It is hard to believe that Arc System Works’ Blazblue franchise is already turning a decade old. Even more baffling, it took those ten years for one of the series main entries to arrive on Nintendo hardware. Yet as you can probably gander from the title BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is far from a conventional sequel.
Cross Tag Battle is an ambitious crossover that remains first and foremost a BlazBlue title, something that is reflected in the game’s extensive deluxe roster. Along with series poster boy Ragna the Bloodedge come his brother Jin, Rachel, Hazama, Noel, the demented Azrael, Tager, Makoto, Nº 13 and Es. From the Persona 4 Arena fighting franchise you can pick from Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko. From the visual novel/fighting hybrid franchise Under Night In-Birth come Hyde, Lyne, the gigantic Waldstein and Gordeu. Lastly the most leftfield franchise and one not under the direct banner of Arc System Works are characters from the RWBY animated series, represented by the titular Ruby and Weiss. Unless you are willing to pay for DLC, this is the default 20 character roster you play with. We will address that specifically further along in this review.
The game uses a straightforward five-button control scheme. You can customise these as your wish on your controller and as a welcome bonus you can assign double-button actions to any free buttons on your controller of choice. While the Joy-Cons offer perfectly acceptable performance when attached to your Switch in portable mode, we recommend that due the amount of button presses going on in an average battle you should truly play this game with a Pro controller or your arcade stick of choice.
All characters share the same basic commands: ‘A’ is your weak fast attack, ‘B’ is your slower stronger attack and ‘C’ is for clash attack. ‘D’ and ‘P’ will let you mix things up by respectively switch or call an assist from your partner of choice. ‘A’+‘B’ will perform a useful aerial dash, ‘A’+’B’ will execute your character’s reversal move while ‘B’+‘C’ will execute your character’s throw. Last but certainly not least, hitting ‘D’+‘P’ will do a ‘Cross Burst’, briefly get both your characters into the battle, allowing for all sorts of combo shenanigans. Do not worry about feeling overwhelmed by these, part of this content heavy offering from Arc System Work is the offline ‘Tactics Mode’ where you have access to extensive tutorials on both game mechanics and every character. It is quite an achievement for a game of this genre to be both casual friendly and hardcore in equal shares. But do remember that those ready-to-use auto-combos will only take you so far...
Personal choices aside, what makes each character unique is their set of special moves (all are catalogued on the ‘Command List’). These are accessed by standard fighting game control motions and button presses and it is an absolute delight to explore how best to use these to chain combos or fool your opponents into opening up their guard to received a ton of damage. With enough Skill Gauge numbers in reserve, you might even call up your partner mid-special move to extend combos further. Even if you end up losing one of your team members, fighting alone isn’t a definitive loss since you can use ‘P’ to get your character into an awakened state for bonus damage and even pull off a single one-hit killing blow reminiscent from the original Guilty Gear that will end the battle in your favour. Since these require nine Skill Gauges to execute you will probably not see them very often, which makes for an even more spectacular sight to behold when they do happen.
As you might have discerned already, each and every single battle is an absolute spectacle of special moves, counters, super jumps, double jumps, dashes, timed ukemi (recovery from a knock down) and maximising combo potential with the aid of your partner. While the CPU and the several difficulty settings will provide more than enough challenge, it is when you sit a human opponent across the sofa and both go at it is when BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle shines the most. This is an obvious cliché to mention in a review for a fighting game, but in this day and age where couch multiplayer seems to have taken a back-seat to online multiplayer we indulge upping word count to do so.
On the subject of online play, you will probably not be surprised to learn that the game takes cue from Dragon Ball FighterZ and ditches traditional menu-driven interface for a three-dimensional lobby system. You pick (or buy with in-game currency) your super-deformed 3D avatar and run around with it in the several available sections, being that one of them is the online lobby. While it is impossible for us to predict how a lobby with hundreds of players will behave upon official Western release of the game, the few matches we played with fellow journalists offered some hiccups during synchronisation sequences, the actual fighting was mostly done lag free. Considering we are reviewing the US version and were thus playing all the way cross the pond this was a pleasant surprise. We can only assume Arc System’s works previous network tests and experience with net-code have paid off. If you don’t have a friend to play against with you, there will most certainly be eagerly awaiting opponents all across the globe to take on your tag team of choice.
Even if you don’t like competition, there is a generous amount of single-player content in the form of ‘Episode Mode’. After a brief prologue featuring Ragna, you get the choice of four individual chapters, one for each of the franchises feature in this crossover. We won’t be giving out spoilers on these, but do know that each chapter is presented using still scenes using your character’s lovely art work and impressive voice acting, usually a prelude to a tag team battle until you figure out the mystery of this world everyone ended up getting sucked into. Not only this allows to explore the plot but it is also a great way to sample many of the characters on offer since you get to tag team with pretty much everyone in the roster (and even fight against the DLC characters). The BlazBlue episode even offers multiple choice questions and several endings to further push up replay value. This mode is also very good training for the fights ahead so do consider jumping into this prior to online battle mode.
It does, however, seem a bit odd to have one third of the complete roster locked behind a paywall. Platinum, sentient cat Jubei and Hakumen from Blazblue, Kanji, Aegis and Naoto from P4A plus Orie, the deranged Carmine and Vatista from Under Night In Birth are all already in the game, but you can’t play with them unless you pick up the DLC. Community backlash was so harsh that Blake and Yang from RWBY have since become free release day DLC. We fully understand that this is seen as standard practice in the industry nowadays, but how would you feel if you picked up the latest instalment of Super Smash Bros. with only two thirds of the roster available to play? A puzzling, non-consensual practice that will surely continue to divide fans in the foreseeable future.
While ‘Episode Mode’ provides a generous slice of single-player content, the actual combat sequences are quite far apart thanks to all the plot exposure going on. It is thus a bit baffling to notice the omission of a traditional arcade mode, even more so when there is clearly a section reserved for it in the lobby. Those wanting to grab a quick pick-up and play sessions are as such confined to ‘Survival’ or the ‘Vs CPU’ modes. We hope Arc System Works adds this mode down the line, we were surprised at how much we sorely felt it's omission.
It is true that of the character sprites do recycle content from previous games but it is hard to fault that since the sprites are simply gorgeously detailed and animated. The numerous backgrounds use da mixture of two dimensional and polygonal models to provide a pleasing hybrid aesthetics and everything moves along at a very pleasing and stable fps rate. You will not find the Switch experience to be in any way different to the other consoles or PC counterparts. The soundtrack is sublime as expected from Arc System Works franchises and you can change up the phenomenal voice acting from English to Japanese to your pleasure. Even during the most explosive visual confrontations combat usually derails into we found no noticeable performance differences between docked and portable mode. This is not a downgraded port to please Switch owners starving for a current generation slice of fighting action, this is the real deal (unlike the strange world everyone ends up stuck in).
Conclusion
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is an utterly accomplished 2D fighting game. Bursting with content and featuring the visual spectacle of combat that uses up every single trick in the book while doing so with the possibility of calling up a second character into the fray on demand sets Arc System Works title as the de facto current generation game fighting game to own on the Nintendo Switch. While we certainly appreciate the likes of Capcom and SNK (via HAMSTER) safely releasing previously proven hits of the genre, we were beginning to wonder when companies would notice that Switch is more than able to accommodate current generation titles as well. A few strange decisions aside it is very hard for us not to recommend you make this title a priority among your future acquisitions if you’re a fighting game fan. Even if you're not a fan of any of the franchises represented in this game, you most certainly will be by the time you're done with this stacked fighting package.
Comments 66
Can't wait. Is this going to be download only?
Interesting seeing the differences between the review here and the one on Push Square. Personally I'm with the PS guys - the roster paywall is pretty tough to justify. However I'm really glad this kind of game is on Switch, and hope we see more like it.
"Even more baffling, it took those ten years for one of the series main entries to arrive on Nintendo hardware."
There was a port of Blazblue Continuum Shift on the 3DS and that one was 2011, so...
I tried this and boy did I get my butt kicked online...might still get though. Been needing a fighting game in my collection besides street fighter.
@SegaBlueSky I thought the same at first. Overall its no worse than other fighters if you look at costs. $70 for everything. Less if you have Amazon prime. Plus you get the first dlc pack free if you buy early.
I really am debating if I should get this or not.... It was super fun playing the demo. But that pay wall of half of the characters as DLC..... I just don't know.
I'll wait for a sale (or used) that covers the paywall stuff before getting it. Also want to see how DB: Fighter Z works on switch first.
Pre-ordered moons ago. Nomnomnom.
Looks so good.my local gamestore is not selling this so interwebz it is.cant wait to play this one.and the persona characters make it even beter
@Ttimer5 1/3. 20 fighters available, 11 on DLC (2 of which are now free).
@Beetoe Digital and physical release confirmed for every region. Europe on Jyly 22.
@Expa0 "Series main entries", sir.
I'll be around 24/7 answering any doubts you have about this one.
Yeah probably may skip this one, a good game but the greedy DLC practice turn me away. Until the game is either actually complete or an extended version release then will I be checking it out. Probably going to buy it used anyways.
@Shiryu
Well it is a port of a main series entry. I don't see what the problem is, but whatever you say.
@Expa0 I might have made a honest mistake then. AFAIK both BlazBlue title on the 3DS were spin-offs of the main games on PS3 and PC. Too much data on my brain...
"You will not find the Switch experience to be in any way different to the other consoles". Really?
I'm not doubting...well, a bit. I'm a massive fan and supporter of the Switch, but I own BlazBlue: Central Fiction (PS4) and would be surprised but delighted if this edition made this surplus to requirements.
Friday....this will be mine.
@Shiryu ...wait you aren't counting continuum shift II as a mainline entry? Cuz it went to the 3DS.
I like Persona and my friend loves RWBY so I might get this at some point.
@Ryu_Niiyama Indeed, my mistake. I shall bare this shame for the rest of my existence roaming the Earth.
Will wait for a complete edition or a steep price drop. Having half the cast stuck behind a paywall isn't my thing. I thought Injustice 2 was pushing it by confirming that 10 characters would be DLC so early in its release. You don't tell me that I have to wait another year to have all the planned content if you actually want me to buy your product this year! Sheesh! It's just insulting the intelligence of your audience, if you ask me.
@CanisWolfred I see a lot of folks are getting these numbers wrong, 9 out of the 31 character roster is paid DLC. I do however concur with the annoyance factor and have written a whole paragraph about it in the review.
@Shiryu So base game with no DLC is only 9 characters? Or did you mean 20 available with the base game & the rest are DLC?
@Dreamcaster-X NM, you answered it right above this.
@Shiryu I just wish my boy hakumen wasn't DLC but I'll roll with Jin for now.
@Dreamcaster-X Correct. 20 characters off the bat, 2 free DLC character (from RWBY) and extra 9 paid DLC for a total of 31 different characters to mix and match.
@Ryu_Niiyama You hit the out of the park! I was so happy when I found Hakumen and Jubei where in the game (I faced them on Episode Mode) and when I went to select them and try them out... they weren't on the base roster.
Paywall? No buy.
The full planned roster is 40 characters. It was 20+20 dlc, after the outcry a couple of months back it's now 22+18 dlc. As is common for ArcSys one pack is free first couple weeks. The remaining 9 haven't been officially announced yet but data miners have released lists of who they think they are iirc.
Demo was fun but will probably stick to pokken. From my experience populations for EU regions in arc sysgames get low very fast and cross region netplay is usually awful. I'm taking that they didn't even bother releasing the demo in EU regions as a bad sign.
@Beetoe Its also coming In physical form. £34.99 on Amazon.
The fan service is strong with this one. The DLC is off-putting, but that said I got this game physical since it takes up a good amount of space and my pre-order discount made it a better deal.
Word of caution: something is messed up on the American eShop and DLC character pack 1 is currently showing up at $4.99 when it should be free. They are fixing it.
@Shiryu Also I want to say thank you for being a FG fan and reviewing this game. I have read so many reviews by folks that don't like or play fighting games and their reviews are always...um, odd. I don't expect shoryuken.com level reviews but you have given a very good all around focused review. So thanks again. (also a fan of your shumup reviews)
@Ryu_Niiyama Thanks you. This one was hard to do because it was on/off work while I wrote other reviews and patiently awaited for the online server to be switched on so I could finally conclude it. No easy task to put into less than 2000 words so much brilliant content for this one.
I mean, I hate the paywall as much as the next person but it's pretty standard fare for fighting games...
@Beetoe nope my copy just got delivered from Amazon
I've been looking forward to this. Since all four RWBY girls will be there, as well as his favorites from Under Night (Carmine) and P4A (Kanji), my son will be satisfied, thus so will I (although I really wish they'd included Mitsuru...)
@Eef I need to move to the mainland ha
I'll be getting this at some point since the demo was pretty fun. The DLC model here does kinda suck, but at least the game isn't full price to begin with.
It sounds great. There's no way I'm going to avoid a quality fighting game with "RWBY" characters in it. Add to future Wishlist...
@Captain_Toad That is some good plot right there.
@Shiryu If you were to recommend only one to a relative newcomer (for want of a better way to describe my lack of 2D fighting game time) to the genre, what would it be - this or the Street Fighter Anniversary collection?
Or should I hold out for the SNK Heroines game (which I really like the look of)?
I can't see what's going on in a single one of these screenshots.
@gcunit To be honest... get them both. This one will actually take you trough the paces with very detailed tutorials while Street Fighter Collection kind drops you on the spot assuming you know what you have been doing all those decades ago.
@Haru17 Glorious, innit!?
@retro_player_22
I mean, the game is only $49.99 and all DLC characters can be obtained for $19.99.
Putting the grand total cost at $9.99 over the normal cost of a new game.
Which, any way you slice it, some of those DLC characters are truly extra. So at worst it's par for the course. At best the pricing is actually generous.
Compare that to Street Fighter V, at $60 with what, 3 season passes of 6 characters for $30 each? So $150, versus BlazBlue at $70? Hard to see how that's anything to get in a tiff about. Extremely hard.
I bought this day one in Japan and I can’t believe how awesome this game is.
The DLC might be off putting for some, but it isn’t worst than any other fighting game out there. I don’t mind it and I’m planning on getting the All-In-One pack sooner or later.
Apart from the lack of Arcade mode, this game is incredible! Right now it is one of my favorite games on Switch, and the one that gets played the most. This 9 score is very well deserved.
Does any data transfer over from the demo? I bought, using game currency, all of the RWBY extras so I was wondering if I would have to restart my progress.
I keep seeing the art and getting excited for a RWBY game on Switch, only to realize it is just BlazBlue and all interest fades...
To each their own, I know the game is popular, but fighting games rarely interest me. Probably because I am so bad at them.
@Heavyarms55 Give it a chance. This game is very approachable for all kinds of players even if you are not good at fighting games (I suck at fighting games but I love this game!)
@JaxonH Nah Nah I still think $70 for a fighting game isn't for me, I'll just wait for a better version or when the price is right or maybe get Blade Strangers instead. I already tried the demo so I know how the gameplay feels and the graphics while artistically beautiful and detail could be quite boring sometimes.
Mash buttons the game.
@MsJubilee I... don't think so. If it was, I might have won during the trial.
@GameOtaku save does not cross over. will have to restart from scratch.
Not that it'll take long anyway, as i've found.
@Shiryu http://www.siliconera.com/2018/02/07/blazblue-cross-tag-battle-will-add-rwbys-blake-belladonna-yang-xiao-long-free-dlc-characters/
And battle pack 1 is only free for a limited time. Otherwise, there are 40 Planned characters, only 20 of which are on disc and 18 are paid DLC. And that's what I take issue with, really. It'd be like if Capcom announced the release date for Ultra Street Fighter IV before Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition came out. It just looks like they're releasing a game before it's done and asking us to pay for it twice. Even if it's a lower initial price, I'm not gonna support such a practice when what I want is a complete experience.
Locking characters behind DLC in fighting games is dirty, as one would need to buy all of them anyway if they want to play online or competitive (how else are they going to train against them?). Not sure why BlazBlue is getting heat for it specifically when it's a blight on the genre as a whole.
20 characters would be enough for a fighting game, but the fact that another 11 are DLC sours the experience. Still not as bad as SkullGirls (8 base + 5 DLC ones, so more than a half; and I don't remember if Fukua was added to the base game as well), though they at least made the DLC characters free for a month (or a week, I don't recall) after release, thus I only had to pay for Squiggly.
The fact that you can encounter the DLC characters in game is also awful, as it just confirms that you have to pay extra for stuff you've already downloaded anyway. I remember when on-disc "DLC" was a scandal, it's bad that it's become commonplace.
As a fan of BB, P4A and UNI, my chief concern going into this game was whether or not the game would sacrifice the depth found in those games for the sake of reaching a wider demographic outside of the fighting game community.
Now, the moveset per character is certainly more simplistic, and honestly rather odd compared to what those games offered, as light, medium, heavy, persona and drive attacks are now mainly done through repeated tapping of the two buttons (yes, auto combos are here in full force) that were usually reserved for simple light and medium attacks previously while more important actions and attacks are now mapped squarely to what used to be the heavy/persona attack button, presumably for easier conveyance of the moves' importance or somesuch.With no real command normals to speak of, you'll quickly find that you need to engage with the auto combo system to make use of most of your normals whether you'd like to or not. Still, once you get the hang of things and stop treating the game like BB, UNI or P4A, it all starts coming together rather nicely.
@CanisWolfred This review is only taking into account the package we got on the shops day 1. As such it truly rubbed me the wrong way when I realized the complete release day 31 character roster is already in the game, and I even fought against players/other reviews online using DLc characters. It truly leave a sour taste. As for post launch DLc characters who are actually not in the game, depending on sensible pricing I am all for it.
Hang on, they make us European Players wait till June 22nd for this game but it's perfectly fine for Reviewers to get this game in-time for it's Non-European Release? What the hell Arc System Works?
@Shiryu Considering the pricing in the US, I'd say it's fair. Over there it's $49.99 for the base game with $69.99 for the entire package complete with all the DLC.
$69.99 for a 40 character roster as well as a full English Dub is a great deal in my opinion as that's basically the standard price of $59.99 with the DLC set at $10 which is much cheaper than what most games combined with DLC cost.
@NCChris The wait for the game and pricing details in the Europe continues until the 22nd...
@Mew I don't know. I was just pressing buttons after i learned you don't need skill to win in this game. Also that team RWBY trailer for this game doesn't help it's case. It's another game to add on the simple fighter list.
@Shiryu I don't take much of an issue with DLC characters, usually, but yeah, 9 DLC characters available at launch is not a good thing. It just makes the $50 price point disingenuous, since they obviously had more done by the time the game was released that was simply taken out of the game, so they could hold up a massive carrot to tempt everyone with - did you really like the game, but your favorite character for any of the 4 series isn't in it? Do you just want more to play around with, or, perhaps you weren't really feeling the base game, but whose to say you won't enjoy it more if you tried these new characters?
I wouldn't mind if it was just a few characters stretched out over a period of time. It would help to maintain interest and player rates post-launch, and it's hardly new for Arc Sys games to have some DLC characters thrown in while they're working on the next iteration.
...But this is telling me that they don't want to make a second interation, and for me at least, that's disappointing. New iterations usually meant more story content, new extras to unlock, more singleplayer modes, which Arc Sys was always good at mixing up from game to game. Honestly, it looks like they took a page out of Capcom's SF5 playbook, and I don't think I regret anything more as a gamer than having bought Street Fighter V within the first month of its release. That model should not be emulated - it was a failed experiment, pure and simple.
@CanisWolfred I concour.
Also regarding the few comments about "winning by button mashing": That will only take you so far. Go up to a player who took his/her time playing trough the tutorials and you will be in trouble.
"I can win by spamming buttons" doesn't really hold up as a criticism to me anymore. Even in Marvel Vs Capcom 2, the problem wasn't button mashers, but the amount of attacks that had too much range and damage that felt unfair regardless of the level of play. In any fighting game, it's best to take advantage of an opening, and button mashing tends to leave you vulnerable more often than not.
@Shiryu I'll just leave off by saying that at least it sounds like its a good game at its core. It's reminding me more of Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, and how that suffered from making it too clear that Capcom was offering less value to its customers. Less modes, less characters, a big chunk of DLC characters announced ahead of release (though not "a third/a half of the roster"), and a focus on a story mode that was light on fighting when they could've included an arcade mode, too - no excuses. The fact it was ugly in cutscenes doesn't help, either, but overall, it seemed like a good fighting game that left me and a lot of other people hoping to wait out the storm. And hopefully this one doesn't fade into obscurity like MvC:I seems to have...
How are you supposed to get the DLC in Europe, anybody know??? as it isn't on our eshop and when you download it from the N/A one it says you need the N/A version of the game to play it. Utterly ridiculous.
@MsJubilee If you know how to spam the tag combo attack, you’re already a master at the game. It’s effective against most characters aside from Gordeau. His range and speed (I’m a casual) are insane
Just bought this while it was on sale on the eshop. Super excited to try it out!
Tap here to load 66 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...