In the realm of fighters, story comes second to gameplay. Guilty Gear X does not try to astound you with it story telling prowess and gives you a simple line. In the future there are bio-mechanical creatures called gears that were made by "the man." These gears are dangerous and any gears still found to be active are to be destroyed. Of course there is a hefty reward out on the head of any remaining gear and when news of a gear with it's own free will starts spreading around fighters of the world take arms to search and destroy for their own personal reasons. Everyone's favorite anti-hero Sol Badguy is back and joined by a host of interesting new faces like Jam, a Chinese restaurant owner out to make money, and Johnny, an airship pirate who apparently takes fashion tips from the man in black himself, Johnny Cash. Of course, you will forget their even was a story after seeing the game in motion.

If you are going by the screenshots to tell how lovely this game is, stop now. The screenshots do the game no justice and seeing GGX in motion is close to gaming nirvana. There is not a pixel to be found on all of the sleek fighters; completely hand drawn and animated more fluidly than most cartoons. The vibrant colors bring the characters to life along with plenty of transparency effects during battle to also draw the eye. Sammy's artist have gone back to the drawing board and completely revamped all of their characters in every way. From new standing animations to dozens of frames added to their pre-existing moves, a gamer could not ask for anything more in a sequel. But looks alone does not a game make.

This is the part where I tell you I was surprised. The gameplay in the first incarnation of GG was a little lacking. It had a novelty move where you could execute a one hit kill ending the game entirely no matter if you were on the first round or the third, but novelty alone did not sell the fighter. It was(and still is) a weapons based fighter akin to the Samurai Spirits(Samurai Showdown in the US) games but it did not have SNK's play balance and was almost too fast for its own good. Certain character's speed and combo ability just made the other characters worthless and not fun to play. I was partly expecting this title to follow suit and I'm glad that Sammy decided to tune up the game engine in more areas than one.

Most of the characters have been knocked down a few notches on the power meter to be fair while others were bumped up in speed. The playing field was thankfully made even and the game is easy to pick up with it's simple four button layout: punch, kick, slash, heavy slash. You'll have plenty of chain combos to execute along with the mastery of the tension gauge. The tension gauge allows you to build up power for super moves or a faultless defense where you can protect yourself from block damage or moves that would normally be unavoidable in the air. It also allows you to perform the one hit kill move from the previous title to a certain extent; it removes one round instead of the whole match. In the end, I found Guilty Gear X to be a surprisingly deep fighter. While it can't match depth with Virtua Fighter 3 for example, it decimates its 2-D competition.

Guilty Gear X as a whole is on the verge of 2-D fighting perfection. My only real gripe, and I'm grasping for gripes here, is that the game has no real endings to speak of. And this comes after you spend half an hour trying to beat the final boss, Dizzy, a small girl with the tail of a lizard and two wings apparently formed from the angel of death and a heavenly figure. SNK previously held the championship for bosses who gladly take you on the "Kraft factory tour," but Arc System Works has obviously been working hard on the cheese factor. Then again, half the fun of the title is when you finally get to the point of trouncing the boss into the ground, sitting back, and watching the credits roll. Fighter fans who have not already picked up their copy of Guilty Gear X should do so now. And remember, you can always say it was an early Christmas present for yourself.