Ogiga99

VermillionBird started this. Everyone give should sign this and spread the word.

The problem with all of these attempts to "figure out the reasons behind this" is that we already got one from them. One that I believe because it fits perfectly with the evidence that has come before. Starting from CSEX, BlazBlue has had a history of ...troubled localizations. After CP took 5 months to release, if they say CF would take 6-8 months to dub I believe that it will take them that long, even if it really shouldn't. With CP people complained about the wait for the dub and when they fixed that by removing the dub people complained about that too. It is a catch-22 situation. Both sides have good reason to be upset and in CP they chose to go with the decision me and the people here wanted and this time they simply chose the other option. It's not an evil corporation thing, it's a bad situation (that admittedly seems to stem from their own practices) that will inevitably leave someone upset. Honestly, what bothers me the most is that they did have an out that could have at least been a compromise that caters to everyone a little, that being a re-release/DLC dub. For reasons that I have no way to speculate on, they currently have no plans to do this (although the tweet saying "atm" means that this might be subject to change). I personally would have accepted that and bought the game twice just to show support but sadly that isn't the case. However, that is why I urge everyone here to go to Aksys and Arcsys's websites and message them about this. Politely and calmly express your love of the dub and how you will miss it. Let them know you understand their reasons but most importantly of all, tell them that you would like an eventual dub as a re-release or DLC. Let them know the demand is there. At this point our best hope is to do whatever little bit we can to convince them to go forward with some form of dub release in the future. They are aware of the dub fans already and a re-release/DLC has at least been thought of so we should be trying to work with them to make what we want happen. Assuming they are being genuine ultimately has a better chance of getting results than conspiracy theories of evil corporations that steal our money. P.S. Chaoschao222 please let me know if this post violates the rules of the thread. I tried to stick to discussing Aksys's official statements specifically and past events but I'm not sure if that falls under "conspiracy theories" by virtue of discussing business reasons at all. I apologize in advance.

FUCK! Looks like we got our answer. Figured it was a possibility. Not sure why it takes that long but they did it for CP. The second part hurts the most though, now all hope is dashed.

I don't think it's melodramatic to consider a lack of a dub as a deal-breaker. A dub is a major part of the experience that is present throughout the entire game, it's not like you're saying you refuse to by it because of something stupid like Mai getting in before Jubei. In fact, I respect that you can say that this is a reason to not buy the game. I can't do that because I am way too invested in the story (in terms of story it is my favorite video game series ever) so even if I hate this I am unable to say no.

Well as I'm sure you all know, I'm fucking pissed about this. But despite my blinding rage I want to at least try and look at this from a logical perspective. The way I see it there are three possible reasons for this decision being made. Budget. It is no secret that the story of BlazBlue gets bigger and more involved with each passing game. Central Fiction is the climax of everything that has come and that means even more story. We have story mode, which is going to be a 30-40 hour visual novel that is 95% voice acting and, perhaps more importantly, we have arcade mode which has been split into three acts. Now in previous games, arcade mode was a very small part of the game. In vanilla CP there were 26 arcade stories (counting Kokonoe's shortly after launch release). In comparison, CF has has at least 98 of them and that's assuming Es and Mai only have one story each and not factoring in the other two potential DLC characters. Considering one arcade mode averages at about 9-10 minutes of cutscenes, that adds an additional 15 hours of voice acting to the game. Even many 80+ hour RPG's don't have that much voiced dialogue. Now let's add the fact that this game has a massive cast to split the dialogue. Between all the playable characters and non-playable ones who have shown up in arcade mode, there 28 are voice actors (accounting for the many cases of someone voicing multiple characters, 29 if Raquel doesn't share Rachel's VA since I can't tell) that have significant amounts of dialogue. With that amount of dialogue and the need to do multiple takes of every line, the cost of paying the actors and even renting studio space would be dramatically higher than any of the previous games. It could have been decided that the cost of doing the entire dub was not worth it, which is still BS because the Japanese version did it and voice actors honestly don't get paid that much. Time. In addition to the cost, the time it takes to dub the game is increased. Those 28+ actors have to record the 45-55 hours of dialogue and factoring in retakes, scheduling conflicts, extra sessions, and then going through all of that to pick the takes that will be used and actually program them in, the amount of time needed to dub the game increases exponentially and all of this can only happen after the similarly long process of translating all of that text to begin with. CP was much smaller and it took 5 months even without library mode. Even if the localization efficiency has been improved since then, it is possible someone decided that the long wait was a bigger issue (personally I'd choose the wait over this situation). It also seems like there was some kind of internal issue that might have led to this. I still find it very peculiar that they originally announced a winter release before suddenly moving it up to fall. Perhaps they intended to do the dub but some stupid executive decision to move up the release left them with too little time. The fact that the tweet says "isn't promising at this point" instead of simply saying "there is no dub" also suggests that the decision was not that clear cut. By the way, the fact that the tweet doesn't say 100% no is really cruel because it forces me to hold onto that tiny bit of hope that will probably just lead to further despair. The worst possible reason, because they can get away with it. It is very easy to see Xrd -Revelator- as a "test run" of whether or not their fighting games will sell without a dub, despite BlazBlue having a much longer history with its dub that means a lot more people care about it. Since, as far as I can tell, the sales didn't suffer too much, it is possible that they have chosen not to dub because of laziness/greed with the knowledge that we will buy the game anyway. If this is the case, the most disturbing thing is that they're right. While there are definitely people who will not buy the game because of it, I know that no matter how much I hate this choice, I will have to get the game for the story. This is the grand climax of Ragna's story. I can't just give up on a story I'm this invested in or wait and dodge spoilers for a year in the vain hope that an Extend version will be dubbed. If I was just a fighting game fan I would import the game instead of buying the English release to get to the play the game while not contributing to the sales of the game I take issue with, but that is impossible for a story-first fan. The best I can do to voice my displeasure is that I've decided not to buy the Special Edition like I usually do (if there even is one) but I am hooked and can't just not play the game. I would prefer to believe that Arcsys/Aksys is not a completely cold-blooded, exploitive company that doesn't care about it's fans so I hope this isn't the reason but it is still a possibility and that is infuriating. To me none of these are a good excuse for fucking over the fans like this. Since we are likely to get a release date tomorrow based on the "Crazy BlazBlue Central Fiction News," we'll have to see whether my base fear of appeasing the pure fighting game crowd is true or not and that can only make things worse. Now it is possible that a miracle will occur and a dub will come. If I'm grasping for straws we could see the line "at this point" as meaning "not at the game's launch" which could mean adding it in later. If they announce that for free DLC and give a release date in the near future (possibly one more like the CP gap) I will take it and spoiler dodge until the dub's release. If the same happens with paid DLC I will begrudgingly accept it. If the dub is added later, but we aren't informed in a reasonable time frame or it only happens in an Extend I will still be very pissed because my first time experiencing the story will have been soured so getting the good version won't be as interesting as seeing it for the first time (it would be like if when I went to the Force Awakens in theaters Han Solo was played by a Harrison Ford look-a-like and I had to wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray release for him to be added in). Of course all of this is baseless conjecture but I wanted to try and keep myself from sitting here being absolutely livid about the announcement.

Translations of the two CG's, courtesy of Zedar. ”I won’t forgive you… I’ll never forgive you!! Only you!!!” "If you say that you must catch Noel, then… Do it after you’ve defeated me!!" Es most likely won't. Mori said she will enter the story at a later point and she doesn't have a role in the beginnings of the Embryo battle detailed in Act 1 and 2. I'm not sure about Mai though. On the one hand, since Mai is most likely an Entitled like most of the cast she will probably be around in the Embryo for the entire time frame. On the other hand, that doesn't mean she will actually appear during those events. It could go either way. One important thing to note is that the two above CG's come from Arcade mode and Story mode respectively (you can tell by the text format, Arcade is along the bottom with a black border whereas Story is superimposed over the image with no background and the second one doesn't have the skip option).

So that sword IS the Murakumo after all. So the Embryo/Murakumo paradox is still in play. The mystery continues.

Es never calls her Watashi/Me. Watashi is the official name but in game the player gives her a name after she forgets hers. The only time Es addresses Watashi she calls her "my beloved friend" (or Nobody before that but that was Watashi trolling). Honestly it's probably just Nine. I've noticed they've been coy about LM when promoting Es, only mentioning CE. They might be treating the Watashi/Nine thing (or at least that Es=Nobody and became BFF's with her) as a spoiler. Everything about Es has been kept very mysterious so far.

Yeah a lot of this stuff is pretty vague. For what it's worth, we do know for a fact that there are artificial humans that have no Beast Genes involved. Sechs was made by Sorcery, Es-N is made from Union Crystals and Mei's blood, Hazama and Kazuma are Azure Grimoires etc. Things always get incredibly complicated when we get into the question of what the world was like before the first loop. Whether there was a Black Beast there, how certain things could exist without a paradox etc. My personal view on it has always been that Phase 0 simply is the beginning, that it is the very first iteration but is still "inside" the timeloop. The Black Beast appears in 2099 while the loop starts in 2100, so in theory it must have been there in the very first iteration and since Ragna travelled to Phase 0 we know that the Black Beast that appeared before the loop is still one made from a Ragna/Nu fusion. Because of the Boundary being all timey wimey, the Black Beast could originate inside the time loop but still emerge at a time before it, despite Ragna and Nu not even existing in that form yet. The hard limit of Amaterasu's loop suggests that the Black Beast in the Dark War can never have had a different origin. Basically, to me Phase 0 is the first time ever that events from January 1st 2100 onward ever "happened."

I apologize, I misinterpreted you. That being said, I have to disagree with the XBlaze Black Beast being connected. It has been stuck in the Boundary ever since the Azure Shrine Maiden sealed it and hasn't appeared since. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Azure Shrine Maiden brought it to a level "deeper" than the normal Boundaru. We've seen that there are different places in the Boundary (the Edge, The World of the Tsukuyomi and the realm of the gods beyond the Azure Gate) so it not showing up implies it cannot hang out as close to Cauldrons as it did. It might even be in the realm of the gods since it is referred to as a "god of destruction" and the Azure Shrine Maiden was able to communicate with the Azure so maybe she opened and then sealed that by accident. Even if it was in the normal "Boundary," as you said, it would be impossible for humans to find it. While travel in the Boundary is possible, searching it really isn't. You don't necessarily need the Tsukuyomi to safely traverse the Boundary, though it helps, since there are several other methods. All it truly needs is a strong soul to retain your sense of self since Jin, Hakumen, Makoto and Relius all made it relatively unscathed. Prime Fields can do it no problem and certain unique entities can take regular dips into the Boundary. Terumi would travel through it in CS and Rachel could do it without Tsukuyomi since she popped into the Phase Shift era twice, first to talk to Ragna in P0 and again to bring him home in PS4, while Ragna had the unit. Both of them have shown that it is not just possible to survive a trip in the Boundary, but actually navigate through it to specific destinations. Still that is very different from being able to search the Boundary itself. They essentially know the map of all the exits and can find their way to and from them but that wouldn't help them find something hidden within the infinite Boundary itself. They only know the landmarks, not the location of everything in it. It's why it's so hard to find the Master Unit and Kazuma can be considered gone forever. The only exceptions are Takamagahara and Kokonoe finding Terumi and Hakumen respectively (and it's possible the Edge has different rules) and Noel and Es locating the Master Unit (the Eye of the Azure can acknowledge it and Es could home in on it's unique Discover Call) but it would be impossible for humanity to do that. Furthermore, we know the details of humanity exploring the Boundary pretty well. The only method they had was Boundary Interface Prime Field Devices, which are a recent invention (probably 2070's-90's) so artificial humans existed before exploring the Boundary was a thing. We also know those are just made of pure seithr so Beast Genes are out. Since we have no idea what kind of artificial human Ragna actually is, even if Beast Genes were used to make him, we have no way of knowing he isn't the first case and he was made after the Dark War. It is also worth noting that getting Beast Genes after the Dark War would actually be pretty easy because the Black Beast was around for 10 years and it often left behind Remnants that were essentially mini-Black Beasts and could be harvested without too much trouble. If Beast Genes are related to Ragna, that time frame is a lot more likely. They expected to get weapons and god powers that they could control. If the Prime Field has a soul of it's own it doesn't have to listen to them. I mean do you want a nuke that could choose to launch itself whenever it wants and you would have no way to stop it? That said, yes, they are idiots for playing with power farnbeyond their understanding. Terumi and Izanami make it pretty clear that humanity is kinda dumb like that and as long as they seek the power of a god things will go to hell again and again until they destroy themselves.

XBlaze itself is not in the same world as BlazBlue, but it it does stem from the same unified history. The point of branch between the two is the Wadatsumi Incident not happening in the main timeline, but everything before that is consistent, the Black Beast in XBlaze (not counting Touya turning into one in bad endings) is a being of unknown origin that emerged from the Boundary in ancient times and was sealed away by the Azure Shrine Maiden. It is a tale connected to the Amanohokosaka clan, which is confirmed to be canon to the main timeline. Therefore the XBlaze Black Beast did appear in the past and still continues to exist in the Boundary, even in the main world. That being said, this Black Beast is definitely not connected to the Beast Genes since it happened long before any way of studying cells could have existed and unlike the Dark War Black Beast, it was almost immediately returned to the Boundary, leaving no chance for anyone to even get a sample.

First of all, I don't think we can use Terumi as a point of reference since he is something entirely different from Amaterasu and Izanami. Amaterasu and Izanami are considered "gods" whereas Terumi is an unknown type of spirit. Terumi also needed a special type of vessel with a personality very close to his own whereas Izanami just needed a suitable body (in Saya's case because of her ability to amplify seithr) and for Terumi to destroy Saya's mind. Noel/Mu/Amaterasu is still a confusing mess when it comes to Noel being the Master Unit's "core" and "The Origin" so she's hard to pin down. Furthermore, Terumi's vessels are physically a different kind them Amaterasu and Izanami's. Hazama and Kazuma are Azure Grimoires in human form while Mu is a Prime Field made entirely out of seithr (according to Kokonoe and Kagura, Saya is too which I'm confused on since Relius says she is "only human flesh" so who knows). The mechanics are too different. For the question of if they will disappear if their vessel is destroyed, the answer is a pretty clear no. In CP Rachel tells Ragna that he cannot kill Izanami because she is "death" and the best he can hope to do is destroy her vessel, meaning you can only deprive her of a way to interact with the world at most. Kokonoe says the same thing in Kagura's Act 3. "Humans cannot kill a God...Neither Izanami or Noel...However, their "vessel" is a different story." As for the question of Amaterasu returning to her original body in the Master Unit, that's a little less clear. There is no precedent for someone in a vessel having an "original" body to return to. Since Izanami is a manifestation of Amaterasu's Drive, I don't think she ever had her own body so she should be fine if she stays in the Boundary. If I had to guess I would say that yes, killing Noel would return the soul of The Girl to the Master Unit. Izanami wants to return Noel "to her coffin" and she is clearly referring to the Master Unit. Remember that Izanami is the one who sent everyone off on the "kill Noel" quest so clearly that fits into her plan. I would imagine that Amaterasu's options are very limited when it comes to vessels. Noel Vermillion is a unique existence, being the Successor of the Azure chosen by the Master Unit. I don't think The Girl could just jump into say Tao if things go south. I would also doubt that just hiding as a soul would work for some reason and it definitely would deprive her of the means to act against the villains. Either that or Izanami has some way to capture her soul once it loses its vessel and force it to return. Kushinada's Lynchpin would be one way to do this. It can nullify the seithr of the Prime Field body, destroying the vessel, and then trap the soul inside it. I wouldn't be surprised if Izanami has another way to do it though. Actually we do know of another way to kill them, the Nox Nyctores. Specifically it seems to be a fusion of all of the Nox Nyctores like the complete Take-Mikazuchi. In Act 1, Nine tells several characters to gather the Nox in order to kill Izanami and in Act 3 she says that she intends to create Take-Mikazuchi and have it absorb all of the seithr in the Embryo to destroy Amaterasu. Even the incomplete Take-Mikazuchi was apparently dangerous enough that Rachel felt it necessary to shield the Master Unit from with Tsukuyomi so I don't see any reason to doubt this. During the explanation of "operation kill Terumi" in the Six Heroes route, Valkenhayn says that Kazuma's body was lost in the Boundary when Terumi was sealed. The Trinity thing was in reference to Terumi taunting her about the possibility that a little part of Kazuma's personality might still exist inside of Terumi's mind, which is of course nonsense since Terumi had to split his mind from Kazuma's completely to protect himself from Nine's Mind Eater. Kazuma is for all intents and purposes gone. This comes from CPEX Library mode. Apparently Hazama was meant as a backup body which means Terumi never used it before.

So I hate to be that guy but does anyone have a status update on a translation of Variable Heart? If anyone is working on it I don't want to sound rude, I just would like to know if there is any progress.

Pretty much this except it wasn't Noel surviving that caused the idea (since she did that in the majority of the timelines). What caused the break was her saving Ragna in the True Ending, which averted the previously thought unavoidable idea of "if Ragna goes to the Cauldron, he dies." And even then the true significance of that was it caused Rachel to finally act, and in doing so, end the event that truelly caused the reset and happened in every single timeline (Ragna isn't always the one to make it to Nu and even walks away from the fight in one ending), which is the firing of Take-Mikazuchi. Even though Noel existed hundreds of times, Rachel still believed the loop was sealed by fate. She was still a piece stuck in the loop until she awakened as the Eye in the true ending. Going back to my save point analogy. Perhaps it might be better to explain like this. CT is a linear game like a classic sidescroller. You continue along until you reach a boss you can't defeat. Since the game has no way to grind, you can't do anything to improve your chances except reset and try again. There are differences in each playthrough (how many hits you take, where you die, what items/weapons you use and when etc.) but no matter what happens the boss will kill you in the end. CT's true ending would thus be the equivalent of finslly beating that boss and being able to play the rest of the game. On the other hand, CS would be like a Bioware RPG. It has hundreds if not thousands of dialogue options and choices you can make that change either major or minor events. CT was Amaterasu reloading the one save file and trying again, while CS is Takamagahara (and Terumi) making saves after each and every possible choice the player has and seeing what the outcome is, then deciding whether they like the outcome and either continue on or reset to the previous save. The possibilities based on all the factors and character decisions are almost infinite and CS is showing many of those versions of events that were not desirable until the true ending when Terumi found his ideal route and hijacked Takamagahara, which if you stretch it would be like erasing every other save file except that one. I hope this makes sense.

No, duplicates are not created by the time loops. The loops are caused by Phenomenon Intervention which is basically a retcon. It takes events that have happened and make it so that they "never happened," essentially wiping the slate clean. The reason people like Rachel and Terumi can remember is because they are Immune to Intervention. A natural result of making an event never have happened is that no one will remember it but because that Intervention doesn't effect those characters, their memories remain intact. In Slight Hope it is the same Hazama (at an earlier point in the timeline than Makoto is since he is still in CT), which is the only reason he could know who Noel at all since in that timeline she died in Ibukido. It is very important to note that the only exceptions to characters simply bejng reset to an earlier time period are people who fall into the Boundary like the Jin who became Hakumen. The Boundary connects all of time and space so it can do a lot of weird shenanigans, so when Jin fell into the Boundary he popped out on December 31, 2099, the day before the time loops actually began. While the time reset made it so that the events that led to Jin falling into the Cauldron (Wheel of Fortune) were undone, resetting Jin to his default position, the second Jin was outside of the range of Intervention, so his existance as a seperate character became fact. Therefore there are exactly two Jin's, the Jin from CT's True Ending timeline and Hakumen. The same applies to Ragna since there are main timeline Ragna and the Ragna that fused with Nu to become the Black Beast which also arrived before the start of the time loop. Even when we see version's of Ragna and Jin fall into the Cauldron in CT endings they get killed by Take-Mikazuchi before the Black Beast is formed. Long story short, everyone just gets reset to an earlier version, erasing the events that happen to them later. It's basically like reloading a save file.

Bullshit. We've been over this. Her hatred of Ragna has very little to do with Jin and is mainly based on her (admittedly a bit black and white) sense of justice, not helped by the fact that she's been cofirmed to be part of the Power of Order. At the end of CP Rachel EXPLICITLY asks Tsubaki if she hates Ragna because he hurt Jin and Noel, and she denies it, saying that is only part of the reason. Her main reason is that Ragna is the enemy of the world who can cause the end of the world (and she's kinda right). Everyone who thinks her entire personality is based solely around "her precious Jin-niisama" has clearly not been paying the slightest bit of attention to her character development and judges her solely based on their initial impression, which pisses me the hell off. In CF, Tsubaki has chosen to fight against Jin because she disagrees with his goal of killing Noel, so if she was as obsessive as you claim she is, that wouldn't happen. From the very beginning, Honestly every time Tsubaki is brought up some idiot will spout their nonsense about how she sucks as if this is still CS and even then, you clearly forgot that her struggle has always been choosing between her feelings for Jin (as well as Noel and Makoto) and her sense of justice which was her ENTIRE ROLE in CS (beinf ordered to kill Jin and Noel but not wanting to). The only time "Jin-niisama has been a thing was when Hazama manipulated her in to thinking Noel took her place and since this is Hazama, who pretty much had an infinite number of chances to perfect the formula, who has dicked over a lot of the cast, singling her out is hypocritical. If you are still bashing Tsubaki on the same points as 5 years ago, wake the FUCK up!

Tokkan only said that it was never outright confirmed that the person called Noel is a vessel, and that it is only speculation. However he never disproved my theory. Let's look at everything we know about this. Noel is referred to as the Master Unit's "core." Noel is "The Origin" who is supposed to return to the Master Unit (her "coffin"). The person currently being referred to as "Noel" is considered a god just like Izanami. The Prime Field body of the person currently being referred to as "Noel" (the body of Mu-12) is a vessel of some kind, in the same matter as Saya is a vessel for Izanami. The Master Unit is currently empty and if it returns through the Nemesis Horizon in the state the world will most likely disappear. All of these things are only confirmed to be true during the events of Central Fiction. We do not know if any of these have been true from the beginning or have only happened recently. I was wrong in it being confirmed that Noel is the vessel of "The Origin" and that The Origin refers to the soul of the girl inside Amaterasu. However, it is still confirmed that the body of Noel is a vessel. The problem I had was a distinction between the actual person "Noel" being a vessel (implying that what makes her Amaterasu is separate) and just the body of the person referred to as Noel being a vessel (meaning the Prime Field body itself, is a vessel, without factoring the person we see as Noel). Kokonoe's wording is very vague when it comes to how she addresses Noel since she just refers to Noel as one thing without specifying the details. We don't know what exactly it is a vessel of, whether the current "Noel" referred to as a god is the soul of the person inside the Master Unit or a separate soul of its own with the Amaterasu soul simply taking residence, whether the Noel/Mu split has anything to do with who the current Noel is or if the Noel from the previous games comes from either of these versions or whether the playable character Noel has always been a god/Amaterasu's core/The Origin. Without the answers to those questions, my theory that at some point either in between CP and CF or during CF the soul of the girl inside Amaterasu (which would be considered it's "core") left the Master Unit and started using Noel's body as a vessel, thus making Noel the god we currently see. We don't even know for sure what Noel being the Master Unit's "core" and being "The Origin" actually means. Perhaps it could be some kind of different relationship and the soul of the girl inside the Master Unit (which at the very least we know is something that exists in some way) is not related to Noel being the core (although I don't see how that would be the case since Kokonoe seems to be implying that Noel follows the same principles as Izanami). Basically, the only things we can say for sure at the moment is that in one way or another, Noel = Amaterasu's core and Noel's body = vessel, but the details of what that means and when that happened have not yet been explained. Plus, if this is not the case, then how can we explain Rachel's statement about the world disappearing if the (currently empty) Master Unit returns to the Boundary? Assuming Amaterasu being empty and Noel's seemingly sudden godhood are directly linked (and I don't he how they couldn't be), if Noel was always Amaterasu the world shouldn't have existed for the whole series because empty Master Unit + in Boundary = no Observation and thus no world. Also, how do we explain Mu being split? Mu is not Amaterasu (Izanami has no interest in her) so clearly Mu has her own soul and identity separate from whatever makes Noel The Origin (and since Mu remembers everything from the previous games, that means the current Mu is probably the "Noel" who we saw from CT-CP). Furthermore, if Noel was already Amaterasu's core before now (either when she survived Ibukido or when she become the Successor of the Azure), why would Amaterasu need to move closer to the real world to use Phenomenon Intervention in CP if it was already there (and how could the Master Unit undo events that Noel wasn't present for, like saving Ragna from Nu, since Noel isn't omniscient and can't view the world from outside)? If Celica is a Chrono Phantasma who cannot be Observed by Amaterasu, how could Noel have seen her at all and spoke to her? There are plenty more issues and plot holes that pop up from having a situation aside from Amaterasu jumping ship to Noel recently so unless there are some ridiculous elements that we do not know of yet that can somehow explain this, nothing else makes sense. If you have another way to solve these problems I'm all ears, but nothing Kokonoe says disproves my theory.

So here's something that hasn't been discussed. The recent Dengeki interview has this quote from Es (translation courtesy of Zedar). “… I am Es. “Embryo Storage”. The guardian of the Gate of Azure… and the “conciliator”.” So apparently this means Es is still the Embryo Storage. Wouldn't this mean this Es comes from the time between Code: Embryo and Lost: Memories since she becomes human at the end of LM? Otherwise is this Es's original body that got left behind with the Embryo when Es became human? If so, how could that Es even act since it has no soul or memories? Also how does this fit in with her being unable to ever leave the Phantom Field, especially considering Nine is now in control of it confirming the Embryo is still inside it? If this is not a post-LM Es, she won't remember Nine and Celica, so why did they bother creating Watashi and Imouto if Es won't recognize them and if this takes place before LM, Es/Nobody should have been aware of the existence of alternate possibilities? Furthermore, if the Es in CF is from pre-LM, and thus before she became Nobody), shouldn't the memories of those events become Memory Fragments that Watashi would have found, and if that's the case, wouldn't Nine have been able to learn the entire BlazBlue plot and what happens to her in the future)? Does the will of the Azure give her a new Embryo when it makes her the gatekeeper/conciliator? I'm sure will get these answers but at the moment it bothers me. I'm not sure what exactly you're saying. Why does Bloodedge being CP Ragna mean other timelines made it beyond December 31, 2199? By traveling back to Phase 0 in the Time for Decision, CP Ragna made it so that he is the version of Bloodedge in every single Phase of CT and retroactively made it so that this has always been the case (because time travel is weird). Besides, Rachel and Terumi are both unaffected by the Phenomenon Intervention resets and they both make it pretty clear that before CT's True Ending, time never made it into 2200. Jin killing Ragna in those timelines wouldn't actually change anything because the cause of the reset is Take-Mikazuchi nuking Kagutsuchi, which will happen no matter what. Rachel was the only one capable of stopping that since no weapon or ability in the series besides the Tsukuyomi Unit has that kind of power and she explicitly only took that action once. Amaterasu caused the reset because she didn't like this and since that event was a constant fact, there was never a chance for her to be potentially killed in a version of the future. It's made pretty clear that all of the events post CT have never happened before and are a blind run for everyone. This is exactly why I am convinced that Noel only became Amaterasu's "core" in between CP and CF, with the soul of the The Girl entering her and leaving the Master Unit vacant. The fact that the villains didn't try to do that pretty much says that this wouldn't work and the Master Unit was something separate at the time (also, when Amaterasu emerged from the Nemesis Horizon, Noel yells at it to not come, which says that she is talking to it as something with a separate will from herself). Don't forget, Rachel confirms that the Master Unit's current empty state is a new development since returning it to the Boundary like this will make the world disappear, and since the world obviously existed up till now someone must have been inside it before it emerged in CP's True Ending. That's a very interesting idea. However, I'm a little skeptical if Ragna is capable of doing that. It seems like pulling a soul out of it's body would be pretty difficult, at least against someone with a strong soul like the whole cast. Tenjou seems to be a unique case since he is sealed inside Kushinada's Lynchpin, which is very different from Izanami's status as a goddess inside its vessel, whether she has a soul or not. Also, we only know Ragna's going to use Soul Eater to ask him something, so exactly what that entails is unknown (it might not even fully remove the soul). Plus if Ragna could remove souls from a body wouldn't he have done this before? That seems like a ridiculously powerful ability that could kill pretty much anyone. Why didn't he pull Terumi out of Hazama's body to make him vulnerable? Why didn't he use such a technique against Nu, since that would be able to at least stop her even with the Life Link? This also raises the question of what would happen to Izanami if he removed her? If Soul Eater meant he would absorb her soul into the Azure Grimoire, I can see nothing good coming from that. If he doesn't absorb her, what would stop Izanami from simply returning to her vessel if Saya is still alive? The idea certainly has merit but since we don't know the limits of Soul Eater, that seems like it would be beyond its power. Centered on Ragna doesn't mean that we won't get answers to plot points involving other characters, since those are still integral to the plot (especially all this Noel stuff). It just means that the story will be mostly from Ragna's perspective so they aren't going to follow the entirety of the other characters' stories and they will probably only receive focus when they are involved in events that Ragna is also part of. When Mori suggested we play Arcade mode to know what other character's are doing, it is probably because Story mode won't dedicate the time to details all of their individual motivations and decisions. They will probably reach their conclusions on their side of the Embryo conflict (protect Noel, kill Noel, collect Nox, try to gain the Azure) offscreen since we saw that in detailed in Arcade Mode. Basically, when Hibiki pops up in the new events he will already be trying to kill Noel and Carl will show up after his descent into Relius Jr. Honestly I doubt the format will be that different from CP's story. I can't see Noel keeping god status. Mori has stated that she will get her happy ending and I don't think being forced to act as a god outside of the world is very happy. She'll need to avoid her fate of death and get her wish (without the Azure) of living happily alongside her friends. Amane plans to have someone else take her place and since his plan is presented as something of the "third option" solution that screws destiny, I expect that to be the case. Passing the torch to Naoto is highly improbable. Naoto cannot stay in the current world forever and his goal is to restore the possibilities so he can return to his original world. Unless the entire plot switches to following the Bloodedge Experience timeline (axing 95% of the playable cast) Naoto can't be the new protagonist. I'm pretty sure after this game he and Es will return to their timelines and leave the upcoming events of the world in the hands of the people currently living in it. In fact I see most of the characters who are called "ghosts of the past" (Hakumen, Valkenhayn, possibly Relius, Terumi, Celica, Nine, Jubei, Trinity etc.) to leave the stage in some way (maybe even die). Jin won't use the Master Unit. The Master Unit is a god and he wants a world without gods. Clearly he thinks that there is some way to keep the world existing without Amaterasu's Observation so he must have a plan for that. I don't think Hakumen and Rachel can be considered gods. The only characters currently referred to as gods are Amaterasu, Izanami and the Black Beast. Izanami mentions more gods outside of the Logic but that doesn't necessarily mean all being outside of the Logic are considered gods. Rachel is/was an Onlookers chosen to observe human possibility by the word itself, so she is not a distortion and being immune to Phenomenon Intervention isn't enough to be considered godly in my opinion. If you're referring to them having the other two Sankishin units, those aren't considered gods either, just incredibly powerful weapons. Amaterasu is a god because of its ability to use Phenomenon Intervention (referred to as the Power of God) on pretty much everything, not because it is one of the Sankishin. Where does it say she's a "crystallization of seithr?" All we know is that she's made of seithr like a Prime Field (which come to think of it, doesn't make sense since the entire world is made of seithr so theoretically all humans should be made of seithr as well). Also, forgive me if I'm wrong since the whole thing with the Original Prime Fields is very contradictory but wasn't the Zeroth Prime Field a failure that never got retrieved from the Boundary? I thought it was the First Prime Field that became the Eye of the Azure and got a soul. Plus Relius is heavily implied to have been the one to create the Zeroth Unit. Side note but Hinata is different from Raquel. Hinata was a normal human who was kidnapped by Takamagahara (the organization) and implanted with the Embryo in their experiments. Her soul has nothing to do with the Embryo since she wasn't created from it like Raquel was (it's why she still has a soul after Es inherits the Embryo). Can we really say the Black Beast doesn't have a soul? The one in the Dark War was created by a fusion of Ragna and Nu, so shouldn't it inherit their souls (plus any others it absorbs via Soul Eater)? At the very least since a Nox Nyctores is a mini-Black Beast, it also has a core made out of souls, which should work the same. Plus both the Nox and the Black Beast have wills of their own and are sapient (the Black Beast uses military tactics in the Dark War) so it likely has a soul. Actually, they do want to destroy the Amaterasu Unit itself. Nine says as much in her Act 3 ending, wanting to complete Take-Mikazuchi and have it absorb all of the seithr from the Embryo itself to destroy the Master Unit. Relius intends to destroy it and turn Ignis into a completely new Master Unit, not just plug her into the existing one. Replacing Amaterasu to create a new world requires destroying the current one first. It seems they need to both kill Noel (the Origin) and destroy the Unit itself (presumably because someone else could still use it because it's empty like Amane intends to). Izanami wanting Noel to return to her "coffin" and people trying to destroy the Origin's vessel with Kushinada's Lynchpin (which would likely cause the soul to return to Amaterasu) suggest that destroying the Master Unit itself is the ultimate endgame, and The Origin jumping ship to Noel was a defensive maneuver. It's also likely that the Tsukuyomi Unit is still protecting Amaterasu preventing anyone from damaging it. I wouldn't be surprised if Nine needs the complete Take-Mikazuchi to use all of the seithr from the Embryo (which I'm pretty sure includes all of the souls of humanity) because that is the only thing that could possibly be strong enough to break through Tsukuyomi's god-tier barrier (assuming Rachel can even keep it going that long). Sorry for rambling on so much everybody. It's been a while and I had a lot to say.

There's nothing left to speculate on. We've discussed Es's role in relation to Nine a dozen times already. It's a pretty likely thing to happen considering Lost: Memories and we'll just have to wait and see. Then what else could you possibly mean? Noel wasn't adopted by Es. Besides Es doesn't even exist in the main BlazBlue timeline. The XBlaze timeline is an alternate possibility where the Wadatsumi Incident occurred, which didn't happen in Watashi's (Nine's) timeline. It is explicitly stated that Es would never have been born without the Wadatsumi Incident, or at the very least any version of her type of Prime Field (if they were made at all) wouldn't be the same person we know. The closest possible connection is that the Manifestation Boundary Interface Prime Field Devices (Es) were the basis for the Dimension Boundary Contact Prime Field Devices (Kiiro) which were than the basis for the Boundary Interface Prime Field Devices (Noel) and even that is pretty separated. We still have no idea what Noel being the "Original Contact Maker" means about her and how that can work with Es having also touched the Master Unit but the concept of "daughter" in any form is completely unrelated.

I would certainly hope that they would retcon this comment since it was so recent. In fact that conversation's entire purpose was to bring Mai into the main games. There's no reason why this plot can't be resolved during her time at the Academy. It might involve them being away from the Military Academy for a while. Even more than that, the comment about graduating is that Noel and Makoto sounded so relaxed about Mai, that they hadn't had a chance to speak to her and she is rumored to have gone missing. If something happened to make her disappear before graduation, they would probably be more concerned (compare this to how Noel reacts to Carl). I really hope this isn't the last we see of Noel, Tsubaki and Makoto. We need at least some time with the complete Team Remix Heart and it's likely that this plotline involving Meifan Lapis-Lazuli and the Zero Squadron will be resolved while they are in Iwatsuchi. At the very least I need more interaction between Kagura and Makoto. We still need to learn how she came to work for him and be trusted enough to let her in on his connection to Sector Seven and there still is that issue of their supposed one-night stand (I'm not sure of the context for Makoto punching him here and whether that means they've already met). Considering Kajun works for Sector Seven, it is possible she will be the key to Makoto's connection, which is pretty important. Give it time my friend, give it time. By the way, does anyone else find Meifan wanting Mai's "body" to be incredibly creepy? Like one of those intentionally unsettling suggestive lines that Terumi and Relius love to use.

Where does everyone get the idea that Noel only survived in the main timeline? The number of timelines with Noel far outnumber the ones without her. Look at CT. Every single Arcade Mode, and every individual branch of Story Mode that features Noel is from a different time loop. The number of ones where she dies are far less (hence why Hazama was so pissed that Makoto ruined his plans in Slight Hope because it had such rare circumstances). Except the cause of every single possibility in CT is explicitly the time loop reset by Amaterasu after Take-Mikazuchi destroys Kagutsuchi, that is it. There is no "alternate universe possibility" to explain it away because the time loop locked all possibility into an eternal cycle. Every single time we see Noel HAS to be a different Phase with her in it. This is further proven because several times she sees into other timelines and she herself is in them. Specifically this happens in the Remix Heart Gaiden (which is part of the main timeline), where she sees herself involved in a version of Carl's CS Gag Reel, so canonically she has been in multiple timelines. It's not Noel's existence in the True Ending timeline that is the key to her breaking out, it is the specific actions she takes in that one timeline.

Simple. Both of those are the same result. The Master Unit cannot be destroyed because the soul is missing from it and inside Noel. Kokonoe confirmed Noel as a vessel so if Noel dies the soul of "The Origin" will be released (and most likely return to its original place). Either she directly puts Noel in or the body is destroyed, it ends the same. Izanami also answered why she sent everyone to kill Noel in Mu's ending. She didn't expect them to kill Noel since that is impossible without either the Lynchpin or Immortal Breaker. She was hoping that one of them would successfully kill Mu, thinking she was Noel. Izanami has no interest in Mu and potentially sees her as a threat so sending out a Noel kill squad would take care of that (as well as drive Noel to the edge).

The story will mostly be from Ragna's perspective but that doesn't mean that we will be following him at all times. CP was like this, the main route was from his perspective at least 80% of the time but there are so many events going on with everyone that they need to cut away from him. It would be utterly impossible to address all of the issues and answer all of the questions the game needs to if it only focuses on Ragna. Many of those Arcade events (Nine creating Take-Mikazuchi, Amane's plan to return the Master Unit to the Boundary, Naoto saving the "possibility" for his world, Terumi getting a new vessel etc.) are far too important to be cut.

I have no idea where to place it besides before Noel and Mu's since Noel doesn't remember everything yet (not that this helps much since those two are incompatible and are hard to place aside being close to the end). We don't know how Nine reacted to Celica's little speech so we can't compare it to other Nine appearances. Elements of her mode are most likely going to be in Story Mode, this is where they explain Nine's attempt to recreate Take-Mikazuchi, but whether or not the inevitable meeting between the two will play out the same is up in the air, especially since this is before Es enters the picture and throws a wrench in Nine's intentions.

Short answer, no. There is no complete order because so many events contradict each other or happen multiple times. Story mode is going to have to streamline everything because there are simply way too many events that cannot happen in the canon route. The biggest offender is characters stealing Nox (both Arakune and Nu have taken Rettenjou) and those characters having been said to absorbed Nox in other routes they appear in. People will dramatically learn the same thing in two very different ways (Tsubaki learning Hakumen is Jin either by Azure or through Hakumen mentioning his original sin, Kokonoe learning Noel and Mu are seperate during fights with both characters, Noel regaining her memories either because of Terumi or Mu etc.). Some characters appear in so many stories (Hazama, Terumi, Relius, Hibiki, Noel and Mu being the standouts) that it is impossible to nail down their timeline and thus becomes difficult to place the timelines of the character their fighting against as well. There are also a lot of fights that are the same characters, with the same conversations (Jin vs. Tsubaki and it happens three times if you count Izayoi, Izayoi vs. Hakumen, Ragna vs. Kagura, Hakumen vs. Nu), but are either in different places or cannot be reconciled between the two characters having the fight since the two stories are probably at very different times relative to each other. It also doesn't seem to be as simple as just ordering each character's modes because it seems like some Arcade events will happen at a point in the middle of another character's story. If we want Hakumen and Izayoi to have one fight, the two stories must have run concurrently. The best we can do is establish some general order of some events relative to each other and perhaps the very beginning and end. I made a list of this a few pages ago but I'll update it here. The broadest timeline I can definitively place is Ragna -> Platinum -> Rachel -> Valkenhayn. Ragna's is most likely the first because is immediately after Act 2 (neither he nor Makoto even know what happened to any of the other Entitled or if they are even alive) and in every appearance after that he has already decided to "devour" the other Entitled's desires. Platinum is next (though at the very end) because at the end of it Jin restores Trinity, meaning it has to be after any other Arcade with a Trinity possessed Jin. This includes Terumi and Nine's. Rachel's comes after Platinum's because when Jubei saves her in the end he says that "Trinity is on the move" which almost certainly means she has gotten her body back. Valkenhayn's comes after, and is possibly the last one period, because Ragna says that he has already spoke to Rachel, which happened in her Arcade mode. There are also a few I can place relative to each other that are somewhere in the middle of that list between Ragna and Platinum. Hazama probably comes after Terumi's because Terumi is exhausted at the end of his story and when Hazama finds him he is much weaker than any other time. Tsubaki is immediately followed by Izayoi. Tsubaki ends fighting Jin, which is the same fight Izayoi starts with, making it likely to be the same fight with Tsubaki just transforming in between. Jin, Nu, Amane and Naoto are before Rachel since she reaches the limit of her strength in her ending. Carl's comes before Nine's. Carl is already in Relius Jr. mode in Nine's Arcade, which starts in his story. Finally, there is one smaller chain in the middle I can find, Carl -> Bang -> Litchi -> Azrael -> Arakune Carl comes before Bang because Carl mentions meeting with Litchi, which happened in his route, in Bang's Arcade. Litchi is after Bang because she fights him in his story, which must be before she loses her memory at the end of hers. Azrael is next because he takes Arakune to start collecting Nox, which includes Rettenjou. Arakune's is last here because he starts transforming into a Black Beast. This is the best I've got and all of this is subject to change because 75% of these endings and events will not be directly incorporated into Story Mode. No. Mu is just the the Godslayer power personified. By definition, the vessel is the being that contains the soul in it. Mu is something different. Kokonoe makes it very clear that the "gods" are unable to directly act in the world without a body to inhabit. Noel being the soul physically manifested is impossible. The entire point of people searching for the Lynchpin is that if they use it against Noel, it will negate the seithr that makes up her Prime Field body and release the soul. In Mu's ending, Izanami says she has no interest in Mu since she is just the Godslayer powers, Noel is the only one relevant when it comes to Amaterasu, which is what the vessel is in reference to.