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BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is a fighting game with team tag mechanics. It features characters that cross over from various Arc System Works fighting games, such as BlazBlue, UnderNight In-Birth, RWBY, and Persona 4 Arena.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Combat is easy to learn and difficult to master
The control scheme is universal enough from character to character to work well for players who are new to fighting games. As a beginner, you can get away with starting off with auto-combos by pressing the face buttons through simple button-mashing. Those looking to improve their play can practice in the tutorial with the combo challenges for every character, where you can practice some difficult and more specialized combos. Mastering these takes dedication, but it pays off for harder story battles and online play.
Pro Lots of fanservice with the crossover cast of characters
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle brings together characters from previous BlazBlue fighting games, as well as UnderNight In-Birth, RWBY, and Persona 4 Arena. For fans of any of these games, this is an awesome chance to see everyone together in the same universe, not only in combat, but in the story as well. The single-player narrative has a few nice nostalgic callbacks, like certain characters referencing things they enjoy or other people that they like or dislike in their original games. If you're not familiar with the cast, then don't worry--the references are more like flavor text to get to know everyone better.
Pro Cool tagging mechanic adds a new layer to gameplay
The two-on-two battles have you play one character at a time, with the ability to switch in another team member with the press of a button. Characters typically work well together in any combination, and it's fun to discover which ones work best for you. If you're a fan of the crossover here, then pairing up characters from separate universes is pretty great, since you get to see how their fighting styles work with each other through tagging them in and out of battle. Even if you have no idea who these fighters are, just getting to play as each of them and experimenting with their different styles helps to keep things interesting.
Pro Great anime aesthetic
Character models are recreated faithfully from the original games with their anime styles. Their expressions, animations, and fighting styles are all unique and look really good. It's a graphical aesthetic that will definitely age well as the game gets older over the years.
Pro Smooth online connection
Online matches run pretty well. You don't have to worry too much about excessive lag or downright unplayable multiplayer matches. As long as your connection on its own is decent enough, you should have a good experience.
Cons
Con The single-player story is mostly nonsense
If you want a good story, you may end up disappointed. The plot is a jumble of crazy storylines that hardly make any sense. It's serviceable enough for fans who enjoy the crossover and don't care about how well-written the story is. Fighting games aren't known for their great narratives anyway, and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is no exception.
Con Unfairly locks out certain characters behind paid DLC
It's really annoying that the game doesn't give you access to every character after teasing them during story cutscenes. You would think that these would be freely unlockable fighters that you could get during the normal course of the game. Unfortunately, they're gated behind paid DLC, which just feels unfair.
Con Too much homogeneity with how each character plays
Due to the simplified fighting controls and combos, the characters can feel too similar at times. Combat is simple to pick up, sure, but a lot of the button inputs are the same across characters. There are some character-unique combos, as well as harder ones to pull off for veterans looking to up their game. For the most part, though, things can feel too samey, defeating the purpose of even trying out different characters in the first place.
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