Fighting Games Friday: More New FighterZ and Cross Tag Battlers

Four weeks ago, I featured updates for Dragon Ball FighterZ and Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle in one “Fighting Games Friday” post. Both titles are tag-based fighters developed by Arc System Works, and both had new characters announced for them around the same time. It was tough not to go through with such a post, especially given how rare it is to see a developer working on two titles like this simultaneously.

It’s as if Arc System Works liked that post, because they’ve done it again, and so have I. Recently, three more FighterZ characters were revealed from publisher Bandai Namco, while another four were shown for Cross Tag Battle.

The newly-revealed FighterZ characters shattered one key expectation: This won’t be a Dragon Ball Z fighting game after all. All the characters revealed up until now were from that series, including the Super Saiyan Blue versions of Goku and Vegeta, who appeared in two DBZ movies before their stories were repurposed into the first two Dragon Ball Super arcs. The same applies to Golden Frieza, a transformation here instead of a separate character. While Beerus also first appeared in the two movies, the cast is fully veering into Super with the inclusions of Hit and Goku Black.

Beerus is one of the biggest examples of how an all-powerful character, a god from Universe 7, was brought down to normal for the sake of a fighting game. Though he was capable of defeating every character when he entered the series and shortly afterward, he’ll need to be competitive with other canonically weaker fighters like Yamcha and Krillin here. Still, he looks like a formidable character.

His normal attacks have good range, and though his ki attacks aren’t as wide as those many other characters have, he can use them to set up combos from long distances. He can also summon six orbs simultaneously and either leave them in place or shoot them at the opponent, one-by-one or concurrently. This sounds a little similar to what Menat can do with her orbs in Street Fighter V, but in motion, this has more in common with Venom’s floating billiard balls in Arc’s own Guilty Gear games. His most powerful super is a grab where he flicks the opponent away to finish them, though the animation slightly changes depending on the character it’s used on.

Unlike many other characters, Hit’s move set is almost entirely comprised of powerful melee attacks, though he’s balanced out by being incredibly mobile. He does have one technique where he can punch an opponent from afar, though it’s not as reliable as a beam attack, and another where he can damage an opponent with ice that travels along the ground. Hit also has a counterattack where he can counter anything from anywhere while on the ground, though the timing is very strict. His animations are impressive, so it’s evident the developers had a good time working on him.

Goku Black appears in his Super Saiyan Rose form, and has a move set that distinguishes him from the other two Gokus by focusing on long-range beam attacks. He also has the Instant Transmission teleport, and a dive kick that can be used to start a combo. Zamasu will also appear for one of his supers, while others are nigh-faithful recreations of techniques from the series. Anyone who was wishing they could make a team of three Gokus got their wish, and it’s nice that they’ll all play differently.

The English dub for FighterZ hasn’t been featured in the promotional videos at all, but for anyone wondering if it has one, it was played on a Bandai Namco stream. Some press members and YouTubers also have access to a version including it, so previews should be coming within the next few weeks. Meanwhile, an open beta will be held from January 14th to the 16th, but those who’ve preordered will get access to it one day early on the 13th.

Don’t be surprised if there are a few more non-DLC character reveals left before the January 26th release, though it already has a good crop of characters. They might show Android 21 in battle, assuming she’s playable.

Meanwhile, there’s something homogenous about the four new characters revealed for Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle: They’re all from Blazblue. First is Iron Tager, the largest guy in the franchise who’s been part of it since the beginning. Squirrel girl Makoto Nanaya has also been in the franchise for a while, after being introduced as a DLC character in Continuum Shift. V-No. 13 (pronounced “Nu”) is one of the more interesting additions, since her Blazblue: Calamity Trigger iteration still gives people nightmares when they think about her, as both the AI-controlled final boss and when she’s in the hands of a player. Finally, there’s Es, the newest Blazblue character to join CTB’s roster thus far, who was introduced as a DLC character in CentralFiction. Basically, Arc System Works really wasn’t kidding when they said a good portion of the cast would be from Blazblue.

Also, if they’re including characters as late to the franchise as Es, I might get my wish for Naoto Shirogane and Naoto Kurogane after all. Let’s hope!

The trailer implied that further character announcements for CTB will wait until early 2018. Hopefully that’s in January, because I’d like to make another post featuring characters from both CTB and FighterZ characters again before the latter’s release at the end of next month. Both games should be enjoyable, and it’s nice that they aren’t releasing at the same time so players will have the opportunity to invest time in them. Look forward to both if you’re a fan of the genre.