When comparing BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best online multiplayer games on PC?” Dark Souls III is ranked 11th while BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is ranked 52nd. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
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 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.
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 Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
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 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.
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 Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.