BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (ブレイブルー クロスタグバトル) is a crossover fighting game with a tag-team system. It includes characters from Arc System Works’ BlazBlue, Atlus’ Persona 4 Arena and its sequel, French-Bread’s Under Night In-Birth, and Rooster Teeth’s 3D anime-styled web series RWBY, followed by Team Arcana’s Arcana Heart (formerly owned by Examu as of the end of February 2020), Marvelous Entertainment's Senran Kagura, and Subtle Style's Akatsuki En-Eins as of Season 2.

The character art for this game is drawn by Higuchi Konomi who previously worked as a character designer of the XBlaze series.

Gameplay
This game is a 2-on-2, two dimensional, tag-team fighting game, allowing the player to switch between characters during a fight. Each character has their own health bar.

The gameplay will not be exactly like BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth, Arcana Heart, or Akatsuki En-Eins, including Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel. However, some of their previous gameplay mechanics are retained and revamped, such as:
 * There are only five button inputs: A and B normal attacks (light and heavy, respectively), Crash Assault/Sweep (C button, which functions akin to the Dust Attack in Arc System Works' Guilty Gear franchise), Tag (D button) and Partner Skill (P button).
 * Each character can call their partner for an assist via the P button, though three different moves are available on the fly as 5P (P without an direction), 6P (forward + P) and 4P (backward + P). Partners who have just executed their attacks cannot be hit afterwards.
 * Partners flash with a different color respective to the player in order to distinguish them from one another; Player 1's partner flashes red, while Player 2's partner flashes blue.
 * This is the first BlazBlue game to use the Auto-Combo system, now called Smart Combos. These can be activated with both A and B which vary for each character (and can also be done in midair). As a result however, many special moves which can no longer be done standalone in respective source materials can only be done through Smart Combo inputs (e.g. Ragna's 22C can now only be done as his 5BBB in this game); and as a result, they lose their properties as special moves (such as no longer doing chip damage).
 * Each character also has a unique command normal done as 4A (backward + A), where they may either be an alternate Smart Combo (P4U characters which may be their classic auto combos from the first P4U) or a classic 5A attack (BlazBlue and UNI characters; Linne is one of the only exceptions in this regard).
 * Unlike the characters from one of 3 other series who have limitations on their chain combos via the standard magic series rule, with most of them have limited Reverse Beat chain combo strings, the limit of Reverse Beat chain combo string mechanics for UNI characters like in their home game and French Bread's prior Melty Blood series remained universal, and thus can still freely chain their normals backwards (e.g.: B to A), including chaining backward from crouching C (as most of them reuse the UNI characters' 2C animations with roughly the same properties).
 * Akin to P4U, special and super moves are now universally called "Skills". Except for the name of an Instant Kill, where the name "Astral Heat/Astral Finish" is universally the same for all characters.
 * Auto-run is implemented: all characters except for Tager will now automatically run forward by pressing down 6/forward without the use of double-tapping 6/forward. Auto-running however, can now have the user brake instantaneously upon interrupting the animation with any action, while also having its physics be based on acceleration; initial frames of auto-running will first start out slow then fast.
 * ”Heat Gauge” is now renamed the Skill Gauge, a curved orange icon next to the Cross Gauge mentioned below.
 * Super Moves are now named as Distortion Skills, which are now done through using a special move command input+B+C, which cost 2 Skill Gauge stocks. Distortion Skill Duo is a followup DS through tagging in the partner with their own DS if the said partner is now already active from an action such as a prior Partner Skill. like standalone Distortion Skills, Distortion Skill Duos also cost 2 Skill Gauge stocks each.
 * Distortion Skills can no longer be super-cancelled into from special moves/skills, but can still be done so from normal attacks/standard C attacks (except 5C).
 * Astral Heats are now all universally done through:
 * 222B+C (down thrice/three times + B and C).
 * Level 4 Resonance Blaze which allows for a total of 9 Skill Gauge stocks to be reached.
 * When the opposition is down to one character left.
 * Unlike in the original BlazBlue games, no health requirement is needed to activate Astral Heats.
 * Characters from P4U use their Instant Kills/Mortal Blows as Astral Heats, while Under Night In-Birth characters use their Infinite Worth EXS attacks without the light pillar burst, while Arcana Heart use their renewed version of Dynamic Art attacks. Each series uses their own unique Astral Heat theme when executed successfully.
 * A new gauge included is called the Cross Gauge, a blue two-section gauge which is mainly used for Tag-based mechanics. A diamond-shaped Resonance Gauge placed right next to it pointing to the bottom center of the HUD can be filled up through successive Partner-based actions throughout the match, with each one dictating its cooldown period-before-refill.
 * By consuming 100% of the Cross Gauge through pressing all 5 main buttons, Cross Burst will have the player’s secondary character to enter the fight while attacking their opponents, just as their on-point character retreats out of the fight. This acts akin to the Burst mechanic in prior Arc System Works games, as it can also be disabled during a connected throw, connected-Distortion Skill, connected/punished-Reversal Action, getting hit while your partner is on-screen, or getting hit by a user with Resonance Blaze active; the Cross Gauge will be crossed out whenever these instances occur.
 * Once the Cross Combo is activated by pressing Partner Skill Button, the player’s partner will follow the suit of their main character, and attack their opponents, but will deplete slowly to 0. While holding Partner Skills after “Cross Combo” Activation, the gauge in the middle of the screen will increase until it reaches maximum where the Partner Skill is usable via any directions+Partner Skill button. In this state, regular Distortion Skills become stronger with extra animations/hits akin to Overdrive Distortion Drives (from BlazBlue) or Skill Boost SP Skill Attacks (P4U).
 * The ”Overdrive” mechanic from BlazBlue is now dubbed as Resonance Blaze, and can only be activated after the player’s teammate is down via pressing the Partner Skill button. The Resonance Blaze activation grants the user:
 * Rapid Skill Gauge refill, with Skill Gauge maximum being determined by prior Resonance Gauge level.
 * Health regeneration.
 * Chip damage on normal attacks and increased overall chip damage.
 * Can cancel specials into Distortion Skills.
 * Disabling the victim's Cross Bursts whenever they are hit by a user of Resonance Blaze.
 * Much like the Cross Combo state, it will also power-up Distortion Skills with alternate animations.
 * However, Resonance Blaze can only be activated once in a match, unlike a Cross Combo. The duration of the Resonance Blaze can be increased from Level 1 up to Level 4 through filling up the aforementioned Resonance Gauge beforehand via assist calls. A timer that counts down with seconds and milliseconds will also be shown just above the Resonance Blaze gauge.
 * The B+C throw button function is retained from BlazBlue, but throws now involve the user performing a dashing start before the grabbing animation if they happen to be far away from the opponent.
 * The “Furious/Reversal Action” function from Persona 4 Arena, a very common for Dragon Punch/Reversal-based move is retained for all characters. It can only be activated by pressing A+Tag. All offensive Reversal Actions are also air-unblockable unless the victim has at least one Skill Gauge stock, and will have the user flash red when they are executed.
 * Reversal Actions however, for both the user or victim, will disallow a Cross Burst if the user is punished or if the victim is hit by it until they recover to suffer from hitstun from all other types of non-Distortion Skill-based moves. All Reversal Actions will deal 100% recoverable damage with no effect on the recoverable amount itself.
 * Pressing forward + A and Tag while blocking will instead result in a Reject Guard, a push-block-mechanic that costs one Skill Gauge stock and can only effect one character on-screen per usage; the conditions are adjusted so that Reversal Actions are not performed on accident during guarding animations.
 * Using special moves with C button as an EX move retained from Under Night In-Birth, while also functioning more akin to Skill Boosts from Persona 4: Arena.
 * Standing C is a Crash Assault. An overhead attack which can only be blocked while standing. After landing the attack, a joint combo attack between the on-point character and their partner will ensue, with the final blow being a perfectly-timed twin attack which requires a button press of C to affect the amount of damage at the end (ranging from "Good!" to "Marvelous!"). Crash Assaults will always be performed solo whenever the partner is recovering from any partner-assist-based action or if only one character is left on the team just as they are successfully executed.
 * When crouching, every character will perform a sweep instead, akin to both Guilty Gear and Persona 4: Arena in terms of having a unique-function-button act as a sweep. However, a majority of characters mainly from the BlazBlue series can still perform their normal sweeps with 2B. For most characters, specially Under Night In-Birth characters, this still counts specifically as a normal attack with the standard chain-combo properties.
 * For a majority of BlazBlue characters, almost all of them use their Crush Trigger animations for their standing C attacks, or other heavier based normal attacks like one of their old command attacks to fit in standing C’s overhead damage properties (Platinum, Es, Hakumen and Azrael do not use Crush Trigger animations), Persona 4: Arena characters use their All-Out Attack starters (which were all already overheads in the source game, except Akihiko), while Under Night In-Birth characters use their grounded Assault into one of their original midair normals by choice (e.g. Hyde uses his grounded assault via 6D into his original j.C).
 * In midair, every character's C button move acts as a unique attack, similar to the midair Dust in the Guilty Gear games. For a majority of returning characters, one of their prior midair special moves is used for this type of attack; since it counts as a normal move, they no longer inflict any chip damage. Most of the j.C can be cancelled to specials/EX/Distortions Skills or Astral Heat.
 * All P4U characters instead of having a gauge that indicates their Persona's durability, now will suffer a Persona Break for every hit landed on their Persona but can repeatedly summon them at anytime. At a cost however, Persona users now take direct damage from attacks instead whenever their Persona is hit, similar to the ones which were mostly shown in most of manga and anime adaptions of Persona.

Playable characters
It is confirmed that there start with be 20 default characters (21 in PC version) and 20 Season 1 DLC characters (19 in PC version), for a total of 40 characters so far in initial release. This caused backlash from fans, as many wanted all characters on the base game. The counter-argument from fans that were okay with this practice, was that the total price of the base game and DLC, would be around that of the average launch price of a third-party fighting game. On June 7, 2018, Arc System Works president Minoru Kidooka confirmed that Season 2 DLC sets of this game are planned. On February 16, 2019, Season 2 DLC was confirmed to be on its way with more characters from BlazBlue, P4A, and Under Night In-Birth, along with the fifth series, Arcana Heart, announced to be added to the game. On August 4, 2019, Version 2.0 of the game was announced to release on November 21, 2019. This update will come with 9 new DLC characters for Season 2, including more characters from RWBY, along with the sixth fate, Senran Kagura, and the seventh fate, Akatsuki Blitzkampf.

Default characters: blue Season 1 DLC characters: green DLC characters who are available by default at PC version’s launch: purple Season 2 DLC characters: red


 * BlazBlue
 * Ragna the Bloodedge
 * Jin Kisaragi
 * Noel Vermillion
 * Rachel Alucard
 * Iron Tager
 * Hakumen
 * ν-No.13-
 * Hazama
 * Makoto Nanaya
 * Platinum the Trinity
 * Izayoi
 * Azrael
 * Celica A. Mercury
 * Nine the Phantom
 * Naoto Kurogane
 * Es
 * Susanoo
 * Mai Natsume
 * Jūbei


 * Persona 4 Arena/Ultimax
 * Yū Narukami
 * Yōsuke Hanamura
 * Chie Satonaka
 * Yukiko Amagi
 * Kanji Tatsumi
 * Teddie
 * Naoto Shirogane
 * Mitsuru Kirijo
 * Akihiko Sanada
 * Aegis
 * Labrys
 * Elizabeth
 * Tohru Adachi


 * Under Night In-Birth
 * Hyde
 * Linne
 * Waldstein
 * Carmine
 * Orie
 * Gordeau
 * Merkava
 * Vatista
 * Seth
 * Yuzuriha
 * Hilda
 * Mika


 * RWBY
 * Ruby Rose
 * Weiss Schnee
 * Blake Belladonna
 * Yang Xiao Long
 * Neopolitan


 * Arcana Heart
 * Heart Aino


 * Senran Kagura
 * Yumi


 * Akatsuki Blitzkampf
 * Akatsuki
 * Blitztank

Mode

 * Episode Mode — An original story unfolding in a singularity called the Phantom Field, where the four worlds represented in the game collide.
 * Tactics Mode — The players can learn new techniques while playing a new systems of the game.
 * Survival Mode — The player have to defeat swarm of enemies.
 * Training Mode (トレーニングモード) — A mode where the player can practice handling different kinds of situations.
 * Gallery Mode (ギャラリーモード) — A mode that can be viewed all of the other illustrations and listen to music.
 * Replay Theater (リプレイシアター) — A mode where you can check recorded replay of your previous battles.
 * Casual Lobby Mode — A mode where players can choose their favorite character as their avatar, socialize, and battling other players.

Reception
The game received "generally favorable" reviews on Metacritic getting a metascore of 76/100 on PS4 and 79/100 on Nintendo Switch. On whatoplay.com, it receives an aggregate score (playscore) of 7.71 on PC, 8.12 on PS4, and 7.99 on Nintendo Switch.

Trivia

 * As RWBY is a series produced in the United States, RWBY characters start out with English as their default language.
 * Originally, the RWBY side was the only one to have dual audios between English and Japanese set for their characters, until it was confirmed on Arc System Works' Twitch livestream that the characters from each of the four other series aside from RWBY will also have an English dub.
 * This would have characters like Es and Naoto Kurogane, and characters from Under Night In-Birth, Arcana Heart and Senran Kagura have English voices for the first time.
 * Technically, this would be the first time characters from Senran Kagura have English voices in a video game, as the anime adaptations of the series had English voices.
 * This is the first BlazBlue fighting game to be released before an Arcade version, not counting update versions of certain BlazBlue titles.
 * According to Toshimichi Mori on Famitsu Interview:
 * Under Night In-Birth characters’ sprites are redrawn to match out BlazBlue graphics.
 * However, the most completely redrawn spirtes are the Arcana Heart characters and potentially Homura since both her and Heart appeared in Nitroplus Blasterz.
 * Speaking of Nitroplus Blasterz, this is the second game where both Arcana Heart and Senran Kagura appeared in the same crossover game.
 * Currently, there are no plans to include characters from other franchises such as from Guilty Gear in this game, despite Arc System Works’ awareness of the requests and wanted to expand it in the future, if possible.
 * The game’s main target crowd is the fans abroad rather than in Japan.
 * Since it released on Nintendo Switch, this is the first game that the Under Night In-Birth, RWBY, Persona, Arcana Heart and Akatsuki Blitzkampf series released on the Nintendo Switch.
 * After the 2017’s New York Comic Con events, Arc System Works created a survey to hear the fans’ opinions for this game on their official website, until it closed on November 5, 2017 at 8:00 AM.
 * It is the only BlazBlue game to receive a new logo style.
 * This is the first BlazBlue game to not include an Arcade Mode.
 * The PC version of this game has a regional pricing, where certain regions get much lower prices of this game’s currency.
 * Akatsuki Blitzkampf, Senran Kagura, and Under Night In-Birth are the only franchises that originally weren't developed by Arc System Works as, for Under Night In-Birth specifically, they only published the game. Meanwhile, Arcana Heart has had a publishing history with both Arc System Works and Atlus. As Atlus published the first game's North American release, while Arc System Works helped publish the third game in North America.
 * Continuing on the color palette references which was started from BlazBlue: Chronophantasma and Persona 4 Arena onwards, there are color options for the playable cast that reference other characters from BlazBlue, Persona, Under Night-In Birth and RWBY, as well as characters from Arc System Works' other fighting game series, Guilty Gear. They are as follows:
 * In addition to this, each character has a 13th color that references characters from other media. For the Persona 4 Arena characters, their 13th color references characters from Persona 5. They are as follows:
 * The only exception is Elizabeth, who's 13th color instead references her appearance in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, with Thanatos representing the 3D glasses she wears. This in itself is also a reference to Motoko Mitsugi from the PSP remake of Persona 2: Innocent Sin.
 * For the RWBY characters' 13th color, Weiss and Blake have colors that reference their fairy tale inspirations. For Weiss it's Snow White and for Blake it's Belle from Beauty and the Beast. However for Ruby and Yang, they have colors that reference their mothers, Summer Rose and Raven Branwen respectively.
 * One of Akatsuki’s color reference is not based Under Night In-Birth characters, but from other series which has its representative guest appearing as Akatsuki in the same said game: Sion Eltnam Atlasia from Type-Moon’s Melty Blood.
 * Adachi is the only character from an initially represented series to receive color that isn’t from Under Night In-Birth, which is Akatsuki himself.
 * Blitztank is the only character who's colors don't have any particular reference, as all of them instead reference different types of camouflage.