One of the better GG group pics. I forget who drew this

After the last post, I figured that I’d also put up the tier lists for the older Guilty Gear games in one place too.  Taken from the JP GG wiki, I actually remember most of these when they first came out.

Guilty Gear X
S+: Millia
S: Johnny
A: Jam Dizzy Sol
B: Chipp Venom Zato May Faust Baiken Anji
C: Ky Axl Testament Potemkin

I didn’t follow GGX very closely, but this is pretty different than the list I remember seeing from back then.  I remember Johnny, Millia, and Dizzy sharing S tier in the past, and Zato getting ranked really high.  It also surprises me to see Sol in A, since I felt he was a fairly average character in this game.

Guilty Gear XX
S: Eddie Slayer Millia Faust
A: Sol Axl Johnny Bridget Venom I-No
B: Dizzy Chipp Baiken Potemkin
C: Ky Jam Testament May
D: Anji Zappa

The main thing I remember from XX was the big 4 characters.  Common opinion back then was that Eddie beat everybody, and then Slayer/Millia/Faust would all kind of counterpick each other.  Slayer would beat Millia but lose to Faust, Millia would beat Faust but lose to Slayer, and Faust would beat Slayer and lose to Millia.

Guilty Gear XX #Reload
S+: Eddie
S: Jam Millia Robo Slayer
A: Sol Faust Dizzy Bridget
B: Ky Axl Johnny Venom Baiken
C: May Potemkin Testament I-No
D: Chipp Anji Zappa

GGXX#R is a game I remember very well, and that game had some hilarious metagame shifts.  I recall at one point the accepted tier list went all the way down to G tier.  Robo and Slayer dominated the early months of the game, but they started dropping once people got better at fighting against them.  #R was a big breakthrough for the GG series, as it was the first time where the game began to have some semblance of balance.  You started to see character specialists and people doing amazing things with the weaker characters.  It’s not a surprise that it lasted a good two years before the arrival of Slash.

Guilty Gear XX Slash
There are numerous lists for this game.  The most recent was in Tougeki Tamashi Vol. 3, where there were 2 lists from the Kanto and Kansai regions.

Kanto list
S: Ky
A: Sol Baiken Faust Anji Jam
B: Millia Axl Potemkin Testament A.B.A Johnny May Chipp Slayer Bridget
C: Eddie Venom Dizzy Zappa I-No Order-Sol
D: Robo

Kansai list
S: Ky
A: Sol Baiken Faust Chipp Bridget
B: Millia Axl Potemkin Testament A.B.A Johnny Anji I-No
C: Eddie Venom Dizzy Zappa May Jam Slayer
D: Robo Order-Sol

There was also a slightly older tier list in Tougeki Tamashi Vol. 2
S: Ky
A: Sol Potemkin Testament Faust Anji
B: Millia Chipp Axl Baiken Johnny Jam Slayer I-No A.B.A
C: May Eddie Venom Bridget
D: Dizzy Robo Zappa Order-Sol

Slash is another game I remember very well.  Ky and Sol were pretty much undisputed top tier, and Anji was really silly too.  Slash is the most radically different game in the series in terms of balance.  Millia, who was consistently strong for the three previous iterations of the game, and Eddie and Slayer who completely dominated the previous two games, were all ranked much lower in this game.  Some people think that Slash is the most balanced Guilty Gear game, and it’s pretty easy to understand where that’s coming from when you see that 3 of the most consistently dominating characters from the previous 2 games were weakened.  But it doesn’t account for the gap between the tiers.  Bottom tier in Slash is like, much worse than bottom in #R and Accent Core.  These characters are pretty much unplayable.

Anyway, I hope this retrospective has been helpful to people.  From the lists you can kind of see which characters have been favored throughout the game’s history.  It could be a result of the game designers’ preferences or the characters just meshing well with the GG system.