Robo-Ky

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I guess you're from Stupid Street in Stupid Town from Stupid County. Damn monkeys...
― Robo-Ky

Robo-Ky is the name used by the many robotic copies of Ky Kiske, thus referring to several characters in the Guilty Gear series. The first, original model of Robo-Ky appears in Guilty Gear X Plus. This imitation series army was created by the Post-War Administration Bureau, who deploy them against anyone they consider a threat or as an asset to their goals.

An upgraded model, a mass-produced version of the original Robo-Ky, appears as a playable character in Guilty Gear Isuka.

Design

All Robo-Ky units wear the Sacred Order of Holy Knights uniform that Ky Kiske himself once wore, but without the fingerless gloves. In #Reload, the word "ENNUI" is etched onto one's belt buckle in the place of Ky's "HOPE". In Xrd, the one Robo-Ky's uniform has become more yellowed over time, and the deep blue tabard has faded into a lighter blue. The phrase "Do robots dream of electric sheep" can be found on the back and front of his uniform and on the back of his belt. He also has multiple wind-up key insignias on his shoulders, belt, and chest.

Each Robo-Ky unit has a metal face with a column of bolts above and below each eye. They have rectangular mouths with white teeth-like plating, and a jaw-like hinge that moves while talking. Their eyes are bright yellow lenses. Each has a short, blond hairstyle identical to Ky's, and they all have winding keys like those of a wind-up toy on the sides of their heads. Underneath the uniform, each unit has a beetle-shaped emblem emblazoned on their chests, indicating their primary energy source that they run on, the Hercules Engine.

While all mass-produced Robo-Ky units have light green plating, the original model appeared to have been covered with a fair skin-colored paint to more closely resemble Ky. This led to multiple characters mistaking the robot for the actual human, though some continue to mistake the robot for Ky after the fact.

Personality

Each Robo-Ky holds a grudge against the human Ky, believing themselves to be superior to him and state that their sole purpose of existence is to defeat him in combat.

By XX, many units begin to show defects in their personalities, turning into self-centered, egotistical beings that see humans as inferior creatures. The original model does the same, but demonstrates extremely human behavior alongside this.

By the time of Λ Core Plus, the Robo-Kys' personality defects have become significantly more pronounced. As a result, they are now perverted, womanizing, sleazy and abrasive. They are openly attracted to "sexy" women like Millia, Dizzy, and Baiken and frequently attempt to ask them out on dates or offer their hand in marriage. One unit in particular pretends to obey its creator and (technically) master, but in fact does the opposite.

By Xrd and -Strive-, the last remaining Robo-Ky unit (who just so happens to be the original unit from X Plus) has a more significant personality change over the passage of time. While still as petty, loud-mouthed, and perverted as before, this one has calmed down quite a bit. He has taken the time to observe human behavior and gained insight from his interactions with them, and has now developed the desire to be accepted as a member of human society and takes on odd jobs to prove he can be useful to them. Robo-Ky now firmly believes in the importance of dreams and has one of his own, and urges Bedman to never mock them. He's grown attached to Venom after saving his life, and despite their differences, encourages Venom to care more about himself and looks out for him as he fights for justice, believing himself to be a worthy partner. Even after losing his body, he assists Venom at his bakery, but is still focused on making enough money to completely rebuild it (which seems to annoy Venom as he continuously reminds him what he's working towards).

A common tic of each unit is calling humans "useless" or "defective". They are overbearing and rude, and will relentlessly insult anyone who opposes them, including their creator. The original model often threatens violence when provoked, but never actually acts on it.

Story

Background

As part of the K-series imitation series designed by the scientist Crow, the Robo-Ky weapons were developed in a laboratory run by the Post-War Administration Bureau, undergoing several revisions. Modeled after Ky Kiske, battle data about Ky from the Second Holy Order Selection Tournament was carefully sampled, analyzed, and finally incorporated into Robo-Ky's artificial intelligence unit.

A single unit, upon which future models would be based, was the first to be implanted with a personality, but none of the Robo-Kys which followed were ever quite as complete. Thanks to their high mobility and simple production process, they could be used for a wide range of applications (such as subduing militants or investigating important intelligence targets) at varied success rates, but numerous instances of unexpected behavior began to appear. This led to a later increase in low success rate on most missions even as they reached the final stages of development. With their individual battle capabilities still undergoing revision, and their unpredictable nature yet to be fixed, the entire series would come to be under consideration for replacement relatively soon after their deployment.

Guilty Gear X

Robo-Ky versus Ky in X Plus.

A single Robo-Ky appears in Guilty Gear X Plus as one of Ky's opponents in one of his Story Mode routes, likely one of the prototype units. Initially, Robo-Ky first finds Ky in a deserted location and scans him from afar. The robot then starts to declare that it must defeat the original to prove itself, causing Ky to sneeze out of an old wives' tale.

During the intro, Ky is kneeling down, seemingly unaware of the robot. The Robo-Ky moves closer towards him at a slow pace just before crawling towards him fully, then hitting Ky (with a high-altitude falling slash via Ky's ground throw animation) as the original finally turns around to notice too late. Due to this, Ky will always lose a portion of his health before the fight begins. Despite defeating him once, during the path's ending, Ky has to discard his shoulder cape in order to divert the robot, hiding just to regain himself. Ky then comments that the robot is very persistent, even when it lost the battle.

Guilty Gear XX

Robo-Ky illustration.

The Robo-Kys cause chaos from behind the shadows on behalf of the Post-War Administration Bureau, watching the characters' actions from afar and gathering info on any particular ones who can use Ki. Because of how much they resemble Ky, many characters mistake the two much to the original Ky's chagrin. As the Robo-Ky numbers diminish, and start to somehow display more defects in their behavior that results in more of their later missions being failed, Crow then begins development on the next generation series.

In Λ Core Plus, the last few of the K-series under the P.W.A.B.'s employment fail mission after mission, and their personality program is out of control, but Crow decides that one particular Robo-Ky under his employ should be given a mission: capturing research subjects and retrieving data. However, the said robot doesn't know that this is his last chance to redeem himself. After a series of skirmishes, Crow tells him to return to the lab due to some noise in the data transfer. A fight with Baiken causes one of Robo-Ky's processors to overheat, and Crow orders him to come back. However, Robo-Ky can decide to continue on with the mission until he encounters Ky, needing to fight him to prove himself and his own identity despite Crow's objections. In one ending if Robo-Ky ignores maintenance, he returns only to find that Crow has set him up to fight a Justice copy. He is caught in the latter's self-destruct sequence. Sometime later, Crow reports that the new P-series ("Robo-temkins") project is progressing smoothly.

If he obeys to come back to be checked on before a certain point, Crow states that Robo-Ky's personality defects have gotten him into more reckless fights that his systems are not meant to handle. However, Robo-Ky's maintenance is briefly interrupted by Sol Badguy and Johnny, to where despite some issues, he manages to hold them off and Crow becomes genuinely impressed. As a result after being renewed, Robo-Ky carries on with the mission until he brings back Dizzy to announce marriage. Nevertheless, the Justice copy scenario happens again, only this time Robo-Ky holds Crow hostage to protect himself from "Justice". Robo-Ky then makes Crow and Dizzy flee with him through the woods to an unknown location, much to their chagrin (Dizzy wonders if she will ever make it back to their Jellyfish Pirates for dinner on time).

Guilty Gear Xrd

Following their decommission circa 2181, only one Robo-Ky has survived. This first-model unit, more complete than its successors and the first to be implanted with a personality, has become a wandering robot for hire as a self-proclaimed "Super High Electro Jack of All Trades", with his payment being items—such as grease, springs, nuts and bolts, as well as detergent and fabric softener—since he has no real need for money. He has few clients due to being an outcast and is often picked on by children of the particular town he lives.

In 2187, he is hired by Venom to aid him in his battle against Bedman, since the robot's mind cannot be read (later discovering that he can hear Bedman's thoughts). Along the way, Venom and Robo-Ky have a discussion about the robot's dream of wanting to raise a tangerine farm for "an old friend of his" as well as "never laughing at one's dreams since it equates to laughing at that person themselves". Venom ponders if the robot resents the fate that the guild inflicted upon him, but Robo-Ky objects as he never felt lonely while reaffirming Venom to focus on the task at hand.

Confronting Bedman.

During the battle of Illyria, Bedman threatens to kill the two kids who picked on Robo-Ky from earlier that day that happened to be within his range when they stumble into the fight after Venom traps Bedman with his Tera Machina System spell, with Venom intending to sacrifice himself. To protect the children, Robo-Ky as he tells Venom to standby, calmly talks down on Bedman's beliefs while explaining his connection to human society in spite of still being miffed at the townspeople who mistreated him and still being a part of society in general. He claims to Bedman that dreams should never be laughed at as it equates to "laughing at the person themselves" and that people can still connect if they can discard complicated ideologies. He then initiates his self-destruct sequence to destroy Bedman's bedframe, sending the youth airborne, leaving him open to Venom's attack without any further casualties. Following the battle, reduced to a head, Robo-Ky bites into an unconscious Venom’s belt and flies off to get the latter medical attention for his injuries.

While annoyed that Robo-Ky denied him the death he believes is essential for the guild's survival in the new age, Venom is honor-bound to run Robo-Ky's mercenary business until he makes enough money to rebuild the robot's body. They are soon approached by 2cave and two members of the Assassin's Guild, who have been sent by Zato-1 to secretly test Venom's resolve. Robo-Ky immediately realizes their deception from scanning the assassins' terrified heartbeats (realizing that Venom could've dispatched them with ease at anytime despite his current circumstance), but stayed silent throughout the entire conversation. Ultimately, Venom passes the test by vowing to protect the townspeople, and 2cave gives him a deed to a shop in the main shopping district with Robo-Ky telling him of his findings during the aforementioned conversation. Leaving the guild behind, Venom opens a bakery where he will continue to live incognito with Robo-Ky by his side.

Guilty Gear -Strive-

In the epilogue, Robo-Ky and Venom are seen visited by Millia and Zato at the bakery.

Abilities

Main article: /Commands

Initially portrayed as a serious threat in XX, as of Λ Core Plus they are often used as comical relief and shown to have a somewhat low intelligence. The Robo-Kys appear to be capable of calling each other, analyzing the moves of their opponent (to the point where they can become immune to most their techniques save for the strongest attacks), poisoning them, and even instantly brainwashing them. They possess the same techniques as Ky Kiske and frequently share data with one another, but from ♯Reload onwards, the Robo-Kys develop techniques of their own, using their robotic nature to their advantage. They can detach or multiply body parts, and even conceal objects inside their body, such as a chair in their backs, or produce a cape out of their clothing.

They also appear to activate an engine inside of them known as the Hercules Engine (ヘラクレスエンジン, Herakuresu Enjin?), mentioned during Ris-KY Lovers, where they can briefly overclock themselves to gain more power and increase their mobility for a while at the cost of eventually losing all their power in a self-destructing surge that can dangerously damage others nearby. Said Hercules Engine can be seen when the self-destruct portion happens, rendered as a beetle emblem on their chest as well as on the switch used to commence the said overclock.

Like the original Ky, they have control over lightning, but it is unknown if it is purely electricity or actual lightning magic. The first-model, and presumably last, Robo-Ky unit from Xrd is comprised of the world's first bio-alloy and is equipped with the "latest" Hyper-Eco Hercules Engine. He appears to be significantly more powerful than the original prototype as he was able to completely destroy Bedman's 8th Generation Reinforced High-Density Bed Frame, although at the cost of his body.

In terms of gameplay, in his first appearance in X Plus, Robo-Ky merely appears as an opponent in Ky's X Plus Story Mode, and could be played by selecting Ky's "GG Mode" (in Advance, he appears as Ky's "Extra" mode instead). While his stance and walking animation are different, his command list is much like Ky's save a few unique moves. In Guilty Gear XX, he is officially named, appearing as a hidden character, but has the same moveset with a few additions. It is finally in #Reload that Robo-Ky becomes a character entirely of his own, gaining a playstyle revolving an Electric Gauge in place of the Tension Gauge, although several of his attacks still resemble those of his original X Plus/XX iteration.

Music

• Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead) - Guilty Gear X Plus  
• Holy Orders? - Guilty Gear XX (ΛC+R; EX Mode since ♯Reload)  
• Under Construction (Day) - Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload
  • Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload Korean OST  
• Under Construction (Night) - Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload  
• Vortex Infinitum - Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload Korean OST (EX Mode)  

Quotes

Main article: /Quotes

In X Plus, Robo-Ky does not speak at all in many of his battle intros, save for his intro against Sol (the same as Normal Ky), but upon winning, he will stutter on the first syllable of his victory quotes. In XX, he simply has normal Ky's voice lines distorted.

Trivia

• The original Robo-Ky from Guilty Gear X Plus was often erroneously coined as "Gear Ky", "Orochi Ky", or "Black Ky" by fans, before his name was revealed in XX.
• In Guilty Gear Petit 2, Robo-Ky's "GG Ky" character select sprite is a lightly-modified version of Ky's character select sprite from the same game. In addition to the obvious alteration of added robotic features, his sword has been made approximately three pixels longer than the original Ky's.
• In Λ Core Plus, Robo-Ky states that he can convert human food into energy. In Isuka, both Robo-Ky and Robo-Ky II can heal with food items in GG Boost Mode. Their taunts involve spawning a table with a drink on it, even though they do nothing direct with it.
  • However, in Xrd, he claims he doesn't need to eat human food at all.
• Despite being a robot, Robo-Ky as of #Reload still spills blood whenever he suffers damage from a bladed-attack. However in those same instances and with any other form of damage he takes, nuts and bolts will also drop and spill from him in tandem with the blood effect.
• According to Ishiwatari, Robo-Ky is the character that he would personally add into Rev2 if he could due to "his interesting playstyle".
• Since ♯Reload, most of his moves make fun of Ky Kiske in the form of puns with the Japanese kai sound, always written in katakana. The localized names in Λ Core Plus R retain the puns, such as "Ris-KY Lovers" and "Spi-KY" (albeit different from the literal translations).

Mini Robo-Ky.

• Faust's What Could This Be? involves Faust dropping small-sized dolls of some characters, one of which is Robo-Ky. The doll uses his original green scheme from Guilty Gear XX, as does Robo-Ky's appearance in Robo-Ky II's credits ending in Isuka.
• Robo-Ky is the only character to have no new artwork in Guilty Gear Isuka. He reuses his artwork from ♯Reload.
  • Likewise, Robo-Ky is also the only Isuka character who has no selection of color schemes for that game and only has his ♯Reload color selections available to select in-game and/or to edit.
  • Robo-Ky II's voice actor went onto voicing Robo-Ky in the Λ Core updates.
• As of ♯Reload, Robo-Ky's actual in-game theme in both the original and Korean versions is unique in that not only is it basically not much of a "musical" track at all (as it is merely heavy construction ambience), but it has two versions that play at intervals in a match. The "daytime" version plays during the starting round and subsequent odd-numbered rounds, while the "nighttime" version plays on even-numbered rounds.
  • In Training Mode, the day-to-night shift occurs whenever the player uses the "reset position" function.
  • The "daytime" theme differs between the original and the Korean versions, while the "nighttime" theme remains the same.
• In Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator-, Robo-Ky's line: "If I ever see your faces again, I'll shove rocket fuel so far up your ass you'll scream "Utopia!"" is a reference to one of his reactions to Faust's Shigekiteki Zetsumei Ken Overdrive in Λ Core Plus R, in which he screams "Utopia~!".
• Aces High, one of his pre-♯Reload Overdrive attacks (also used by Kakusei Ky in Isuka), is likely an allusion to an Iron Maiden song of the same name, as the band have been referenced in other instances in the series, such as Millia's Overdrive of the same name.
• His Overdrive, "What's Useless Will Always Be So", is likely a reference to the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, wherein characters make use of rapid punching attacks with constant repetitions of syllables per blow. It most likely references Dio Brando's variation of this type of move. Daisuke Ishiwatari has made reference to the series in an interview.
• Robo-Ky, in Guilty Gear XX, was first revealed on an episode of G4's Cheat!.
• Robo-Ky uses the Japanese pronoun ワシ (washi?) when referring to himself, which was a signifier of one of his many personality defects. This pronoun is typically used by elderly men, and is considered "outdated" and no longer heard in common speech.

Gallery

Main article: /Gallery

External links

• ギルティギア　イグゼクス　アクセントコア【キャラクター】｜ロボカイ
• GGACR/Robo-Ky at Dustloop Wiki