Trick and Treat
Guilty Gear Strive fans found reason to celebrate this weekend, with the long-awaited confirmation that the adorable Jack-O’ Valentine will indeed be making her return to the GG franchise as Strive‘s newest DLC character, the troublesome temptress and her army of minions will hit the GG Strive roster August 30, with season pass holders having access to her a few days earlier on August 27.
Jack-O’ made her initial franchise debut in the story cinematics of 2001’s Guilty Gear X Plus, opting in as an alternate unit for That Man. Jack-O’ would truly make her presence felt come 2015’s Guilty Gear Xrd – Revelator– where she prematurely awakened from her status slumber to break free and wreak cutesy chaos on the world. Originally designed for nefarious and apocalyptic deeds, Jack-O’s infectious (and “incomplete”) personality has afforded her a far more charming and fun-loving nature, making her more a happy-go-lucky agent of chaos, rather than a bringer of doom. We like her this way.
Jack O’ is a highly complex setup-based chaos, planting “Pumpkin Houses” around the battlefield that spawn her delightful minions, the Dorpos. By combining different forms of Dorpos with her highly versatile pumpkin flail, Jack-O effectively creates confusion and controls space, often leaving her opponents feeling smothered in threat and shut down in the midst of battle. Jack-O’ could be seen as the archetypal Guilty Gear character, combining wild fashions and sharp visual design with a complicated playstyle the requires a wealth of micro-management. As such, she is deadly in the right hands.
Jack-O’ Valentine is the second DLC character to join the GG Strive roster, following the arrival of Goldlewis Dickinson last month. We can expect a Starter Guide for the pumpkin princess very soon. In semi-related news, Arc System Works announced that it will also reveal the GG veteran set to make an appearance in SNK’s Samurai Shodown very soon.
