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, French-Bread’s Under Night In-Birth, and Rooster Teeth’s 3D anime-styled web series RWBY. 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 will be 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, or Under Night In-Birth. 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 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).
 * Each character also has a unique command normal done as 4A (backward + A), where they may either be an alternate Smart Combo (P4A characters) or a classic 5A attack (BlazBlue and UNI characters).
 * Unlike the characters from one of 3 other series whose chain combo limit are limited, the chain combo limit for UNI characters like in their home game and French Bread's prior Melty Blood series remained universal, such as can still freely chain their normals backwards (eg.: B to A), including chain backward from crouching C.
 * Akin to P4A, special and super moves are now universally called "Skills". Except for the name of an Instant Kill, Astral Heat remained the same
 * 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.
 * ”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 P4A 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. Each series uses their own Astral Heat theme when executed successfully.
 * A new system called Cross Gauge, a blue two-section gauge which is mainly used for Tag-based mechanics. A diamond-shaped Resonance Gauge can be filled up through successive Partner-based actions throughout the match.
 * 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.
 * 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, the regular Distortion Skill becomes stronger akin to Overdrive Distortion Drives (from BlazBlue) or Skill Boost SP Skill Attacks (P4A)
 * ”Overdrive” 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.
 * Much like to Cross Combo state, it will also obtain Stronger Distortion Skills.
 * However, Resonance Blaze can only be activated once, unlike 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.
 * The B+C throw button function is retained from BlazBlue. Throws now involve the user performing a dashing start before the grabbing animation if they happen to be far away from the opponent.
 * As a result, the button function of “Furious/Reversal Action” moves from Persona 4 Arena, which is very common for Dragon Punch/Reversal-based move can only be activated by pressing A+Tag.
 * 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.
 * Using special moves with C button as an EX move retained from Under Night In-Birth.
 * 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!").
 * 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 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 C or D attacks to fit in standing C’s overhead damage properties, Persona 4: Arena characters use their All-Out Attack starters, 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.
 * All P4A 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 will be 20 default characters (21 in PC version) and 20 Season 1 DLC characters (19 in PC version), totalling 40 characters. 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 AAA fighting games. On June 7, 2018, Arc System Works president Minoru Kidooka confirmed that Season 2 DLC sets of this game are planned.

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


 * BlazBlue
 * Ragna the Bloodedge
 * Jin Kisaragi
 * Rachel Alucard
 * Hazama
 * Noel Vermillion
 * Azrael
 * Iron Tager
 * Makoto Nanaya
 * ν-No.13-
 * Es
 * Platinum the Trinity
 * Jūbei
 * Hakumen


 * Persona 4 Arena
 * Yū Narukami
 * Yōsuke Hanamura
 * Chie Satonaka
 * Yukiko Amagi
 * Kanji Tatsumi
 * Aegis
 * Naoto Shirogane


 * Under Night In-Birth
 * Hyde
 * Linne
 * Waldstein
 * Gordeau
 * Orie
 * Carmine
 * Vatista


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

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.

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 three other series aside from RWBY will also have an English dub.
 * This is the first BlazBlue fighting game to be released exclusively on console versions, instead of being released on Arcade, not counting update versions of certain BlazBlue titles.
 * According to Toshimichi Mori on Famitsu Interview:
 * Under Night In-Birth characters’ sprites will be redrawn to match out BlazBlue graphics.
 * 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 this 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.
 * 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 is closed on November 5, 2017 at 8:00 AM.
 * It is one of the latest Blazblue to receive a new Logo style.
 * This is one of the latest BlazBlue game that doesn't have a Arcade Mode.
 * PC version of this game has a regional pricing, where certain regions gets much lower prices of this game’s currency.
 * 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:
 * 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 respective mothers, Summer Rose and Raven Branwen respectively.