There’s a lot from each franchise which is great but there should have been more new music. There are stages from each universe and some newer ones included and this applies to the music as well.
On PS4 this isn’t as jarring thanks to some good anti aliasing but it feels like you’re playing across a PS3 and PS4 game on the Switch when the sprites in question are near each other. The only inconsistency is between the newer RWBY character sprites and the older sprites from the other universes. This obviously is helped by the fact that the sprites for most characters have existed for a while. While it doesn’t have the production values of games like Injustice 2 or DRAGON BALL FighterZ, Cross Tag Battle nails almost everything when it comes to animations and visuals.
A lot of the characters are from previous games with the sprites ready and having the game cost more with everything included is arguably a better way of going about this than having a slightly cheaper base game with nearly half the roster locked behind DLC. The DLC will add nearly 20 more characters across all franchises and this should have been included in the base game from the get go.
RWBY has just Ruby and Weiss in the initial roster with Blake and Yang being added for free later on. In the base game, BlazBlue gets the largest representation with 10 characters while both Persona 4 Arena and Under Night In-Birth get 4 each. It even supports a single Joy-Con on the Switch (that “d-pad” though).įighting game rosters are obviously very important in general but when you have a crossover game for fans of different franchises, they are even more important. I’m a big fan of how Arc System Works has been making their games more accessible with Stylish input options for newcomers and this one is probably the easiest to get into. You will feel like an absolute badass with little effort here and the interactions between fighters from different universes in intros and outros never gets old. Thankfully, there’s a fantastic tutorial mode here that goes into every little thing on offer here with lots of ways for you to practice before you jump online. It is super easy to get into with auto combos and very simple to execute special moves for the cast but the real strategy is in chaining them together across your partner and when to unleash your various skills. This is a two versus two tag fighter and that is the focus. This is the first time this cast has been dubbed into English and Linne’s voice is perfect but I’m not a fan of Carmine’s voice. The voice actor choices for the Under Night In-Birth cast are mostly great. Hearing the main Persona 4 cast properly brought back good memories. They even got almost all the old voice actors back which is the icing on the cake. Central Fiction lacking an English dub after all previous games had one was disappointing.
I’m glad Arc System Works actually put in the effort and resources to doing a full English dub.
Each individual episode has its own set of chapters with different interactions and different battles. In Cross Tag Battle, the story is split up into different episodes for each universe. Thankfully, the good fighters still put in some effort into this mode. Story modes in fighting games are usually just excuses to get you to either learn the basic mechanics or are just an excuse to put you into random fights with some basic narrative. The Europe release is on June 22 on both PS4 and Switch and the fantastic PQube is handling that version. This review is based on the North American PS4 build of the game that is being published by Arc System Works. BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle takes fighters from BlazBlue, Under Night In-Birth, RWBY, and Persona 4 Arena and brings them together for over the top tag battle action.
When they announced a crossover fighter, I was excited because of the fan service and mechanic possibilities. It has been interesting seeing the team’s output over the last few years as they work on newer entries in franchises I love and also new games. Arc System Works is basically a household name for fighting games at this point and while they’ve usually been a part of the smaller ones mindshare wise, things changed earlier this year with the release of the fantastic DRAGON BALL FighterZ.