard cancel, Yellow Roman Cancel it before it even comes out with only 25% meter, and now she has instantly recovered from block. It’s like a much better version of Street Fighter III’s parry system, and it would mean that attacking her when she’s at a quarter meter or more is never safe.

But the addition of this new Blitz Attack alteration changes all that. Now, if players think that Baiken is going to guard cancel, they can just Blitz Attack beforehand. As a result whatever she does becomes unsafe. If she attacks, the shield portion of the Blitz Attack will leave her wide open. If she defends, the Blitz Attack itself will put pressure back on her, and if it hits it will even sap away some of the Burst gauge. The only thing she can do is Blitz back, and that costs meter.

Unfortunately, this also has the side effect of nerfing slower characters with armored moves. Armored moves, like the Blitz Shield/Attack, eat up one hit before coming out, allowing slower characters to approach with a degree of safety. They effectively punished quicker characters that were far too offensive. However, these characters can now cancel into a Blitz Attack after seeing their move get soaked up by armor, keeping them safe. Being that certain characters, like Potemkin, rely nearly exclusively on armored moves for movement, we can only hope that their individual character changes somehow compensate for this nerf.

Wall Splats

Guilty Gear Xrd has numerous hit-states, one of which is the “Wall Splat” which occurs when certain moves knock your opponent into the corner. Wall Splat moves cause your opponent to slam into the edge of the screen, prone, before slowly slumping and crumpling to the floor. This extended hit-state is often used to set up long and damaging combos.

Characters used to be able to be thrown out of a Wall Splat once their feet touched the floor. However, this caused a problem with some characters who could time and control attacks independent of their body. Inputting a throw at the same time that another attack hits during a Wall Splat would essentially create an unblockable situation. To counter a throw you need to throw back, which requires a forward input. To block an attack, you need to be holding back. You can’t do both at once, hence, unblockable situation.

The change to the Wall Splat state is simple - characters can no longer be thrown during the recovery animation. Pretty straightforward. In addition, Blitz Attacks no longer Wall Splat the opponent when used twice in a combo. With the new Blitz Attack changes, this has likely been implemented to prevent most characters from having combos that lead into a guaranteed Wall Splat state.

Danger Time

Finally, we have the most loathed mechanic in the game: Danger Time. For those of you who haven’t been unfortunate enough to experience it firsthand, Danger Time is a game-state that randomly occurs when two attacks clash. For about 10 seconds everyone’s damage is increased and any hit becomes a “mortal counter” with drastically increased hit-stun, a time slow effect, and the ability to cancel the attack into literally anything. Basically, it turns the next hit into your best combo.

Pro players hate Danger Time. It’s a random effect that essentially decides a match in the next hit. It’s horrible for the competitive scene, and Arc System Works has been petitioned repeatedly to take it out.

Unfortunately, we are getting the exact opposite. Danger Time is getting even worse. Now when it activates both players will regain meter. Not only is every single attack in the game a free pass to a damaging combo, but now both players will have all of the meter they need to guarantee the kill!

That’s all the info we have from this location test. There are many other changes to individual characters, but none of these are final and Arc System Works has mentioned that most of them are incomplete. We will keep you updated on specific character changes when they are more fully implemented in a later location test.