[CP] News & Gameplay Discussion (Old)

[Afro-Demon]

^I was guessing this at the end of CS1. NOW people will believe me.

[Vulcan422]

Having such an infogasm right now.

Also I think the premature calls of "PS3 only" are total BS, but if this turns out to be true CP will be the only reason I buy a PS3.

[Chaoschao222]

CP will be the only reason I buy a PS3.

Chrono Phantasma really needs a better abbreviation...

Anyways, yeah, if for some odd reason it ended up being PS3 exclusive, guess I'd need to get on dual modding mah stick...

[SoWL]

This part goes after this one:

I: Did you want to weaken the long-range characters?

M: We didn’t adjust it like that. Since best players from all over the country were taking part in the adjustments, you shouldn’t hope for something like that. If it was that boring, it’d make me angry (laughs).

I: So you’re focusing on all aspects equally. Speaking of the system, you’ve added a new mechanic called Overdrive; what can you say about it?

M: It’s an offensive mechanic that is paired with the defensive “Break Burst” mechanic. Since we didn’t want it to simply counter Break Burst , so Overdrive ended up really aggressive. Since you gain a considerable power boost, the chances of the round ending soon rise considerably. However, since it uses the same gauge as Break Burst, the player has to choose between the two.

I: Aha, so it’s up to the player to decide on which one to use.

M: Yes. The gauge that is used for Break Burst and Overdrive recovers over time, and it carries over between the rounds. If you use it in the first round, you can use it again around the end of the second round. Since I have no idea about the Overdrive’s influence on the fighting scene, I look forward to seeing it in action. By the way, this change isn’t in the build used in the loketest that started on August 6th, but we’re planning to give you improved versions of super-moves while in Overdrive.

I: Putting together the overall improvements and move power-ups, it does sound really aggressive.

M: Yes. I wanted it to have the feeling of decisive advantage when you use it. Do you go for a quick fight and use Overdrive, or do you play carefully and leave it for Break Burst – we believe that choices like that will be happening all the time.

I: When your opponent uses Overdrive, the choice seems to lean towards Break Burst, isn’t it?

M: That’s right. You want to end it quickly if the opponent is using Overdrive. Or you may want to carefully avoid the enemy’s advances, maybe even without using Break Burst. I believe that the exact strategy depends on the character.

I: It does seem like the game is less passive with that.

M: Yes. Instead of making some extreme changes to make the game more aggressive, we went for a way of switching between defense and offense quickly.

[Afro-Demon]

Planning on giving improved versions of super moves while in overdrive.

There is so much hype in that statement I can't even stand it.

[SoWL]

This one goes right after the last one:

I: Well then, how did you remake the visuals?

M: The main concept behind the new visuals is “Everything you see is different”. Since the story has moved to Ikaruga, every single stage except for Rachel’s has changed completely.

I: Have the stages become more varied, too?

M: Of course. Though there are currently around 12 stages, with such backgrounds as the jungle or the snow-covered stage, there are now many different scenes other than the city landscapes.

I: The character illustrations have completely changed, too.

M: Yes. It’s me who’ve drawn them. Last time, we were using my designs and Kato was drawing them, and this time, we were using Kato’s designs with me drawing them. We decided that the move to Ikaruga was a good enough reason for the change of the artwork’s taste. Actually, you may not notice this, but we also made some changes to the character sprites. I think that Ragna is one of the characters that changed the most.

I: When the changes are as drastic as Noel’s, it shouldn’t be surprising that you had to make her sprites more detailed.

M: Yes. Actually, many members of the staff were angry about Noel losing her hat. Since they had to draw her from scratch, they were like “Why did you have to change it!?” (laughs).

I: (laughs)

M: We were thinking about giving Jin new clothes, too. However, we don’t think that Jin cares about his clothes that much, so we ended up leaving them as is (laughs).

I: Doesn’t care about his clothes? (laughs) By the way, has the music changed completely, too?

M: Of course, all the music has changed, too. Though the existing characters got their themes remixed, Tager’s theme got a completely different feeling to it.

[Chaoschao222]

Interesting, thanks for the TLs, SoWL (and Isuna), likin' the general aggro feel they're going for, and on a less important level, agree with the whole "Jin doesn't give a fuck" reasoning behind his lack of costume change.

But man, above all, I wanna hear some of these themes...

[Valthazeryus]

I think it was yesterday Valth, but see if I'm wrong. Should be Monday in Aki right now, and I believe they said only till sunday, unless something changed.

Yeah. It was yesterday. I went today and saw they replaced the setups with Persona. Sorry guys. No more hidden camera videos of loketest.

How come the vids stopped coming.... an is there any new info coming in that needs to be translated????

The test is over. The ones I uploaded were like few of the last hours and minutes of the loketest.

That's an easy way to get your phone stolen

EDIT: Oh yeah Valth, are stages as big as before?

What do you mean? They feel the same size as the regular versions if that is what you mean.

[WolfCrimson]

YEA REMIXED OSTs!!

[Akira-Shiro]

Yeah. It was yesterday. I went today and saw they replaced the setups with Persona. Sorry guys. No more hidden camera videos of loketest.

The test is over. The ones I uploaded were like few of the last hours and minutes of the loketest.

What do you mean? They feel the same size as the regular versions if that is what you mean.

Did u upload them to the same account as the other loketest???? or are u & him 2 different people ?

[SoWL]

This is a big one, but I didn't want to split the info about the new characters into separate posts. Again, this goes after the last part:

I: Three completely new characters have been revealed. Can you please tell us something about each of them?

M: Starting with Amane, it was Ragna’s voice actor, Tomokazu Sugita, who brought us his initial concept.

I: What! Which part of Amane was Sugita-san’s idea?

M: The Drive (character’s special ability) called “Spiral” that uses a drill and can overheat, making it impossible to use for a while, and the overall feeling of dancing while fighting.

I: Aha, so Amane fights with a drill?

M: Yes. Amane ended up to be a good design of a long-ranged character. He can pull the opponent in with his cloth, or he can perform a multi-hit attack with the drill. For the experienced players, his fighting style can be summed up as “The character who cares about hit-confirms a lot”.

I: So he ended up as an advanced character for experienced players?

M: Yes. Furthermore, even if you block the drill, the chip damage is still quite large. Also, since he can only fight at the very long range or at the very short range, I do think that he’s going to be played by the experienced players.

I: I can’t remember any other character who cares about chip that much. Moving on, what does Azrael have?

M: Azrael is a soldier that belongs to the same “Sector Seven” organization as Tager, who can implant weak points into the enemy with his Drive, The Terror. The idea is that he puts a curse on you for a short time. When a Drive attack connects, a weak point is put on you, and when it’s hit, your hit stun becomes much longer and attacks gain additional effects. Though his fighting style revolves around finding the way of applying the weak points to the opponent, his attack power is quite high, so you can still fight well even without using Drive. Since his movement is on the slower side, he’s pretty close to Hakumen in terms of gameplay.

I: Did his original idea belong to you?

M: Yes. It was me who came up with this idea. In the whole BlazBlue cast, there was no character that had a reason to furiously fight against every single opponent. Thus, the idea of a “Tyrant character” was born. Both Azrael and Bullet were made specifically to make an impact on the story. This time, when we told the staff about their roles in the story, they were excited about how to derive their fighting styles from it. And then I made new adjustments, and the cycle began anew.

I: Okay, lastly, what can you say about Bullet?

M: Well, she’s quite large-breasted, isn’t she? (laughs) Jokes aside, she’s based on Tager’s initial design that we didn’t use: “You can throw your enemy by pressing the D button”.

I: Though she doesn’t look like one, she’s actually a grappler with strong throws, isn’t she?

M: She’s not simply about throws, more about “Strike throws” that stun the enemy when you hit with them. You quickly throw the enemy and go for a combo right away.

I: Can you escape throws in the middle of a throw combo?

M: You cannot. However, since it’s a strike throw, you can block the initial strike. I think that, out of all the new characters, Bullet is the easiest to play. Not only does she have the strike throws, but she also has a projectile, so the overall balance is pretty good.

I: Will you recommend Bullet to the players who can’t decide on a character to main?

M: Yes. Since she has a great feeling about her, I’d recommend everyone to try her out at least once.

I: Now then, what part are these characters going to take in the story, and how are they related to the existing characters?

M: First of all, as you might guess from his attention to young handsome boys, Amane is interested in adding Carl to his traveling troupe. However, he also interests Rachel for some reason, so there’s going to be some interaction between them, too. This is not related to the story, but you should see Amane’s opening animation. Every single member of his troupe comes out (laughs). His Astral Heat was also a hell to produce; our team members have put all their blood, sweat and tears into it.

I: Sounds like fun (laughs).

M: Azrael has been sealed by the “Sector Seven” organization that Kokonoe and Tager belong to. Since he doesn’t differentiate between friend and foe while enraged, he has put a limiter on himself. Also, since he’s a battle maniac, he doesn’t care about winning or losing in a fight. He’s quite troublesome to deal with for everyone involved (laughs). Naturally, among the existing characters, he has a deep relation with Tager and Kokonoe. By the way, since this installment revolves around Sector Seven a lot, the Sector Seven characters now take a much bigger role in the story. Ah, I almost forgot to say how amazing Yasumoto-san’s voice is, do look forward to listening to it.

I: Indeed, Yasumoto-san’s voice seems to fit him well.

M: Finally, we have Bullet. She, too, is a character that’s related to Sector Seven. When the game is released in the arcades, I recommend you to check out the story mode as soon as possible. I’d especially recommend you to pay attention to Amane and Bullet’s dialogues, since they’re pretty interesting.

[Takoto]

I can't wait to hear the new music. I hope Tager's theme isn't too different though, I love the original Motor Head.

[WolfCrimson]

I'm fan-gasming at all this new info. These new characters sound really cool, especially Azrael.

[2Zak]

this change isn’t in the build used in the loketest that started on August 6th, but we’re planning to give you improved versions of super-moves while in Overdrive.

So this is why the Distortion Drives had a different "red shit everywhere" background when used on Overdrive. Cool.

[SoWL]

I: Speaking of the story as a whole, moving to Ikaruga means that it progressed a lot.

M: Yes. Initially, we wanted to make BlazBlue into a trilogy, but I don’t feel like it’s going to end anytime soon…

I: It has become a really epic story.

M: Yes. This time, when we’re talking about “the whole story”, we mean the introduction, the development, the climax and the denouement. We’re finally going to firmly conclude the story of the Six Heroes’ past. Since this is the main plot point behind this installment, the title is “Chronophantasma”, the illusion of time.

I: So you pay a lot of attention to the story, too. Right now, the major players are Rachel, Hakumen and Hazama, but Ikaruga is a hometown of Bang. Does that mean that…?

M: Exactly. This time, Bang takes an extremely important part in the story.

I: Aha. The Bang fans must be very excited. By the way, Kokonoe is still not playable, even though she seems to be even more important this time…?

This is then followed by this post.

[kosmos badgirl]

Thank you very much for the interview translations, so with new themes and old character themes remixed, we will have a 2CD soundtrack, that sound great. If I remember well, the CT soundtrack was released one month after the arcade release.

I: Speaking of the story as a whole, moving to Ikaruga means that it progressed a lot.

M: Yes. Initially, we wanted to make BlazBlue into a trilogy, but I don’t feel like it’s going to end anytime soon…

I see, so probably they will not take a long break after CP, I really hope it's GG time after CP.

Edited August 13, 2012 by kosmos badgirl

[Chazmobile]

Ah ok, so Bullet's command grabs are in fact strike throws a' la KoF. That's pretty cool, though I was secretly hoping she would have some legit command grabs.

Comboing with strike throws is going to look awesome though!

[SoWL]

Ah ok, so Bullet's command grabs are in fact strike throws a' la KoF. That's pretty cool, though I was secretly hoping she would have some legit command grabs.

Comboing with strike throws is going to look awesome though!

I believe that they were talking about her Drive, which means that her non-Drive throws are still genuine command grabs.

A very short translation for the sake of completion. It's supposed to be at the end of this post.

I: Such attention to the story certainly is surprising for an arcade fighting game, even though it will have a home release.

M: It’s all because many BlazBlue fans have expectations for the story, too.

[Chaoschao222]

Amane and Rachel will communicate... and if that happens, Amane and Nago will communicate.... and if that happens.... oh.... oh my...

[SoWL]

Seems like the rest of the interview has been summed up by SoBa in this post. I can translate it, too, but I've already spent more time translating than I expected.

So, to sum it all up, here are all the posts with the translations:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

[clad120]

I can't get over this,

What does that mean ? Mu and lambda are not in the game, but the story mode will talk about them,

Is that torture ?

Lambda an mu are not in the game, but what if they just changed their name like Nu/lambda.

Or will they be two of the three last boss ? technically, they are not "new characters"

Maybe they didn't show them to prevent spoiling the story ?

So much questions...

[zephyr07]

thanks for the TLs sowl.

snip

About time they end the 6 heroes story, I was beginning to think caelica was the new protag of bb.

[Chaoschao222]

I can't get over this,

What does that mean ? Mu and lambda are not in the game, but the story mode will talk about them,

Is that torture ?

Well I mean... the natural path would be to just talk about them at least, it'd be pretty odd to be all like "welp, Noel, you were this crazy bitch with an immaculate ass for a while.... but now you're not, case closed, here's a cheerleader uniform~! :RG:" and "Lambda died for your sins, Ragna! But she's still dead, nothing we can do, who wants cake!? :RA:"

[STenSatsu]

Thank you very much for the interview translations, so with new themes and old character themes remixed, we will have a 2CD soundtrack, that sound great. If I remember well, the CT soundtrack was released one month after the arcade release.

I see, so probably they will not take a long break after CP, I really hope it's GG time after CP.

Well, given that AC+R is supposed to be in arcades late Sept, it doesn't seem like GG is really taking a backseat or anything to p4a/bbcp. I just hope we get AC+R to consoles quickly lol.

[Chazmobile]

I believe that they were talking about her Drive, which means that her non-Drive throws are still genuine command grabs.

Oh cool, that's even more awesome! This character, geez