#arksys

Game 17: Blazblue Cross Tag Battle (Jan 2023)

Blazblue Cross Tag Battle feels like it's fairly uncooked compared to what the story and future roster ended up being. Boosting well over 20 additional DLC characters, and nearly none of them are relevant to the story makes for a lot of missed opportunities, and character interactions that we simply don't get. To say the least, it's about how much better the game could have been if it just waited a bit longer or added more story to it's original campaign. What's the point of having all these characters and just not really use them?

If you said fighting, then ya, I suppose you're right. This was a mainline Evo game in 2018, and I'm sure there were at least a few matches that wow'd the crowd. I certainly won't bad mouth Cross Tag Battles combat system. For what it is, it's a fairly simple one that gives players universal means to understand characters as well as a whole assist face button that works well into it's combos. Really the combat of Cross Tag Battle is just something I never meshed well with, and while I can't say I spent a lot of time with it, I can say it was fairly easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master. Although I don't dare go online as this game has a ton of touch of death combos just waiting to eat newbies. Still, if you and a friend are looking for a simple fighter to enjoy at a party, Cross Tag Battle certainly got a roster that's big enough, well if you have all the DLC characters, for everyone to enjoy.

Ya, honestly that's kind of my biggest problem with this game, is the amount of DLC it got over just how low the roster was initially. It doesn't just speak to my collector brain that we don't have the likes of Yang and Blake (from RWBY) on disc, but also the fact that the main campaign for RWBY in this game is heavily missing any real lines or dialogue interacting with Yang and Blake. The other 3 campaigns are fairly good though, and it's probably the biggest reason I'm so upset we don't get much interaction with the DLC characters. Even Crosstag Battle adding in an arcade mode, a staple for any fighting game really, would have been enough to quell my problems with story content.

And I wanna see what original Villian badguy they'd make.

There's a big missed opportunity with the golems;

and enchanters and how they can hold souls.