GGML/Esoterics

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CPU-controlled Opponents

Due to the inaccessibility of online play for Missing Link, much of this game's exposure to the public has been through the game's Arcade mode, which is a standard singleplayer mode for a fighting game, in which your character fights everyone else in the base roster and 2-3 boss characters.

As an aside before moving on, GGML cannot be played in arcade mode (and thus, "singleplayer" or against AI in general, without game modification) with any unlockable character ( Baiken,  Testament,  Justice).

Missing Link's CPU is peculiar and has quirks similar to that of other strange AI behaviors that you'd find in older fighters like Street Fighter 2 Turbo. The most notable aspect about them is that they are unable to ground or air tech, though there have been rare recorded instances of CPU opponents doing so unintentionally (likely trying to get a different input out). This makes all fake or "OTG" infinites against them valid and inescapable.

Understanding that this is an AI-only problem is integral to understanding the game, however, as misinformation about GGML is frequently spread through people giving the game a cursory glance and dismissing it (not helped by its poor default training mode tools and general difficult labwork). The game didn't state its teching input in the original or re-releases in the game itself, and only listed it in the manual: with the AI never performing it, the common assumption is that teching simply doesn't exist in this version of Gear. This couldn't be further from the truth, as teching is instead extremely powerful on every character bar  Testament, who doesn't have access to it typically and has a jumbled mess of code that dictates whether they can or not.

Past that, there are other hard-to-explain behaviors from the AI and inhumanly-achievable stun recovery times amongst more oddities.


Dizzy OTGing

This information doesn't practically matter in human-to-human matches due to teching, but it's still an unusual aspect of the game that seems to be arbitrary unless researched.

When performing an OTG combo on an opponent (thus, them not teching), if they become dizzied, any following hits that pick them up from a grounded state will automatically undizzy them and reset their state to neutral, being able to block or air act, similar to a Street Fighter air reset. However, keeping the opponent juggled without letting them enter the "OTG" state again or using a move that applies a "knockdown" type launch will retain the stun (making further hits of the combo inescapable, even with tech) which results in some HNK-looking combos.

An example of the juggle state can be found here: https://twitter.com/Mibeador/status/1694687143753584977

You can also simply drop the combo once "DIZZY" appears, allow the opponent to get up, and then continue OTGing them, which is the basis of how infinites like sol's 66K infinite kills.

Also a practical piece of knowledge in the  Testament matchup, where every character can OTG them to death due to their tragic inability to tech properly.

Justice Taunts

 Justice's personal actions aren't done. Another oddity amongst the boss characters (and also  Axl, but that's a different story entirely) being a bit cobbled together compared to the rest of the cast.

Taunt on Justice plays a short animation that can be cancelled at any point, like Respect would normally be able to. It can be used to Respect Slide into a throw or overhead similarly. Otherwise, it functions as a normal taunt, and can be used to manually turn around in the air.

Respect on Justice is in a state of pseudo-existence, where it has no animation or sound effect whatsoever, stopping her idle animation from continuing and keeping it on a single frame for approximately 6 seconds. During this time, it can be cancelled with anything like a respect, and is mostly indiscernible from Taunt when used for things like Respect Sliding.


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