#gg begin

[dolljointedhound]

Eh eh! Yippe!!! I love my friend so much! yippe yey yey YEY!!! *Smiling so sweetly*

- Asuka R. Kreuz

[gear-project]

Guilty Gear Begin Archive

In cased you missed it... here’s a link to the English translation, now in archive format.

Guilty Gear Begin on Archive.org

I have my regrets that I was unable to translate everything on my own (being busy with personal things does that), but I do wish to try and present things in a more accessible format one day.

It’s my goal to (at the very least) make ALL of the Novels and extra GG content accessible for everyone to read... past, present, and future, all in one place that makes it easy to read/access in multiple languages if possible.

It’s a lofty goal I’ll admit... but the effort people in this community have put in makes me a believer.

Even if ARC System Works never publishes another book on this side of the ocean, I think it would be a greater shame not to be able to read this in your own native language.

[broken-clover]

Got around the finishing GG Begin! It’s so surreal to have been able to just read through it. Really, truly, the biggest of thank-yous to @solradguy for putting in the time and effort to translate it, having to do that for a whole book is no small job. I have just a couple of thoughts I had on it, and there will be some spoilers, if that’s something that someone would like to avoid

-Maybe it’s weird to criticize the novel of a video game series, but the first chapter or so had a lot of ‘as you know’ moments that felt somewhat jarring. Gotta be honest, not sure what the point was of the prologue was, being its own separate thing, when flashbacks were a recurring thing across the story. I think it could have been broken up and slipped in there.

-I got as far as I think chapter 2 or 3 with an incomplete, older translation before Strive came out, so with only so much I’ll admit I had thought Viidia had something to do with I-no, based on the name and their appearances. I had thought this was somehow going to be the explanation behind where she came from (and, being honest with myself, it might have been cooler)

-Tying into that I’m sorta surprised there weren’t really any connections to the main series, though I guess that’s ultimately more realistic. Part of me still wants to go with the headcanon that Dustin is a distant relative of Ky’s just for the fun of it

-Did not expect to get attached to the OC’s, I’ll admit I garnered a fondness for Viidia and Dustin and got genuinely bummed that they didn’t make it out in the end. (To a lesser extent, Serge can go fuck himself, and I wish Frederick had gotten to properly maul him)

-It was nice seeing things from Frederick/Sol’s POV, obviously he’s the protagonist so we’ve done that for most of the series but I don’t think it’s been brought up much how the cells physically feel 

-Hooooly fuck Asuka his Strive interpretation has only worsened to me. Yes, I understand needing to keep up the facade to keep the military from viewing him as suspicious, but I think there’s a difference between that and actively proclaiming Frederick was never really his friend and offering no indication that he wasn’t 100% serious about this. I find it legitimately impressive that Frederick was so disbelieving of Asuka’s claims of disobeying Aria’s wishes and working for the government until Asuka fucking shot him (again). I know at least for the most part he’s putting on a show, but Asuka comes across as massively unlikeable, and I am doubling down on my opinion that Aria-Justice has every right to disembowel him and munch on his entrails

-Props to Sol for actually going ‘this isn’t what Aria wanted you dumb fuck’ someone actually listened

-Lastly I think it’s good to finally know what the fuck Aria was dying from, but it...doesn’t make much sense, at least in my opinion? I mean, I’m no doctor obviously, but the temporoparietal region of the brain is mostly affiliated with moral decisions and memory. The diseases is tends to be involved in are ones like schizophrenia and alzheimers, and while I think it’s be fine if it was stated to be a memory-related disorder- if anything, it could have been interesting to see Aria trying to hold onto the memories of her friends- but as far as I’m aware in here or in the games she’s only been portrayed as physically sickly with no real impaired brain function. I mean, if she’s still allowed to work in a science lab, clearly there can’t be much concern about her ability to recall things or perform tasks properly. I could be off the mark, though. Again, not a doctor. 

[gear-project]

How did Sol felt when he used Dragon install for the first time? Did it hurt him?

The first time he used it was during Guilty Gear Begin's events against a giant Gear Grizzly Bear who had regenerative abilities comparable to his own.

Prior to this he had very "hot / painful" sensations in his neck (where Asuka had lodged a bullet containing the Flame of Corruption Seed) whenever his powers felt especially strong whilst fighting Gears.

There was even a point when he passed out from blood loss, only to wake up fully regenerated (during his fight with some Gear Owls).

He was concerned about losing his humanity and giving in to destructive urges all the while, while trying to find a way to escape the facility he was in.

But, a certain incident pushed him over the edge when he was fighting the Bear.

The phrase "Dragon Install" simply appeared in his mind.

Part of his body became semi-engulfed in flame.

Prior to this he had been evenly fighting the Bear, but now he had the strength to overpower and eventually killed the beast with his own bare hands.

(It is actually here, where Asuka confirms that Frederick cannot die by normal means…)

Shortly thereafter he continued his pursuit of Asuka, only to be betrayed and abandoned.

After escaping the ruins of the facility (after it was destroyed)… he left before authorities could question him.

His physical appearance changed a great deal and he was forced to go in to hiding afterwards, and build his Gear Cell Suppression device.

As a Gear, he had to fight his destructive urges and instincts whenever he fought other Gears or had to deal with "Noise Dissonance" sensed from certain types of Command Type Gears.

But no matter how much pain or fatigue he experienced, he would always regenerate.

Dragon Install would bring out the very utmost of his powers, which always left him very drained, disoriented, and tired afterwards.

Still, if he had kept using Dragon Install, it would have encroached his body and transformed him in to a Giant Anti-Matter Gear (because of the accumulating Magic Energy gathered by the Divine Seed in his neck).

Part of the result of his struggles caused his personality to become much rougher than it initially was (he originally had a somewhat cowardly personality, but that changed a great deal when he had to struggle to survive fighting other Gears over the years).

[gear-project]

Volcanic Fighter on Twitter

“GG BEGIN – Cap. 5,6 & Epílogo [Fan-Traducción al Español] Ha sido un largo trabajo, pero con esto se da por terminada la novela que explora el proyecto Gear y los inicios de Sol Badguy. ¡Disfrútenla! Link: https://t.co/hJGpB5nvad #GuiltyGear #GuiltyGearBegin @ComunidArcsys”

Okay, the GOOD NEWS IS, the Spanish version of Guilty Gear Begin is NOW COMPLETE and you are able to read it!

(I am still gonna try and work on the English translation later on at some point.... I haven’t given up yet!)

@nincopyjasb worked very hard on this one, so please give him a big THANKYOU.

He’s taking a break and probably won’t work on the English version of Lightning the Argent, (but I might)... so we’ll see.

But the good news is that he is giving me scripts/data from his translations, so you’re still in good hands thanks to him!

[gear-project]

Did Sol know anything about Asuka's connection to the Sage prior to his conversion into a Gear?

As of Guilty Gear Begin’s novel, Frederick was actually excluded from much of the research that took place.  When talking to Viidia about it, Frederick refers to himself as an “outside contractor” employee.

And while he did know a few of the staff besides Asuka and Aria (like Vince MacDonell who was the head of research, above Asuka), Vince himself was more like Asuka’s observing superior, as he had no immediate connections with the Original Sage/Chronus like Asuka did.

It also seems that Dustin Barrie (a visiting scientist) came to see the results of Asuka’s research and knew a bit more about it, but ended up getting caught in the incident along with the others... rather, he seems to take a suspicious interest in Frederick’s body, after it’s discovered Frederick can heal from near-fatal wounds (Frederick was already a Gear by that point, but nobody knew this).

Sigh, don’t remind me that I need to finish Chapter 3... I’ll get to it eventually.

[gear-project]

What are your thoughts about Biidia and Sarge after the first half of Chapter 3? Could they actually be in alliance with the military invaders? Also, am I the only one creeped out by Dustin's desire to experiment on Sol/Frederick?

Regarding Viidia, she probably has (or at least had) her own objectives for being there, and seemed to have considerable experience in Medical and Wartime situations, but it’s still unclear the reasons why.  She’s certainly unusually athletic, so she is physically trained, which adds to the mystery.

(As an aside, while I can’t prove it yet, she bears a very striking resemblance to I-No... and Axl Low once remarked that he saw a woman in old photographs with other researchers that resembled Viidia, though I don’t recall the exact story source that stated this.)

Regarding Sarge, I don’t believe he had untoward intentions, given the efforts he makes to bridge the gap of mistrust between Frederick and the other Researchers caught in the survival-crossfire of the situation.  Frederick said he claims to have “seen him somewhere before” but hasn’t made any connections yet, so it’s possible Sarge is an actual legitimate researcher who had a stroke of bad luck.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

As for Dustin... he’s probably the most suspicious character right now, not simply because of his odd interest in Frederick’s current state (i.e. Gear Cells), but also because of his connection with Gamma Sector and with Asuka R. Kreutz... he bore a security ID that gives him access to the Gear Project research materials itself...  And while he claims he was only there as an “observer”, he might be someone with plenty of ulterior motives and connections for being there in the first place.

There’s still plenty of mysteries to solve here... and I am eager to find out more, but for now I have to translate the rest of Chapter 3 to find out!

[gear-project]

I Owe you guys an Apology...

Because of how busy things have been this past summer and especially this past Month with all the sudden flood of news updates, I haven’t had much opportunity to seriously work on Chapter 3 of Guilty Gear Begin.

It’s still most definitely on my to-do List, mostly because we don’t know if ARC System Works will ever put out an official translation of the novel.

As of right now I’m trying to psyche myself up in motivation to get to work on it, but also keep in mind that we still have more news to look forward to in the coming days:

ARCLIVE Live Stream event on the 21st (this Saturday), and the weekend after with CEOTAKU’s GG2020 Trailer event... not to mention other additional events they announce in the future leading up to ARCREVO (and possibly even a GG2020 demo of all things).

It’s hard to “discuss” GG’s past when there’s so much about GG’s future in everybody’s heads (and me being busy and all with real life stuff to boot) just makes things harder to pull off.

Well anyway, I’m still going to “hang loose” for the time being and try and get stuff done when I have time to, but hopefully GG Begin will be something they seriously consider publishing in the U.S. in English (I don’t think PDF documents or GoogleDocs even do this book any justice as a fan).

@nincopyjasb is still helping me out, along with some other friends on Twitter, but for now, please understand what’s kept me busy all this while.

And yes, I know I am making YouTube videos on top of everything else, but keep in mind that’s also my personal passions of expression as well.  Translating is not my strongest forte, though I’ve gotten better at it in recent years.

As long as I’m still alive and breathing though, I want to find out what happens in GG Begin as much as you guys do!  So that’s going to be a key motivator for me going forwards in to 2020!