Acquiring & Archiving the Guilty Gear Vastedge XT pachislot
Donation protected
Hello! We're CryptideTR, Sol Radguy, Bocchi the Rock, Elk, JOEL AXLFAN2000, kaialone, and with the Guilty Gear Wiki hosted at wiki.gg. Our group is a collection of archivists, translators, and enthusiasts that are deeply passionate about the Japanese fighting game, Guilty Gear, developed and published by Arc System Works through the creative mind of Daisuke Ishiwatari.
## What is Vastedge?
Guilty Gear Vastedge XT is a Japan-exclusive pachislot machine and mobile app from 2013. It was the first Guilty Gear game produced after Arc System Works narrowly managed to reacquire the rights to Guilty Gear after a devastating merger between their previous publisher, Sammy, and Sega, making Vastedge historically important to the series and to Arc System Works. Among other firsts, Vastedge was Naoki Hashimoto's debut as a vocalist for several heavy metal tracks in the game, which he still continues to provide with Guilty Gear Strive's soundtrack, 12 years later. Vastedge tells a story relevant to the "canon" of the series and is frequently mentioned or summarized in games that have released since.
Unfortunately, neither the pachislot machine or the mobile app were ever made available outside of Japan, and the mobile app reached its end of service not too long after its release, being removed from the iPhone App Store and Android Play Store permanently. The pachislot machines themselves have also become rare, expensive, and difficult to find in working condition.
However, they do occasionally appear in Japanese webstores.
## Goals
We — the Guilty Gear Wiki archival group — would like to acquire one of the pachislot machines so that we may document and archive Vastedge, its story, its art, its gameplay, and its music; and we need your help.
Our goals include:
- Archive an otherwise inaccessible piece of semi-major canon Guilty Gear lore that was never officially available outside Japan,
- Document information about the physical machine that is not available online, such as the hardware and chips used in its production, and the animatronic components (like the Junkyard Dog, a sword, that assembles as the game progresses)
- Record the animated story that plays on the slot machine.
- Translate the Vastedge story script from Japanese into English and provide a subtitled video of the story so that Guilty Gear fans will, at last, have access to this slice of lore.
## Who we are
Our group handling this project will include:
- CryptideTR: Video and technology archivist that will handle the technical aspects of archiving the Vastedge machine.
- Sol Radguy: Translator and art archivist.
- Bocchi the Rock: Media archivist.
- Elk: Software archivist and owner of a working iPhone version of Vastedge.
- JOEL AXLFAN2000: Proofreader, editor.
- kaialone: Translator.
The iPhone version of the Vastedge mobile app is heavily compressed compared to the physical pachislot machine and certain features were stripped or changed for it.
## Budget plan
Breakdown of anticipated expenses for this project:
- $600 - Vastedge XT pachislot machine
- $400 - Shipping cost from Japan to the north-eastern United States (DHL)
- $40 - Proxy service fee (Japan Rabbit)
- $40 - "Oversized" item handling fee (Japan Rabbit)
- $220 - Padding to cover cost of archival tools (cords, etc), materials, or additional unexpected fees/expenses
Thank you for helping us archive Guilty Gear history! We look forward to sharing our hard work with you.
If the cabinet gets bought before we can raise the money, your contribution will be refunded.
## Where to follow
For updates on this project, please follow us on social media on Tumblr and Bluesky . For questions our email is provided on our Tumblr page.
Organizer
JC Conrad
Organizer
Cadiz, OH