Fighting Games Friday: The New Faces of Blazblue, Dragon Ball, and The King of Fighters

With the fighting game genre’s resurgence, I’ve had no shortage of subjects to cover for the “Fighting Games Friday” posts every week. And that’s good! I’m glad this won’t be another ongoing feature I’ll eventually abandon. I feel bad for neglecting “Franchise Reboots,” “Cover Art Chronicles,” and “Recommended Soundtracks” for so long, but perhaps I’ll give them another jolt of life in the near future.

Unlike last week, where all the news involved Bandai Namco, there’s no consistent theme this week. All three games featured here are team-based fighters, but calling that a “theme” feels forced.

Arc System Works revealed the initial 20 characters for Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle in January, a crossover game featuring characters from Blazblue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth, and web series RWBY. The character count is low for the initial release of a tag team game that takes characters from four franchises, especially when it’s reusing sprites from three of them. They’re currently in the midst of revealing the remaining 20 DLC characters, but made this plan less exasperating after they confirmed that two RWBY characters will be free, while the first pack of three characters will also be free for those who preorder. The rest will have to be purchased for a total of $20, in addition to the $50 for the base package.

Three more characters were recently announced: Aigis from Persona 4 Arena, Carmine from Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st], and Jubei from Blazblue. The choice of Aigis is the most remarkable among these, since she’s the first character introduced for this game who originates from Persona 3 rather than Persona 4. It’s also a slight surprise that she was revealed before all the members of Persona 4’s Investigation Team. This means anyone hoping for Persona 3’s Mitsuru Kirijo to join the cast and be the third rapier-wielding lady might get their wish. Hopefully they’ll also fulfill my wish of seeing Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 and Naoto Kurogane from Blazblue, thanks to their names being hilariously similar.

Jubei’s appearance isn’t too surprising, but it’s nice to see him in another game so soon after being the newest character to join the playable roster in the Blazblue series. There’s nothing surprising about Carmine’s appearance, a character who bears a striking resemblance to Garou/Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves’ Freeman. I’m just glad I can type UNIEST’s full name by memory.

Cross Tag Battle will release on May 31st in Japan and June 5 in America, respectively, and will be the first game to receive a physical copy from the newly-established Arc System Works USA for the latter country. It was confirmed that PQube will publish it in Europe sometime in the summer, ideally not too much longer after the Japanese and American releases.

Arc System Works also developed the recently-released Dragon Ball FighterZ. Publisher Bandai Namco recently confirmed that the first two DLC characters, Bardock and Broly, will release on March 28th worldwide. They also provided some trailers showing them in action. While they look great, the length was peculiar, since it wasn’t as if they were teasing a game that’s yet to release. Fortunately, IGN posted some longer gameplay videos showing them in action, though the players controlling the characters aren’t the best around. Both characters will ideally be well-balanced, and perhaps compete with top tier characters like Goku Black, Cell, and Adult Gohan.

In non-Arc System Works news: The third character in the new DLC pack for The King of Fighters XIV was revealed, following the reveals of Oswald and Heidern. This was SNK’s first opportunity to show Najd in action, a character created by a Saudi Arabian woman who won a contest late last year. While we knew the identity of the character, her inclusion in this game is remarkable due to the introduction of a new character through DLC being uncommon. She’s also the first Middle Eastern character to debut in the franchise. Hopefully she won’t be overshadowed and will be kept around for future installments.

There’s one more character left for them to show before they release sometime in April. It’s difficult to tell who it is from the silhouette thanks to it being so obscured, but fans think it’s Blue Mary. The character should be revealed within the next couple of weeks.

SNK also has plenty more characters to show for SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, a spiritual successor to SNK Gals’ Fighters announced at the beginning of this year. It’s peculiarly been almost two months since they’ve announced any new characters for it, but it’s possible they’re waiting until the KOFXIV characters have released, or are near release, before announcing more. They’ll be holding a 40th Anniversary event at PAX East on April 6th, so more could be revealed there. Coincidentally, that’s on a Friday, and would be just in time for a new Fighting Games Friday post. I’ll appreciate it if they announce something significant.

It’s a good time for fighting games and fighting game news, and the year will only get busier as Evo approaches. And here I was legitimately afraid that I’d have to stop this feature after around a year due to a potential lack of content.