I remember Patrick Seitz in an interview talking about how when he was brought on to do voice work for Calamity Trigger, he was handed a massive script in a 3 ring binder and he went "this is a fighting game... but there's a huge script for it."
Piecing together the story is one of the most rewarding parts of the first two games. After that I think the scope and stakes get too large and lose focus on the cast dynamics that are so enthralling.
It's funny to me that when Guilty Gear got left behind because it was too complex and the non-fighting game spin-off bombed and the creator lost the rights to his game they made BlazBlue to be the reset to a simpler gameplay only for it to eventually be too complex for a Tag Fighter & the non-fighting game spin-off bombed and The creator lost the rights to his game they left it behind then Guilty Gear came back after Xrd and became the Reset to simpler gameplay
Additional note: If I recall correctly, Jubei saved them from the lab they were created in and left them at the church to be raised by the nun there, but that's a completely separate event that happens before the church being burned. So Jubei did save Ragna's life at one point, just not at the one that was mentioned in the video.
One of my favorite things about Blazblue is that in Chrono Phantasma, Ragna vs Hazama shows off that Hazama is fully Terumi against Ragna, and he and Ragna get specific voice clips only for that matchup, and it’s amazing
I am so glad you talked about the dub because I loved it SO MUCH, everyone nailed it so much that I was actually very sad when CF didn't have a dub. I'll never forget the masterful delivery of Golden Hakumen's "The END has COME!" Gag
Blazblue has my favorite fighting game dub for how goddamn good it is and Patrick Seitz’s performance as Ragna is one of my favorite roles he’s ever done. He pulls off the aggressive “I am so done with everyone’s bullshit” role so well.
I actually skipped out on CF because of the lack of dub. I just know I wouldnt be very invested in these characters when they all sounded completely different
@Sky Tower Kurogane Yessir. It was so boneheaded for ArkSys NA to rush the game out to pander to the competitive scene -- who ALSO didn't like the decision 😑
Thanks to you, I got Bleach in my mind when you got to the Hazama segment and chose to look up who Gin was voiced by. I don't know what I was expecting.
I said it once already at the end of the premiere, but I wanna make sure it's seen, this was the first Fighting Game I ever got into seriously, and I played the hell out of it. Thanks so much for the Retrospective as it made me so happy to see it walk through the history again. Will see you in the future when the next one arrives.
this also was my first serious fighting game. My friend let me borrow CT on the PS3 in 2014, and I played through the story mode of CT, CS and CPEX. I didn't understand shit, I just mashed buttons. I didn't really do much. But, a year later when I got a PS4 for Christmas, I decided to buy CPEX and I've been hooked since. CF is a masterpiece, and I love it dearly.
As someone who only knew the cliffnotes of cliffnotes of character dynamics when I first got BBTAG (ArcSys is favorite fighting game developer from having played Arena & Xrd at the time of BBTAG's reveal, Persona is favorite video games, & I fucking love RWBY & that last one hurts at the moment given recent Rooster Teeth news), god BBTAG's story had me dying at times. I still vividly remember falling over in uncontrollable laughter in my college game room's bean bag chair during the scene where Ragna runs into both Vatista & Aegis RIGHT BEFORE NU SHOWS UP! Patrick's "I'd rather be dealing with five Jins" delivery on that "oh god" was PERFECT
Your timing is remarkable. I watched your KOF retrospective right as I was getting into KOF, and now you have BlazBlue when I just imported Central Fiction on the Switch. Looking forward to more!
To be fair, the producer of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle said that he wanted to have characters from Fate/Grand Order in it, and since one of them is in the newest Melty Blood and Cross Tag is set to be released on Xbox this year, maybe we still haven’t escaped from crossing fates yet
@SegaSunnyD Neo When, if ever, did a fighting game stop receiving content years ago, and then suddenly added a character out of nowhere. Not to mention that cross tag isn't even the popular blazblue, it's player numbers are bad. Why would ArcSys go back to it after years? I mean I'm not against it, I'm just saying it's so unrealistic you can't just say "well we don't know for 100% that's the case!".
To add to the "BBTAG" section, while there wasn't any official statement given, the speculated reason why half the initial roster ended up being DLC was likely due to the fact it was rushed out to make it in time for EVO. When it was announced to be in the 2018 line-up, it wasn't even out yet and would only have been released for about 2-3 months before the event. That also probably explains why the game has so little features with various other aspects, like the character select screen, being placeholder tier stuff. Heck, there are gameplay elements in the trailer that ended up not being in the final release. Add in all the bugs and, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the game was shoved out the door mid-development, essentially unfinished. Not to mention, even for being an "asset dump" game, it's not like those assets didn't get reworked. Like how the sprite sizes for the "Under Night" cast were completely different and had to get changed, resulting in even their shading getting altered. Much less all the new sprite animations that had to be made for the interactions. Despite all the corner cutting, it likely ended up being more costly and timely work than expected. So yeah, I think it's safe to say the development of "BBTAG" wasn't exactly trouble-free. And sadly, this also kind of mirrors the development issues "Dark War" ended up having. Mori apparently got demoted after "BBTAG" and after "Dark War", he just straight up left ASW. Something had to be going on but with everyone being so hush about details, which itself is strange as mentioned, all we can do speculate. Part of me wonders if this was inevitable since this was also the time when "Guilty Gear" started making a return. I wouldn't say it's a reach ASW shifted focus back towards that franchise. After all, "BlazBlue" only existed to replace "Guilty Gear" when they lost rights to it. With 'Guilty Gear" back, "BlazBlue" suddenly mattered less. I guess only time will tell what, if anything, ASW does with "BlazBlue" now. EDIT: Forgot to mention this but the "X-Blaze" games are Visual Novels, not Light Novels. Light Novels are more regular books with an occasional illustration, typically as physical books but also digitally online. Visual Novels are essentially books as games made entirely of cutscenes, occasionally with some form of gameplay mixed in. There are also tons of types of Visual Novels (dating sims, kinetic novels, hybrids, etc). So, to make a joke out of this at your expense, you really don't know what a Light Novel is...
I don’t usually play devil’s advocate when it comes to DLC, but if I recall, it was $30 for the main game and $20 for the DLC. If I got that right, it would still mean that we got more characters than the entirety of MvCI for less than a brand new game. And while I was also one of the people decrying the RWBY cast being split up, I do appreciate that they were willing to listen and made Blake and Yang free DLC.
@@KigaiOkasu Yes and no. The original price for the base game was indeed lowered. It's actually one of the points people bring up when talking about how "BBTAG" was rushed and launched incomplete. But, it was only lowered to $50 USD, with the season pass being $20 USD. So together, it still ended up costing more than most fighters at the time. Thankfully, the special edition nowadays kind of makes it not matter but it definitely wasn't a good look at first.
probably one of the weird parts of tag is how they had most of the BB cast retain their high/low hits like ragna's 5AAA for example. Under night chars like Hyde's 5BB not being low despite it being low in source game makes sense to an extent cuz that could be busted, partially due to tag's really faulty blocking system, but then you have Noel's 5AAA which was literally her 6B Overhead from her source BB game, which was never fixed to be an overhead like its supposed to. forever sad about that. Tag's a weirdly really fun but depressingly sad game in a lot of aspects, like Ragna has his unlimited moves in his moveset(Ex Deadspike and ex Blood scythe are unlimited Ragna animations) but Noel shouldve really had not only her 5AAA to be an overhead like ts supposed to be, but her "Zero gun gungnir" unlimited super(BBCS and BBCP)- it matches with near half the cast having dashing rush supers Tag's kind of sad with how much was left out and that we'll never get like Terumi or Eltnum(since Akatsuki was in and while he has his own obscure game he's mostly knwon for being in UNI with Eltnum) at least we have fun memories of the game(without Tag I wouldn't've met the discord friends I did)
2:00:43 You know, Shiki Tohno and his Nanaya personality showing up in BBTag would not be out of place with how batshit insane BB alone is. He'd frankly be the most normal person around, though I can see Nanaya Shiki constantly trying to kill Rachel and Valkenheim.
I admire how in-depth your retrospectives are. I know 3 things about BlazBlue: jack, shit, and it looks cool. I appreciate your hard work (and I also appreciate the SBFP references).
@@senritsujumpsuit6021The Gag Endings are absolutely amazing. I still think Makoto trying to explain how her family works with the cast members still slays me harder than Hakumens Astral.
The biggest issue with Chronophantasma and Central Fiction onward, is that the games HEAVILY rely on supplemental BlazBlue material like the light novels, mangas, etc. that already weren't all that readily available in Japan, and never got translated in the west. So not only were western fans out of the loop, but BlazBlue fans who only really played the games had no idea what the fuck a Celica, Kazuma, Phase Shift, a Remix Heart, or Bloodedge Experience was.
Thorgi in my country we don't celebrate x-mas and give each other presents on new years instead. So this is one of the best x-mas presents anyone gave to me lol
My first BlazBlue game was cross tag battle and I LOVED IT! I had soooo much fun with my friends playing it that it caused me to go back and play old BlazBlue titles. I do really love the gameplay of this series.
Another certified hood classic once again Thorgi. It's crazy to know about the crazy stuff behind the series, such as the stupid good amount of single player content that I didn't even know about from previous games, to even small things like how the burst changed, your videos once again prove to be one of TH-cam's best fighting game content. I love all of your vids and wish you best of luck in 2023! Can't wait for the big lore video lol. And just as a side note for anyone who cares, I got so sad when it was mentioned that Tao's voice actor passed away. Tao is and has always been my fav BB character. She spoke to me when I first saw her, which was all the way back in like 2012/2013 when I was like 8. I never got into fighters until around early to mid 2021, but idk if I wouldn't of been interested as much if it wasn't for characters like Tao. Her voice actor is simply Tao for me and it's sad that she is sadly no longer with us. I hope she is resting peacefully and can't thank her enough for her performance of probably one of my favorite fg characters ever.
Thanks for doin' this video! I'm a content creator in the vtuber space that's super into BlazBlue, and I've been producing stuff on it for a couple of years now. I heavily documented BBDW and had by far the most complete and comprehensive account of any western player of the game-- helped a lot with the wiki's documentation of it. Was super sad to see it go, but not the least bit surprised. BlazBlue is one of my favorite media franchises of all time and I'm desperate not to see it die. Really appreciate the positive coverage of it-!
As someone who started off my Blazblue experience finding out about Ragna via Deathbattle and slowly diving into the game's characters, lore, and eventually gameplay; I love the appreciation of this game as a whole(not just the competitive scene). What attracted me the most to this game is the characters and aesthetic, so knowing that I am getting something good out of playing through hours and hours of story is really nice to know beforehand. Thank you Mori, Daisuke, and everyone else who took the time to put this balls-to-the-wall anime slugfest together. And thanks to the fans for keeping it alive.
What was once meant to be a spiritual successor to a series, that at the time arc couldn't touch without many limitations, to effectively being in the back burner, now that guilty gear is in its originators hands once again and more prominent no less. The history of blazblue started high and now its future is extremely murky at best. This retrospective reminded me why I fell in love with the series, and the possibility of another entry later down the road is something I sincerely hope becomes a reality. But with mori gone and apparently on a sour note no less, who can say if the next game would feel at home with the fans. But at least I've been reminded of a series that truly has been special, and hopefully can experience again with the same love the first time around. Thanks for all your hard work thorgi!
Yeah. Tbh Blazblue is what put arcsys on the map for me. The very first series of theirs i had heard of, the first fighting game series not made by capcom or snk that drew me in. So grateful to the world and so many of the characters. Centralfiction is still easily top 3 fighting games for me. Never had as much fun with so many characters to the point where I still can't really say who my main is lol. I even enjoyed spin offs like deadspike san or blazblue RR. And just all the little single player charm like gag reels, abyss, multiple arcade routes per character. All this discourse over "how to do fg single player content right" these past couple years when Blazblue's had it on lock since like 2010 lol. Series is special to me too, and I LIKE Guilty Gear but very very casually, I'll never be into it on the same level and i LOVE Undernight but that's French Bread, not arcsys technically, unless I'm misunderstanding something. So as far as arcsys goes, if they really shelve BB which i won't deny the possibility since the brain behind the operation is out of the company, it'll be a huge loss. Though Mori and Daisuke being close school pals brings in a lot of hope that should anything Blazblue happen, it'll be under watch of the next best person for the job, heck maybe he can contact Mori for any help or input necessary. But just gotta see what future does
I don't remember hearing anything official that Mori's departure from ArcSys was on a sour note. I remember people speculating it was because Bridget was trans, but look at Mai Natsume, as well as Amane's whole thing. That theory didn't make sense to me at all. He seemed positive in his departure message. I hope everything was amicable.
@@xilverknight155 Amane type of person exist in Japan before "that ideology in modern western framework" even gaining influence in Japan. It has nothing to do with "T word" or any other "LGBT" stuff. They stand on their own framework and foundation. The Okama culture work in different way than Gay in West. I don't think he is even gay, just a dude very focused on Japanese dancing theatre performance ( not sure if its Kabuki or something else). While Mai is just genderbent anime trope, not meant anything in real life political ideology nor to celebrate any form of people irl. yes, she ( since he literally become a girl physically and biogically) has interesting lore on herself but that it, nothing more nothing less. On the other hand, Bridget transition to "T", in a sense of pandering certain ideology and movement is plainly obvious. What once was a gag character that force to dress as a girl due to reasons back home yet still maintain himself as a boy now suddenly changed into a trans. In retrospective to his lore, its kinda fuck up. But I won't argue more about Bridget. Not since Daisuke just retcon Bridget lore development with his official statement on Bridget being a girl now to end the controversy..
@@xilverknight155 A reminder, representation for the sake of representation does not help truly trans people. It only serve as portraying these companies as "good people". If you have an issue with me pointing the Bridget issue, a YTuber by the name Dimitri Monroe, who admit being queer also point out the same problem of Bridget being trans. Another Ytuber, Lieutenant Lewd, who admit being gay also adresses this issue. Don't fall for corporation BS, please.
Amazing video! I love this series with all my heart and to see it presented so beautifully means the world to me. It helped me remember all the good things about the older games that made me fall in love with the series in the first place, most notably the comment about how stories feel like pieces of a puzzle that you can put together. I can't describe the hype I felt when Jin fought Hakumen and the BGM was Blood Pain, after all the hints and insinuations of how exactly they are connected. Keep up making amazing videos bro!
Exciting that BlazBlue will be the next fighting game on the retrospective series! So this is Part 1? At first I was confused since there are just 4 main series games in BlazBlue. Then I realized the series is infamous for its complex and confusing lore as he pointed out multiple times, and Thorgi is going to attempt to piece together and explain its lore here! Even with just 4 games the stories in each game is probably going to a while to get all the way through. Good Luck Thorgi!
There's also OODLES of content outside of the main games. The Bloodedge experience light novels, the Remix Heart Manga, the Xblaze VNs, and the Mobile game.
That’s what I thought too! I initially thought: “Wait a second there aren’t that many entries in this series why is there a Part 1?” Then he mentioned the lore and it immediately hit me: “Oh shit this series has some really REALLY complicated lore! This makes so much more sense now!”
2022 will be over in less than 7 literal hours as I type this so I just want to say congratulations on breaking that 50k subscriber threshold you set. Videos like this are objective proof that you more than deserve it. I also love how at the end of all the fighting game retrospective episodes you've done this year, whenever the future of the series you're covering looks bleak and grim, you still find ways to pull out hope and reassure your audience that even if worst comes to worst for the series in question, what already exists for the said series in question will always be there and the fans can keep it alive. It's uplifting and a much needed perspective for many of us.
BlazBlue wasn't my first fighting game, but it definitely was the one that actually got me hooked up. I have so many fond memories of the series that I honestly can't list all of them. I adore how much love and care Mori put into the series. Especially how the first thing created was our Lord and Savior Hakumen. Also on a subject of "simplicity" I feel like BBCF got it perfectly. It's is actually really easy to pick up (proper buffering for inputs, one button supers, many macros, easy bnb's actually exist and amazing tutorial mode), but the skill ceiling is absolutely insane. Kinda best of both worlds Edit: minor spelling mistake. I win
13:15 I’m also in that grey area. While people say that, it often turns out to be more of a perception issue than anything else. I say this from the standpoint that there are plenty that lower the entry barrier lower than other genres and from the standpoint that other genres have similar entry barriers and are more popular.
Yeah. Fighting games are arcade games at heart so they have to be pretty simple to get into and understand at a base level, like Blazblue. It's just that, like most arcade games, they have a high skill ceiling and are very rewarding to people who get addicted to them and play them a lot
Thank you for making this Thorgi. I just started playing Blaze Blue Cross Tag Battle just because I saw the Investigation Squad from Persona 4 and didn't think much of it. But to say that I didnt know most of the characters is a gross understatement.
1:10:14 Heads up, You can hold down the drive button for this Distortion of Makoto, just like its base form if you time it right it deals much more damage. You can see the bar on the bottom right appear
I was ready for a good video. But I have been smiling since I pressed play. Great job dude, as a BlazBlue fan I am enjoying every second of this retrospective
34:36 I remember back in the day when BBCT dropped and I was playing on English Dub. I was caping so hard for people to put it in English because of how great it was but everyone was still on that Sub over Dub schtick so it wasn't until way later that people started appreciating it until we lost it in later games.
Also when the game dropped, I played Noel because she was a blonde with guns until I realized how chalkboard her personality was at the time so I moved on to Rachel. Now granted to even appreciate Rachel's roasts especially to Ragna, I always had to have a thesaurus right next to me at all times but it was worth it.
As someone who started at “BB: Calamity Trigger” I didn’t feel lost with the story until “Chronophantasma” because they stopped the possibility of timeloops but had a selection test for whose the “True Successor of the Azure”🤯 which convoluted the original theory of what lies within Boundary.
I’m just gonna take a second to thank an ex-boyfriend for getting me into Blazblue because of Chronophantasma, he introduced me to this game and I immediately fell head over heels for this game and for Azrael. We would always round out our versus modes with a couple Ragna vs Azrael matches, he’d win some, I’d win some. We always came away from it with smiles on our faces and maybe some kisses. I’m glad I also got to meet DC Douglas at a convention, I kind of remember being able to tell him how special Azrael is to me. It’s been almost 10 years, so my memory is a bit hazy. Great video, it’s got me feeling super nostalgic for a different time.
This was an amazing video and as someone who started the BB series by COMPLETE accident I fell in love with it and find it hard to find people who love the game as much as you do love the effort research and love that went into this keep up the good work🔥💯
This is one of my favorite long form retrospectives. I've always had a tangential interest in BlazBlue, and you made the series very captivating. Well done!
this is honestly one of the greatest TH-cam videos I've ever watched. thank you so much for making this, if you haven't done it for melty blood yet, i (and many others) would love to see it. much love mate, have a happy new year
You have no idea how happy I am you covered not just my absolute favourite fighting game but one of my favourite videogame of all time. THIS is the game I always come back, THIS is the game I never shut the fuck about when my friends ask me what game they should play. Also good luck with episode two.
As someone who did follow BlazBlue for the plot, I'm def gonna say it's HUGE. Good luck trying to piece it all together. And good job for this video so far! And yeah, sadly Dark War *was* fun but given how much the lore was important to me, having it purely in JP was kind of less fun.
"I have waited 4-no *5,000* years for this moment!!" I was *EXTREMELY* happy to see a Thorgi retrospective of my #1 favorite FG franchise in my sub feed! I could write an essay on why I love Blazblue so much, but I'd rather not make commenters read a super long comment of mine. Can't wait for Part 2! I feel like I'm one of the 100 people that genuinely enjoys Blazblue deep, insane, rabbit hole known as the plot. Also Thorgi if you're reading this, during your XBlaze segments you kept saying "Light Novels". It's called a "visual novel" my guy.
My god, you unbelievable bastard. You have sold me on finally trying to play a BlazBlue game. Always have stared at the franchise from a distance and been content with that, but you have made these actually sound like fun games to play (regardless of the bonkers story). I legitimately respect the effort and creativity that Arcs System Works put into making all these modes beyond just arcade and story.
funny story, the reason dark war shut down was because when they released dark kagura there was a glitch where players could collect their daily bonuses infinite times a day and the developers could not find a way to fix it so they just shut it down lol
BlazBlue is one of my favourite franchises, so this video has been an absolute blast so far! About to go into the CP section (which is when I started playing) and so much care went into getting all the important details about these games! This video is really well made!!
50:55 Mu 12 was the true boss of Continuum Shift. Unlimited Mu 12 can be fought in arcade mode after meeting conditions, but you only have one shot to be her. I have beaten her several times with Ragna
I can't believe you're actually covering the lore to BB. Take all the time you need for part 2, I can't imagine how much needs to go into it to explain everything.
I think something needs to be said about how arcsys lost the rights to one of the most distinct fighting games ever made and then went "lets make another one".
Aside from 1) calling ‘Visual Novel’ to ‘Light novel and 2) ‘Jubei’ gives Ragna Blazblue (it’s actually Rachel after the church burned in Calamity Trigger) You did a very well job not getting confused too much in swarm of details. The story of Blazblue franchise is pretty easy but detail in the lore is a bit too much (not as much as Fate franchise). In order to getting complete detail about main storyline, just Phase Shift 0-4 light novel (Dark war era) will be enough. Remix Heart, Variable Heart, and Bloodedge Experience will only detailed on Mai Natsume and Naoto Kurogane (a bit of Valkenhayn and Relius when they still immortal breaker) which really not that important in C-series. But if you want to know about characters, just go on. BB Alternative: Dark war will give you how next story would go later, but it’s not the time for that after MoriP leaves the company.
Haven’t even gotten halfway yet but a part 2 to this? Amazing! I’m looking forward to it! It’s a doozy of a story for sure but an emotional one. I loved it
I've been watching your whole retrospective playlist because I've always been curious about fighting game lore and I love how every time you mention street fighter 4 it's like the cavalry arrives moment for the genre Especially because street fighter 4 was my first fighting game
It’s funny that you really enjoyed that “Ragna on a ghost ship” ending in Continuum Shift because that was the exact ending that made me realize Story Mode wasn’t worth my time. It was the first (and, to this day, only) ending I got from that mode and I guess having to sit through a very long gag ending I didn’t find funny at all was a bad first impression because I haven’t even attempted a BlazBlue Story Mode since.
This was a fun video to watch. I first got into BlazBlue thanks to my friend who kept talking about the game so I looked it up on TH-cam and watched a Let’s Play of Calamity Trigger. I liked what I saw, so I got Continuum Shift Extend since it had a version of the first game’s story, which is why I came to BlazBlue in the first place. But the first fight taught me a very painful yet valuable lesson. I sucked hard! Unlike my friends who played in Stylish Mode at the time, I went Technical and the controls felt super stiff to me. It only took two fights to realize that if I was going to keep playing, I needed to learn to play the game. So I did the unthinkable, I played the tutorial. I can’t remember if I actually completed it or not because at the time, I was incapable of inputting the commands for backsteping and dashing, but it taught me enough to get good at the game and play through the Story Mode. Ironically, I was the weirdo who could understand the frick that was going on with the story, but that may be because my brain is hardwired for crazy convoluted sci-fi antics especially if time travel is involved in any way, shape, or form. One time, my other friend was visiting and we were playing BlazBlue against each other. When he saw me doing moves that he couldn’t in Stylish, he switched to Technical and never went back. BlazBlue is a series near and dear to my heart and I come back every now and then for another play through. One day, I do want to make a TH-cam series where I string together various scenes from the games in chronological order, but that’s going to have to wait until I get a computer good enough to handle recording it. By the way, some notes. First of all, the Bloodedge Experience is not a manga, it’s a light novel, while the Xblaze games are visual novels. And while I understand your frustration with the TOi system in Xblaze, if you get one good ending, it shows what characters read what before selecting an article. Best way to do this is to go for the Hinata ending which can simply be unlocked by reading every article you can once you start the game. But it is very frustrating the first time. Also, a little fun fact, in the Vita Version of Chronophantasma Extend, Highlander Assualt Mode is actually unlocked straight from the get-go. This could simply be due to the fact the Story Mode is a separate download in that version, but I thought it was neat to mention. I think that’s all I have to say. I’m going over to Part 2 now. But seriously, great video. Good job on it.
Great job making this Retrospective. This series is indeed great and I can't wait for the lore video. However, I have a couple of corrections to list that will impact the lore (maybe one correction and one note) Jin didn't just cut off not only Ragna's arm, but also the eye on the same side of the arm. Ragna was saved by Rachel, who gave him the Azure Grimoire, which took form of his missing eye (the red eye) and arm (you end up showing this difference in 1:38:50, first as a child with two green eyes, then an adult with one red and one green eye). Ragna's white hair and lighter skin color are a consequence of the Grimoire's "implantation" as he should have the same hair, eye and skin color as his siblings. Rachel was the one who sent him to train under Jubei in order to make him learn how to fight and use magic. The result of the training was the sword and coat that you'll explain more in the lore video. Also, you listed all the six heroes by name, except one whom I won't mention, but he's a playable char. But I guess you'll explain this with more detail in the lore video. Love all the retrospectives. It was great to learn so much more of these games I like. Keep up the good work!
correction, Ragna can't use magic, he uses armagus, which is combination of magic + science and it use seithr, those toxic substance that make low level land uninhabitable. Among playable character, only Nine can use magic and she was the one who developed armagus in the first place.
Back in the early 2010s, I was aware of this series but I really didn’t get into it until Chronophantasm (I even bought the special edition that came with a bunch of neat bonus stuff that I still have to this day), and it was the coolest game I ever played, lots of fun too. My old PS3 has broken down since then, but this retrospective had brought back a lot of great memories (including some nightmares about that Takemikazuchi boss fight). I skipped out on Centralfiction for obvious reasons, but I recently tried out the Special edition on my Switch and I realized, I didn’t care if it only had Japanese vocals, it was still a ton of fun to play.
BB story is actually not that hard to comprehend, especially the beginning can be summarized quite quickly, (continuum shift) it's mostly central fiction that gets confusing and even then if you read it carefully without rushing it through it's quite easy. Also I firmly believe BB has the best fighting game story ever made, hell, I'd put it up there with even some decent shows
In terms of the overall lore, it is definitely a weird and confusing mess but that's mainly due to the huge amount of supplementary material that had been released over the years. The stories of the mainline games' themselves are indeed fairly straightforward. It kinda sucks how much BB is being made fun of due to its story because it's legit a really good time, just one you need to be in the right mood for.
@@tabkg5802 I know right? They have nearly a decade to train themselves to read. Then again, Centralfiction has problem of translation too. Even people who only learn JP through anime will notice it.
Many things really hard to comprehend if you not ever thinking in that direction before. What is Boundary, what observation is, what essentialy timeline is, what exactly seithr is? Story lack proper explonation for many things as if it obvious and not need one. I think for this reason blazblue lore hard to digest.
I think it suffers from being confusing without being intentionally vague. There are games like FNAF, where trying to piece together what is going on is half the fun, but Blazblue is just a "relatively" straightforward story told in an incoherent fashion.
Oh my !! This is a huge one ! I was expecting someone to make it... And finally, it is no other than our dear friend Thorgi ! Will definitely enjoy it with a smooth glass of wine!!! Can't wait !
Izanami's got such an incredibly cool unique mechanic and it's not even her drive: pressing up while in the air makes her stand in place allowing for her full suite of ground normals while airborne. The concept itself is cool, and the combos get real crazy. Incredibly surprised that after going on about most of the characters' unique mechanics, you completely skipped one of my favorite's.
I'm really glad you moved the story to its own video. I never played the games, so I was debating watching this because I didn't want spoilers. And great video as always. Makes me want to jump into this series even more now.
BlazBlue definitely does have a story that you can read (sometimes). Anyways, this is outstanding, especially to my biased little brain. Can’t wait for the next part.
Can't wait to see a video triple this length about the story. Never touched a blazblue game but if the story is as convoluted as I've heard...we're in for it.
That what it basically was. You were able to summon multiple versions of characters and whatever else FateGO had Dark War had with a sprinkle of unique things.
Man I've been waiting for your Retrospectives on BlazBlue! Great video! I LOVE this franchise, and have been playing Central Fiction for 4 or 5 years. I have barely played any single player content other then training mode, but I loved the anime Alter Memory, and I adore the character interaction during battles and after a winner has been decided. I have been holding off on playing all the games and all the story till I feel I can dedicate time to do so. I have however not gotten the news about Mori leaving, and that got me a little sad, not gonna lie. But I know BlazBlue still has thousands of hours of content that I will consume. This is one of my favorite franchises of all time, and Central Fiction is in my top 10 most played games of all time. It got me into fighting games outside of Smash Bros and is responsible for my fighting game addiction. Loved the video, will be sharing it with my friends.
BLAZBLUE NEVER DIES!!!!!!!!!!!! WE'LL KEEP ON PLAYING BLAZBLUE Til the end of days!!!!! Only time will tell for the series and why MoriP left Arksystems, disagreements? Creative decisions? we don't know yet but time will tell and we'll get those answers. I'll keep on playing Blazblue throughout my life. Lookin forward to the second part of the Blazblue retrospective.
Congrats for the 50k! Also... I was so excited to hear about the second part. Love your videos, every now and then I re-watch the kof ones and rival school particularly
I'm glad you adress the issue of BB lore yet also acknowledge it is still enjoyable for some people. Keep it up, man. In defense of Noel "pathetic" scene in Calamity trigger 29:12, its actually allude to Arch Enemy (that dual gun she is using) or Nox Nyctores in EN dub is influencing her mind. Since Noel was never battle hardened mind like Ragna or Jin as she was meek in personality, those gun suppressed any psychological hindrance in her mind to "help" her fight. Its like drug, which make her heavily dependent on it and her mind become child like when she lost it. Thankfully, she surpassed this struggle in the sequels but still treat damsel in distress due to Mori's writing despite being a powerful character. Jin sword, Yukianesa, also work the same way. It brainwash Jin and make him go crazy and bloodlusty when any remnant of Black Beast near him. For example, Ragna with his Blazblue arm. Later on in sequels, Jin is able to suppress Yukianesa influence, become less crazy and yandere toward Ragna ( except in gag segment and comedic moments) and transform from being a brainwash maniac told to kill his brother ----> a servant of "Power of Order" ( some kind of vague higher power BS in Blazblue game) cutting every thing that disturb order of the world -----> a true hero trying to restore order to the world by killing the walking catastrophe that are his brother and his sister ------> a tragic man trying to save his brother from being erased out of existence by stopping him from committing existential suicide.
Man Blazblue really deserves more respect from the FGC then it currently gets, this game flat out saved ArcSys during that time when they lost the license for Guilty Gear to Sega/Sammy
End when they got their license back, arc kicked all blazblue Fans away by releasing the final installment without English dubs. „We got Guilty Gear back, K, Thanx, Bye!“
They never lost GG. The real problem was that for any new installment, Sega/Samy had the publisher rights of it. It is the reason why they decided to go with making new games. During that time ASW still released revisions of Accent Core without Sega without a problem, and also made Overture. They were just waiting for Sega publisher rights to expire. They were and always have been the owners of GG. That is a dumb myth perpetuated by people who didnt bother to actually investigate what was happening.
I love the story and it's actually really easy to understand. Here's an easy way to grasp it. Time travel and changing the timeliness under the butterfly effect. I'd REALLY go into I but I never got to play Central Fiction but I'm up to date with the story. Also, that fear of ghosts Ragna has is canon. I'm surprised you didn't mention BlazBlue RR.
Glad for this retrospective, love this series so much i couldnt describe it. Looking foward to the story breakdown, ive sat my friends down to explain it and after about 30 min they fully check out. Also hope you include the story of the dragon, the princess, and the knight repeating, ever since hearing that short the rest of everything just clicked for me.
I never knew anything about Hazama's final battle being against him as unlimited. Sure, it looked like he was in thar form, but I thought it was more like a 50% unlimited form since it wasn't too hard with most characters. That said, I never knew about him healing or poisoning me since he, or I, would kill each other so quickly.
What's special about Hazama's final arcade battle is when you're fighting as Ragna. Unlike other characters, Ragna's moveset gets severely weakened as you literally can't use your drive button. When you press your drive, Ragna struggles and is left completely open. It's story accurate, and gives you an added layer of challenge on top of a powered up Hazama. It's pretty dang cool
I remember Patrick Seitz in an interview talking about how when he was brought on to do voice work for Calamity Trigger, he was handed a massive script in a 3 ring binder and he went "this is a fighting game... but there's a huge script for it."
Which also seems like such a Ragna thing to say 🤣
Wait ain't he Dio's English VA
@@BBK113 Yes, he is
@@kyuketsukirook He's also Dracula from the Castlevania series. Which also explains why he's a good choice for Dio.
@@orangeslash1667I enjoy that this both is and is not typecasting
BlazBlue's story is what people like to meme Kingdom Heart's story is.
Makoto is undoubtedly inspired by Squirrel Girl, but her outfit is also essentially a pallete swap of Tifa Lockheart.
So I'm not crazy?
That was my first thought when seeing her.
Nice observation i didn't see it
@@s_oba When I first saw Makoto, I compared her to Grace from the web comic El Goonish Shive.
@@captainmega6310 u can be both
The fact that you're even trying to piece together this story is worthy of praise
It's a jumbled mess if jargon plus multiple different connected storyline connect into a still non-cohesive plot....and I love it to DEATH
@@mayzenharriz8083 the reason ragna destroys himself in the end because he couldn't keep up with the bullshit blazing anymore
@@edgieststalker8141
Bro was like: "Ight imma head out"
@@edgieststalker8141 If you think about it Ragna's story is very similar to Dark Souls, especially its end.
Piecing together the story is one of the most rewarding parts of the first two games. After that I think the scope and stakes get too large and lose focus on the cast dynamics that are so enthralling.
It's funny to me that when Guilty Gear got left behind because it was too complex and the non-fighting game spin-off bombed and the creator lost the rights to his game they made BlazBlue to be the reset to a simpler gameplay only for it to eventually be too complex for a Tag Fighter & the non-fighting game spin-off bombed and The creator lost the rights to his game they left it behind then Guilty Gear came back after Xrd and became the Reset to simpler gameplay
And then Mori left
Run on sentences are so annoying.
Try saying that 5 times in a row lol
I agree, but please, use punctuation 😢
Fun Fact: Tsubaki's Help Me Professor Kokonoe is just Julie Ann Taylor talking to herself, literally.
And it's fantastic. I honestly couldn't even tell they were the same person at first, Julie's insane.
@@the_supern0va238 Agreed. Her performances as both of them are great.
Quick correction: Rachel was the one who saved Ragna and gave him the Azure Grimoire, not Jubei. Then Jubei trained Ragna.
Additional note: If I recall correctly, Jubei saved them from the lab they were created in and left them at the church to be raised by the nun there, but that's a completely separate event that happens before the church being burned. So Jubei did save Ragna's life at one point, just not at the one that was mentioned in the video.
You mentioning Melty as a potential crossover with BBTag has me thinking of the sheer chaos that Neco Arc would bring to that title and I NEED it
I need Neco and Tao in a game together, now
@@priscillam.t.6215 I said the same thing about Arakune and Merkava when Merkava was announced in BBTAG.
Neco arc Susano’o intro
One of my favorite things about Blazblue is that in Chrono Phantasma, Ragna vs Hazama shows off that Hazama is fully Terumi against Ragna, and he and Ragna get specific voice clips only for that matchup, and it’s amazing
I've always held that once hazama and terumi split nightmare fiction 2 should play for terumi and ragna too.
I am so glad you talked about the dub because I loved it SO MUCH, everyone nailed it so much that I was actually very sad when CF didn't have a dub. I'll never forget the masterful delivery of Golden Hakumen's "The END has COME!" Gag
Blazblue has my favorite fighting game dub for how goddamn good it is and Patrick Seitz’s performance as Ragna is one of my favorite roles he’s ever done. He pulls off the aggressive “I am so done with everyone’s bullshit” role so well.
I was so sad when the last game didn't get dubbed...
I actually skipped out on CF because of the lack of dub. I just know I wouldnt be very invested in these characters when they all sounded completely different
@@Oblivion53k you remember that moment when Patrick imitate Rachel way of speaking?
@@Oblivion53k and is perfect for "Hardass stuck in a bullshit storm" as Dulihan and Rags showed
This is one of the best Christmas presents I've received in years. Time for everyone to experience of the best anime sword boys ever.
The english dub is absolutely stellar and it's sad they didn't bring it back for the last installment.
IKR. Ragna's VA penned such a sad and touching response to that terrible decision also. To this day I haven't played CF b/c its not the same
@@WardofSquid and his performance in particular is amazing too. And Kokonoe.
@Sky Tower Kurogane Yessir. It was so boneheaded for ArkSys NA to rush the game out to pander to the competitive scene -- who ALSO didn't like the decision 😑
@@WardofSquid Thing is, they didn't have to compromise one or the other. You could just patch the game post launch...
True, and since anime itself often doesn't feature good English voice acting, it's much more surprising to find it in an anime fighter, and this good.
Taokaka is my favorite character. She makes me so happy. I’m so sad her english voice actor died. I really really loved her 😢
Thanks to you, I got Bleach in my mind when you got to the Hazama segment and chose to look up who Gin was voiced by.
I don't know what I was expecting.
I said it once already at the end of the premiere, but I wanna make sure it's seen, this was the first Fighting Game I ever got into seriously, and I played the hell out of it. Thanks so much for the Retrospective as it made me so happy to see it walk through the history again. Will see you in the future when the next one arrives.
Same here!
this also was my first serious fighting game. My friend let me borrow CT on the PS3 in 2014, and I played through the story mode of CT, CS and CPEX. I didn't understand shit, I just mashed buttons. I didn't really do much. But, a year later when I got a PS4 for Christmas, I decided to buy CPEX and I've been hooked since.
CF is a masterpiece, and I love it dearly.
15:42 Imagine someone telling you that your middleschool OC is your main. That must be such an honor dude
As someone who only knew the cliffnotes of cliffnotes of character dynamics when I first got BBTAG (ArcSys is favorite fighting game developer from having played Arena & Xrd at the time of BBTAG's reveal, Persona is favorite video games, & I fucking love RWBY & that last one hurts at the moment given recent Rooster Teeth news), god BBTAG's story had me dying at times. I still vividly remember falling over in uncontrollable laughter in my college game room's bean bag chair during the scene where Ragna runs into both Vatista & Aegis RIGHT BEFORE NU SHOWS UP! Patrick's "I'd rather be dealing with five Jins" delivery on that "oh god" was PERFECT
its truly tragic we don't have centralfiction dub
"I've seen enough Bleach to know you never trust a guy who looks like this."
>Doug Erholtz is also Gin Ichimaru
Ya don't say.
yeah fookin quincies
Ragna has an Ichigo Pallet
Your timing is remarkable. I watched your KOF retrospective right as I was getting into KOF, and now you have BlazBlue when I just imported Central Fiction on the Switch. Looking forward to more!
To be fair, the producer of Blazblue Cross Tag Battle said that he wanted to have characters from Fate/Grand Order in it, and since one of them is in the newest Melty Blood and Cross Tag is set to be released on Xbox this year, maybe we still haven’t escaped from crossing fates yet
Keep huffing that copium hopium that aint happening
@@lolilikedragons3528 I was just wishfully thinking, you prick
@@lolilikedragons3528 You don't know that yet! There's still a chance for this to become a official license version of Mugen.
@SegaSunnyD Neo When, if ever, did a fighting game stop receiving content years ago, and then suddenly added a character out of nowhere. Not to mention that cross tag isn't even the popular blazblue, it's player numbers are bad. Why would ArcSys go back to it after years? I mean I'm not against it, I'm just saying it's so unrealistic you can't just say "well we don't know for 100% that's the case!".
@@antelasic1950 Let me cope, ok?
To add to the "BBTAG" section, while there wasn't any official statement given, the speculated reason why half the initial roster ended up being DLC was likely due to the fact it was rushed out to make it in time for EVO. When it was announced to be in the 2018 line-up, it wasn't even out yet and would only have been released for about 2-3 months before the event. That also probably explains why the game has so little features with various other aspects, like the character select screen, being placeholder tier stuff. Heck, there are gameplay elements in the trailer that ended up not being in the final release. Add in all the bugs and, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the game was shoved out the door mid-development, essentially unfinished.
Not to mention, even for being an "asset dump" game, it's not like those assets didn't get reworked. Like how the sprite sizes for the "Under Night" cast were completely different and had to get changed, resulting in even their shading getting altered. Much less all the new sprite animations that had to be made for the interactions. Despite all the corner cutting, it likely ended up being more costly and timely work than expected.
So yeah, I think it's safe to say the development of "BBTAG" wasn't exactly trouble-free. And sadly, this also kind of mirrors the development issues "Dark War" ended up having. Mori apparently got demoted after "BBTAG" and after "Dark War", he just straight up left ASW. Something had to be going on but with everyone being so hush about details, which itself is strange as mentioned, all we can do speculate.
Part of me wonders if this was inevitable since this was also the time when "Guilty Gear" started making a return. I wouldn't say it's a reach ASW shifted focus back towards that franchise. After all, "BlazBlue" only existed to replace "Guilty Gear" when they lost rights to it. With 'Guilty Gear" back, "BlazBlue" suddenly mattered less. I guess only time will tell what, if anything, ASW does with "BlazBlue" now.
EDIT:
Forgot to mention this but the "X-Blaze" games are Visual Novels, not Light Novels.
Light Novels are more regular books with an occasional illustration, typically as physical books but also digitally online.
Visual Novels are essentially books as games made entirely of cutscenes, occasionally with some form of gameplay mixed in. There are also tons of types of Visual Novels (dating sims, kinetic novels, hybrids, etc).
So, to make a joke out of this at your expense, you really don't know what a Light Novel is...
I don’t usually play devil’s advocate when it comes to DLC, but if I recall, it was $30 for the main game and $20 for the DLC. If I got that right, it would still mean that we got more characters than the entirety of MvCI for less than a brand new game. And while I was also one of the people decrying the RWBY cast being split up, I do appreciate that they were willing to listen and made Blake and Yang free DLC.
@@KigaiOkasu
Yes and no.
The original price for the base game was indeed lowered. It's actually one of the points people bring up when talking about how "BBTAG" was rushed and launched incomplete.
But, it was only lowered to $50 USD, with the season pass being $20 USD. So together, it still ended up costing more than most fighters at the time.
Thankfully, the special edition nowadays kind of makes it not matter but it definitely wasn't a good look at first.
probably one of the weird parts of tag is how they had most of the BB cast retain their high/low hits like ragna's 5AAA for example. Under night chars like Hyde's 5BB not being low despite it being low in source game makes sense to an extent cuz that could be busted, partially due to tag's really faulty blocking system,
but then you have Noel's 5AAA which was literally her 6B Overhead from her source BB game, which was never fixed to be an overhead like its supposed to. forever sad about that.
Tag's a weirdly really fun but depressingly sad game in a lot of aspects, like Ragna has his unlimited moves in his moveset(Ex Deadspike and ex Blood scythe are unlimited Ragna animations)
but Noel shouldve really had not only her 5AAA to be an overhead like ts supposed to be, but her "Zero gun gungnir" unlimited super(BBCS and BBCP)- it matches with near half the cast having dashing rush supers
Tag's kind of sad with how much was left out and that we'll never get like Terumi or Eltnum(since Akatsuki was in and while he has his own obscure game he's mostly knwon for being in UNI with Eltnum)
at least we have fun memories of the game(without Tag I wouldn't've met the discord friends I did)
2:00:43 You know, Shiki Tohno and his Nanaya personality showing up in BBTag would not be out of place with how batshit insane BB alone is. He'd frankly be the most normal person around, though I can see Nanaya Shiki constantly trying to kill Rachel and Valkenheim.
I admire how in-depth your retrospectives are. I know 3 things about BlazBlue: jack, shit, and it looks cool. I appreciate your hard work (and I also appreciate the SBFP references).
It has Gag reels which are slice of life stories one has Platinum evict characters from a Hotel its golden content
@@senritsujumpsuit6021The Gag Endings are absolutely amazing. I still think Makoto trying to explain how her family works with the cast members still slays me harder than Hakumens Astral.
@@tyrantravealpha I can never unhear Carl being peer pressured into being a Magical girl an being uncomfortable
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 AHAHAHA YES. And RELIUS GOT AWAYYYYYY
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 how about him and Platinum getting kidnapped by Amane to be part of his all male travelling dance troupe.
The biggest issue with Chronophantasma and Central Fiction onward, is that the games HEAVILY rely on supplemental BlazBlue material like the light novels, mangas, etc. that already weren't all that readily available in Japan, and never got translated in the west. So not only were western fans out of the loop, but BlazBlue fans who only really played the games had no idea what the fuck a Celica, Kazuma, Phase Shift, a Remix Heart, or Bloodedge Experience was.
Thorgi in my country we don't celebrate x-mas and give each other presents on new years instead. So this is one of the best x-mas presents anyone gave to me lol
turkiye?
@@e.moonbound2420 russia
My first BlazBlue game was cross tag battle and I LOVED IT! I had soooo much fun with my friends playing it that it caused me to go back and play old BlazBlue titles. I do really love the gameplay of this series.
Another certified hood classic once again Thorgi. It's crazy to know about the crazy stuff behind the series, such as the stupid good amount of single player content that I didn't even know about from previous games, to even small things like how the burst changed, your videos once again prove to be one of TH-cam's best fighting game content. I love all of your vids and wish you best of luck in 2023! Can't wait for the big lore video lol.
And just as a side note for anyone who cares, I got so sad when it was mentioned that Tao's voice actor passed away. Tao is and has always been my fav BB character. She spoke to me when I first saw her, which was all the way back in like 2012/2013 when I was like 8. I never got into fighters until around early to mid 2021, but idk if I wouldn't of been interested as much if it wasn't for characters like Tao. Her voice actor is simply Tao for me and it's sad that she is sadly no longer with us. I hope she is resting peacefully and can't thank her enough for her performance of probably one of my favorite fg characters ever.
In case someone confuse, OP was talking about Tao EN VA. Condolence to her family.
Dude thank you so much this is my favorite fighting game of all time!
Thanks for doin' this video! I'm a content creator in the vtuber space that's super into BlazBlue, and I've been producing stuff on it for a couple of years now. I heavily documented BBDW and had by far the most complete and comprehensive account of any western player of the game-- helped a lot with the wiki's documentation of it. Was super sad to see it go, but not the least bit surprised. BlazBlue is one of my favorite media franchises of all time and I'm desperate not to see it die. Really appreciate the positive coverage of it-!
Does BB DW continue central fiction story?
I knew I'd find you here.
As someone who started off my Blazblue experience finding out about Ragna via Deathbattle and slowly diving into the game's characters, lore, and eventually gameplay; I love the appreciation of this game as a whole(not just the competitive scene). What attracted me the most to this game is the characters and aesthetic, so knowing that I am getting something good out of playing through hours and hours of story is really nice to know beforehand. Thank you Mori, Daisuke, and everyone else who took the time to put this balls-to-the-wall anime slugfest together. And thanks to the fans for keeping it alive.
Lol I remember that Death Battle. I don't disagree with the outcome, but MAN did they diss BlazBlue throughout
@@WardofSquid apparently the dude who wrote the episode had a serious hate boner for blazblue
@chrismanning2888
What? Why?
@@rimzaaah5892Because the story is really complex.
What was once meant to be a spiritual successor to a series, that at the time arc couldn't touch without many limitations, to effectively being in the back burner, now that guilty gear is in its originators hands once again and more prominent no less. The history of blazblue started high and now its future is extremely murky at best. This retrospective reminded me why I fell in love with the series, and the possibility of another entry later down the road is something I sincerely hope becomes a reality. But with mori gone and apparently on a sour note no less, who can say if the next game would feel at home with the fans. But at least I've been reminded of a series that truly has been special, and hopefully can experience again with the same love the first time around. Thanks for all your hard work thorgi!
Yeah. Tbh Blazblue is what put arcsys on the map for me. The very first series of theirs i had heard of, the first fighting game series not made by capcom or snk that drew me in. So grateful to the world and so many of the characters. Centralfiction is still easily top 3 fighting games for me. Never had as much fun with so many characters to the point where I still can't really say who my main is lol. I even enjoyed spin offs like deadspike san or blazblue RR. And just all the little single player charm like gag reels, abyss, multiple arcade routes per character. All this discourse over "how to do fg single player content right" these past couple years when Blazblue's had it on lock since like 2010 lol. Series is special to me too, and I LIKE Guilty Gear but very very casually, I'll never be into it on the same level and i LOVE Undernight but that's French Bread, not arcsys technically, unless I'm misunderstanding something. So as far as arcsys goes, if they really shelve BB which i won't deny the possibility since the brain behind the operation is out of the company, it'll be a huge loss. Though Mori and Daisuke being close school pals brings in a lot of hope that should anything Blazblue happen, it'll be under watch of the next best person for the job, heck maybe he can contact Mori for any help or input necessary. But just gotta see what future does
I don't remember hearing anything official that Mori's departure from ArcSys was on a sour note. I remember people speculating it was because Bridget was trans, but look at Mai Natsume, as well as Amane's whole thing. That theory didn't make sense to me at all.
He seemed positive in his departure message. I hope everything was amicable.
@@xilverknight155 Amane type of person exist in Japan before "that ideology in modern western framework" even gaining influence in Japan. It has nothing to do with "T word" or any other "LGBT" stuff. They stand on their own framework and foundation. The Okama culture work in different way than Gay in West. I don't think he is even gay, just a dude very focused on Japanese dancing theatre performance ( not sure if its Kabuki or something else).
While Mai is just genderbent anime trope, not meant anything in real life political ideology nor to celebrate any form of people irl. yes, she ( since he literally become a girl physically and biogically) has interesting lore on herself but that it, nothing more nothing less.
On the other hand, Bridget transition to "T", in a sense of pandering certain ideology and movement is plainly obvious. What once was a gag character that force to dress as a girl due to reasons back home yet still maintain himself as a boy now suddenly changed into a trans. In retrospective to his lore, its kinda fuck up.
But I won't argue more about Bridget. Not since Daisuke just retcon Bridget lore development with his official statement on Bridget being a girl now to end the controversy..
@@neardarkroad1347 shut up, transphobe
@@xilverknight155 A reminder, representation for the sake of representation does not help truly trans people. It only serve as portraying these companies as "good people".
If you have an issue with me pointing the Bridget issue, a YTuber by the name Dimitri Monroe, who admit being queer also point out the same problem of Bridget being trans.
Another Ytuber, Lieutenant Lewd, who admit being gay also adresses this issue.
Don't fall for corporation BS, please.
Amazing video! I love this series with all my heart and to see it presented so beautifully means the world to me. It helped me remember all the good things about the older games that made me fall in love with the series in the first place, most notably the comment about how stories feel like pieces of a puzzle that you can put together. I can't describe the hype I felt when Jin fought Hakumen and the BGM was Blood Pain, after all the hints and insinuations of how exactly they are connected. Keep up making amazing videos bro!
Exciting that BlazBlue will be the next fighting game on the retrospective series!
So this is Part 1? At first I was confused since there are just 4 main series games in BlazBlue. Then I realized the series is infamous for its complex and confusing lore as he pointed out multiple times, and Thorgi is going to attempt to piece together and explain its lore here! Even with just 4 games the stories in each game is probably going to a while to get all the way through. Good Luck Thorgi!
There's also OODLES of content outside of the main games. The Bloodedge experience light novels, the Remix Heart Manga, the Xblaze VNs, and the Mobile game.
@@MrMysteryreviewer we dont talk about the mobile game lmao
That’s what I thought too! I initially thought: “Wait a second there aren’t that many entries in this series why is there a Part 1?” Then he mentioned the lore and it immediately hit me: “Oh shit this series has some really REALLY complicated lore! This makes so much more sense now!”
@@MrMysteryreviewer do not forget blazblue radio!
2022 will be over in less than 7 literal hours as I type this so I just want to say congratulations on breaking that 50k subscriber threshold you set. Videos like this are objective proof that you more than deserve it. I also love how at the end of all the fighting game retrospective episodes you've done this year, whenever the future of the series you're covering looks bleak and grim, you still find ways to pull out hope and reassure your audience that even if worst comes to worst for the series in question, what already exists for the said series in question will always be there and the fans can keep it alive. It's uplifting and a much needed perspective for many of us.
BlazBlue wasn't my first fighting game, but it definitely was the one that actually got me hooked up. I have so many fond memories of the series that I honestly can't list all of them. I adore how much love and care Mori put into the series. Especially how the first thing created was our Lord and Savior Hakumen.
Also on a subject of "simplicity" I feel like BBCF got it perfectly. It's is actually really easy to pick up (proper buffering for inputs, one button supers, many macros, easy bnb's actually exist and amazing tutorial mode), but the skill ceiling is absolutely insane. Kinda best of both worlds
Edit: minor spelling mistake. I win
13:15 I’m also in that grey area. While people say that, it often turns out to be more of a perception issue than anything else. I say this from the standpoint that there are plenty that lower the entry barrier lower than other genres and from the standpoint that other genres have similar entry barriers and are more popular.
Yeah. Fighting games are arcade games at heart so they have to be pretty simple to get into and understand at a base level, like Blazblue. It's just that, like most arcade games, they have a high skill ceiling and are very rewarding to people who get addicted to them and play them a lot
Thank you for making this Thorgi.
I just started playing Blaze Blue Cross Tag Battle just because I saw the Investigation Squad from Persona 4 and didn't think much of it.
But to say that I didnt know most of the characters is a gross understatement.
Same here. Only replace Investigation Squad with Team RWBY
1:10:14 Heads up, You can hold down the drive button for this Distortion of Makoto, just like its base form if you time it right it deals much more damage. You can see the bar on the bottom right appear
I was ready for a good video. But I have been smiling since I pressed play. Great job dude, as a BlazBlue fan I am enjoying every second of this retrospective
Damn dude, the amount of work you put into this is insane. It's easy to see how passionate you are about this entire franchise.
34:36 I remember back in the day when BBCT dropped and I was playing on English Dub. I was caping so hard for people to put it in English because of how great it was but everyone was still on that Sub over Dub schtick so it wasn't until way later that people started appreciating it until we lost it in later games.
Also when the game dropped, I played Noel because she was a blonde with guns until I realized how chalkboard her personality was at the time so I moved on to Rachel. Now granted to even appreciate Rachel's roasts especially to Ragna, I always had to have a thesaurus right next to me at all times but it was worth it.
This is a fantastic video - even your brief summary of the CT story and it’s characters is extremely well done and helpful. Can’t wait for part two. 😊
As someone who started at “BB: Calamity Trigger” I didn’t feel lost with the story until “Chronophantasma” because they stopped the possibility of timeloops but had a selection test for whose the “True Successor of the Azure”🤯 which convoluted the original theory of what lies within Boundary.
I did buy BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Limited Edition Arcade Stick because of the story and it come with an Arcade stick for the Ps3.
I’d like to say, it was thanks to “Blazblue”, “Guilty Gear” and especially “Battle Fantasia” that made me a fighting game fan.
I’m just gonna take a second to thank an ex-boyfriend for getting me into Blazblue because of Chronophantasma, he introduced me to this game and I immediately fell head over heels for this game and for Azrael. We would always round out our versus modes with a couple Ragna vs Azrael matches, he’d win some, I’d win some. We always came away from it with smiles on our faces and maybe some kisses. I’m glad I also got to meet DC Douglas at a convention, I kind of remember being able to tell him how special Azrael is to me. It’s been almost 10 years, so my memory is a bit hazy. Great video, it’s got me feeling super nostalgic for a different time.
This was an amazing video and as someone who started the BB series by COMPLETE accident I fell in love with it and find it hard to find people who love the game as much as you do love the effort research and love that went into this keep up the good work🔥💯
This is one of my favorite long form retrospectives. I've always had a tangential interest in BlazBlue, and you made the series very captivating. Well done!
this is honestly one of the greatest TH-cam videos I've ever watched. thank you so much for making this, if you haven't done it for melty blood yet, i (and many others) would love to see it. much love mate, have a happy new year
Ah yes, Arakune... the character that can be best described as a BAG FULL OF BEES!!!
And centipedes, and spiders.
I'M THE OOGIE BOOGIE MAN!!!
You have no idea how happy I am you covered not just my absolute favourite fighting game but one of my favourite videogame of all time. THIS is the game I always come back, THIS is the game I never shut the fuck about when my friends ask me what game they should play.
Also good luck with episode two.
The BB: Continuum Shift Arcade Opening, always brings me to tears, such a beautiful, Minute long Composition.
I frikin loved Blazblue but doing the combos required such pixel perfect precision that playing online was near impossible.
Epic video Professor Thorgi!!!
There were several things that I did not know, thank you very much!!!
I appreciate and respect your hard work.
As someone who did follow BlazBlue for the plot, I'm def gonna say it's HUGE. Good luck trying to piece it all together. And good job for this video so far!
And yeah, sadly Dark War *was* fun but given how much the lore was important to me, having it purely in JP was kind of less fun.
Mori-P dropped a boob tier list during an interview? Unfathomably based.
I get so excited every time one of your videos drop, it's like a little state holiday, only unpredictable and lasts around two hours.
Also, holy shit, I'm not the only person really into Waku Waku 7
Your restrospectives are so fantastic. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these very enjoyable and informative documentaries.
"I have waited 4-no *5,000* years for this moment!!"
I was *EXTREMELY* happy to see a Thorgi retrospective of my #1 favorite FG franchise in my sub feed! I could write an essay on why I love Blazblue so much, but I'd rather not make commenters read a super long comment of mine.
Can't wait for Part 2! I feel like I'm one of the 100 people that genuinely enjoys Blazblue deep, insane, rabbit hole known as the plot.
Also Thorgi if you're reading this, during your XBlaze segments you kept saying "Light Novels". It's called a "visual novel" my guy.
My god, you unbelievable bastard. You have sold me on finally trying to play a BlazBlue game. Always have stared at the franchise from a distance and been content with that, but you have made these actually sound like fun games to play (regardless of the bonkers story). I legitimately respect the effort and creativity that Arcs System Works put into making all these modes beyond just arcade and story.
funny story, the reason dark war shut down was because when they released dark kagura there was a glitch where players could collect their daily bonuses infinite times a day and the developers could not find a way to fix it so they just shut it down lol
BlazBlue is one of my favourite franchises, so this video has been an absolute blast so far! About to go into the CP section (which is when I started playing) and so much care went into getting all the important details about these games! This video is really well made!!
50:55
Mu 12 was the true boss of Continuum Shift. Unlimited Mu 12 can be fought in arcade mode after meeting conditions, but you only have one shot to be her. I have beaten her several times with Ragna
I can't believe you're actually covering the lore to BB. Take all the time you need for part 2, I can't imagine how much needs to go into it to explain everything.
I think something needs to be said about how arcsys lost the rights to one of the most distinct fighting games ever made and then went "lets make another one".
Dude thank you for making this outstanding retrospective. You are the man with the master plan.
Aside from 1) calling ‘Visual Novel’ to ‘Light novel and 2) ‘Jubei’ gives Ragna Blazblue (it’s actually Rachel after the church burned in Calamity Trigger) You did a very well job not getting confused too much in swarm of details. The story of Blazblue franchise is pretty easy but detail in the lore is a bit too much (not as much as Fate franchise).
In order to getting complete detail about main storyline, just Phase Shift 0-4 light novel (Dark war era) will be enough. Remix Heart, Variable Heart, and Bloodedge Experience will only detailed on Mai Natsume and Naoto Kurogane (a bit of Valkenhayn and Relius when they still immortal breaker) which really not that important in C-series. But if you want to know about characters, just go on.
BB Alternative: Dark war will give you how next story would go later, but it’s not the time for that after MoriP leaves the company.
Haven’t even gotten halfway yet but a part 2 to this? Amazing! I’m looking forward to it! It’s a doozy of a story for sure but an emotional one. I loved it
I’ve never heard of this series but i can’t wait to learn what its all about
I was innocent once too, then I got curious about Blazblue
DON'T
It's amazing has the complexity of GG with all its own flare an so much visual novel stories including slice of life side content
I've been watching your whole retrospective playlist because I've always been curious about fighting game lore and I love how every time you mention street fighter 4 it's like the cavalry arrives moment for the genre
Especially because street fighter 4 was my first fighting game
It’s funny that you really enjoyed that “Ragna on a ghost ship” ending in Continuum Shift because that was the exact ending that made me realize Story Mode wasn’t worth my time. It was the first (and, to this day, only) ending I got from that mode and I guess having to sit through a very long gag ending I didn’t find funny at all was a bad first impression because I haven’t even attempted a BlazBlue Story Mode since.
This was a fun video to watch. I first got into BlazBlue thanks to my friend who kept talking about the game so I looked it up on TH-cam and watched a Let’s Play of Calamity Trigger. I liked what I saw, so I got Continuum Shift Extend since it had a version of the first game’s story, which is why I came to BlazBlue in the first place. But the first fight taught me a very painful yet valuable lesson. I sucked hard! Unlike my friends who played in Stylish Mode at the time, I went Technical and the controls felt super stiff to me. It only took two fights to realize that if I was going to keep playing, I needed to learn to play the game. So I did the unthinkable, I played the tutorial. I can’t remember if I actually completed it or not because at the time, I was incapable of inputting the commands for backsteping and dashing, but it taught me enough to get good at the game and play through the Story Mode. Ironically, I was the weirdo who could understand the frick that was going on with the story, but that may be because my brain is hardwired for crazy convoluted sci-fi antics especially if time travel is involved in any way, shape, or form. One time, my other friend was visiting and we were playing BlazBlue against each other. When he saw me doing moves that he couldn’t in Stylish, he switched to Technical and never went back. BlazBlue is a series near and dear to my heart and I come back every now and then for another play through. One day, I do want to make a TH-cam series where I string together various scenes from the games in chronological order, but that’s going to have to wait until I get a computer good enough to handle recording it.
By the way, some notes. First of all, the Bloodedge Experience is not a manga, it’s a light novel, while the Xblaze games are visual novels. And while I understand your frustration with the TOi system in Xblaze, if you get one good ending, it shows what characters read what before selecting an article. Best way to do this is to go for the Hinata ending which can simply be unlocked by reading every article you can once you start the game. But it is very frustrating the first time. Also, a little fun fact, in the Vita Version of Chronophantasma Extend, Highlander Assualt Mode is actually unlocked straight from the get-go. This could simply be due to the fact the Story Mode is a separate download in that version, but I thought it was neat to mention. I think that’s all I have to say. I’m going over to Part 2 now. But seriously, great video. Good job on it.
Great job making this Retrospective. This series is indeed great and I can't wait for the lore video. However, I have a couple of corrections to list that will impact the lore (maybe one correction and one note)
Jin didn't just cut off not only Ragna's arm, but also the eye on the same side of the arm. Ragna was saved by Rachel, who gave him the Azure Grimoire, which took form of his missing eye (the red eye) and arm (you end up showing this difference in 1:38:50, first as a child with two green eyes, then an adult with one red and one green eye). Ragna's white hair and lighter skin color are a consequence of the Grimoire's "implantation" as he should have the same hair, eye and skin color as his siblings. Rachel was the one who sent him to train under Jubei in order to make him learn how to fight and use magic. The result of the training was the sword and coat that you'll explain more in the lore video.
Also, you listed all the six heroes by name, except one whom I won't mention, but he's a playable char. But I guess you'll explain this with more detail in the lore video.
Love all the retrospectives. It was great to learn so much more of these games I like. Keep up the good work!
correction, Ragna can't use magic, he uses armagus, which is combination of magic + science and it use seithr, those toxic substance that make low level land uninhabitable.
Among playable character, only Nine can use magic and she was the one who developed armagus in the first place.
Whoa! As soon as you said that this games story is more complicated then the Metal Gear Saga, I immediately got a headache lol. Great Video.
Back in the early 2010s, I was aware of this series but I really didn’t get into it until Chronophantasm (I even bought the special edition that came with a bunch of neat bonus stuff that I still have to this day), and it was the coolest game I ever played, lots of fun too. My old PS3 has broken down since then, but this retrospective had brought back a lot of great memories (including some nightmares about that Takemikazuchi boss fight). I skipped out on Centralfiction for obvious reasons, but I recently tried out the Special edition on my Switch and I realized, I didn’t care if it only had Japanese vocals, it was still a ton of fun to play.
48:05 Hazama A.K.A. Terumi
Back when we thought Hazama & Terumi were the same person.
BB story is actually not that hard to comprehend, especially the beginning can be summarized quite quickly, (continuum shift) it's mostly central fiction that gets confusing and even then if you read it carefully without rushing it through it's quite easy. Also I firmly believe BB has the best fighting game story ever made, hell, I'd put it up there with even some decent shows
In terms of the overall lore, it is definitely a weird and confusing mess but that's mainly due to the huge amount of supplementary material that had been released over the years. The stories of the mainline games' themselves are indeed fairly straightforward. It kinda sucks how much BB is being made fun of due to its story because it's legit a really good time, just one you need to be in the right mood for.
I fear that the only reason why so many players have gripes with BB story is the classic issue of people's inability to read
@@tabkg5802 I know right? They have nearly a decade to train themselves to read.
Then again, Centralfiction has problem of translation too. Even people who only learn JP through anime will notice it.
Many things really hard to comprehend if you not ever thinking in that direction before. What is Boundary, what observation is, what essentialy timeline is, what exactly seithr is? Story lack proper explonation for many things as if it obvious and not need one. I think for this reason blazblue lore hard to digest.
I think it suffers from being confusing without being intentionally vague. There are games like FNAF, where trying to piece together what is going on is half the fun, but Blazblue is just a "relatively" straightforward story told in an incoherent fashion.
Oh my !! This is a huge one ! I was expecting someone to make it... And finally, it is no other than our dear friend Thorgi !
Will definitely enjoy it with a smooth glass of wine!!! Can't wait !
Izanami's got such an incredibly cool unique mechanic and it's not even her drive: pressing up while in the air makes her stand in place allowing for her full suite of ground normals while airborne. The concept itself is cool, and the combos get real crazy.
Incredibly surprised that after going on about most of the characters' unique mechanics, you completely skipped one of my favorite's.
It was a glitch that became a mechanic. I think they refer to it as the float as a reference to Peach's float from the smash bros series.
I'm really glad you moved the story to its own video. I never played the games, so I was debating watching this because I didn't want spoilers. And great video as always. Makes me want to jump into this series even more now.
If you do, I really hope you enjoy it!
@clrblndmax Thanks, I hope so too. I see the first game goes for pretty low on Steam, so I might try it soon.
BlazBlue definitely does have a story that you can read (sometimes).
Anyways, this is outstanding, especially to my biased little brain. Can’t wait for the next part.
Another stellar retrospective. You truly are the king of kings.
My favorite thing about the voice acting is that I think they were paid by the word, and Arakune's voice actor did the voice skips on his own
I’m 2 mins in and already cracking up and really pumped. This is gonna be awesome
Lambda was not just a pallet swap, she had altered forms of the Nu’s attacks which encouraged a more rush down style of attack.
That's why she's superior
Can't wait to see a video triple this length about the story. Never touched a blazblue game but if the story is as convoluted as I've heard...we're in for it.
Its honestly easier to say Blaz blue is a Visual Novel with a Fighting game mechanics then a Fighting Game that leans into Visual novels
An it's a shame GG was not as well the gag reel stories are perfection BB forever
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 BB story might be a mess but MAN the dialogues are good
10:41 "-the smallest push the slightest touch, sends echoes throughout life."
-Darth Traya KOTOR 2
That RPG's gameplay looks just like Fate GO.
That what it basically was. You were able to summon multiple versions of characters and whatever else FateGO had Dark War had with a sprinkle of unique things.
Man I've been waiting for your Retrospectives on BlazBlue! Great video! I LOVE this franchise, and have been playing Central Fiction for 4 or 5 years. I have barely played any single player content other then training mode, but I loved the anime Alter Memory, and I adore the character interaction during battles and after a winner has been decided. I have been holding off on playing all the games and all the story till I feel I can dedicate time to do so. I have however not gotten the news about Mori leaving, and that got me a little sad, not gonna lie. But I know BlazBlue still has thousands of hours of content that I will consume. This is one of my favorite franchises of all time, and Central Fiction is in my top 10 most played games of all time. It got me into fighting games outside of Smash Bros and is responsible for my fighting game addiction. Loved the video, will be sharing it with my friends.
Can't wait for Part 2!!
BLAZBLUE NEVER DIES!!!!!!!!!!!! WE'LL KEEP ON PLAYING BLAZBLUE Til the end of days!!!!! Only time will tell for the series and why MoriP left Arksystems, disagreements? Creative decisions? we don't know yet but time will tell and we'll get those answers. I'll keep on playing Blazblue throughout my life. Lookin forward to the second part of the Blazblue retrospective.
copium
Congrats for the 50k! Also... I was so excited to hear about the second part. Love your videos, every now and then I re-watch the kof ones and rival school particularly
Sounds like BlazBlue Cross Tag should be next BUILD A ROOSTER
I'm glad you adress the issue of BB lore yet also acknowledge it is still enjoyable for some people. Keep it up, man.
In defense of Noel "pathetic" scene in Calamity trigger 29:12, its actually allude to Arch Enemy (that dual gun she is using) or Nox Nyctores in EN dub is influencing her mind. Since Noel was never battle hardened mind like Ragna or Jin as she was meek in personality, those gun suppressed any psychological hindrance in her mind to "help" her fight.
Its like drug, which make her heavily dependent on it and her mind become child like when she lost it.
Thankfully, she surpassed this struggle in the sequels but still treat damsel in distress due to Mori's writing despite being a powerful character.
Jin sword, Yukianesa, also work the same way. It brainwash Jin and make him go crazy and bloodlusty when any remnant of Black Beast near him. For example, Ragna with his Blazblue arm.
Later on in sequels, Jin is able to suppress Yukianesa influence, become less crazy and yandere toward Ragna ( except in gag segment and comedic moments) and transform from being a brainwash maniac told to kill his brother ----> a servant of "Power of Order" ( some kind of vague higher power BS in Blazblue game) cutting every thing that disturb order of the world -----> a true hero trying to restore order to the world by killing the walking catastrophe that are his brother and his sister ------> a tragic man trying to save his brother from being erased out of existence by stopping him from committing existential suicide.
Man Blazblue really deserves more respect from the FGC then it currently gets, this game flat out saved ArcSys during that time when they lost the license for Guilty Gear to Sega/Sammy
End when they got their license back, arc kicked all blazblue Fans away by releasing the final installment without English dubs.
„We got Guilty Gear back, K, Thanx, Bye!“
They never lost GG.
The real problem was that for any new installment, Sega/Samy had the publisher rights of it.
It is the reason why they decided to go with making new games.
During that time ASW still released revisions of Accent Core without Sega without a problem, and also made Overture.
They were just waiting for Sega publisher rights to expire.
They were and always have been the owners of GG.
That is a dumb myth perpetuated by people who didnt bother to actually investigate what was happening.
Always love your work. You helped reignite my passion for fighting games.
I love the story and it's actually really easy to understand. Here's an easy way to grasp it. Time travel and changing the timeliness under the butterfly effect. I'd REALLY go into I but I never got to play Central Fiction but I'm up to date with the story. Also, that fear of ghosts Ragna has is canon. I'm surprised you didn't mention BlazBlue RR.
BB RR has a story?
@@neardarkroad1347 you could kinda say it's before CT
@@ryuushinzo3559 before CT or CF?
Glad for this retrospective, love this series so much i couldnt describe it. Looking foward to the story breakdown, ive sat my friends down to explain it and after about 30 min they fully check out. Also hope you include the story of the dragon, the princess, and the knight repeating, ever since hearing that short the rest of everything just clicked for me.
I never knew anything about Hazama's final battle being against him as unlimited. Sure, it looked like he was in thar form, but I thought it was more like a 50% unlimited form since it wasn't too hard with most characters. That said, I never knew about him healing or poisoning me since he, or I, would kill each other so quickly.
What's special about Hazama's final arcade battle is when you're fighting as Ragna. Unlike other characters, Ragna's moveset gets severely weakened as you literally can't use your drive button. When you press your drive, Ragna struggles and is left completely open. It's story accurate, and gives you an added layer of challenge on top of a powered up Hazama.
It's pretty dang cool
I have been wanting something likes this for years! thank you so much!