Abyss Mode

Abyss Mode (アビスモード) is one of the two new modes featured in the handheld version of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II. It reappears in the console versions of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, BlazBlue: Chronophantasma and BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend. In BlazBlue: Centralfiction, this mode received significant changes, and was renamed as Grim of Abyss Mode (グリムオブアビスモード).

Shop
Here, the players use their accumulated money earned from playing other modes (or Abyss Mode) to buy status boosts or special abilities for their chosen character. Items are either unlocked by finding them in Abyss Mode or by increasing the player level.

In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift games, each item can only be bought once per Abyss Mode playthrough, and are not permanent. When the player loses, the Shop will be reset and items may be bought again. Starting from BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, the player can not buy status boosts, but all items bought are permanent and there is no need to buy them again.

Depth
While fighting enemies in this mode, a "depth counter" will steadily increase, depending on the number of successful hits, including Astral Heats. On most occasions, Depth will increase every two successful hits, except during Astral Heats that have extreme combo lengths, such as Makoto's or Litchi's. After a given depth, players will encounter "boss characters". Depth is not accumulated during a Boss Fight.

"Boss characters"
These characters have special status levels, and only appear at predetermined levels. They appear at Depth Levels 20, 40, 60 (except Depth 960), and 80 every 100 Depths, Depth 999, and the special Ragna the Bloodedge boss at Depth 666. Special statistics vary between the bosses. Early on, the bosses will be buffed-up versions (by way of status levels) of the standard characters, but later on, the player may also encounter strengthened unlimited characters. After defeating a boss, the player can choose one reward out of four from a list. These are always randomly chosen, but can consist of status boosts, Reward boosts, Special abilities and positive (skip a certain number of floors) or negative (go back a certain number of floors) Depth boosts.

Reward
After defeating enemies, the player receives a Reward. The total Reward can be seen in the upper left corner, above the player's HP gauge (where normally the points in Score Attack/Arcade would be shown) and in the upper right corner every 100 floors on the Abyss Menu screen, where the player can decide whether to go forward or leave the Abyss. The Reward added to the total after defeating an enemy depends on the Depth the player is at. However, keep in mind that if a battle is lost, players leave the Abyss empty-handed.

In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift games, the Reward accumulated until the loss will drop to the next 100th Depth. For example, losing on floor 236 will drop the Reward on floor 300, and to reclaim it, the boss there will have to be defeated. The reward will also stay on floor 300 if the battle against the boss is lost there, as players never got past that point. Another thing to remember is that if while trying to reclaim the last loss players were to lose on the way there, the old loss will be gone forever and the new loss will be assigned to its position (e.g. players have a loss to be reclaimed at floor 300, but lose on floor 150. The loss at floor 300 is erased and the new loss can be found at floor 200). In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma games, the Reward will be lost forever. The reward and EXP for playing Abyss Mode can still be received, as the two items are separate.

Status levels
Players can equally strengthen their own character to be able to match up with stronger bosses during the course of Abyss Mode. These boosts are listed in four categories.
 * CS: StrLv (Strength Level)/CP: Attack. Boosts in this category give more attack power to the character's attacks.
 * CS: DefLv (Defense Level)/CP: Defence. Boosts in this category give more health to the character.
 * CS: HetLv (Heat Level)/CP: Heat. Boosts in this category give more Heat to the character at the start of a fight. This also effects how much Heat is gained from attacks.
 * CS: SpdLv (Speed Level)/CP: Speed. Boosts in this category increase the overall movement speed (walking, dashing, Air Dashing), as well as the number of double jumps available to the character. A normal character with normal movement options in the air can have a maximum of four aerial jumps, and three air dashes with Speed Level maxed.

In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift games, the maximum level of each category is 50. Above that, no more status boosts are accounted for. With level 50 on every status, the character has twice as much HP, doubled damage, a Heat stat of 100 at the start of a round, along with a much higher heat gain ability, and doubled speed, along with four extra aerial jumps/three air dashes.

In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma games, the maximum level of each category is 999, with each level boosting the stat by 1%. On the maximum Attack level the character will deal 1099% of their base damage. Defence works almost the same, but the character can have more than 99999 health on the maximum Defence level. The character will start the battle with the full Heat Gauge at Heat level 500, and boosting the stat further will just increase the Heat gain. On the maximum Speed level the character can perform four aerial jumps and four air dashes without landing.

In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift games, initial Status levels can be bought in the Shop at the beginning. Those boosts range from +1 to +9. Should all of them be bought, Abyss Mode could potentially be started with Level 45 on all stats. After defeating a boss, there is a chance to get single Status boosts, or (albeit rare) a boost to all stats (called "All +1" or "All +2"). This makes for faster level gain on all stats. In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma games, it is no longer possible to buy the status boosts in the Shop, but they are permanent, although the player can still reset their stats in the Shop.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II, the Abyss Mode consists of a single level with the maximum depth of 999. In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, the Abyss Mode consists of a four consecutively unlocked levels, varying by difficulty and maximum depth: The difficulty increases along with the depth. That means that on depth 100 of level 4 the difficulty will be easy, on depth 500 it will be normal, on depth 999 it will be hard, and starting from the depth 1000 the difficulty will be hell.
 * [EASY] Level 1 — DEPTH 100
 * [NORMAL] Level 2 — DEPTH 500
 * [HARD] Level 3 — DEPTH 999
 * [∞] Level 4 — DEPTH ∞ (Maximum depth: 99999)

BlazBlue: Chronophantasma
In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, the Abyss Mode consists of a set of "dungeons". Completing the set of a particular difficulty will unlock the next set of dungeons. The dungeons are much shorter than the levels of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, but the difficulty now increases along with dungeon levels. E.g., the enemies of dungeon level 8 have better stats than the enemies of level 7, despite them having the same difficulty and depth.
 * Dungeon Level 1  — DEPTH 100
 * Dungeon Level 2  — DEPTH 100
 * Dungeon Level 3  — DEPTH 200
 * Dungeon Level 4  — DEPTH 100
 * Dungeon Level 5  — DEPTH 200
 * Dungeon Level 6  — DEPTH 300
 * Dungeon Level 7  — DEPTH 200
 * Dungeon Level 8  — DEPTH 200
 * Dungeon Level 9  — DEPTH 300
 * Dungeon Level 10  — DEPTH 300
 * Dungeon Level 11 <∞> — DEPTH 100000

Depth Specific Bosses
Certain depths in Abyss Mode have a certain boss character for that specific depth, in Unlimited form.

Level 2

 * Depth 400: An Unlimited form of Hakumen will appear.
 * Depth 500: An Unlimited form of Nu-13 will appear.

Level 3

 * Depth 400: Unlimited forms of Bang Shishigami and Carl Clover have appeared here.
 * Depth 666: An Unlimited form of Ragna the Bloodedge will appear.
 * Depth 980: An Unlimited form of Hazama will appear.
 * Depth 999: An Unlimited form of Mu-12 will appear.

Level 11

 * Depth 500: An Unlimited form of Mu-12 will appear.
 * Depth 600: An Unlimited form of Rachel Alucard will appear.
 * Depth 666: An Unlimited form of Ragna the Bloodedge will appear.
 * Depth 700: An Unlimited form of Azrael will appear.
 * Depth 800: An Unlimited form of Hakumen will appear.
 * Depth 900: An Unlimited form of Nu-13 will appear.
 * Depth 980: An Unlimited form of Hazama will appear.
 * Depth 999: An Unlimited form of Izayoi will appear. (Can appear at Depth 1000 as the result of a glitch)

Special abilities
Called "items" in-game, the Special abilities come in various forms. They can give another Break Burst Symbol, reduce the Heat consumption for Rapid Cancels to 25%, etc. Not all of them are unlocked by player level progress, some of them have special unlock conditions. Only three Special abilities can be active at a time.

In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II, if the character has all three slots occupied, the new ability will be added to the bottom slot, and the item from the top slot will disappear. In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, when a new Special Ability is selected, the player is given a choice as to which one they would like to replace. That said, it is better to choose abilities wisely, only switching out when truly necessary. In Extend many abilities have levels that determine their strength. The player will not receive an ability if their character is equipped with the same ability of higher level. Starting from BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, every character has their own special ability. These character enhancements can be unlocked by completing level 1 (Depth 100) with said character.

In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma games, the items received a "Rare" value, which determines the chance of the item appearing in the player's reward. In the Vita-version of BlazBlue: Chronophantasma and in all versions of BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend, the items received a "Cost" value, which determines how many of the items can the character hold at a time. From the start of the game the player has only 3 cost slots, but can gain two more by completing more dungeons. Also, starting from BlazBlue: Chronophantasma the "Boss characters" can have their own Special abilities which are unavailable to the player.

List of Special abilities
Chronophantasma Extend= CP= CSE= CSII=