Characters / Guilty Gear XX

Guilty Gear Main Character Index
The Missing Link (Sol Badguy, Ky Kiske) | X | XX | Overture | Xrd | -STRIVE- | NPCs | Other

Characters introduced in Guilty Gear XX and its Updated Rereleases.

The Captain Ersatz, Expy, "No Celebrities Were Harmed", Mythology Gags, Continuity Nods and Shout-Out references go here.

• For May, Millia, Eddie, Potemkin, Chipp, Faust, Axl, Kliff, Testament, Justice, and Baiken, check the sheet for The Missing Link.
  • For Sol, check his sheet.
  • For Ky, check his sheet.
• For Anji, Venom, Johnny, Jam, and Dizzy, check the sheet for GGX.
• For A.B.A, check the other characters sheet.

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Base Roster

Bridget

Bridget

I can't go home because I'm afraid something will change... Me without me, I'm the one to blame.

^{Original design}

"Whoever you are, welcome to the show!"

Voiced by:
JP: Hiroko Konishi (XX), Yukiko Kato (AC), Manaka Iwami (Strive onward)
EN: Kelly Ohanian

Roger voiced by: Akihiro Ishihara (XX only)

Playable in: XX, -STRIVE- (DLC)

Profile:

Height: 5'2"

Weight: 110lbs

Gender: Female (trans, closeted prior to Strive)

Blood type: O

Birthplace: United Kingdom

Date of Birth: October 26th

Hobbies: Yo-yo, napping

Likes: Her parents, the yo-yo from her father, her teddy bear Roger

Dislikes: Sea cucumbers, shiitake mushrooms, bitter herbs, insects, ghosts, muscles

Character themes:
A Simple Life, Crash And Burn, The Town Inside Me

Shared character theme:
Drunkard Does Make Wise Remarks (With Axl)

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A young bounty hunter armed with a Killer Yo-Yo and a possessed teddy bear. Bridget was born as one of two same-sex twins, but as her hometown had a superstitious belief that male twins would bring disaster (and as a result should be put to death or exiled), Bridget was secretly raised as a girl. Despite being happy, Bridget knew her parents felt guilty over the situation, so when she came of age, she left on a mission to disprove the superstition by becoming a bounty hunter and returning with great wealth and success.

Bridget accomplishes this goal in XX, becoming a renowned bounty hunter and even defeating the legendary sky pirate (and model of handsome machismo) Johnny. Her success finally brought her great acclaim and dispelled the superstition in her hometown, but left Bridget feeling listless and unfulfilled: she had dispelled the superstition and could live openly as a man, but this had not satisfied the lifelong unease in her heart. Her story in -STRIVE- features Bridget returning to work as a bounty hunter, and finally overcoming her unease by realizing her true gender identity as a transgender woman.

In-game, Bridget is a runaway fighter who excels at keeping her distance with extreme mobility, and harassing opponents with her long-range pokes. She can deploy her Killer Yo-Yo, which can be manipulated to travel across the screen in order to force spacing. On the other hand, she has the lowest effective health among the cast (in games that she shows up in), and overall low damage output.

Bridget's gameplay in -STRIVE- changed, becoming an all-rounder character that is easier to pick up, but keeps a decent amount of her original capabilities intact. Unlike previous entries, Bridget's yo-yo attacks work a little differently: their deployment now being assigned to a special move rather than a single normal button. She retains her quick mobility and strong mid-range control, but is now more suited for offensive tactics and mixups, making her a sort of "reverse Axl" where instead of her tools primarily used to keep the opponent out, they are used to help her get in.

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• And Then What?: Her home's local superstition that siblings being the same gender would bring misfortune (Bridget and her brother were both AMAB) sat poorly with her, so she took up the "manly" job of bounty hunting to both provide for her village and prove the superstition wrong. Bridget eventually succeeded, but since she only acted manly for the sake of her personal mission, she's forced to wonder what her gender identity actually is in -STRIVE- now that she's accomplished that mission. After some constructive criticism to live in the way she's most comfortable with, Bridget finally settles on being female.
• Ass Kicks You: One of her trademark attacks has her leap back first into her opponent and strike them with her rear.
• Assist Character: In XX, Bridget has multiple specials that summon Roger to attack for her independently; "Roger Rush" has him punch the opponent, "Jagged Roger" has a sawblade come out of his torso to hack away, and "Roger Get" is a big wrestler slam.
• Bad Liar: In -STRIVE-, she tells Goldlewis she has to toughen up, since she's a guy. Goldlewis immediately recognizes that Bridget being insincere due to her Mirthless Laughter and the look in her eyes clearly showing that she's forcing it.
• Badass Adorable: She's one of the cutest characters on the roster, and will fight people with what amounts to toys.
• Badass Normal: Probably the most normal cast member of them all (minus some paranormal aid in the form of Roger), yet can easily stand her ground with every other character. This is especially evident in -STRIVE- when, in her Arcade Mode's Extreme Route, she takes on and beats Ky in his Dragon Install form.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Her goal in XX is to prove herself as a man to dispell her village's myth about same-sex twins. As seen in -STRIVE-, she had succeeded... only for her gender dysphoria to kick in as a result, causing her emotional distress.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Bridget may be one of the sweetest, gentlest characters of the entire cast, but she's also an accomplished bounty hunter and has no problem reminding her opponents of that fact.
  "Would you like some extra bloodshed to go with your beating?"
• Beyond the Impossible: Her Instant Kill, Shoot the Moon, has her somehow fling her opponent so hard with her yo-yo that they land face-first on the Moon. This is despite Bridget by all accounts being a normal human woman, and a teenage girl in XX. No explanation is ever given for how she's able to pull this off.
• Bookends: Bridget was assigned male at birth, but raised as a girl due to a long-held superstition of her village which was outside of her control. Her Arcade story in -STRIVE- involves her wondering what to do now that over the time skip she's finally been able to dispel that superstition from her hometown. By the end of it in the Hard Mode ending, she is encouraged by Ky and Goldlewis to live in the way which makes her most happy, and she chooses of her own free will to live as a girl.
• The Bus Came Back: Her only main game appearance was in XX, being completely absent from Xrd and the initial story of -STRIVE- as well. She would later make her grand return to the series as the first DLC character of -STRIVE-'s Season 2.
• Campy Combat: Bridget's attack animations are very acrobatic and showy, with even her idle animation having her sway back and forth like she's dancing. Not to mention her weapons are yo-yos and a teddy bear of all things.
• Chained by Fashion: Bridget wears what looks like a giant handcuff for a belt, to the mystery of anyone who sees her. In one of her XX win animations, she uses the chain-end as a holster for her yo-yo.
• Character Development: Bridget started the series as a cross-dressing boy in the XX games. While it didn't bother her too much at the time, her reappearance in -STRIVE- has Bridget a lot more confused about her gender identity. After talking it out with Ky and Goldlewis in the Hard Mode ending, they encourage her to embrace whatever identity makes her the happiest. Following this conversation, Bridget claims her identity as a girl.
• Chick Magnet: For having previously identified as a crossdressing young teen with a girl's name, Bridget is pretty popular with the girls in the series. XX Reload has her become friends with Dizzy in her Path 2 ending (as well as getting a Jellyfish Pirate hat from a girl that looks vaguely like Dizzy), as well as showing her and May acting friendly towards each other in May's Path 2 ending. And Jam flirts with Bridget on at least one occasion, as well as having her become her waiter in her first Story Mode ending for Accent Core Plus since Jam knew a beautiful pretty boy^note her gender identity at the time like her would attract female customers. One special illustration◊ even shows her getting doted upon by the aforementioned Dizzy and Jam along with Baiken.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Effectively vanished from the series after the XX games. Notably, she's the only non-deceased character not shown in the epilogue in -STRIVE-. An interview with Ishiwatari states that Bridget is still working as a bounty hunter, which is later confirmed by her return as the first DLC character for Season 2 of -STRIVE-.
• Coming-Out Story: Her -STRIVE- Arcade Mode is dedicated to this. Bridget starts unsure about her male identity, and Goldlewis and Ky encourage her to think things over, live for herself and let go of her fears. The Hard Route ends with Bridget finally asserting herself as a woman, while the Extreme Route ends with Ky encouraging her to always be true to herself, no matter what anyone else thinks.
• Costume Evolution: In -STRIVE-, she discards the nun dress and habit in favor of a loose-fit dress, black skirt, and large blue hoodie (though her hoodie is colored similarly to the habit she previously wore).
• Crash-Into Hello: One of Bridget's XX intro animations has her accidentally tripping up and then stepping on her opponent, and then the fight begins.
• Curse Cut Short: Being hit with Faust's "Bone-Crushing Excitement" attack in -STRIVE- results in a comedically out of character moment where a very angry Bridget nearly calls him something rather vulgar.
  Bridget: THAT HURT, YOU SONOFA-!
• Cute, but Cacophonic: She actually started having a high-pitched but bearable tone in the original XX series, but when Yukiko Kato took over in the Accent Core series, her voice got more high-pitched to the point where it became ear-grating. -STRIVE- is both a subversion and aversion depending on the language track. Her Japanese voice is even higher-pitched than her previous ones but it's also softer in tone and thus much less grating on the ears, and her English voice averts this entirely.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: In XX she barely has a solid grasp on her yo-yo to the point where a number of her animations have her almost accidentally hitting her opponent with it. One of her intro animations even uniquely overrides her opponent's as she accidentally trips them from behind with her yo-yo while walking to her starting position.
• The Cutie: Despite being a renowned bounty hunter, she's incredibly sweet, kind, childlike, and adorable. In a Mirror Match with another Bridget, the second of the two of them will say that they should have a "cute-off" to see which of them is cuter.
• Dash Attack: "Kick Start My Heart" has Bridget slide forward stop a yo-yo, hitting low while also possessing follow up attacks based on button press.
  • Brake will slow her to a stop, dealing with skid.
  • Shoot will make leap forward while spinning her yo-yos as an attack.
• Defeat Means Friendship: She has a knack of befriending her opponents after beating them, as seen in XX (Ky, May, Dizzy, Johnny, and Jam) and -STRIVE- (Goldlewis).
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: -STRIVE- reveals that she finally managed to prove she wasn't a bad omen, and made her village's superstition fade away into obscurity, but felt that she had no goal left. Her new story has her continue to work as a bounty hunter while searching for a new purpose.
• Didn't Think This Through: In XX, I-No gives Bridget a bulletin full of fake bounties. Desperate to prove herself as a capable bounty hunter, she accepts the list and sets off, never bothering to check if they're current or legitimate. As such, she causes Ky lots of grief when she arrives to turn in the bounties.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: She was one of the most classic examples in video game history after first being introduced, having a very feminine appearance due to being raised as a girl and frequently being mistaken by other characters as female despite identifying as male at the time. Her reappearance in -STRIVE- subverts this, as following her story arc, she comes to fully identify as a girl.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: In -STRIVE-, she wears a pin of the androgyne symbol on the left side of the hemline of her hoodie.
• Finger Gun: She signals "Return of the Killing Machine" with one of these, complete with a wisp of smoke as she blows it off.
• Fragile Speedster: She boasts among the fastest running speeds in the game and a plethora of highly mobile special moves, but at the same time she suffers from having among the lowest health of the cast.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Her teddy bear is listed as one of her likes.
• Grapple Move: "Rock the Baby" has her leap forward and grab an opponent with Roger, making him deal a beefy chest attack on contact.
• The Ghost: The one and only reference to her existence in Xrd (outside of the in-game character glossary) is one of Johnny's possible quotes as a victim of Bedman's instant kill. Even then, she's not even mentioned by name.
• Ground Pound: "Roger Dive" has Bridget slam down form midair with Roger in tow, being a useful overhead and combo option out of Rolling Movement.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She has bright blonde hair and is one of the sweetest characters in the franchise.
• Haunted Technology: Roger is a mechanized teddy bear which is being possessed by a ghost who is implied to have been a warrior in life.
• Homing Projectile: Her Overdrive, "Me and My Killing Machine", has Roger board a flaming motorcycle and drives around Bridget's opponent dealing multiple hits. -STRIVE- reworks this move into "Return of the Killing Machine" where Roger now rockets towards the opponent for a single, powerful hit.
• Hyperactive Sprite: Both in XX and -STRIVE-, Bridget's standing animation is very hyperactive, moving and grooving to the music by swaying her arms and hips, as well as dancing in place with her feet.
• Iconic Item: Her yo-yos, which resemble revolver cylinders, complete with bullets.
• Image Song: The Town Inside Me.
• Improbable Weapon User: A yo-yo. And for backup, a teddy bear named Roger that can spew flame and has a buzz-saw in his waist.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Forms one with Goldlewis in -STRIVE- who helps her come to terms with her dysphoria.
• It Was a Gift: Her first yo-yo, which was gifted to her by her father. She would use it to show her parents she was happy when she was young, and it inspired her to make her weapon yo-yos.
• Joke Character: Bridget was conceived as "a cute character" by Daisuke Ishiwatari, who wanted to vary the games' cast, and storyline-wise, was rather weak. Her XX, #Reload and Slash incarnations were decent-tiered gameplay-wise, however, with #Reload being the best-tiered. Her Accent Core incarnation dumbed her down to the point of completely turning her into this.
• Killer Yo-Yo : Her weapon of choice. A lot of her animations and attacks are themed after various yo-yo tricks like walking the dog for her walk cycle or her Overdrive being a series of double yo-yo loops.
• Lethal Joke Character: Her Accent Core Plus and Accent Core Plus R incarnations buffed the damage and overall effectiveness of her moves significantly to the point of turning her into this instead. In addition, rushdown attacks are simple to pull off (one of the best in-game), including Starship, as the move can deliver a good combo even during a Roger summon, can be used in midair, and is excellent for putting pressure on opponents; and her Me and My Killing Machine Overdrive is one of the best of its type that can be used as an anti-air move and can be used in almost any position of the screen (depending on the yo-yo's placement).
• Long Hair Is Feminine: She originally has long, blonde hair that goes slightly past her neck. Most of it is covered by her habit or hoodie, but visible from either side of her head. She cuts her hair down to be shoulder-length as of -STRIVE-, which is when she fully identifies as being a girl.
• Long-Range Fighter: Zig-Zagged; Bridget boasts normals with incredibly long and disjointed hitboxes. And when combined with "Stop and Dash", she's really good at poking and harassing her opponents from afar. That said, a lot of her other specials do require her to close the gap and attack up front, like "Rolling Movement" which slingshots her to the yo-yos she places around the stage, and "Kick Start My Heart" which is a Dash Attack. The result is a fighter designed to play a really frantic game of hit-and-run by constantly repositioning mid-combo.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: In her original appearance, Bridget doesn't have a standard Heavy Slash attack. Instead what she does is toss out her yo-yo as a projectile, with the ability to change the angle based on directional input. Her specials then interact with the yo-yo like recalling it back as an attack, summoning Roger in its place to strike, or transform into a Homing Projectile. This is no longer the case in -STRIVE- where her yo-yo toss is now a special move, and she has a standard heavy slash like everyone else.
• Modesty Shorts: Modest, up until the point she accidentally yanks her own dress up with her yo-yo.
• Naïve Newcomer: In XX, she only started out as a bounty hunter and immediately went hunting for the people on the list she received from I-No without checking if they were either accurate or up to date.
• Nice Girl: Bridget is as sweet as she can be with not a bad bone in her body.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: She's British, as in from the same country as Axl Low, yet doesn't have anywhere the same kind of accent he does.
• Nun Too Holy: She initially wears a nun's habit due to being raised in a convent, though beyond that, nothing about her religion ever gets brought up. Her -STRIVE- redesign changes her outfit into a hoodie with a similar color scheme to her old habit.
• One Twin Must Die: Defied. In the series, she was assigned male at birth, with a twin brother in a village where the birth of same-gender twins is considered bad luck; therefore, her family named and raised her as a girl. When Bridget grows up, she decides to prove herself as a bounty hunter. By doing so, she proved that the rumor of her village was bunk.
• Plucky Girl: Nothing keeps this girl down for long. The only time she really shows genuine sadness is during her Trans Tribulations in -STRIVE-, and even then, she works through it with the help of Goldlewis and Ky giving her encouragement.
• Proud Beauty: She knows full well how cute and adorable she looks and takes pride in it.
• Puppet Fighter: Bridget plays like a cross between a "traditional" Puppet Fighter and a Trap Master. She can only place one yo-yo at a time, but it can be followed up with a variety of specials that lets her control space from unexpected angles.
• Put on a Bus: Was last seen in Guilty Gear Vastedge, a pachinko game, and was one of the few characters completely absent from Xrd. It wasn't until Season 2 of -STRIVE-'s DLC that Bridget would finally make her return to the series.
• Queer Establishing Moment: -STRIVE- does away with the ambiguity around Bridget's gender by having Bridget fully come out as a trans girl. This is canonized in her in-game bio and an interaction she has with Goldlewis during her Hard Mode ending. Goldlewis catches himself wondering how best to address her, following a supportive conversation she has with him and Ky.
  Goldlewis: Happy trails, cowgirl. Or, uh, cowboy...?
  Bridget: Cowgirl is fine! Because... I'm a girl!
• Raised as the Opposite Gender: Bridget was born as a male alongside her twin brother. The village that Bridget lived in had a superstition that twins of the same gender were bad omens, so Bridget was raised as a woman. This gets deconstructed in -STRIVE-, as this sort of situation has caused her a lot of emotional hangups. Bridget spends the arcade mode dealing with her gender issues before decisively identifying herself as a woman in the Hard Mode ending.
• Rolling Attack: "Rolling Movement" (go figure) will slingshot her towards the yo-yos she places around the stage, colliding with anything in her way.
• Secretly Wealthy: While she works as a bounty hunter, she does not truly need the money for herself since she comes from a wealthy aristocratic family.
• Shotoclone: Her -STRIVE- incarnation is arguably this, with more traditional projectile and uppercut attacks than she had before. The game itself also classifies her as a "Balance" type character.
• Shoryuken: "Starship" has Bridget leap up while surrounding herself with yo-yo strikes, making for a hard hitting uppercut.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: As she had gone through male puberty in the six years since XX, her new outfit in -STRIVE- covers parts of her body that would give that away; her dress collar covers her Adam's apple, the hoodie hides the width of her shoulders and thickness of her arms, the gloves hide the backs of her hands, and the Empire silhouette on her dress gives the impression of a more feminine figure. The outfit change signifies Bridget's growing discomfort at being perceived as male , which is a major part of her Arcade Mode story.
• So What Do We Do Now?: Her arc in -STRIVE- is about both her Trans Tribulations and what she plans on doing now that she's accomplished her personal goal. By becoming a bounty hunter of some renown, Bridget proved her home village's belief that twins of the same gender being bad luck was completely false. But now that she's done that, Bridget struggles with her gender identity and a lack of direction for herself.
• Stepford Smiler: Very much the Depressed type. A piece of official artwork for XX reveals that despite her cheerful demeanor, her daily life as a bounty hunter is quite lonely. Her -STRIVE- arcade mode story also reveals that she's dealing with a lot of internal pain thanks to her dysphoria, which she had been keeping a secret from her parents. Thankfully, she grows out of this when she embraces living as her true self.
• Token Mini-Moe: Shares this spot with May as the series' short and cute fighter.
• Took a Level in Badass: In XX, she only just started out as a bounty hunter and while noted to have much potential by other characters, she was still amongst weakest characters of the cast and was easily mislead by I-No. By the time in -STRIVE-, she was able to realize her potential along with becoming a famous bounty hunter able to impress Goldlewis. This is also shown in her animations where she is much less clumsy than in her debut.
• Trans Tribulations: Her arc in -STRIVE- revolves around coming to terms with being female despite being born as male. Goldlewis confides in Bridget that he followed the same path — doing what someone else wanted, believing that things would somehow work out if there was no complaining, being proven wrong, and suffering in silence for it. In the Hard Mode ending, Goldlewis and Ky urge Bridget to "take that hit" and that she should be who she feels on the inside. This finally prompts Bridget to say she's a girl, and that she's not running away from who she is anymore.
• Transparent Closet: In -STRIVE-, Goldlewis immediately picks up that she's not comfortable calling herself a boy. When Bridget says that she needs to "toughen up" because she's a guy, she engages in some Mirthless Laughter, which let Goldlewis pick up that Bridget is clearly lying to herself. Goldlewis doesn't press the issue at first, but later talks about his own experiences to ease Bridget into reflecting on herself.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Before coming out as transgender, she continued to maintain a feminine appearance after leaving the nunnery where she was raised. This has led to three cases of this when people genuinely thought she was a girl prior to her self-realization in -STRIVE-. In fact, the original name of the trope was "Dropped A Bridget On Him" because of how often Bridget's gender would be mistaken.
• Unwitting Pawn: I-No once used Bridget to distract the other characters by giving her a fake bounty list, with exaggerated descriptions of their previous deeds. Despite everything, Bridget is not very powerful in the scheme of things and only served as a distraction for her "targets".
• Waif-Fu: By all accounts, Bridget is a totally normal (and somewhat petite at that) teenage girl who is easily capable of juggling her opponents in the air just like any other character, up to and including Potemkin, who literally weighs somewhere in the range of 1500-2000 pounds over the course of the games.
• Walking Spoiler: For those who only know her from the XX games, it's impossible to talk about her without spoiling her Coming-Out Story in -STRIVE-.
• Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Despite the necessity of raising Bridget as a girl, her parents felt guilty about it and wished she could could live as a man, which motivates Bridget to take up bounty hunting to disprove the village superstition. This becomes a problem for her in -STRIVE- when after dispelling the superstition, living as a man triggers her dysphoria.

Slayer

Slayer

Happiness is not a goal.

"A gentleman always exceeds expectations."

Voiced by:
JP: Iemasa Kayumi (XX-Xrd -SIGN-), Takaya Hashi (Xrd -REVELATOR- onward)
EN: JB Blanc

Playable in: XX, Xrd, -STRIVE- (DLC)

Profile:

Height: 6'1"

Weight: 154lbs

Gender: Male

Blood type: Unidentifiable

Birthplace: Romania

Date of Birth: October 31st

Hobbies: Reciting haiku, fighting, observing humans

Likes: Sharon

Dislikes: Unromantic humans

Character themes:
Haven't You Got Eyes In Your Head?, The Vampire Saga, Jack-a-Dandy

Shared character themes:
Existence, Rogue Hunters, When Life Comes (With Assassin's Guild), Riches In Me (With Potemkin)

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A powerful Nightwalker who seems to be the only one who knows exactly what the hell is going on. He visits many characters and gives them valuable hints. He was the original founder of the Assassins' Guild, and his main objective is to disband it because it became corrupted from his original intentions. He is married to an immortal Lady in Red named Sharon, who is completely immune to anything, even parasites like Eddie (In fact, it is shown in Eddie's 1st ending in XX that upon making contact with her, he melts away into nothingness).

Confirmed as a returning character for Xrd. One day, Slayer receives information from a confidante, who did not survive gathering their intel, regarding the Senate's involvement with Faust's past as Dr. Baldhead and the resurrection of Zato-1. His curiosity piqued, he once again makes his appearance in the human world to find out more.

Slayer was teased to make his return in -STRIVE- as the final character of season 3.

In-game, Slayer fights exclusively at close quarters, jabbing away at the opponent with small pokes and mix-ups until he can punish mistakes with hard-hitting counter hits and combos. He has a unique Teleport Dash which moves him at set distances and his iconic Dandy Step, a unique move that slides him backward out of danger and can followup into one of several other attacks. He struggles against ranged opponents due to his non-standard movement and lack of true projectile attacks, along with having limited pressure which forces him to rely on very hard reads for effective punishes.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: Slayer retired from the Assassins' Guild years ago when his protege Zato became the head. Hearing that Zato went insane and eventually died because of his obsession over Millia's betrayal, however, drove him out of retirement to disband the Guild. Venom had other plans, and the two clashed, with Slayer eventually approving of his actions. It finally looked like he was ready to settle down, until the events of Xrd where it looks like he's back for good this time.
• The Ace: In a world with great warriors like Sol, Ky, and Kliff, Slayer is widely acknowledged as the best combatant in the entire world. He's well-respected even among his enemies for his prowess.
• Achilles' Heel: Though it may sound like obvious advice, because most of Slayer's abilities rely heavily on him being able to whiff-punish his opponent and capitalize on openings in their defense, being able to reliably block Slayer's onslaught of attacks means he'll basically have no way of directly dealing damage to his enemy. Due to his Confusion Fu, this is easier said than done.
• Affably Evil: If you can even call him evil at all. Despite his shady and mysterious demeanor and being the founder of the Assassins' Guild, Slayer is nothing but polite and helpful to most of the good guys. Like them, he also opposes the PWAB and the Conclave.
• Badass Cape: He carries a cape over his shoulder and puts it to good use in one of his victory poses, where he tosses it and it opens up- revealing a portal into which he and Sharon disappear.
• Badass Fingersnap: He's partial to doing these, and one of his XX round victory animations is him snapping a particularly satisfying and defiant snap at his fallen opponent.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: A gray, professional-looking suit is his outfit of choice, coupled with a white shirt underneath.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: He uses no weapons but his hands and feet, but boy is he ever skilled with them.
• Been There, Shaped History: Slayer once wrote a memoir under a pseudonym that chronicled the dawn of the age of magic and the history of the gears.
• Blood Knight: Downplayed. Slayer loves fighting, but not killing people, and seeks to duel anyone that he deems worthy of facing him.
• The Cameo: Is referenced by Sol, although not by name when Nagoriyuki shows up. Physically cameos in the ending cutscene of Strive alongside Sharon.
• Casting a Shadow: His attacks are all flourished in dark, wispy shadows that befit his vampiric influences.
• Classical Movie Vampire: Designed to resemble one. Slayer feeds on blood, wears fine and stylish clothes, lives on a castle and displays an overall gentlemanly demeanour. But, given the series' penchant for Rule of Cool, he has several other attributes that make him an unique vampire.
• Close-Range Combatant: Like Jam, he has no projectile moves and has to get up closer to deal damage.
• Confusion Fu: Slayer's main gameplan is to use his various tools to poke and whiff-punish a majority of opponents who carelessly push buttons. He has his signature Dandy Step that gives him various followups as well as the ability to feint two-to-three of his attacks. But despite his fundamental kit, Slayer still is hampered by non-standard mobility options and being unable to chain-combo most of his grounded normals, which makes hit-confirming into a combo with him very technical, even on a counter hit (on top of severely limiting his blockstring pressure).
• Creepy Crosses: Unlike most typical vampires, Slayer is immune to crosses, as shown by wearing a large, red one on his shirt. Also, he has cross-shaped emblems on the sleeves of his suit.
• Cultured Badass: For bonus points, he sounds like Sean Connery in the English dub of Xrd! He also composes haiku in his spare time and even ad-libs one after performing his Instant Kill.
• The Dandy: He's very particular about the way he carries himself in both appearance and behaviour, to the point of establishing the personal philosophy of Dandyism (followed by the Assassin's Guild, Venom and his fellow Nightwalker Nagoriyuki) on those core tenets. It's even a naming motif for two of his special moves, and part of the title Millia bestowed upon him in the past, "Dandy Elegance" ("Fuuga ri na Dandy").
• Dash Attack: As part of his Confusion Fu, basically all of his special moves are dash attacks that zip him erratically around the arena and make him hard to both predict and hit, including his signature Dandy Step which he can chain into a multitude of different moves as a combo starter. His Overdrives are even just various angled powered-up dashes in a straight line from where he's standing, but deal insane damage if they connect.
• Daywalking Vampire: Due to the way that Nightwalkers work, he's not hurt or even affected by sunlight. Of course, since he's basically a dandy version of Dracula^note He's even from Romania, this is likely a portrayal of vampirism more in line with Dracula's original book appearance, where he was also unaffected by sunlight.
• Deadpan Snarker: Perfectly capable of it. It even reflects his fighting style, which has an emphasis on dodging and punishing attacks. From Slayer's XX story mode:
  I-No: What's an old geezer like you doing here?
  Slayer: I've come to watch.
  I-No: What?
  Slayer: It isn't That Man's style to cause this kind of random destruction. I assumed it had to be a clueless underling gone wild. I'm looking forward to seeing how he punishes you.
  I-No: That's it, you're dead! I'll burn you to ash, dissolve you into water, turn you into a mud pie, feed you to pigs, and turn you into excrement!
  Slayer: Well I must say, you're quite the hospitable one. But it'd be quite rude to bother a pig with all that. Don't you think?
  I-No: Shut up and die!
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: He carries one with him everywhere, and is the epitome of a high-class, chivalrous gentleman.
• Eternal Love: He's a vampire and his wife Sharon can heal back from basically anything, and they're both very happy with each other (though it's implied that Sharon might be a bit paranoid that he's pursuing other women behind her back). It helps that Sharon's a Voluntary Vampire Victim, so Slayer really has no reason to seek out anyone else.
• Fights Like a Normal: We have never seen Slayer fight at his full, uninhibited power, as he always fights with one hand figuratively behind his back to make the fight fair for his opponent. Hints have been dropped, however, that Nightwalkers are so strong that if he were to use his full strength he would be stronger than Sol and maybe even the original Justice.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: He may have been one of the founding members of the Assassins' Guild, but also sought its destruction when it became corrupt. His overall demeanor is friendly and polite: when he fights, he's capable of decking other powerful characters across the cosmos while still holding back to be a good sport. It also helps that his wife, Sharon, is immortal, thus, he's never needed to hunt others for blood: she can regenerate all of her blood even after being completely drained.
• Glacier Waif: Slayer has slow walking speed and a non-standard dash mechanic, but also has some notably attacks with slow starts or recovery (making him a massive sucker to being prone to instant blocks). Basically almost anything that's not his 5K normal when it comes to mid-range poking. Most of the time, smart foes who won't bother staying in Slayer's face can easily jump out safely and make it so he often has to commit to a chase in order to maintain his range and presence.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: With a healthy dose of Rocket Punch; Slayer's response to getting his arm cut off by Bedman is to have said severed arm fly at Bedman like a projectile and strike him in the face. He then regenerates a new arm.
• Happily Married: He and Sharon have no troubles in their immortally-wedded relationship.
• High-Class Glass: The monocle over his left eye has been part of his design since his debut, and adds rather well to his classy demeanor.
• I Let You Win: Seeing as every fight against him is acknowledged as him not going all out, it's pretty obvious he's giving his opponent a freebie. You can definitely see this in his knockdown sprite; rather than lying unconscious when "knocked out", he merely lies on the ground with a miffed expression on his face, propped up on his arm.
• Immortality: Besides being The Undead, his wife Sharon may have Complete Immortality. In one of Venom's endings, he finds that nothing he does can so much as hurt Slayer. He ends up settling for chaining Slayer into a coffin and chaining that to a wall.
• Launcher Move: His classic grounded Dust has him even winding up his fist; Accent Core allowed him to be able to feint it. Also in the same iteration, his Big Bang Upper Force Break, and his classic All Dead Instant Kill.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Though his only "rule" seems to be not holding back too much. Nonetheless, he requests fights as parting gifts in his Accent Core+ story- and is extremely grateful when his opponents oblige.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Not only can Slayer punch his opponent into orbit with just a punch but also rush at you supernaturally fast and, with his Healing Factor, shrug off grievous attacks including getting impaled by Big Bad Bedman. In his win quote against the aforementioned Sol, Slayer suggests they find a “few thousand vacant square kilometres” in order to get a definitive match between them.
  • Gameplay-wise, Slayer can utterly decimate his opponent's health bar off of a well-placed retaliatory Counter Hit with his fast-moving and high-damage punches, and can also use his special abilities to zip around the arena and be infuriatingly hard to hit.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: His Instant Kill for Xrd has him recite a haiku after punching the opponent upward. There's a bunch of pre-recorded possibilities for each third of the haiku and they are made up randomly, so he can end up poetically musing about loneliness and the universe... or rambling about getting naked with an alien.
• Megaton Punch:
  • His Overdrive "Dead On Time" is a colossal lunging haymaker which is easily capable of removing anything from a fifth to a third of his opponent's health bar in a single strike, as well as sending them flying across the arena and causing a wall splat.
  • His Instant Kill, "All Dead", has him sending his opponent flying out of the galaxy with an uppercut.
• Nightmare Face: Once he starts fighting at 100% power his facial expressions become very deranged and unnerving.
• Nice Guy: Extremely civil to pretty much everyone, even hands out hints to people for seemingly no reason than wanting to be helpful (like when he informs Ky Kiske something is seriously wrong with the bounty on Dizzy even though he has little reason to care).
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He sounds a lot like Sean Connery in the English Dub of Xrd -Sign-.
• Official Couple: Happily Married with Sharon.
• Older Is Better: Despite his belief that he is getting too old and should leave the world to the younger generations, Slayer is actually one the most powerful fighters in the franchise, no doubt due to the years of experience of honing his skills under his belt.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Sunlight doesn't affect him. In Isuka's credits, it is shown that other traditional vampire weaknesses (a cross, garlic and a wooden stake) are merely amusing to him. It is later revealed that he comes from a race of vampires known as "Nightwalkers".
• Pile Bunker: The name of one of his followup moves from his signature Dandy Step move, where he slide-punches forward with a force akin to well, a pile bunker.
• Really 700 Years Old: Being a vampire and whatnot, he's not really too affected by aging. He's been in business for centuries now.
• Retired Badass: He founded the Assassin's Guild only to retire shortly after. Following the events of XX, however, he's back in business and no longer appears to plan on retiring anytime soon.
• Sarcastic Clapping: One of his XX taunts is him doing this. Of course, since Slayer is a Spirited Competitor, he may actually be doing it earnestly as a means of encouraging his opponent.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: As befitting a Classical Movie Vampire, Slayer is one of the best-dressed characters in the cast and a man who exudes elegance and sophistication.
• Shockwave Stomp: One of his attacks allows him to do a short-range version of this - jumping up a little and slamming his feet down to create a shockwave. It does a bit of chip damage, but its real danger comes from how it stuns his opponent and opens them up for him to go hog wild on them with an insane combo.
• Signature Laugh: His laugh is an instantly recognizable and ultra-refined "Nya ha ha ha ha!" that he lets off while doing several of his attacks. The fact that the only other Nightwalker in the series, Nagoriyuki, has a very similar laugh to Slayer's due to having a connection with him further cements its iconic nature.
• Significant Anagram: The pseudonym he used to document the history post-1999 was "Eripmavs D. Yraid". Rearrange it slightly and you get "D. (The) Vampire's Diary".
• Smoking Is Cool: One of the few characters who consistently smokes (in Slayer's case from a Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe), and he just so happens to be a refined, high-class uber-badass vampire stronger than most of the cast combined. He can even actually block attacks with smoke from his pipe.
• Skill Gate Characters: A Slayer via his confunding whiff-punish kit can easily destroy most lower-levels of players, but his more intricate problems (lack of pressure, vulnerable to good lows, bad frame data and need to get within a specific punishing range) can allow more higher-leveled players to halt most of his shenanigans and forcing him to rely on hard reads. It's mainly them that has to come to Slayer instead of the other way around to make him as effective as possible.
• The Stoic: Slayer approaches every situation with a calm, relaxed demeanour, and in general it's very hard to faze him because he's so immensely powerful and has Seen It All. When he does get visibly distressed, it's the audience's cue that something is very, very wrong.
• Strong and Skilled: This is the reason that he's never canonically lost a fight to anyone; not only is he an unfathomably powerful Nightwalker who can uppercut people out of the Milky Way, but he's an immortal and notorious assassin with thousands of years of combat experience under his belt, which combined with the first point allows him to be able to go head-to-head with legendary Gears and powerful magical entities and still come out on top.
• Super-Reflexes: His block animation shows him rapidly deflecting his opponent's blows with his bare hands almost quicker than the eye can see.
• Super-Strength: His punches are so strong that just by boxing, he can utterly vaporize an opponent. No wonder he shows little concern in a fight.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: At 6'1" and with a chiseled beard and facial features, Slayer is a devilishly charismatic Nightwalker who is always as polite and courteous as can be.
• Warrior Poet: His Instant Kill ends with him reciting haiku, come on!
• Willfully Weak: One of the strongest characters in the series, although we never see him go all-out on That Man so we cannot say if he is the strongest.
• The Worf Effect: Even if he's usually Willfully Weak, he's usually still capable of giving a major ass-kicking like yesterday against the majority of the cast. Then in Xrd, he's beaten off by Bedman even while having Millia and Venom by his side and only bailed out by Zato because the latter is more familiar with Bedman's style.

Zappa

Zappa

Flucht In Den Norden.

^{As an NPC in -REVELATOR-}

"Ack, my body's turning in strange directions again! M-My ears...! My arms! My legs! Even my NECK!...Neck?"

Voiced by: Yuji Ueda

Playable in: XX

Profile:

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 146lbs

Gender: Male

Blood type: A

Birthplace: Australia

Date of Birth: June 15th

Hobbies: Finding a potential wife, writing in his diary

Likes: His good health charm

Dislikes: Scary things

Character themes:
Good Manners And Customs, Seizures

Shared character theme:
Home Sweet Grave (With Faust)

---

A seemingly normal man who is actually possessed by several spirits. He seeks to find Faust so he can cure his ailment. In XX he finds Faust, who tells him that he doesn't know what to do about it and suggests that he train himself to control the blackouts. In Accent Core + , he encounters Faust again, who finally concludes that Zappa is possessed after seeing S-ko for the first time. Faust purges the ghosts from Zappa, and he thanks Faust for his help.

Zappa returns as a Story Mode NPC in -REVELATOR-, now sporting a brand-new look. Apparently he has made peace with the spirits within him and now works alongside Dr. Paradigm, where he utilises his knowledge of the paranormal for the benefit of Illyria.

In games where he is playable, Zappa's game-play revolves around the use of several spirit summons, which he can (almost) randomly call one of them into himself and change his moveset. Each summon has a specific niche, meaning the player will practically have to learn several characters at once instead of just one, on top of having to deal with the inability to reliably pick which summon he gets. Landing a special attack with his summon out also nets Zappa an orb, which can be used to call down the very powerful summon Raoh for a period of time once he has 8 of them.

---

• Awesome, but Impractical: Zappa is consistently a low-ranked character. This is not because he is weak, but because when you play Zappa, you essentially play as five different characters at once and constantly (and randomly) change between them throughout the fight. That said, if you can get Raou out, Zappa becomes Purposely Overpowered.
• Ax-Crazy: When he's being possessed by 7 different ghosts, he becomes rather unstable and unhinged.
• Blank White Eyes: When possessed by S-ko.
• Blessed with Suck: Is a natural medium for spirits and doesn't know it... so this means that he's gotten possessed by an absolute mob of them, has no idea that he's got ghosts in his body in the first place, nor would he know how to exorcise them since he was never trained.
• Captain Ersatz: S-Ko is quite literally just Sadako Yamamura if she could possess people. Her name is the dead giveaway, as it's just a contraction of "Sadako".
• Character Development: -REVELATOR- shows that he's managed to utilize his experiences with the supernatural via his own condition to great benefit. During the 6-year Time Skip he developed his own thesis that supernatural occurrences were connected to the realm known as the Backyard, and it eventually got him a job as part of Illyria's R&D team. Over the course of the story, he plays an integral part in stopping Ariels' plans by tracking her whereabouts.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: S-Ko, being a Woman Scorned, has mistaken Zappa for her lost lover and violently lashes out at anyone who tries to take him from her. Strangely, eventually Zappa begins to genuinely enjoy her company and they become something akin to a creepy ghost pseudo-couple.
• The Chew Toy: Poor, poor Zappa. His predicament in XX is Played for Laughs; his story routes consist of him unwillingly getting into fights via S-ko while he looks for Faust, who eventually tells him that he cannot be cured. He also doesn't remember being possessed and has to suffer the consequences of his possession, which tends to include harm to his own body.
• Confusion Fu: Seriously, he is able to randomly change his moveset while fighting. That said, all his moves on their own have very solid usage in mix-ups, pressure, frame-traps and the like.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Every single one of the ghosts possessing Zappa save for S-Ko feel very sorry for him and wish they could comfort him (as seen in one of his story mode endings in the original XX games).
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After enduring his paranormal nightmare for so long, he's shown in Revelator to have used his experience to create his "Zappa Scale" to help deal with the paranormal, and he has a cushy job as a researcher. This is on top of generally making peace with the ghosts that haunted him.
• Hidden Depths: He seems to be a bit of an otaku as some of his lines reference moe, a maid cafe, and Boy's Love.
• I Am Legion: Has an evil dog, a cursed sword, the "Three Stooges", and S-ko living within him. Centipedes also emerge from his body during the summoning attack and one of his Overdrives.
• Lightning Bruiser: Deals the same amount of damage as Sol Badguy, but is faster and has higher survivability. His Raou summon takes this further and to literal levels.
• Limp and Livid: His standard idle stance, except bending over backwards◊.
• Momma's Boy: He mentions writing to his mother in some of his lines, and always refers to her in highly respectful terms ("hahaue-sama").
• Many Spirits Inside of One: Has about 8 ghosts that are using him as a home.
• Motor Mouth: Not when he's himself, but during battle he just never shuts up. Justified as he has about 7 ghosts trying to talk all at once.
• Nice Guy: When not plagued by ghosts, Zappa is very friendly to just about everyone.
• Not Himself: Whenever possessed by S-ko. In Story Mode this is indicated by his skin turning dark blue and gaining Blank White Eyes until Accent Core Plus (which showed him bent over backwards like his fight pose). His voice also becomes distorted.
• Powers via Possession: A key part of fighting with Zappa is recognizing what powers are available to you at any given point.
• Primal Fear: His profile notes that he dislikes scary things. Ironic for a guy who's a natural lightning rod for ghosts and is often associated with bugs.
• Puppet Fighter:
  • His Dog summon is controlled independently of Zappa, by pressing various directions and the Dust button. Unfortunately, this means that Zappa cannot use his own Dust attacks while the Dog is summoned.
  • The Sword follows Zappa around, but his Slash and Heavy Slash attacks cause it to move separately from him, allowing him to attack from a distance. Using certain special attacks or spending too long without making the Sword attack causes it to return to Zappa.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Even by the standards of a series whose character designs are the epitome of Costume Porn, Zappa takes this up a notch, and even has it explained in his backstory as he treats his clothes as charms to ward away the ghosts. He wears a skintight bodysuit with ill-fitting cargo shorts adorned with a utility belt, two pairs of oversized hoop earrings (the second pair being around his hands like bracelets), a Heart Symbol headband to match the heart on his bodysuit, and heeled dress shoes fit for a runway model.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Indeed. And this is before S-Ko speaks through him, which involves Yuji Ueda shrieking like a madman.
• Sole Survivor: Of After Story C, since he's the only one who did not fall victim to the curse.
• Split Mind, Split Powers: Zappa's moveset changes depending on the spirit that is currently controlling him.
• Stance System: He has three different spirits that he gains randomly (plus a special one that he gains once specific conditions are met). Each changes his Slash, Heavy Slash, and special attacks.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: S-ko is a textbook Japanese onyrō. Take a look at her and you'll know exactly what her inspiration is.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: His return in -REVELATOR- gives him a surprisingly important role in the story as Dr. Paradigm's new assistant. While he remains possessed by ghosts, he's made peace with them and has successfully gotten his life together - dedicating his life to the study of supernatural phenomena.
• Unlucky Every Dude: Unlike almost everyone else on the roster, Zappa is just a normal human. He doesn't even willingly fight; he just passes out and then the supernatural stuff happens. The Three Stooges can also inflict this status on an opponent, causing random flower pots to fall from the sky and various other means of tripping them up.
• Yandere: S-ko in temperament. She committed suicide when her lover betrayed her, and she refuses to leave Zappa because he looks exactly like said lover. Most of the fights in his story mode is caused by the opponent saying something to set her off.

I-No

I-No

There is no up or down above the clouds, and I can't breathe.

^{Original design}

"I won't break you. Yet. I haven't told you how unfortunate it is that you were born at all, right?"

Voiced by:
JP: Kikuko Inoue
EN: Tara Platt (Xrd -SIGN-), Amber Lee Connors (Strive)

Playable in: XX, Xrd, -STRIVE-

Profile:

Height: 5'5"

Weight: 101lbs

Gender: Female

Blood type: AB

Birthplace: Unknown

Date of Birth: November 25th

Hobbies: Anything fun, word games, teasing others

Likes: First one's a secret, her guitar Marlene, youth

Dislikes: People who don't like to have fun, milk

Character themes:
陰祭り -Festival of Shadows-, Blacklight Babe, The Midnight Carnival (Korean version), Dirty Drive, Requiem

Shared character theme:
Sheep Will Sleep (If You Become Fatigued) (With Sol and Ky)

---

A mysterious associate of That Man. Putting it simply, she is the embodiment of the word "bitch". And she loves it. As she serves That Man, she also knows Sol and she hates his guts, mostly because he's one of the few people able to defeat her. In XX, she goes around causing heaps of trouble for the other characters. In Accent Core +, after an encounter with Sol she transports him back in time to fight his past self, Order-Sol.

In Xrd, I-No continues to cause mischief via time-jumping, which has granted her knowledge of Ramlethal Valentine's appearance, and now with "That Man" being involved, her interests have been piqued, and she once again decides to take the stage. Over the course of the story, however, it is revealed that her inherent obsession with the concept of "a brighter future" is more than what it seems. As revealed by Jack-O', I-No isn't actually human, but a being known as a "Magical Foci", which is essentially an abstract concept given physical form. She was born from the collective consciousness of humanity itself, the embodiment of their wishes for a better future during the 100-year long war against the Gears which had left the world in ruins. She doesn't take this well, and leaves That Man's group on bad terms.

No longer affiliated with anyone but herself, I-No returns in Strive. Now a worldwide-wanted criminal, she decides to put her own plans into motion, plans that can potentially threaten existence as we know it.

I-No is a rushdown character centered around her excellent aerial mobility and mix-up game. Her unique hover-dash can get her airborne without needing to jump, and her varied moveset allows for highly oppressive fake-outs and pressure until the opponent fails to defend. However due to her mediocre normal attacks and non-standard movement, she has difficulty in getting past enemy neutral attacks and starting her offense.

---

• A God Am I: Effectively becomes "God" after merging with Happy Chaos, who created her as he is the Original. It is short-lived, however.
• Alas, Poor Villain: When her motivations are clearly elaborated upon in Strive, many of the main cast can't help but feel sorry for her, as all she ever wanted was to have a future for herself without anything going wrong.
• Alternate Self: Strive reveals that I-No is actually the current timeline's version of Megumi, Axl's lover. The one memory that is most precious to her is of a man she met at one point who had long, blonde hair like a woman's. She claims that the man's name was Will, but the two abandoned their names in favor of new ones. But one night, he suddenly disappeared, leaving her heartbroken once again after all the countless timelines she ended up causing tragedy in. However, because she's become so jaded from her experiences, and her memories so hazy from the constantly created and deleted timelines, she can't even remember his face or if her life with him was real or not. Only at the very end, when she's being obliterated from existence and watches Axl crying for her does she realize they'd found each other again after all.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: When facing left, she holds her guitar like a lefty (and her guitar becomes a lefty-built as well)
• Anthropomorphic Personification: As revealed in Xrd -REVELATOR-, during the Crusades, the hopes of the entire human race for a "brighter future" was made manifest into two living consciousnesses by the Backyard: Axl and I-No. Jack-O' explains that this is the reason why I-No is obsessed with a concept as abstract as a "brighter future".
• Ascended Extra: After getting Demoted to Extra in Xrd and REVELATOR, STRIVE makes her a crucial character once more, if not the most crucial character.
• Ax-Crazy: It doesn't take much to piss I-No off, and when she's pissed she will make sure her opponent suffers to their last breath.
• The Baroness: The Sexpot type appearance-wise but the Rosa Klebb type personality-wise.
• Battle Strip: Played With. It's in one of her victory poses that has her taking off her top as a taunt to her defeated opponent. Which is played for Fanservice given she doesn't wear a bra, though she turns her back to the camera as she strips so only her Toplessness from the Back and Sideboob are visible.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: I-No's one and only desire is to give humanity a brighter future and avoid that future becoming a "dull, grey world". By the end of -STRIVE- she does exactly that, creating a potential future where humanity leaves behind its mortal shackles and achieves everything it has ever inherently desired. Unfortunately, by doing so she has also stopped the potential for any further growth, turning that future into the very thing she didn't want: a dull, grey world.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Alongside Happy Chaos in Strive. After merging with him to regain her missing power, she takes her place as the real Big Bad.
• Broken Bird: Strive reveals that this is what she really is on the inside. All of the countless timelines she created, the tragedies she experienced in those timelines, and realizing that she wasn't human caused her ideals and dreams to erode into cynicism and despair.
• Bullet Hell: Her infamous, boss version only Megalomania attack which will drain your entire tension meter if you block it in addition to some of your health. Xrd turns this into her new Instant Kill attack since she's no longer the game's final boss. Strive marks its first tournament-legal appearance as a regular Overdrive attack, and it is quite deceptively practical as when performed in close proximity, it's a 0-frame command grab. If the opponent is within I-No's range, they're getting hit.
• Canon Character All Along: Though it initially seemed like she debuted in XX, Strive reveals that she is in fact the much older, current timeline's version of Megumi - Axl Low's Lost Lenore introduced all the way back in the original Missing Link.
• Character Development: A mild example. She's still a gigantic bitch, but seems to have learned her lesson with doing anything rash and doesn't go off on her own as much.
• Cleavage Window: Occasionally combined with Jiggle Physics.
• Co-Dragons: She and Raven are That Man's most trusted subordinates...but I-No has a problem of pulling crap that just causes a whole lot of trouble and then has to be put on a leash.
• Combat Stilettos: Wears nice red platform heels that she uses to great effect in her kick attacks.
• Confusion Fu: While she doesn't work this trope into unique game-play mechanic like Faust or Zappa, I-No players will come to rely on this tactic much more than the rest of the cast even in neutral phase due to most of her normal moves' hitbox being situational; using quick feints into low or overhead attacks, Antidepressant Scale projectiles (that can change in speed and vertical trajectory mid-flight) and her unique hover dash in order to trip the opponent up. Once she knocks the opponent down, this trope comes into full effect as the opponent is forced to guess between her deceptive attacks on wake up and act accordingly.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Part of why I-No is hard to master; Her kit is all about Attack! Attack! Attack! (unlike fellow okizeme monster Millia Rage who can bait her foe with varied movement options) Most of her moves are good for one purpose and not so much in the others, due to either having narrow hitboxes or terrible frame data when not hit-confirmed. Her hover dash, which is key to some of her overhead mix-up, will temporarily lock her in its dash animation. She also requires Tension meter to use both of her only reversal moves, on top of her low defense rating. Because of these reasons, playing as I-no requires intimate knowledge of her hitboxes and the opponent's.
• Dark Action Girl: The biggest one in the series.
• Dark Is Evil: Let's see, she's a witch who wears red with black details, uses Time Travel magic (which in the context of her use could be Black Magic), and wears a hat with a skull face on it. Pretty much spells out that she's clearly evil.
• Death Equals Redemption: Her last act, before being erased from existence as I-No, is to switch her place as an axis of time in the present with her earlier Alternate Timeline self - Megumi, Axl’s girlfriend - allowing the two to finally be together again.
• Demoted to Extra: The only time she appeared in Xrd is when she escorted Axl to That Man in what would be a filler-scene. She didn't even appear when That Man made Sol pull an Enemy Mine together. -REVELATOR- continues this, while she has had a big revelation about what she is. Her big contribution to the plot is to wake up Jack-O' and hint at future villainy with an evil smile at the end.
• Depraved Bisexual: Strongly implied in the XX ending, where she captures May and goes off to do whatever hellish things she has in store for her.
• Difficult, but Awesome: I-No is one of the characters not recommended for fighting game newbies by most of Guilty Gear's playerbase, in a franchise already widely known to be difficult despite her lack of "extra" mechanics. To explain:
  • While she has a good array of both air and ground attacks and mix-up options that make people regret blocking against her, along with projectile Notes for space control and keeping opponents locked down, they are often very situational. She can get at her foe at virtually almost any range (especially true in XX where Horizontal Chemical Love covers 98% of the playing field's length), but this requires thorough knowledge her moves' hitboxes, the character match-up and the opponent's defensive behavior for I-No to consistently win neutral to deal any damage at all. Not helped by her below-average defense stats, relative lack of meterless reveral moves and forced Hover Dash animation lock mean costly mistakes can come easily. The I-no players will probably then be forced to burn through their Tension like a raging candle for Roman Cancelling and Overdrives if they want to stay in the game.
  • Most of her much-vaunted explosive damage are gated behind usage of hard-to-execute combo extension methods, such as Hover Dash FRC or Instant Air Dash Canceling. Combine these with her hitbox problem and you have got one hell of a training session waiting if you want to get the most of I-No's already fragile neutral without resorting to risky pressure resets (leaving a gap in attack string to fish a mistake) and Death of a Thousand Cuts. It is noted by many GG vets that combos made by expert I-No players are often long and stylish... because they have to be or they'd lose.
• Double Entendre: I-No is practically incapable of not talking exclusively in innuendos. Taking a gander at all her win quotes really shows this off as almost every single one that isn't to a character she hates (I.E. Sol) has her making their fight into a sex thing or crafting some kind of phallic/sexual euphemism out of their fighting style.
  I-No: [after defeating Ky] Assaulting a woman with that naked sword? You're quite an animal, aren't you, boy?
• Dramatic Irony: I-No hates the idea of the future being "a dull, grey world". When she becomes a god in the climax of -STRIVE-, she becomes a monochromatic, clear being of pure energy, and she doesn't realize that by freeing everyone else from all their inherent human limitations, she has created the very thing she claimed to hate - a dull, grey world where everyone is the same and there is no longer any potential for growth or progress. She has, figuratively and literally, created a world without a future.
• Enigmatic Minion: Her profile in her story mode simply reads "UNKNOWNUNKNOWNUNKNOWN..." Not so enigmatic after XX, as her cover is blown.
• Evil Counterpart: Revealed in -REVELATOR- to be Axl's, both are beings that shouldn't exist from futures that could have been. Taken even further in STRIVE when it turns out both of them are Alternate Self versions of the same pair of lovers.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: In Xrd she is trying to avoid the "dull grey world" that is the future, implying that it is a timeline where there are few or no people alive.
• Faux Affably Evil: On the surface she's very flirty, but this only hides how vicious she actually is. In her earlier appearances, she had an entirely separate set of dialogue when fought as a boss character, where she'd drop the charade and be openly venomous to her opponents. This contrasts her with Happy Chaos, who holds no contempt for the heroes.
• Final Boss: Of XX. Come Strive, she also becomes the final opponent who Sol faces before his story arc concludes.
• Foil: To Sol/Frederick. Both have an affinity for the color red. Both are ageless, nigh-immortal beings created by humanity for their benefit yet became twisted by circumstance. Both are noted for their almost godlike power. And that's where their similarities end. While Sol loathed what he was forcibly turned into for well over 100 years, I-No reveled in her power and did what she could to use it in order to help people. While Sol used his powers to atone for what he believed was partially his mistake and his actions ended up helping the world, I-No used her powers to try and grant all of humanity a brighter future, only for her actions to cause an unfathomable amount of bad futures and eventually driving her mad from all the timelines she created. This reaches its logical conclusion in the climax of Strive's story mode: Sol has been turned back into Frederick, his old human self, after having the thing that gave him his powers taken from him and finally coming to terms with who he is and what he wants. I-No, despite becoming a godlike being after merging with her creator Happy Chaos and fulfilling her mission to grant humanity happiness, is herself still unhappy because she's become so jaded that it doesn't mean anything to her anymore.
• Foreshadowing:
  • I-No's calm and almost compassionate conversation with Axl about his Sadistic Choice to either go home to Megumi or forever give up any chance of seeing her again to save Sol and co. comes across as a very strange surprise Pet the Dog moment from a young woman who normally relishes the chance to be a gigantic bitch to everybody. When Axl eventually decides on the latter, he explicitly says that Megumi would have been supportive of his choice no matter what.
  • Every image we have seen so far of Megumi shows she's a woman with black hair. When we get to see her face◊ in STRIVE, she also has a distinctive beauty mark on her upper lip in exactly the same place where I-No has hers.
• For the Evulz: Goes out of her way to be a complete and utter bitch to anyone she meets. Why? She finds it fun.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Turns up to Strive wearing a pair of green-tinted shades, which manage to make her look even more wicked than before.
• Fragile Speedster: I-No is fairly fast compared to other characters, but has below-average survivability.
• Freak Out: I-No doesn't take it well when Jack-O' reveals to her in Xrd that she's an Anthropomorphic Personification of humanity's desire for a brighter future made manifest by the Backyard. She severs her ties with That Man, and rejects Raven's attempts to console her, finally Jumping Off the Slippery Slope to become the Big Bad of Strive.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Jack-O' revealing to I-No in Xrd that she's an Anthropomorphic Personification of humanity's wish for a brighter future causes I-No to give into all the worst elements of her depression and self-hatred over all the Bad Futures she made trying to make things better for people. This leads her in Strive to decide she might as well become a god to destroy and recreate the world until she gets one where she feels happy again, rather than accept support from those like Jack-O', Raven, and Axl trying to reach out to her. After all, she's not really a person anyway, right?
• Gone Horribly Right: The Original created her in order to advance humanity forward while ensuring their happiness and keeping them safe. For a short while, she succeeded. But when she did, she succeeded a little too well.
• Guest Fighter: Appears in The King of Fighters All Star.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Many characters find themselves on I-No's bad side very easily.
• The Heavy: In XX, while That Man and his other servants remain relatively passive in the shadows, I-No goes around causing mischief wherever she goes. Slightly subverted as well since a lot of the chaos I-No brings come from her own rotten personality instead of specific orders from That Man.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: I-No doesn't really take sides so much as play along with whoever she finds interesting, sometimes exploiting said allegiance for her own personal amusement. She started off as a total bitch during XX, then became a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in Xrd until she learned what she really was. As of Strive, she's back to being a bitch as by the time of that game's story, she's an internationally-wanted criminal.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: RED leather.
• I Just Want to Be Normal/I Just Want to Be Free: I-No's true motive, as revealed in Strive, is not just a future for humanity, but also for herself, as she is a being who has created and existed in countless timelines, yet never had any agency of her own in any of them. Every time she's tried to live in one and make a change for someone, it always ends up going horribly wrong. It's broken her to the point where she's willing to turn everyone into godlike entities such as herself, so she can feel like she belongs.
• Image Song: Requiem, as well as The Name of Heaven in Story Mode.
• Improbable Weapon User: I-No uses a shapeshifting electric guitar. She can either smash people with it, or create cacophonic sounds to defeat her opponents.
• It Was with You All Along: Strive reveals that she has one memory she treasures: one of a lover named Will. However, due to all of the alterations to the timeline, she's convinced that said memory no longer exists and isn't real, and thus that she has no past. The irony is that said lover happens to be an Alternate Self of Axl, who's spent the series pining after and desperate to return to his girlfriend, making him proof that said memories were real and that she had something this entire time — which she only realizes moments before her death.
• Jerkass: She just loves being an obnoxious bitch, especially to Dizzy, except for one, Axl Low, which at worst is just her being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. A foreshadowing of which who she really is: Megumi, Axl Low's girlfriend. Albeit an older, Broken Bird version of her from the current timeline.
• Kaleidoscope Eyes: Her bio states that her eyes change colors depending on the angle you look at them, and now in Xrd we can see it in action.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Her myriad fake-out options in her moveset also translate well into making opponent's life hell guessing her mix-up after they're knocked down.
• Killed Off for Real: In heart-wrenching and climactic fashion, she fights her longtime Arch Rival Sol Badguy, now once again the human Frederick Bulsara, one last time. She dies and is erased from existence when he blasts her with the true form of his sword Junkyard Dog Mk.III - an energy cannon designed to kill gods. However, Happy Chaos' Arcade story implies that she, alongside Happy himself, was merely banished to a Alternate Universe separated from reality.
• Lady of Black Magic: She's a manipulative sadist, usually quite composed, and can use her electric guitar to cast sound wave spells. However, her crude cursing and way of talking make for quite a subversion.
• Lascivious Beauty Mark: She has one near her nose much like her inspiration, and is notably the most sexually provocative character in the franchise. She shares this trait with Megumi, her counterpart.
• The Last Dance: Realizing that she cannot get what she wants without sacrificing her own existence, I-No decides to go out in the most fitting way possible, one of the few things that she enjoyed throughout her life - fighting Sol Badguy.
• Last Words: "Beautiful blonde hair... like a woman's." Though the epilogue implies it may have actually been "I'm giving you my unfair way of life. You asked for this."
• Living Hat: I-No has a talking red leather witch hat that can even attack for her.
• Loophole Abuse: Gameplay variation of it; Hover Dash is not considered an airdash despite sending I-No airborne. This leads to Hover Dash IAD trick (also known as 66956) letting I-no get in opponent's face from across the screen almost instantly.
• Manipulative Bitch: This cannot be stressed enough. Whenever she shows up in someone's way, it's usually to bait them into doing something she wants or expects.
• Leitmotif: Kage Matsuri in XX and Blacklight Babe in the Korean version of the game, as well as the infamous The Midnight Carnival in both versions. Xrd gives her Dirty Drive, and Strive gives her Requiem.
• The Millstone: Inverted, kind of. She is an underling who probably does more to harm That Man than his actual opposition thanks to her pervasive Stupid Evil tendencies, but he makes a point of keeping her around largely because giving her a cause makes the messes that she creates far smaller in scale and significantly easier to clean up. Left to her own devices, she would likely be significantly more destructive. In comes -STRIVE-, with Asuka locking himself in the White House and Raven opting to stand by the sidelines, no one was able to stop her plans.
• Ms. Fanservice: Sexy poses, leather outfit, curves for days and a feisty personality. Strive gives her a bare midriff, bra-like halter top and short shorts so precariously short they're essentially just her underwear.
• Musical Assassin: Her move names have musical traits, as do the actual moves themselves.
• Musical Spoiler:
  • Her theme in Strive, "Requiem", whose lyrics go through her mourning her own Loss of Identity, which includes descriptions of a past life with a lover in an Alternate Timeline long gone hinting early at her being Axl's Lost Lenore Megumi from an alternate timeline fading away like fallen snow. The final verse also gives away her true desire to be put out of her misery and leave her power to someone else to create something better than she did.
  • In addition, unlike the other themes of the cast, "Requiem" is the only theme whose name does not appear as part of the lyrics, nodding towards its unusual nature.
  • This overlaps with "Requiem" doubling as a Meaningful Name; one of the textbook definitions of "Requiem" is a musical composition dedicated to the memory of a deceased person, which fits Strive being The Last Dance for I-No.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Wears what amounts to just two strips of fabric draped over her bare breasts. Yet despite all the moving around during fights, nothing gets revealed... Except during her Battle Strip Victory Pose, if you actually fiddle around the sprites, you can actually see she's anatomically accurate. Somewhat subverted in Strive, which sees I-No sporting a crop top underneath a red leather coat, but this still gives her a very prominent Cleavage Window.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Her likeness to Shiina Ringo is really uncanny.
• Not Quite Dead: Is vaporized by Sol in the ending of Strive, only for the epilogue to reveal that she granted Megumi, Axl's lost girlfriend who is heavily implied to be an earlier Alternate Self of I-No, her current powers, allowing Megumi to take I-No's place in the present. Plus there's her appearance in Happy Chaos' Arcade story, which implies that she never actually died but was merely Brought Down to Normal then sealed away from reality.
• Not So Stoic: She usually maintains her composure, but I-No actually shows panic when overpowered by Dizzy or Baiken, or when she's on the receiving end of May or Faust's Instant Kills in Xrd. The former launches I-No out of a cannon into the sky, the latter approaches her with a scalpel in hand, preparing to do terrible things to her face.
• Order Versus Chaos: Strive reveals that she forms this dynamic with Ariels, being the chaos to her order. Both were created by the Original to move humanity into a new age. However, while Ariels wanted an absolute world of complete order where humanity would sacrifice their freedom in order to be content at all times under her rule, I-No wants freedom for all of humanity, granting their every desire by turning them into godlike beings like herself and not giving a shit what they decide to do with all that power, even if it leads to their own self-destruction.
• Orgasmic Combat: I-No sounds a little too excited while inflicting or taking pain.
• Overzealous Underling: As the story progresses, it becomes clear that I-No is this to That Man. She is interested in the future he wishes to create for the world, and acts in accordance with what she perceives are his intentions, not realizing that her actions are actually hindering him in the long term. Taking in the fact that she is actually the abstract concept of "a brighter future" given physical form, as detailed in -REVELATOR-, her fanaticism to That Man's cause makes a lot more sense.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In -REVELATOR-, I-No actually decides to have an honest conversation with Axl over his decision whether to erase the current timeline or erase his own where she legitimately tries to help him come to a decision about it. It's very different seeing her be so calm and and sympathetic. STRIVE contextualizes this further via revealing her to be an Alternate Self of Axl's girlfriend Megumi, whom Axl had said during the climax of -REVELATOR- would be likely to be supportive of him through making his decision; apparently this aspect of her hadn't changed even after a healthy dose of cynicism.
  • In STRIVE after realizing that Axl is in fact Will from an Alternate Timeline, she uses the last of her power not to save herself, but to give her Alternate Timeline self Megumi her full Time Travel abilities instead, so Axl and Megumi can finally be together properly.
• The Power of Rock: Her Instant Kill, and her win pose in which she plays "One" by Metallica.
• Psycho for Hire: She only goes to That Man so she can continue her Time-trolling antics.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: She wears red clothing with black details, and is outright villainous.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: In one of her victory poses, she stands with her back to the screen and removes her jacket and top leaving only topless.
• Shout-Out: The scene of her becoming "God" in Strive borrows heavily from End of Evangelion, where after merging with her other half she begins projecting giant naked copies of herself throughout the Earth, much like what happens with Rei / Lilith.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Female variation, and how. Once she enters "Bitch Mode", all bets are off. Especially against Sol and Axl, which is usually always because of how much she hates them.
  "Long time no see, MOTHERF-(BEEP)!!"
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In Strive's epilogue, it turns out her final act was to give her current abilities to her earlier Alternate Self Megumi, allowing her to be reunited with her Lost Lenore Axl before losing him and other wounds along an ongoing Trauma Conga Line that turned her into I-No.
• Smug Snake: Always very confident about how unbearable a bitch she's capable of being, which often comes back to bite her in the ass later on.
• SNK Boss: Especially in XX to Accent Core. For instance, the Megalomania boss-only Bullet Hell move: I-No's invulnerable while performing it, and if any of the bullets hits her opponent, the rest become Homing Projectiles.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Ever since her debut in XX, several portions of I-No's dialogue are censored in different ways depending on the game and region. In the original Japanese versions of all the XX games, it's a stock TV-style beep. In the international versions, the line of dialogue is cut off completely, leaving I-No animation look like she's saying nothing. The subtitled version of Xrd instead uses guitar feedback and slashing sounds, but the English dub retains the TV beeps.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She acts cynically to hide the fact that she hates every second of her existence, as not only can she not feel much of anything anymore emotionally, but creating so many alternate timelines have eroded her memories to the point where she doesn't think anything is real anymore.
• Split Personality: On one hand, mysterious and sexy. On the other hand, you guessed it: ULTRA-BITCH.
• Stable Time Loop: Her story in Xrd's arcade mode seems to indicate that she's caught in one of these and is trying to break out.
• Stripperific: Her original design is a Hot Witch outfit with only a pair of leather straps covering her chest, showing off most of her cleavage. Her -STRIVE- outfit is no better, being a punk-rocker halter top with sizable cleavage as well as a bottom garment so skimpy it can only be described as tactical combat panties.
• Stupid Evil: Most of what she does is done in the name of That Man. Almost none of what she does actually helps him and often actually hinders him, in addition to causing him to have to waste time cleaning up after her. It's strongly suggested that he keeps her around solely because he feels that it's better to have her on a leash so that the damage she causes is more manageable.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In Xrd she hates having to ally herself with Sol, but does so anyway as there are bigger issues at hand.
• This Cannot Be!: She screams such a phrase when Dizzy obliterates her in one of her GGXX endings, all the while pleading for someone to help her get away from her massively overwhelming attack. She also says such a phrase after May kicks her ass.
• Thong of Shielding: A black one.
• Time Travel: Her magic ability. She states that it's not exactly easy to do, though.
• Tomato in the Mirror: As revealed by Jack-O' in REVELATOR, I-No is in fact the Anthropomorphic Personification of humanity's hope for a brighter future given form by the Backyard. She takes it rather poorly, to say the least...
• Too Kinky to Torture: Demonstrated in Xrd, when Faust hits her with his Shigekiteki Zetsumeiken overdrive. Whereas most characters will have a shocked or embarrassed expression on their faces, I-No's face seems to show that she's actually enjoying it quite a bit.
• Tragic Dream: All I-No truly wants is to give humanity a bright future, but it's the also the one thing she herself cannot experience, because for a being such as herself, she has no "present" to experience. All that exists in her world is the past and the future. Even becoming a godlike being and granting that "gift" to all of humanity cannot give her what she herself wants - to be human and experience the future she created with them, to know that she was able to accomplish her mission as programmed by the Original. The one and only way she can fully realize her own desires? She has to die.
• Troll: What she uses her Time Travel powers for and does for a living, much to That Man's detriment.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Claims to have been one in Axl's Revelator Episode Mode Ending. Before her Start of Darkness, she used to actually enjoy helping others and making people happy. Unfortunately, it's implied that her time manipulation powers also meant that she had to personally witness untold numbers of negative repercussions and time paradoxes due to her actions, turning her into a Knight in Sour Armor and eventually the Manipulative Bitch that she now is. Strive further confirms this by revealing the foul-mouthed, cruel I-No in an earlier Alternate Timeline used to be Megumi, the woman Axl consistently describes as the sweetest, kindest person he's ever met.
• Vapor Wear: She wears no bra.
• Walking Spoiler: Talking just about anything regarding her role in STRIVE runs the risk of revealing too much about the plot.
• Wham Line: One specific to her that changes and recontextualizes her entire worldview.
  Axl: I can't get anything out but tears!
• Wild Card: By the end of Rev 2, I-No has severed her ties with That Man and all of her former associates, having decided to go off on her own. And as we know from past games, an unchecked I-No is a very bad thing.

Introduced in later updates

Robo-Ky

Robo-Ky

ENNUI.

"I guess you're from Stupid Street in Stupid Town from Stupid County. Damn monkeys... then again, I can hardly blame you for slipping up before my keen sense of observation."

Voiced by: Kantaro (XX#Reload Battle Voice), Takeshi Kusao (XX Story Voice), Takumi Inoue (AC), Shigeru Chiba (-REVELATOR-)
Robo-Ky Mk. II voiced by: Yutaka Terada

Playable in: XX

Profile:

Height: Unknown

Weight: Unknown

Gender: Male programming

Blood type: Unknown

Birthplace: Unknown

Date of Birth: Unknown

Hobbies: Unknown

Likes: Unknown

Dislikes: Unknown

Character themes:
Under Construction, Holy Orders?, Vortex Infinitum

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Robot impersonators of Ky created by the Post-War Administration Bureau, these robots act as their mooks. One unique individual appears in the Accent Core series, having developed a lecherous personality, while Isuka has a MK-II version that can copy his opponents' moves. The very last one returns as a Story Mode NPC in -REVELATOR-.

In games where he is playable, Robo-Ky is a versatile character held back by the need to constantly maintain two resources which replace the standard Tension meter: Heat and Power. Both of them are slowly generated by performing attacks and doing specific special moves respectively, both of which give Robo-Ky's attacks better properties at higher levels. But be warned; too much Heat will cause Robo-Ky to explode, harming himself and the opponent if they're too close.

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• Awesomeness by Analysis: In the original XX's Story Mode, Robo-Ky often analyzes your character's techniques, becoming immune to damage from anything but overdrives.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite being relatively harmless, the Robo-Ky in REVELATOR is disliked by the local townspeople is and often bullied by a pair of children. He later confesses that he's thought of firing missiles at them before but decided not to out of his appreciation for society.
• The Cameo: His helicopter-propelled head is shown hovering next to Venom as he greets Milia and Zato-1 in the ending cutscene of Strive.
• Catchphrase Insult: Likes saying variations of "useless", "defective" or "no good" towards those he deems lesser than him, which is usually his opponent or his creator, Crow Kuruwaba.
• Collective Identity: All the Robo-Kys seen in Story Mode seem to share the same rude, lecherous personality, and quite a multitude of them get destroyed, so it's safe to assume that the playable Robo-Ky is simply a stand-in for saying "one of the many, many Robo-Kys out there".
• Dark Reprise:
  • His alternate theme, "Holy Orders?". Given that he is a robot version of Ky, it only makes sense that this theme be a robotic-toned version. The end result is that the song ends up sounding full of distortions and background sound effects and noise, randomly jumping up and down in pitch and volume at a moment's notice. You'd almost think that the band was drunk while performing it or the song itself is trying and failing to impersonate the original version.
  • However, in the case of "Vortex Infinitum" in the Korean soundtrack, this version is instead more metal-rock-based with robotic tones and extra drums compared to its original version, "Pillars of the Underworld" (normal Ky's theme in the said soundtrack).
• Dash Attack:
  • Is one of the few characters who has this with his Tsuu-KY-Geki (Pain-PLEASURE-Attack), where it's a mini-version of Ky's Ride The Lightning with high priority and will have Robo-Ky perform a unique taunt that fills his gauge up to full if uninterrupted.
  • Also has one with his KY-Genshou (MYSTERY-Phenomenon), a dash attack where he turns the lower half of his body into a horse to charge at foes with.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Visually, Robo-Ky was a straight Palette Swap in his debut (though not in cutscenes or official art), slowly gaining his own distinct sprites over time. By the time of Xrd the trope has reversed itself, with Ky gaining multiple redesigns while Robo-Ky stayed the same, wearing the same outfit and hairstyle of Ky's original look.
• Do-Anything Robot: The only thing he doesn't do is emulate the person he impersonates properly. His moves include missiles and firearms of varying sizes, propeller bikes, a robot horse, a mace, multiple extendo arms, and heat exhaust. According to Daisuke Ishiwatari, his gimmicks are inspired by Inspector Gadget (1999).
  • Also present in the MK-II version from Isuka, which in addition to the original's moves, also copies the special moves of other characters and puts a mechanical spin on them.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Prior to being playable in XX, he appears in Ky's EX mode in X and appears in his story mode as one of his opponents.
• Easy Impersonation: Jam and Bridget mistake him for the real Ky in XX. This starts to fail in Accent Core Plus where he looks more obviously robotic.
• Evil Knockoff: Robo-Kys are rude and arrogant replicas of Ky made to do the PWAB's dirty work. In-game, Robo-Ky was originally just an EX movelist Early-Bird Cameo for Ky in GGX and a palette swap of Ky in his first proper appearance (GGXX) with slightly different portraits. He came into his own with exclusive sprites and movesets starting with #RELOAD.
• Goal in Life: In REVELATOR, he discloses to Venom that his dream is to own a tangerine farm which is a promise he made to a fallen friend^note another Robo-Ky model called RK-000348 who appears in the Night of Knives drama CD. He tells Venom not to laugh at another person's dream as it is tantamount to laughing at that person themselves, and he also echoes these words at Bedman before launching an Action Bomb.
• Heroic BSoD: "ERROR!_CRITICAL ERROR!_BLUE_SCREEN_OF_DEATH!" *Earth-Shattering Kaboom*
• Heroic Sacrifice: In REVELATOR, the last Robo-Ky gives Bedman a speech how he could possibly defend people that mocked him the way they did, and self-destructs in his face leaving him vulnerable for Venom to strike him down with Terra Machina System. The stinger shows his head sprout a propeller and fly off while carrying an unconscious Venom.
• Hive Mind: Subverted because since all RKs have the same arrogant personality, with each model acting more superior to the other. Once REVELATOR rolls around there's only one left, but this particular Robo-Ky has gone on to develop his own personality and a sense of individuality.
• Hurricane of Puns: The Theme Naming of his special moves is a bunch of cringe-inducing puns on Ky's name. It varies via the original Japanese version or the localized version of Accent Core Plus R.
• I Shall Taunt You: Robo-Ky is able to taunt when laying down, allowing him to delay his getup to mess with his foe's wakeup offense.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The last Robo-Ky in Xrd is just as nice of a person as the real Ky, just a bit more foul-mouthed. He WILL go out of his way to help someone in need, even if he complains about it.
• Last of His Kind: The Robo-Ky in REVELATOR was the only one of the bunch to avoid being decommissioned by the PWAB. He now drifts on his own, working as a mercenary who's taken about as seriously as you'd expect Robo-Ky to be.
• Lethal Joke Character: Quite possibly the series' textbook example. Robo-Ky may seem silly at first glance, but if you make the mistake of underestimating him, joke's on you. This guy can completely force you on the defensive, locking you down with no chance of being able to attack, and utterly decimate your lifebar within mere seconds after the round starts.
• Lightning Bruiser: Has the same level of mobility as Ky Kiske, but has higher health, weighs a lot more and deals high damage while also having a stronger zoning game.
• Losing Your Head: After exploding during his fight with Bedman in Xrd, he is reduced to a disembodied head until Venom finds a way to get him a new body.
• Loveable Sex Maniac: In his debut appearance, Robo-Ky is sleazy and perverted in his attraction to human women in general, desiring Millia, Jam, and Baiken in particular. He's also attracted to the Cute Monster Girl Dizzy.
• Mecha-Mooks: Multiple Robo-Kys were produced by the Post-War Administration Bureau, acting in separate missions that ended up in failure most of the time. In XX, his quote on winning a Mirror Match is to ask the other one why it diverted from their programming.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • He has to manage two different meters: a thermostat and a battery gauge. The thermostat shows how hot (in the literal sense) he is at the moment. He can build up heat by attacking the opponent with some attacks (usually those that pressure the opponent) and reduce it by either doing a "vent" attack (his forward hard slash), doing one of his overdrives or simply doing nothing. The more heat you have, the stronger your normal attacks are (especially with his forward hard slash showing the visual differences); but when you max out heat, Robo-Ky will explode and lose some health.
  • The battery gauge is actually his Tension gauge. He cannot build up meter like the other characters and has to use his Zadan-KY (Conversation-MEETING) power mat (his crouching dust, as his sweep is actually his crouching slash), the aforementioned Tsuu-KY-Geki or his KY-Denpa (STRANGE-Electrical Wave) command throw to build up his meter. The more he has power/tension, more some of his special attacks are strengthened. All in all, his pressure and damage output is limited with how much heat and how much power he can manage and juggle with.
• More Dakka: His forward punch command normal, which fires a small burst from his elbow. Can be fired three times in a row but builds up a lot of heat.
• Necessary Drawback: His high health is mitigated by his tendency to explode and his damage output is limited from being a Mechanically Unusual Fighter.
• Odd Friendship: In REVELATOR, he becomes friends with the reserved assassin Venom when the latter hires his services to defeat Bedman. In the After Story B and Strive, they're shown running a bakery together.
• Older and Wiser: The final Robo-Ky in REVELATOR is initially introduced arguing with and being bullied by bratty children while sitting on a street corner advertising his services for menial jobs, but eventually, he's hired by Venom, and as the two converse, it becomes clearer and clearer that he's developed an unbending moral code and a rustic sort of wisdom. He immediately sees through Bedman's egotistical facade, sympathizing and commiserating with him as they fight, attempting to talk him down the entire time. When Bedman attempts to murder the children from earlier to break Venom and Robo-Ky's offensive, Robo-Ky takes the shots for them without hesitation - and goes right back to patiently lecturing Bedman.
• Playing with Fire: When his thermostat is at a high amount, his normal attacks have increased damage and hitstun while also setting his foe on fire.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: One of his Overdrives, Dame na Yatsu wa Nani wo Yatte mo Dame! (Whatever is Done, A Fellow No Good is No Good!), which allows him to use a unique additional "headbutt" attack as a finisher (which only becomes its own command as of Slash).
  Robo-Ky: DAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEDAMEEE!!!
• Secret Character: In the original XX, where he was just a re-implemented version of Ky's EX version from X.
• See-Thru Specs: One of his XX win quotes reveals that his eyes can see through people's clothing. Unfortunately, he uses it on Bridget.
  Robo-Ky: YOU'RE A BOY, HUH!? YOU CAN'T TRICK ME! I HAVE X-RAY EYES AN—UH...FORGET I SAID THAT.
  • He later uses it in -REVELATOR- when 2cave and two Assassin's Guild members put a bag over his head while talking to Venom. Robo-Ky analyzes them and discovers their terrified heartbeats, which makes him realize they had been sent by Zato-1 to secretly test Venom's resolve.
• Slouch of Villainy: Has a fold-in throne that he's shown pompously sitting on during his intro, Instant Kill, and in various illustrations.
• SNK Boss: In the original GGXX, this guy, not I-No, was banned from competitive gameplay. Consider that in most characters' story modes, you must fight him while he doesn't take damage from anything but Overdrives... However, it's important to note that he was banned from competitive gameplay for the same reason Kliff and Justice were. It wasn't necessarily because he was overpowered, but rather because he was a console-only character that wasn't created with balance in regards to other characters in mind (although Kliff and Justice turned out to be legitimately overpowered). He became tournament legal starting in #Reload, where he was added to the default roster with his own unique moveset.
• Sphere of Destruction: His Gen-KY Lovers (Li-MIT Lovers) Overdrive causes him to perform an animation similar to one of Robo-Ky's very old moves (his Ray Divider), making him press a big red button that puts him in a state that allows him to gain his meter very quickly and increases his movement speed...that is until the countdown starts and then ends, Robo-Ky will let loose a self-damaging explosion of electricity that's a sphere that can stay out for a while if it hits someone. The large amount of hits that said sphere does allows Robo-Ky to burst himself out of it to take advantage of for massive combo opportunities.
• Super Prototype: The only Robo-Ky that survived the PWAB's decommissioning was the original, the first one to be implanted with a personality and was noted to be the most complete model. Later Robo-Kys were cheaply mass-produced which caused defects in their personality and flanderised them into incompetent jerks.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The mass-produced Robo-Kys were Jerkasses with massive egos and tended to act very creepy around women. The last Robo-Ky in Xrd is rather profound and extremely compassionate to everyone he meets despite his occasional rude outbursts, even empathising with Bedman of all people.
• Telescoping Robot: Not only is he crammed with more weaponry than should realistically fit into him, but he even has the ability to produce an end table to lean on and even a whole throne which collapses into his back as part of one of his round start animations.

A.B.A

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Order-Sol

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