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Probably my favourite fighting game overall; the mechanics, art style, story, character designs, music, just everything about it is so good. I got into the game when the rollback beta was made, and at the same time I bought my first (and currently, only) fightstick! They're a lot of fun to play on ^^ |
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My favourite character from the game is Celica A. Mercury. She's a little goober with no sense of direction who barely even fights. Most of her attacks are performed by her robot partner Minerva, who despite her ability to be somewhat decoupled from Celica is not really a puppet. She plays quite straight-forwardly and lacks a lot of mix up potential, which she (tries to) make up for with her insane meterless damage. The core of this lies in her Afterburner Loops, performed by hitting people with the trailing end of her enhanced 214C, Lance Quiche. Celica can land two or three of these loops depending on the starter, and they enable her to surpass 4K damage with ease and style. Doesn't feel quite as good as a Sidewinder loop, but it hurts almost just as much! For context, Naoto is praised for his 4.5K meterless damage combos that come at the cost of breaking all of your fingers. I think I'll stick to my baby routes thanks ^^
The resident ArcSys "big friendly giant" and grappler of BlazBlue, Tager is naturally one of my mains. As the stand-in for Potemkin, Tager boasts equally terrifying counterparts to Potemkin's iconic Potemkin Buster and Heat Knuckle. For grounded opponents, Tager can do a classic command grab with 360A. It's fast, deals a decent chunk of damage and leaves the opponent in the perfect spot to do it all again. For scared opponents, he has the 306B grab. It is incredibly slow, but boasts an enourmous amount of invulnerability during startup and leads to huge damage from either an unburstable follow up or a full combo. Once they learn to jump, you can hit them with the awesomely named Atomic Collider (623C). This "Heat Knuckle at home" behaves quite similarly to its inspiration with it's ability to lead into a hard knockdown or into Gadget Finger for more reward in exchange for oki. If you're feeling extra evil, Tager can also do his signature grab in the air with 360C. It is absolutely demoralising to be hit by ;-; Tager even has a slow charging priority projectile he can use to threaten opponents from full screen.
The most interesting part of Tager however is his magnetism. Landing any of Tager's D moves (hit or block) magnetises the opponent for a duration. While magnetised, all of Tager's D normals and all of his command grabs attract the opponent at hillarious speeds. It's easily the most unique take I've seen on a grappler and it's easily also my favourite.
Look, okay I get it, please stop judging him I promise he's actually a great character. Gameplay wise he's the Sol Badguy replica; standard anime fighter rushdown-shoto protagonist type deal. Stubby fireball, good normals, meterless reversal. Ragna has tied lowest health in the game with Celica, and like her he has a healing mechanic. Albiet niche, the lifesteal mechanics on Ragna's D moves create interesting decision making for his combo routes depending on the situation and scaling.
I wrote a whole section on Ragna's lore right here to gush about how great of a character he is, then I realised that BlazBlue lore makes ZERO sense without explaining observation, mana and time lines. TL;DR Ragna isn't just an edgy overpowered protagonist. He's just a misunderstood very strong protagonist.
My guilty pleasure character. Will do this write up tomorrow, I left it kinda late and I need to update the site soon LOL
