Beauty in the Lives of the Beasts: Guilty Gear After Instant Kills

When Guilty Gear Strive, the latest fighting game in the Guilty Gear series, debuted, it lacked one of the mechanics that had been present since the franchises’ inception: the Instant Kill move. Akira Katano, the game’s creative director, explained in a blog post that it was not an intentional removal, but caused by changes in the development schedule. While these moves were initially missed at first, years out from the initial release the mechanic’s absence now feels more and more like a bit of ludo-narrative concurrence that reflects the cast’s journey through each installment and the changing relationship the game’s world has with violence.

“Instant Kill” is the colloquial term for the mechanic. A more literal translation of “Ichigeki Hissatsu Waza” would be “Single Blow Sure-Killing Art,” which more accurately captures its nature. While the nickname calls to mind the Fatalities from Mortal Kombat, those are done post-match to further humiliate an already defeated opponent.

Instant Kills in Guilty Gear are high-risk high-reward moves done during the match, when characters visibly enter an “Instant Kill mode.” For most games in the series, if the initial hit connects, the rest of the move completes and then the entire match ends in victory for the user. If the move fails to connect, the user’s Tension Gauge (or “Super Meter”) disappears along with any moves/abilities tied to it.

When the world of Guilty Gear was first presented to players in Guilty Gear: The Missing Link, only a few years passed after a century-long war left the planet in an apocalyptic state populated by bounty hunters, soldiers, pirates, assassins and living weapons – the titular Gears. The landscapes look like heavy-metal album covers: a wasteland with the carcass of a giant beast in the foreground, the ruins of a toppled Statue of Liberty, factories with giant mechs and an altar with a stairway to the heavens. Blood, death and violence and their remnants seemed to be everywhere. The cast introduced in the first game are, if not rivals or outright enemies of each other, simply obstacles in the way of each other’s goals.

The Instant Kills reflect this state. They are simple affairs: stabs, slashes, powerful punches, crushing grips and explosions befitting the “single blow” translation and characters willing to destroy anything in their path.

Strive is remarkably different from its origins in tone. While many characters remain bounty hunters, pirates and assassins, a lot has changed over seven (in-universe) years. Most of the characters have a passing familiarity with each other if they aren’t outright friends or, in some cases, family. Pre-match introductions often suggest that fights are little more than sparring matches. Battles that were taking place in harsh and barren settings are now taking place in bustling locales or, the opposite, grand and majestic views of canyons, tundra and forests.

The disparity in mood is less shocking given context. With each installment, players have watched both the cast and civilization-at-large gradually resist making the same mistakes of their past, steadily improving on their condition. When Strive’s story mode begins, there has been a collective fight to achieve an extent of peace.

Alongside the evolution of the characters was an evolution of the Instant Kills. In X & XX these moves would be a mixed bag. Some are single hit attacks while others are more complex and dynamic, not too dissimilar from their other Overdrives (super moves). However, there are others that would fall into a third category: cinematic. Whether dramatic or comedic, the initial hit would trigger a cutscene that seems to take place outside the context of the battle.

The Guilty Gear team would take the cinematic direction with Instant Kills when the series returned to the fighting game genre with the Guilty Gear Xrd duology (Sign & Revelator) as all the Instant Kills would trigger animated cutscenes. Collectively, the violence has gone down by a rating or two making the iconic “Destroyed” voice and text feel less definitive and, after one of the sillier moves, occasionally ironic. Power is often communicated through explosions and most of the bloodshed being either implied or brief. Because of the tone shift, these moves seem to be less about sincere attempts at destruction and more about expressions of character; less instant kill and more dramatic finish.

To be clear, I don’t think the series matured out of having Instant Kills but instead progressed away from them. While their success as spectacles ranges from move to move, they fit within the aesthetic of the series. Additionally, the risky nature of the mechanic complements the daredevil attitude and the unpredictable story of the first few games. However, once Guilty Gear 2 starts, the direction of the narrative gradually becomes clearer. As the cast gains more understanding of their world, nearly all of them move from their various morally grey starting positions towards the lighter end of the spectrum.

This is all to highlight the idea that the violence, which the Instant Kill move is representative of, was once a coherent part of the Guilty Gear setting. This starting point makes the fact that violence has become significantly less intrinsic to the fabric of this universe even more pronounced and the omission of the Instant Kill all the more notable.

What attracted me to Guilty Gear was its kinetic gameplay, interesting characters and all the rock references worn on its sleeve. What kept me a fan was the story of civilization rising out of an apocalypse, in a way that was optimistic without being too naïve. The disappearance of Instant Kills from the most recent entry in the series, though through happenstance, is a great way to honor the characters journeys – a departure from the violent, morbid world they started from.

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Alex J. Tunney is from Long Island, which may explain all the writing about video games, food and reality TV. You can find all of his writing collected at alexjtunney.com.