The Nana's thoughts on After Story B (or: A Venom-centric story that doesn't really focus on Venom)

Allow me to begin with this: I really like Guilty Gear.  I really like the Assassins.  And I really, really like Venom.  He's the type of character that appeared to have a bright future in 2000 but then kind of got brushed aside with the Guild in later installments.  Then Revelator came along and actually put him in the spotlight.  Which is why the more I think about After Story B, the more I feel the need to address it.

Before I go any further, there will be spoilers for Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator and After Story B.

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So, what do we know about Venom?

He was one of many war orphans that appeared during the Crusades, placed in an orphanage that was one of many fronts for the Guild, and then was recruited into the Guild around 2173 (according to GG World).  He can inherently use anything as a weapon, making him an excellent choice to be trained as an assassin.

Except that he hates murder.  This little snag put him on the quick track to be executed.  Yes that escalated quickly.

In steps Zato-1, who just rose up as the Guild leader after obtaining his forbidden beast.  He spared Venom's life because he believed Venom had great potential.  In return, Venom decided to devote his life to Zato and became a skilled assassin.  The whole dynamic between these two is another essay entirely, so we'll only be touching upon it here.

Then Zato died, making Venom the Guild's leader, and then Zato got better in Xrd.

And this is where some of the issues really start to show.

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Sign, Revelator, and making the Assassins relevant again

As a whole, Sign is a decent story.  Not great, but it advanced the plot.  For the assassins, they're just a stepping stone.  They got some pertinent info, they decide to do the right thing and turn it over because that's what Zato would want (HA), and then their screentime gets cut short by Bedman.  If I recall correctly, none of them show up after chapter 5, with the entire storyline being 10 chapters.  Their entire last scene together boiled down to “we have to get this info to the king and Venom says something cool and smart”.  Then Zato goes off on his own anyway.

Riveting stuff, I tell you.

So we've yet to really get more on Venom here.  His arcade story has him finding out about Zato's revival and talking about a potential war brewing again.  Not really much about him, but more about the Guild and Zato returning to the land of the living.  But we do get an important piece of information here, though it's in the game's library: once Venom has reunited with Zato, he starts focusing on finding his own path and acting on it.  This sort of comes into play with what I feel is the best representation of Venom and the Guild overall: Revelator.