To help illustrate some of the points I’ve been discussing in previous articles, I will be using video examples. I’ll begin with rushdown because the video I found for it is just too good to ignore. I’ll tackle other subject matters as I scour the depths of YouTube for appropriate match videos.

Special thanks to Youtube user psychorarity for uploading this fascinating match.

Eddie’s Rushdown in Guilty Gear XX #Reload

Eddie is often regarded as the best character in all of Guilty Gear, and for good reason: he can control two characters at the same time. Sounds crazy, right? Well, it is. Here we can see Ogawa, a seasoned Guilty Gear master, taking full advantage of both regular Eddie and his shadow doppelganger to utterly oppress PC’s Sol with ruthless rushdown. But, what exactly is the method to Ogawa’s madness?

First things first, he takes the initiative shortly after the match starts by dashing forward with regular Eddie. Scared, Sol backs off into the corner, as he’s already aware of the havoc any good Eddie player can wreak. Then, regular Eddie makes the shadow perform his buzzsaw special move, which travels quickly along the ground and hits multiple times, making it the perfect tool for a blockstring. As a small tangent, blockstrings are better in Guilty Gear than they would be in other fighting games because the more you block in GG, the more damage you will take from the next attack. After the buzzsaw finishes, regular Eddie dashes in an performs a command grab on Sol to punish him for continued blocking in anticipation of another buzzsaw (remember, true throws can’t be blocked!). The command grab causes a knockdown and, thanks to the previous blockstring, does more damage than it would normally do.

At this point, Sol is extremely frustrated. It’s only been a few seconds and now he’s at a serious disadvantage. How on Earth can Sol get out? By doing a reversal! In this case, he performs a burst on wakeup, which he hopes will hit Eddie out of a wakeup blockstring and return the match to a neutral situation. However, bursts have a pretty long whiff animation, which means that Sol can very easily be punished by Eddie if he bursts at the wrong time. Sure enough, the shadow is poised to attack to trick Sol into bursting immediately on wakeup, while regular Eddie airdashes over the knocked-down Sol and blocks the burst. It’s also worth noting that reversal throws are extremely good in GG, but the whole reason Eddie did an airdash was to stay out of Sol’s throw range. Thus, a reversal burst was the only viable option at Sol’s disposal in this case.

Nevertheless, Ogawa fails to capitalize on the baited burst. The match returns to a neutral situation, but that changes quickly. Regular Eddie can fly, so he uses this to essentially dance around Sol and try to find a weak point in Sol’s poking game. Sol gets a bit peckish for dealing damage, so he meets Eddie in the air to try for a throw. Much to Sol’s chagrin, though, Eddie puts Sol into blockstun with his superior air normals, and now the rushdown begins once again, and more ferocious than before.

Ogawa starts a new blockstring, now longer and with more buzzsaws! Sol’s guard meter (the little red bar underneath his life bar) starts flashing, indicating that the next attack from Eddie will gain the extra damage of a counter hit. Sol’s burst meter is empty, and he doesn’t have enough meter to perform an alpha counter, so he begins to hold down-back on the joystick, hoping for a decent enough opening in the blockstring. Still, Ogawa is fully aware that Sol is content to keep blocking low, so he uses Eddie’s standing Dust (which is the universal overhead for all characters in GG) and converts the hit into an air combo.

Sol is desperate. The next time he takes damage, he will probably die, so he starts taking risks. He techs out of the air combo, and he tries to dash out of the corner. Eddie pushes Sol back with a short blockstring, so Sol goes for a quick airdash followed by a jumping Slash into a punish. Eddie still has a very comfortable life lead, so he doesn’t hesitate to use his own burst to stop the overzealous Sol and return to another corner rushdown phase. Sol tries to escape the corner once more, but Eddie and the shadow both whiff punish Sol, thus claiming Round 1 for Ogawa.

As you can see by the sizable volume of text above you, there’s quite a bit of involved strategy going on at every level of combat. And that’s only in Round 1! Ogawa wins the next round, but not before PC begins adjusting his Sol play to prevent Ogawa from ever getting in to begin with. Unfortunately for PC, Ogawa sees through this and reforms his game plan as well. Why does PC fail to win Round 2? Post your thoughts in the comments. (Hint: look back at the Ground Game article)