BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle game Review
Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, accessible and technical at the same timeArc System Works is particularly fit this year. After Dragon Ball FighterZ, published last January, and the announcement of a video game Kill la Kill edited by him, the little Japanese studio still found the time to finish Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, a nice fighting game bringing together characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4: Arena, Under Night In-Birth EXE: Late and RWBY. Enough to spend the summer in charming company.
Team fighting games are popular at the moment. After the excellent Dragon Ball FighterZ, Arc System Works is back in the game with Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, a title that is both accessible and fun, which in many ways recalls the last FighterZ ... While managing to create its own identity, thanks well thought out game systems. Come on, follow the guide.
CROSS-FERTILIZATION
The main feature of this Blazblue Cross Tag Battle is that it brings together on a single cake characters from three games in the Arc System Works portfolio, plus some RWBY fighters. The latter acts as a surprise guest since, as a reminder, this is an anime directed by Monty Oum, on behalf of Rooster Teeth. The latter then developed a game, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, very inspired by Arc Sys productions. The presence of the four Hunters (Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long) in the game roster is therefore quite surprising, but in the end, it makes sense.That being said, we need to quickly address a particular point of this super assembly of characters: If Blazblue Cross Tag Battle promises 40 characters, you should know that almost half of them are in fact locked behind DLCs. By purchasing the game, you will only have about twenty fighters, and you will have to put your hand in the pocket if you want to get the full roster. A practice that annoys all the more when we see that the characters in question are already present in the game: we can meet them in Story mode, for example, and confront them there. For this Cross Tag Battle, Arc System Works is banking on a somewhat particular economic model: the game is sold at a reduced price (€ 40 on PlayStation 4) and you have to pay an additional € 20 to pay for the season pass which automatically gives access to all the other characters. The philosophy is quite different from that of Dragon Ball FighterZ, criticized by some players at the start of the year for its limited number of playable characters: FighterZ seeks to live, in the long term, thanks to the regular arrival of new fighters. Things are very different here since not only the characters are already present on the disc, but in addition the main argument of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, it is precisely its roster and the plethoric amount of characters from various backgrounds. It's like Nintendo is providing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with half the people sold separately. Not sure that everyone appreciates the approach, especially if an appreciated character is contained in one of the DLC. In our case, we were very annoyed to find that our little favorite, Hakumen, was not in the base game.
Notwithstanding these purely financial considerations, it must be admitted that the roster of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, even limited to around twenty characters, has a lot of charm. Visually, the whole goes well and above all you quickly learn to appreciate the huge differences that exist from one character to another. If the game systems change, each character retains its peculiarities and its most emblematic moves, like the cast members of Persona 4 Arena, who are of course all accompanied by their Personas. If this new Blazblue has a force, it is that it manages to bring together with a real coherence the characters of games all very different, without any fighter being harmed.
THE GOOD DUEL
Because you see, Cross Team Battle is based on a very affordable gameplay, but rich enough to allow the existence of very appreciable little nuances, from one character to another. When you look at the list of different commands, though, the new baby from Arc System Works isn't much different from most team fighting games, from Marvel vs. Capcom via the recent Dragon Ball FighterZ. Two buttons to hit, another for the Specials, a swap button for the characters… There remains the R1 key, which allows you to launch attacks with the partner, and a few key combinations for air dashes, tankards and some special actions which we'll talk about next.Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, accessible and technical at the same timeBlazblue Cross Tag Battle, accessible and technical at the same timeBlazblue Cross Tag Battle, accessible and technical at the same time
As for the interface, here too, we are staying on something very classic: the health gauges at the top of the screen, one for each fighter, and at the bottom, two small gauges: the red is called the Skill and this is where you will draw to perform the Skills (special attacks) of your characters. The latter fills up when you inflict or receive damage; it is possible to store up to five Skill points. The blue gauge, called Cross gauge, is the one that is used when you initiate cooperative actions, such as a change of fighter or more advanced movements like Cross Combos, in which your two characters will make special moves together at the 'screen.
The first experiments with Blazblue Cross Team Battle are rather pleasant. The keys A (Square, by default) and B (Triangle, by default) allow you to make small automatic combos and most of the special moves can be launched by making quarter circles then pressing A, B or C (Round , by default). If you've recently played Dragon Ball FighterZ, to name a few, you'll be in familiar territory. The animations are extremely neat, the visual effects on the screen are quite impressive, and inevitably, the first fights give a very pleasant impression of power and fluidity, even for a perfect neophyte.
Where Cross Team Battle is as rich as it is surprising, it is precisely through its team play system. Where Dragon Ball FighterZ mainly used partners to extend certain combos or inflict more damage, this Blazblue offers more possibilities, more subtleties. Even before learning to use his character, there are already several, especially in the use of the C button, whose applications vary greatly from one character to another. Anti-air, stun, projection, there is everything, which will initially require judiciously choosing your duo of fighters in order to find the pair that works well together. This is especially true when you understand that the P key (R1, by default) allows you to launch different attacks, depending on the direction chosen, which opens up nice combo possibilities. Some of his shots will act as a launcher, the overhead shots will create an opening ... We will have to experiment for a moment before finding the right duo that will form the most interesting combos. Because the defense is very solid, in this Blazblue: neutral guard, lowered guard, guard in the air, and no way to break it; better, it is possible to carry out a Cross Burst, a kind of counter which can be used only when the Cross Gauge is filled: your first character blocks the blow, and the second replaces it by carrying a powerful blow to the enemy . Well balanced, this little feature makes defense and mind-game particularly interesting, in a game that nevertheless seems to bet big on the attack.
Things get even more interesting late in the game, from the moment some fighters are knocked out, as players gain access to two new techniques, Resonance Blaze and Astral Heat. The first is fairly classic in its genre: when a player loses one of his characters, he can simply press P, which grants a significant buff to his last fighter. The hits do more damage, the Skill gauge fills up automatically, etc. The Astral Heat is more interesting. To trigger it, you must have only one character, be in Resonance Blaze mode and have nine Skills points; small manipulation (222 B + S), if successful, kills the opposing fighter in one fell swoop. It is as terrifying as it is radical and the prerequisites are quite restrictive, but it creates a lot of suspense since until the end, it is still possible to return a game to your advantage.
SMALL PRICE, SMALL CONTENT?
All in all, all of these gameplay elements make Blazblue Cross Tag Battle a fun and affordable fighting game, which has enough background to amuse addicts versus versus fighting. If they will probably be quickly convinced, the others, on the other hand, will look a little gray by discovering the frugality of the menu. Don't be fooled by the little kawaii hub that reminds you of Dragon Ball FighterZ, just press Triangle to admire for yourself the small amount of game modes available: a story mode, called "Episode Mode", a training mode, a tutorial, a survival mode and fighting locally or online. That is just about everything. No Arcade mode, for example, yet ideal when it comes to discovering a game of this kind and quickly chaining the games. So certainly online works pretty well (at least, as little as we could see), but that is not all, especially for local game lovers. And unfortunately it’s not the Fashion Episode that should satisfy them. We spend more time zapping endless dialogues than fighting, which in a game like this is quickly annoying, you will agree. The four chapters (Blazblue, P4A, RWBY, UNIEL) ultimately tell the same insipid story and all end in the same way, and only the speakers differ somewhat. Suffice to say that we have more or less the impression of repeating the same thing four times, except that we embody Ragna, Yu Narukami, Ruby Rose or Hyde, the "heroes" of each of these chapters. Nothing really exciting, in the end.The notes
+ Positive points
Fishing and accessible gameplay ...
... which reveals a pleasant depth
A duo combat system that works well
A nice OST
Reduced price
-Negative points
Half of people on DLC, even if the game is sold 40 €, it's a bit of an exaggeration
Few game modes
Despite a slightly strange economic model and ultimately fairly limited content, Blazblue Cross Tag Battle is a particularly entertaining fighting game, thanks to its well thought out mechanics. Team play takes on its full meaning here and we were surprised to see how technical the game can be, even if it is very easily taken in hand. Nothing unforgettable but enough to have a good time this summer!
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