Luminos564

Because his Drive is directly derived from his Azure Grimmoire. It sucks out people's souls and heals him, just like in actual gameplay. It is the same with Jin. His Drive is dependent on Yukianesa. Without it, he can't actually freeze people, much like how Bloodedge couldn't do any of his Drives in Phase Shift due to the loss of function in his Azure.

Not really. BB is a game where each character has a specific gimmick (Drive) and Bloodedge was stated to have none of that since he lived in a time before any of that stuff was available. This isn't like Guilty Gear where Drive button is just another button to be pressed. It is integral. Well whatever floats your boat chief. I never said I didn't understand that there are people that want her playable after all. Except that none of the alternate form characters we got are "What ifs". They are all connected within the story. Even Izayoi, which was mentioned by Kokonoe to be a prototype Murakumo (albeit very briefly). For all we know, Ragna could develop an alternate form down the like like Mu-12 was. I wouldn't exactly call that a waste of a slot if he plays nothing like his original form. Besides, after the Naruto Storm 3 roster was revealed, I believe that is the now official guideline on how to waste character slots.

Like in that one story section where Hazama nullified Ragna's ability to use the Azure. No Drive or any move that involves him using the Azure. So no Hell's Fang, Gauntlet Hades, Dead Spike, both Distortion Drives and Astral, as well as his j.214D ender follow-up to Inferno Divider ©.

I meant for something not banned in tournaments though. And to be perfectly blunt, Unlimited Ragna is not even all that fun. I was thinking of something along the lines of a completely new way Ragna could be presented, which is why I went with the Azure Guardian idea. You don't like an alternate form of Ragna but would rather have an extra Taokaka ? But in the interest of fairness, I can understand wanting the others you mentioned. I just think that an alternate form of Ragna is inevitable and could be a great idea if ASW really goes out of their way to differentiate the two of them. Well considering our current one only has half his original limbs left and is wasting away, I figure we need a spare at some point. Kinda like a replacement tire if you will.

Jubei brought it up in Ragna's Story Mode flashback to Torakaka. He said that Ragna, as his pupil, has the potential to be either the "Destroyer of the World" or a "Guardian of the Azure". Rachel hopes he chooses the former option since he, in her words, "needs to destroy the twisted order of the world". I'm personally more intrigued what the latter means since it was never explained. I mean, can you imagine Ragna wielding a "purified" Azure Grimmoire and have him wreathed in blue fire? That sounds pretty badass to me.

Considering he's the only "main" character of Blazblue to not have an alternate form yet, I'd say it is a safe bet he'll get one eventually. Though I must confess, I like the idea of an Azure Guardian Ragna a lot, yet I'll be happy with any alternate form he gets so long as it isn't Bloodedge. No offense to anyone who likes him, but if I wanted to play as Ragna without his Azure, I'd just play regular Ragna without using any Drive attacks or any move that requires the Drive button input.

Well then just wait until Ragna gets an alternate form. Maybe when we get to play as either Destructor Ragna or Azure Guardian Ragna will his gun-scythe-cement-block hunk of scrap will actually look like a plausible threat...

I thought the reason it was headless was because either Ragna/Nu-13 act as its "brain". But, there was a Beast Gene project? What was that about besides the obvious "insert Beast Genes into easily scarred child and see what comes up"?

Well, this is just my personal guess but if Rachel had the physical remnant that Ragna eventually took after Hazama had his original right arm lopped off, the only "remnant" of the Black Beast that I can think of being readily available for mad scientists would be...seithr. Perhaps Ragna was infused with a large quantity of seithr as a child though I cannot hazard a guess as to why such an experiment would be needed.

Small nitpick, but apparently that causality dilemma has been solved about 3 years ago. Turns out: ...reportedly. I've never been much of a lover of the many sciences out there unless it involved bogus science-fiction . I'd say that this is more of a possibility considering in the more recent novels, Ragna, Jin and Saya were apparently saved by Jubei from a test lab of sorts (they were wearing clinical robes and had ID tags on their bracelets, the same one that Ragna is said to treasure in his character bio). Same novel also implies that Ragna, at the very least (no mention of Saya), was infused with remnants of the Black Beast in that lab. Unfortunately, I do not have a link to where that is from. I do know it has to be one of the 2 recent novels.

So then, wouldn't that make both Ragna and Nu-13 at the very least, byproducts of the Boundary? I mean, I can understand Hazama/Terumi being able to create a Black Beast using an imperfect Cauldron (he DID say he observed pretty much every possibility). It actually makes sense if he first created a failed Kusanagi (Black Beast) if it originated from a timeline before it could even attack in 2100/01/01.

You know, something has been bothering me about the whole scenario in BB. If you will indulge me for a moment, I'd like to ask: from where did the very first Black Beast come from? As I understood it, the Black Beast appeared out of nowhere in Japan on 2100/01/01 wreaking havoc and thus forcing the world to spearhead the Armagus development. They ultimately subdued the thing and then some 100 years later on 2200/01/01 Ragna and Nu-13 merge to become it and are thus sent back into the past 100 years to repeat the process. This repeated for 724 loops and was finally broken in the 725th one that we are currently following. But, from what time did the first Black Beast even show up? There should have been a 2100/01/01 timeline before the Groundhog Century loop even started, meaning it wouldn't force the sped up development of Ars Armagus because there could not be any seithr without the Black Beast. And since we know the Black Beast needs both Ragna and Nu-13 to be created, then what could have made that initial one in a timeline where seithr and Armagus did not exist (or at least, wasn't sufficiently developed)? Gah, time travel is ghastly business for your brain .

Oh cool, you can see his (what I assume) is his projectile there against Ragna and that darkness-covered rising slash could be his ant-air. And as an added bonus, we get to see his darkness wave DD under an Overdrive effect. Looks pretty boss.

Thank you SoWL. Looks like ASW is really making sure to try and help newer players get the hang of the game. That slow playback should help immensely for people who cannot really follow all the stuff that is being done in advanced challenges.

Then let me say "Thank you" in advance. I'm very curious about what they've got to say for Kagura and the returning Challenge mode. I notice Azrael is there instead of Bang now. I'm happy with that as Bang's voice got real grating during all those jumping combos.

I know. That's why I was saying that expecting every Duodecim head to be playable is an unrealistic pipe dream. I was more wondering how'd he address them since Blazblue-verse is massive in terms of the amount of characters.

Haha, watch as Hibiki is made the only DLC character in CP while Kokonoe, Jubei and Phantom/Nine are left for the sequel . It makes me wonder how Mori plans on wrapping up the Blazblue universe. What I mean by that is, how is he going to address a lot of the side NPCs since there's quite a few of them and possibly even more if we begin to include all of the Duodecim families. I think it is fairly unrealistic that most of their heads will be playable considering how costly and time consuming a single character is.

Enchant makes it just sound fancy, but Dragunov is a Russian semi-automatic sniper rifle which continues Azrael's theme of military weaponry. Have a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragunov_sniper_rifle

I believe they are referring to simply doing the 4>6 and 2>8 inputs on their own rather than having to hold the directionals. You know, kinda like doing Makoto's parry and Azrael's Cobra rekka portion.

Ah right, I forgot that according to early information, Kagura can access different moves when he switches stances meaning he's not limited to just his one charged projectile and anti-air.

Hmm, you know I have to ask: what is the overall opinion on Kagura from a gameplay perspective? I am given to understand that he's a proposed charge character with a stance character as a Drive mechanic. I am also told that these two playstyles are some of the harder ones to get a feel for (not for every player out there, but in general), yet Mori stated in an interview that he believes Kagura will be easy to use for players. I also recall him saying something similar for Izayoi and look what happened with that. And while we are on the subject, what could Kagura's Overdrive even enhance? I'm kinda drawing a blank when it comes to that. I mean, how can you strengthen going into a stance?

I'm leaning more towards Nine myself as well since I just noticed the witch's hat outline from the black flames. Of course, even if we know the identity we still do not understand the context of the image itself.

You mean the one with the glowing red eye of doom? Yeah, Tsubaki/Izayoi that ain't. The person who is covered in those black flames lacks Tsubaki/Izayoi's highly visible hair accessory (stone hairpins or whatever is the proper term for them). However, people have already mentioned that it is likely Nine due to the hair and the lower portion resembling her clothes but it is also possible that it is Saya in a different battle attire.

It is possible but I also wouldn't be surprised if it just ends up being a super-powerful NPC. The thing is supposed to reside somewhere deep within the Boundary correct? I wonder if all those loops and alternate timelines have messed it up in some way considering what happened to Arakune (and what is slowly happening to Litchi).

Possible Trailer #2? If that turns out to be the case, it would be the best birthday present ever for me XD. Well OK, I lied. Best birthday present would be getting to play GGXrd that day instead.