Guilty Gear X

The fight system has a four-main-attack-button configuration: punch, kick, slash and heavy slash. Players may also launch taunt attacks, with their main objective to reduce the opponent's health to zero in a predetermined time. To win a fight a player must accumulate two points, with each round won earning a point. Guilty Gear X has features common in fighting games: combos, aerial attacks and counterattacks. A new feature is the Roman Cancel, which allows a player to cancel their move and its aftereffects to make other attacks.

The game has a tension gauge, increasing when a character causes damage or moves toward an adversary and decreasing when a character moves backwards or is stopped for a long time. When the gauge is half-charged a player can use specials called Overdrive Attacks, which cause more damage than regular moves. A full gauge allows a player to make an Instant Kill, defeating an opponent regardless of health; if an Instant Kill is unsuccessful, the tension gauge will not charge for the remainder of that round.

In the year of 2181 (22nd century), less than a year after the events of Guilty Gear, reports of a newly discovered commander Gear surfaced. Amid concern about a second war, another Holy Knights Tournament begins; whoever captures and kills Dizzy will receive 500,000 World Dollars. She is defeated, but her life is spared by Sol Badguy, as she proves not to be a threat. Shortly after, she is found by Ky Kiske, the police chief of the United Nations and ex-chief of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights.

He entrusts her care to Johnny and May, members of the Jellyfish Air Pirates, who welcome her as one of their own. Jam Kuradoberi, a bounty hunter and struggling chef, claims the credit for Dizzy's disappearance so she can collect the reward and finance her restaurant.

After the success of the first Guilty Gear released on May 14, 1998 for PlayStation, Sammy Studios commissioned an arcade sequel in February 1999. Developed by Team Neo Blood, an Arc System Works production group led by Daisuke Ishiwatari, the sequel was about two years in development. Unveiled at the Amusement Expo in February 2000, Guilty Gear X was released to Japanese arcades on the Sega NAOMI system in July 2000. After the game's release, it was speculated that it would be ported to home consoles. Although the developers initially indicated that Guilty Gear X would debut for the PlayStation 2 (PS2), it was first released for Dreamcast on December 14, 2000 and re-released as part of a Dreamcast collection on May 23, 2003.

A PS2 version was announced by Sammy in June 2001 for release that fall, and Guilty Gear X was released in North America on October 2, 2001. Since it was released before the Japanese version, the North American edition did not have the additional features of the Japanese counterpart. Sammy released the PS2 version in Japan on November 29, 2001 and in Europe on March 1, 2002. In Japan, it was revised as Guilty Gear X Plus, to add 3 new characters as well as a Visual Novel-like story mode.

In June 2001, Sammy reported a profit of ¥284 million for Guilty Gear X's Japanese arcade version. In Japan, Game Machine listed the game on their September 1, 2000 issue as being the most-successful arcade game of the month. Its Dreamcast version was the 128th-bestselling title in Japan in 2000, with 97,934 copies sold from December 14 to December 31. In 2001 the game sold 33,822 more copies, for a total of 131,756. Guilty Gear X Plus sold over 128,000 copies in Japan.

Critical reception for Guilty Gear X on PS2 was positive, and has an average score of 80% on GameRankings, and Metacritic gave the PS2 version 79 out of 100. Greg Orlando reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game for Next Generation, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "X marks the spot for brutality done beautifully." Anoop Gantayat of IGN called the Dreamcast edition "possibly the finest-looking 2D game ever, thanks to the high-res graphics, mega-ultra special effects and smooth animation." J.