In 2181, less than a year after the Justice incident in Guilty Gear: The Missing Link, information about the discovery of a particular Gear rises to the public's attention. This Gear, Dizzy, is reported to function properly without Justice's leadership and possess immense combat capabilities, yet is in self-exile from the society as she's not willing to harm any civilian, either intentionally or accidentally. Nonetheless, with scars left by the hundred-year-long Crusades that nearly pushed them to extinction, this news throws the public into panic, fearing the possible emergence of another self-reliant Gear like Justice. This Fantastic Racism against the Gears culminates in the government putting a bounty on Dizzy (with the lofty sum of W$500,000, no less), quickly attracting fighters around the globe in pursuit of her. Who exactly is this Dizzy, and what will become of her in the end?
Aside from three exceptions, every character from The Missing Link makes their return, with six brand new characters joining the fray:
New characters
- Johnny, the suave and cunning captain of the Jellyfish Pirates and the man that May pines for, makes his playable debut.
- Anji Mito, a carefree, Japanese dancer who has fled from his Colony with the Sacred Treasure known as Zessen in tow.
- Venom, the ruthless leader of the Assassin's Guild in the absense of Zato-ONE.
- Jam Kuradoberi, a Chinese Chef of Iron with affinity for ki manipulation who wishes to use the bounty money to fund her own restaurant.
- Faust, a wacky, back-alley doctor with bizarre, incomprehensible powers and a paper bag over his head. Despite his mysterious origins, he seems oddly familiar...
- Dizzy, the Final Boss of the game. A Gear who, despite her immense power, chooses to seclude herself out of fear of accidentally harming others.
Three revisions would be released: Guilty Gear X Plus, a remake for the PlayStation 2, Guilty Gear X Advanced Edition, a Game Boy Advance port with extra features from Plus, and Guilty Gear X ver. 1.5, a remake for the Atomiswave arcade board that introduces balance changes from XX.
This work shows examples of:
- Alien Blood: In some releases, blood spray effects are green instead of red, presumably for Bowdlerization purposes.
- All There in the Manual: Until Guilty Gear X Plus added a Story Mode, this game's plot was relegated to the manual and supplementary materials.
- Back from the Dead: Testament returns as the sub-boss, apparently having been revived by Dizzy after they sacrificed themselves to revive Justice in the previous game.
- Big Bad: Subverted. While Dizzy, the Gear noted for its ability to function without Justice's leadership, is technically the main antagonist and Final Boss, she isn't up to anything in particular. Likewise, Testament is back as a mid-boss, but unlike in the first game, they're not up to wiping out the human race or anything; they're just protecting Dizzy as her guardian.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Dust attacks, and by extension Sweeps, still require an input of Slash + Heavy Slash. They wouldn't be given their own button until XX.
- There's still no real Combo Breaker mechanic outside of teching.
- Rather than the atomic detonation of later games, Faust's Instant Kill has the bomb failing to go off until he goes to check up on it, which leaves him and his victim with afros. This would be retained in XX as his EX form's Instant Kill animation.
- A dedicated story mode would not be introduced until X Plus. Later games simply had it in there from the start.
- Robo-Ky pseudo-debuts as Ky's EX form in Advance and X Plus as Ky's alternate form. He's hunched over, his voice lines have obvious stutter and he has an inverse animated version of Ky's Crescent Slash along with two unique moves in Ray Divider and Aegis High.
- Advance had EX forms as well as GG1 forms, but in a largely different form than most. Said GG1 forms gave certain characters supers they had before in the previous game (For example, Faust gets Baldhead's Crazy Operation Chaos move, Ky gets Needle Spike back and Zato gets the older one-hit version of Dark Sentinel).
- Justice's Forward+HS command normal is simply her regular Heavy Slash with a lightning effect on it. Her Gamma Ray lacks the lightning burst seen later on in XX, making it far more impractical to use than it would later be now that it has startup to it (unlike its near instant firing in the previous game). She also completely lacks voice lines, unlike Kliff.
- Good Versus Good: There's no real villain in a traditional sense. Neither Dizzy or Testament wish harm on the human race, and only act in self-defense when bounty hunters find and try to capture them. Sol wants Dizzy dead, but that's because of his prior conflict with the other Gear, Justice, and when he's convinced Dizzy is innocent, he drops the act. Even the general public's paranoia against the Gears and the government putting a bounty on Dizzy are understandable, if still disproportional, as they have only just begun to start over from what's left of the civilization after the Crusades 6 years ago.
- I Want Them Alive!: Gabriel, the new leader of Zepp, wants Dizzy brought to them alive for unknown reasons. They send Potemkin out to achieve this goal, and he succeeds in his Arcade Mode ending and one of his Story Mode endings.
- Lag Cancel:
- Roman Cancels make their debut here. Simply press any three attack buttons to cancel your current attack's endlag at the cost of 50% of the Tension meter.
- Presumably due to an oversight, it's possible to combo into a Sweep, then kara-cancel it into Faultless Defense. Dropping the Faultless Defense immediately afterwards will usually shave off enough endlag to allow you to continue the combo.
- Launcher Move: This is the first game in the series to refer to them as Dust attacks. From this game onwards they also double as universal standing overheads.
- Multiple Endings: In Plus' Story Mode, each character has multiple story paths, each with their own endings. There's usually 3, but some only have two.
- Oddball in the Series:
- There are two soundtracks — a synthesized version
that was used for the original arcade release, and an arranged version with real instruments used in the console versions. - The original release was oddly light on story compared to other games in the series. Arcade Mode has no cutscenes, not even for the bosses, and the closest thing to an ending was a still image during the credits.
- As of 2022, this is the only pre-Xrd Guilty Gear game to not see any ports to modern consoles (The Missing Link received a port to Nintendo Switch and Steam in 2018 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, while XX and its revisions are borderline
Port Overdosed).
- There are two soundtracks — a synthesized version
- Sneeze Cut: Happens in Robo-Ky's introduction.Robo-Ky: Target acquired. Identified as Ky Kiske. Just you wait, Ky. I was made just to defeat you. Now is the time for my raison d'etre!
Ky: *sneeze* ...for some reason I'm shivering...
