D. F. Smith from IGN elected "Guilty Gear X2" the best game of 2002, while GameSpot named it the best PlayStation 2 game of January 2003. It ranked fifth in the "GameSpy's 2003 PlayStation 2 Games of the Year" with the staff saying ""Guilty Gear X2" is easily one of the best fighting games to come out in the last couple years". In 2004 IGN's editors selected it as the ninth best "Hidden Gems"—fun video games with poor sales in America. "Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine" included the game on its 2005 list of the "Eleven Essential Fighting Games". In 2007 UGO Networks placed it ninth in their "Top 11 Fighting Games", with its staff qualifying it as the best game of the series. IGN cited "X2" had all of the qualities previous games, but "in bigger quantities than we had ever seen", including it in the 28th place of its 2010 "Top 100 PlayStation 2 Games" list. In the same year, UGO also placed it 12th among the "Top 25 Fighting Games of All Time". Likewise, About.com placed it eighth on their "Top 10 PlayStation 2 Fighting Games of All Time", while "Complex" ranked it tenth among "The 50 Best Fighting Games of All Time", and included it in the fifth place in "The 25 Best 2D Fighting Games of All Time". Furthermore, "The Escapist"s John Funk called it "the best fighting game of the last generation."