Not surprising considering I'm coming in at like, what, the 6th game in the franchise, not counting spinoffs and updates.

Basically, i just want to know, what previous games should I play to get the full gist of the story for guilty gear right now. I mean, I've only played a handful of the arcade stories as of this post and I'm sort of getting it, but I feel like there's a whole bunch of references that I'm not getting as well so I just want to know what the essential games are before Xrd.

any help at all would be appreciated.

You could probably just read the wiki and I'm sure it would fill you in.

I don't really know much about the plot myself though, I just played the games for the fighting. Really wish they'd bring that shit to PC so I could play it ._.

The wikis are always an option but its so impersonal. Ah well, I guess that's what I get for waiting so long to jump on the bandwagon. I'm sure story mode will explain a bit more so I'll just wait and see before I go on a spoiler spree.

Story-wise GG2 Overture is probably most relevant, but good luck getting it as it was an Xbox original exclusive. GGXX is mostly character development but half of its story modes aren't canon so... yeah. #Reload is on steam and I believe Accent Core +R is on PSN and they have all the story between the I'm fairly sure. Isuka has no story (and is bad) so you can just skip it. GG1 and GGX have only a little story in them, so... yeah. You can just watch the Guilty Gear Sex trailer to get most of the plot and backstory. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRnL4fjFXU Also, you can see just how far localizations have come.