Justice and Meeting Again, Once More
Originally uploaded Nov. 24th, 2022.
A roster of 25 characters and you pick the final boss? What is your problem?
For anyone who’s unaware, I’m big into Guilty Gear Accent Core +R. The rollback update released in 2020 solidified it as my favorite fighting game of all time, and the massive wealth of knowledge on Dustloop has made it easier than ever to pick up and play the game.
This game’s got quite the cast, at that! There’s Sol Badguy, with his healthbar-erasing clean hit conversions, Millia Rage and Chipp Zanuff, who can shred into you like paper with every tool in the book, the notorious A.B.A, who can quickly snowball with momentum once she gets going in Moroha mode, and Kliff Undersen, the old man who can okizeme with a shout (among other things. This character is gross). The options are endless.
And yet, even with all that, I gravitated towards Justice.
Justice.
I typically tend to play characters that are fast and aggressive, using strong buttons for big damage. The stars aligned in a way that would solidify myself as a Sol (or Order-Sol) main, and yet I picked Justice, a solid antithesis to the way I play airdashers.
She’s a zoner.
A slow, bulky zoner with a big hurtbox.
But you know what? She’s sick as hell and I’m not going to sit here and pretend she isn’t.
Justice’s movement options are rather restricted at first glance – she doesn’t have an airdash or a forward dash. Gotta balance the boss character somehow. To compensate for this, her movement choices have to be a bit more methodical. There’s her double jump and super jump, standard stuff, but you can do so much more. Place one of her several projectiles in front and walk behind it to approach, or frc the 22X input for another. Adjust your aerial positioning with one of two versions of Michael Sword, the quicker version can be frced for a quick drop. Spending 25 meter to dash forward with her force break, Saperia Trance, of which you can use to cross up, whiff punish or set up for a throw, among other things.
Okay, so maybe her movement options aren’t as restrictive as one might think.
Or shit, you don’t even have to approach. If someone doesn’t know the matchup, you can knowledge check them to oblivion with a hellfire of nukes.
Speaking of her grab, it’s got a fantastic range. The biggest in the game, in fact (tied with Potemkin). You can combo off it and, if you’re a cool kind of dude, do it all over again.
And her damage, the damage.
I like high damage. Seeing a healthbar vanish is always fun. Justice has high damage in spades – to the point where even the unoptimal stuff is dishing out heavy chunks.
Justice is good at pushing the mental stack to the extreme as well. If someone thinks its their turn, you can easily punish with a deviously timed Valkyrie Arc, conditioning them further. Combine that with her scary normals and she’s a powerhouse on the field.
Of course, she has her weaknesses as well. Being slow and big means she’s susceptible to faster characters bullying her out of neutral. Millia, for example, runs circles around Justice.
But that only makes me want to try harder. There’s nothing better than understanding why you fall short and punching through that barrier. It’s never impossible.
It’s never impossible – and that’s why I like her. She’s an anomaly in this game, a character who shouldn’t be here. She functions in such an obtuse way compared to the rest of the cast and yet it’s not a detriment, because of the way the game is built. I think it’s a genius sort of design.
This whole writeup was a setup, by the way. Justice is everything I like about Guilty Gear – an archetype cranked up to 11, with allowing for expression however you want. There’s also this thread I wrote up last year on the character choice that goes a bit more in depth on why I picked her.
I don’t even want her in Strive, because I don’t see myself quitting +R anytime soon.
For great justice.
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