Video Game / BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

Fates Converge... ^note Clockwise from top-left. Ragna the Bloodedge, Ruby Rose, Jin Kisaragi, Neo Politan, Seth, Heart Aino, Naoto Kurogane, Teddie, Yumi.

The collision is inevitable. The impact will be unavoidable.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is a Crossover Tag Team Fighting Game developed by Arc System Works and released in 2018. While technically a Spin-Off of the BlazBlue franchise, it is more functionally similar to a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between various Arc System Works-developed/published fighting games, such as Persona 4: Arena, Under Night In-Birth, Arcana Heart, Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf with the extra twist that Rooster Teeth's animesque webshow RWBY is also included.

In the mysterious Phantom Field, fifty-three warriors from seven different "fates" have been pulled in by forces unknown. A mysterious disembodied voice informs them that in order to escape, they must battle each other for the Keystones that represent their homes. As unlikely alliances are forged and heroes are forced to clash with each other, they will learn the truth about the world they now inhabit and discover why their fates have crossed.

Playable Characters

Italicized font indicates Downloadable Content, as well as other post-launch content.

• From BlazBlue: Ragna the Bloodedge, Jin Kisaragi, Rachel Alucard, Hazama, Noel Vermillion, Azrael, Iron Tager, Makoto Nanaya, v -No.13-, Es, Platinum the Trinity, Jubei, Hakumen, Nine The Phantom, Izayoi, Mai Natsume, Naoto Kurogane, Celica A. Mercury, Susano'o
• From Persona 4: Arena: Yu Narukami, Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, Aigis, Naoto Shirogane, Akihiko Sanada, Mitsuru Kirijo, Labrys, Teddie, Elizabeth, Tohru Adachi
• From Under Night In-Birth: Hyde, Linne, Waldstein, Gordeau, Orie, Carmine, Vatista, Yuzuriha, Mika, Merkava, Seth, Hilda
• From RWBY: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna^*Free for all players, Yang Xiao Long^*Free for all players, Neopolitan
• From Arcana Heart: Heart Aino
• From Senran Kagura: Yumi
• From Akatsuki Blitzkampf: Akatsuki, Blitztank

Trailers

The first teaser can be found here.

The first character introduction trailer can be found here.

The first gameplay footage can be found here.

The second character introduction trailer can be found here.

The third character introduction trailer can be found here.

The fourth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The fifth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The sixth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The seventh character introduction trailer can be found here.

The first English dub trailer can be found here.

The eighth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The ninth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The tenth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The eleventh character introduction trailer can be found here.

The twelfth character introduction trailer can be found here.

The game has since been released on May 31st, 2018 in Japan/Asia, June 5th, 2018 in the US plus Steam worldwide and June 22nd, 2018 in EU/PAL regions on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Depending on region via PS4/Switch, a demo is available to try out on both versions, with Ragna, Yu, Hyde, and Ruby playable. It has also had an arcade release on both the (Taito) Nesica-X-Live 2 and the (SEGA) All-Net P.Ras Multi services on April 25th, 2019.

On August 4th, 2019, it was announced that the game would be upgrading to Version 2.0, set to release for November 21st, 2019. Version 2.0 adds nine new characters^*Yumi, Akatsuki, Blitztank, Neo Politan, Celica, Elizabeth, Adachi, Hilda, and Susano'o to bring the roster up to 53 characters. The update also includes several new mechanics such as Cross Raid, Extra Assault, and Rampage Time and an "Episode Extra" expansion for Story Mode. A bundle pack called BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle - Special Edition was released on the same day; Special Edition packaged the base game and all released DLC up to Version 2.0.

More franchises other than the initial four have begun entering the roster. Arcana Heart was the first of these announced, followed by Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf.

To promote the release of Cross Tag Battle, the radio show BlazBlue Radio was revived under the title Bluraji NEO after a one-year hiatus.

At CEO 2021, it was announced that Cross Tag Battle would be getting updates for the PC and PS4 versions in order to upgrade its delay-based netcode into the more widely-accepted rollback netcode, along with the PC port of Central Fiction. These updates would be released in the following year.

At Tokyo Game Show 2022, it was announced that a version for the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S is planned for release in Spring of 2023.

---

Can't Escape from Crossing Fate! Fight!

• Action Commands: Using a standing C attack activates Clash Assault, a universal overhead not unlike Persona 4: Arena's All-Out Attack, during which your character will perform a cinematic autocombo that tosses the opponent into the air. If C is pressed again as the opponent is descending from the air-toss, the attacking character will deliver a knockback blow that throws the opponent across the screen. Depending on the timing of the follow-up input, players will receive a rating ranging from "Good!" to "Marvelous!"; the closer the timing, the bigger the impact effect and the more damage the final hit inflicts.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Whether it was intentional or not, the 6th Character Introduction Trailer has Orie and Ruby teamed up during the former's introduction segment. A promo combo demo clip later released by ASW would also feature the two of them.
  • Ian Sinclair voicing Gordeau in this game wouldn't be the first time he voiced a character with soul-related powers.
  • Hazama's RWBY-inspired alternate color palette is based on Adam Taurus due to both characters being voiced by Yūichi Nakamura in Japanese. Similarly, Blake says she won't turn her back to Hazama, which is a good thing considering what happened to Sienna Khan.
  • Similar to the above, Yukiko Amagi's RWBY palette is Yang Xiao Long; both characters are voiced by Ami Koshimizu in Japan.
  • Kanji Tatsumi has a palette based on Yusuke Kitagawa in which both of them have the same English voice actor.
  • Heart is paired with Ragna in the Season 2 announcement trailer, referencing the times Mikako Takahashi and Tomokazu Sugita are often paired together.
  • In version 2.0, Seth has a palette referencing Shoto Todoroki. Both characters are voiced by Yuki Kaji, and are rivals to the respective main characters of their series.
• Advertised Extra: Unlike every other announced DLC character at the time of release, Yang only briefly appears at the very start and end of RWBY's episode mode and never appears in any of the other story modes either. As a result, she's the only character in the story who never appears in a fight in any capacity whereas the other announced DLC fighters have relatively prominent roles. This is even worse in the case of the 13 DLC characters released after EVO 2018, who have no involvement in the story whatsoever.
  • Originally, given she was included a year after release and despite coming from another franchise, Heart Aino has no involvement whatsoever in Episode Mode. That changed with the Version 2.0 update, which also came with Episode Extra. Although the lead reps of the 3 latest franchises added to the game (Heart, along with Yumi and Akatsuki) don't have their own Episode campaigns like Ragna, Yu, Hyde and Ruby did, those 3 are at least playable at different points in the story.
• Aerith and Bob: Inevitable, given that it's a crossover involving four different properties from various worlds. You have have Ragna, Noel, Yu, Linne, Waldstein, Ruby, Weiss, and Rachel among the roster, and that was only as of the third character showcase. By the time the full roster was revealed, you get a mix of names ranging anywhere from Tager, Yang, Nine, Orie, Platinum, Hakumen, Jubei, Azrael, Aegis, Labrys, Nine, Yosuke, Mika, Es and Blake.
• Age Lift: An In-Universe example happens where, in the Episode P4A ending, in the new version of the Personaverse System No. XX creates, the adult-aged Ragna and Noel are aged down to teenagers the same age as Yu. Ruby is presumably also aged up a year to be in the same class.
• Ambiguous Situation: The only endings that account for everyone are the UNIB and the "true" BlazBlue endings. Otherwise, the fate of most of the characters is left completely unknown.
• Another Side, Another Story: The Story Mode has four campaigns focusing on each side of the crossover (specifically, the main protagonists), meant to tell a cohesive story once all are finished.
  • For the 2.0 update, the Extra Episode is told from the perspective of Naoto Kurogane, but also shines the spotlight on the various other DLC fighters who were absent from the initial four campaigns. It's also a sequel of sorts, taking place after the Hazama ending in Episode BlazBlue.
• Ascended Extra: Despite released material regarding the story or the animated intro not depicting any DLC characters, Blake and Yang are highly present in both despite being DLC themselves.
• Ascended Meme: It's a common joke in the RWBY fandom that Weiss has the smallest cup size of the team and suffers A-Cup Angst. In this game, not only is Weiss the only girl of Team RWBY to not get a more voluptuous figure in her character artwork, she is literally called "a flat-chested sidekick" by Platinum in their pre-fight interactions and lets out an exasperated "Excuse me?!" when she is told she fought okay "in spite of [her] cup size."
• Assist Character: The Cross System allows you to summon your inactive character for a variety of assist functions, including performing one of three Partner Skills, chaining Distortion Skills with a Clash Assault, and having them follow you and pressure the opponent with a Cross Combo.
• Awesome, but Impractical: As usual, Astral Heats. To activate one, you must be in Resonance Blaze, have 9 Skill Gauge stocks^note This requires you to connect with your Assist 7 times, as the number of times you land an Assist hit determines how many extra Skill Gauges you get in Resonance Blaze, and your opponent must have only one character remaining. However, unlike BlazBlue Astrals, Instant Kills, and Infinite Worth EXS, BBTAG Astrals are much less impractical, as Astrals now have a universal input^note 222B+C, which is very similar to the P4A Instant Kill universal input, you are now able to combo into them, and the aforementioned requirements aren't nearly as strict as the previous games.
• Background Music Override: If Yang's health is knocked into the red, her Rage Semblance kicks in and her classic Badass Boast theme song, "I Burn", replaces the currently playing track. Though it can be a Negated Moment of Awesome if her opponent just finishes her off.
• Badass Adorable: Let's see, we have Noel, Makoto, Platinum, Es, Orie, Vatista, Mika, Heart, all four of Team RWBY... To say nothing of Jubei, who is practically a Killer Rabbit.
• Badass Crew: The Six Heroes (Jubei, Hakumen, Nine and Platinum), the Investigation Team, Hyde and his companions, and Team RWBY.
• Balance Buff: Suffice to say, unique mechanics and the like have either been tweaked or removed in order to accommodate the 3 completely different systems into a single system and control scheme. Practically all characters go through this; in trade for being somewhat streamlined and/or dumbed down on-point, it instead paves way for more intelligent reliance on the tag-team mechanics.
  • As Under Night In-Birth does not have air throws as part of its character's movesets, the BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena characters do not have access to their air throws in this game. Speaking of which, Persona 4 Arena only has forward throws and air throws, so the BlazBlue cast cannot use their back throws either.
  • Persona Breaks are out, however they can still be hit once summoned, upon which the character will be dealt extra damage based on what hit them. This changes the dynamic a bit for P4A characters in that they don't so much have to worry about the loss of options mid match, but have to still be mindful of their decisions, making sure their play doesn't do more harm than good.
  • Status Effects are out, as the other two series do not have them in their mechanics. Attacks like Yosuke's Tentarafoo and Mitsuru's Marin Karin only deal damage with no side effects.
  • Reversal Actions have virtually no drawbacks on activation as they start up fast, cannot be air blocked and if they connect, the opponent cannot burst out of it by calling in their partner. This has interesting implications for P4A characters, since Reversal Action is based on the Furious Action mechanic and Furious Actions would transform ~5% of your HP into Regenerating Health to prevent abuse. For example, Yukiko has Dia as her Furious Action, a move with short range and damage with massive blowback if it connects and allows Yukiko to heal some HP, with more HP recovered if the button command is held. In P4A, you would need to perform a button hold for the move to heal back more HP than you lost, but in BBTAG, a Dia that connects essentially always pluses since you never lose HP from performing a Reversal, and the lost red portion of your HP gauge increases with Dia, allowing Yukiko to swap into standby or activate Resonance Blaze and heal back more HP. In exchange, if someone misses their Reversal Action and gets punished, they cannot burst out of it by calling in their partner.
  • Sukukaja, Yosuke's utility super, has been axed from his moveset, but in exchange, his Shippu - Nagareboshi, which was previously only able to be activated while Sukukaja was up, can now be activated as a normal Distortion Skill.
  • Zig-zagged with Rachel's infamous George XIII. It's now slightly larger than in BlazBlue, but its standard motion has been changed from a hop to just a walk. She can now have multiple George XIIIs on the field at once, though each cast of George XIII burns one unit of the Skill Gauge.
  • Hazama's Drive has been tweaked so that it's no longer tied to a limiting gauge that tends to deplete faster than it replenishes. His Drive is still limited in use in other ways, but resource management is no longer an issue for him.
  • In addition to the above, Hazama also received a mobility upgrade via a proper "run" (multiple consecutive steps), which gives him a much better secondary movement option outside of Ouroboros.
  • Makoto's Charged Attack meter has been reduced from three levels to two, making it easier to land max charge attacks.
  • Es no longer has Bors and as a result some of her special moves can't be enhanced in that manner. However, her Shoryuken move Griflet now automatically has the final knockdown hit no matter what in exchange for extra recovery time afterwards, meaning she can't combo off of it alone. Some of her crests come out faster too, changing some dynamics she has regarding wakeup and pressure.
  • Azrael's weak point system has been reworked so that you now get the same benefits as weak points if you press the button again as an attack connects, instead of having to manually apply them with his Drive. Thanks to this he can also still perform his infamous Valiant Charger combos that fly from corner to corner by burning meter. What this means is that he doesn't need to put in the extra work to set up the potential for the combos or his more devastating routes the player instead has to think more about resource management as well as different ways to get to the same attacks for said combos. Also as a result of the removal of said weak points, Scud Punishment has been replaced by Full Spartan, his Exceed Accel from Central Fiction, as his secondary Distortion Skill.
  • Naoto Shirogane's Fate Counter has been revised to a single condition; if she lands her Anti-S SP Pistol Beta or enhanced Anti-S SP Pistol Alpha Distortion Skills at least once, the Fate Counter is immedietly fulfilled, allowing her to instantly kill an opponent with either Hamaon or Mudoon. This means that her Hair-Trigger Megido traps - the only other method she had to reduce the Fate Counter in her home game - now serve as more traditional stage control and combo tools instead.
  • Tager no longer has to charge a separate gauge to use Spark Bolt. He can use the move as long as he has meter. Additionally, he no longer needs to magnetize his opponents to draw them in.
  • Hakumen uses the standard super meter everyone else uses instead of his unique Magatama gauge. He can still cancel specials into one another at the expense of one bar.
  • Naoto Kurogane's specials are all Enhanced when not performed in a combo.
  • Susanoo has access to all his special moves at the start of the match. In exchange, he cannot level up those special moves during the match. Furthermore, that meant his Strike of the Possessed God (Uchikuruu: Kishin no Sengeki) had to be replaced with his Bloodspiller (Chitagiru: Rengeki) Exceed Accel as his secondary Distortion Skill.
  • Elizabeth is the only Persona character to keep the Awakening mechanic (a Critical Status Buff that activates when the character reaches 35% health) as a side effect of keeping Mind Charge in her moveset.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Chie is a Kick Chick who fights using a mostly kick-based variant of "Kung Fu," which is more akin to Jeet Kune Do in a number of ways.
  • Azrael and Akihiko are more like the traditional take on the trope, with both using nothing but their physical strength and the latter barely using his Persona in his moveset.
• Battle Aura: Yang's Semblance, "Rage", is indicated by a golden, blaze-like aura surrounding the top half of her body.
• The Battle Didn't Count: True to form for BlazBlue, some story battles against really powerful characters like Jubei and Azrael result in the other characters basically just holding on long enough for an opening to flee or for the fight to stop, even if they technically won the fight. For example, in Story UNIEL Hyde and Weiss quickly realise Azrael and Carmine are both way too strong for them, so they just book it.
• Battle Couple: Jubei/Nine and Jin/Izayoi.
• Battle Intro: Many character pairings will elicit special pre-battle interactions. For example, Ruby will gush over Ragna's Aramasa and Es' Murakumo, and Linne will get exasperated at Yosuke trying to brag about his speed. If the point character does not have special interactions with their partner, one of their default intros will play.
• BFG: Ruby's Crescent Rose is both a scythe and a high-powered sniper rifle.
• BFS:
  • Ragna's Aramasa, a massive slab of metal on a stick that can transform into a scythe.
  • Es' Murakumo ^note not to be confused with the Murakumo Units of which Nu is a part of, who wield similarly shaped swords and use them to assume their combat forms normally appears as a large blade best likened to a claymore or zweihänder, which turns out to be the "sheath" for a slimmer yet just as long weapon that better resembles a nodachi.
  • Hakumen's Ookami is another nodachi, its length so great that it must be holstered in a vertical sheath roughly as tall as the Susano'o Unit itself.
• Blood Knight:
  • Ragna, sort of. Though he sounds annoyed at being caught up in another "possibility," Ragna chuckles before stating that all he needs to do is beat up all his challengers, suggesting he may be eager to face new opponents.
    Ragna: All of you, BRING IT ON!
  • In The Stinger of the teaser trailer, Ruby Rose is overjoyed at the prospect of joining the fight.
  • To the surprise of no one familiar with the characters, Waldstein and Azrael clearly enjoy the prospect of battle, the latter going as far as to declare—with relish—his intention to "devour" his foes.
• Blow You Away: Yosuke and Rachel both use the power of wind in battle; Yosuke's Persona, Jiraiya, bestows him with Garu abilities, while Rachel's Drive, Silpheed, allows her to control the battlefield and manipulate both her attacks and her movement speed/trajectory by conjuring wind.
• Born Unlucky: Played for Laughs on the joke stats for Ragna and Jin, which both give them a Luck stat of one star as a reference to their notoriously Dark and Troubled Past. Yosuke and Noel don't fare much better with two stars due to being the Butt-Monkey and having a slightly less terrible life than Ragna and Jin respectively. Makoto, due to being on the bad end of Fantastic Racism in her home universe, has two stars as well. Kanji likewise has a 2-star Luck rating, due to sharing his Butt-Monkey status with Yosuke (though it's not quite to same extent).
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: The game's core mechanics can be summarized as taking mechanics from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, and UNIEL and consolidating them into a single game.
• Broke the Rating Scale:
  • The character cards for the characters give joke stats about them. The maximum the box shows is 8 stars, but a few characters have broken it. Ruby, Yosuke, and Weiss have a stat that is gauged at 12 stars, Nu-13 has one of 11 stars, Waldstein, Platinum and Orie have one of 10 stars, and Azrael, Yukiko, Tager, Es and Kanji have 9-star stats. Ruby, Weiss, Es, Platinum, Orie's overblown stat is "Kawaii"; Yosuke's is Speed; Azrael, Tager, Kanji and Hakumen's is Attack; Yukiko and Nu-13's is Range; and Waldstein's is Power (not Attack). Vatista has both Range and Kawaii that are more than 8 stars.
  • Rachel's Luck stat is replaced with the "Georg" stat, which is apparently rated in pictures of George XIII, the electric frog from one of Rachel's moves. This is possibly a reference to Rachel's gameplay in the BlazBlue series, which is heavily centralized on using George XIII for field control. Likewise, Tager has a "GETB ^note Genesic Emerald Tager Buster" stat of eight stars in place of Luck.
  • Gordeau's Luck stat is replaced with "Grim Reaper" at six stars, a reference to his infamous special move that helped propel him to top-tier status in competitive UNIEL play.
  • Nu's Luck stat is replaced by a "Ragna" stat, accompanied by five hearts. This symbolizes her very, very strong (and very unhealthy) affinity for Ragna, though one might argue that ASW is understating the magnitude of Nu's attraction.
  • Jubei's Luck stat (both the name and the four icons used to rate it) is replaced by his "pon" symbol (the symbol that appears when he uses Shiranui).
  • Naoto Shirogane's Luck stat is replaced with "Instant Kill" in reference to her ability to utilize this through Distortion Skills. It is represented by one skull that shows her Fate Counter.
  • Hakumen's Luck stat is replaced with "Counter", referencing his Zanshin Drive.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • True to form, Yosuke. Nearly every one of his unique battle intros and outros have the other character poking fun at him or otherwise having a crack at his expense, the only exceptions being Yu and Makoto.
  • Hyde, due to his relative inexperience compared to the other protagonists and his trash-talking attitude leaving him open to ridicule. He dismisses Ruby (who is actually a more experienced fighter than him) and gets snarked at for his trouble, and Tager doesn't approve of his brash and reckless attitude to combat and tries to give him advice to get out of it. He gets along with Ragna and Noel, though.
  • In a more meta sense, during the beta demo of the game, Yukiko has become this. Since the demo did not allow access to training mode, players have taken to setting match times to infinite, plugging in a second controller to pick her, and using her heal skill to regenerate any lost damage as they practice all their combos on her.
  • A surprising subversion is Ragna. Notorious in the main BlazBlue series for being a Cosmic Plaything of the highest order, is actually treated with a fair amount of respect by the cast. While there are some jokes at this expense, its nowhere near to the degree of his home series.
  • Downplayed with Carmine. Not much happens to him in the story, but Greg Chun's voice talents present the character as basically an edgy teenage loser on a power trip. Not to mention his Jerkass attitude rubbing off on the other characters: Yukiko is unfazed by him, while Makoto tries to rehabilitate him to no avail, but Yang on the other hand...
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": While the entire cast possess superpowers which they liberally use in combat, what those actually are differ from series to series and have appropriately different ways to call them:
  • The BlazBlue crew has their Drives, manifestation of their soul's power through their connection to the Azure inside the Boundary, accomplished by either the use of Seithr or a part of their soul.
  • Persona users obviously have the use of their namesake concept, a fighting spirit which represents the user's inner self, augments their fighting ability and allows them to use magic.
  • The Under Night characters have EXS Abilities; EXS is the source of their power as In-Births within the Hollow Night, and is stored inside their bodies or Vessels.
  • Fighters from the world of RWBY use their soul power (Aura) to shield their bodies from harm, augment their attacks and heal their wounds. In addition, every person has an innate power called a Semblance that is unique to the person.
  • The girls from Arcana Heart use the Arcana, elemental guardians who lends their powers to their respective maidens to help protect the physical world and the elemental world.
  • The shinobi from Senran Kagura have trained themselves to perform Ninja Arts to do various different techniques from calling upon their ninja animals, to manipulating the elements or performing devastating moves with their weapons.
  • The Akatsuki Blitzkampf characters are Super Soldiers augmented by the militaries of their war-torn world.
• Character Roster Global Warming: The base 20-man roster of the game has two super-heavyweight grapplers in Tager and Waldstein, who have been paired up a lot in promotional materials, as well as Azrael, who's not a grappler but otherwise is slow and powerful. With DLC, that includes Kanji, Hakumen and Blitztank.
• Charged Attack: Makoto can wind up certain Skills by holding the button, which causes a gauge to appear at the bottom of the screen. The higher the level of charge, the more power the attack delivers, and certain moves gain extra properties with higher charges, but holding the button too long will cause attacks to "overcharge", which will bring their power level back down.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The main colors of the announced properties thus far — BlazBlue has blue, Persona 4 Arena has yellow, Under Night In-Birth has purple, RWBY has red, Arcana Heart has pink, Senran Kagura is cyan, and Akatsuki Blitzkampf is brown. In fact, the system even calls the P4A, Team Yellow. These colors are now reflected in background elements from the 2.0 update, like the character select screen and the lifebars.
  • As of the 10/20/17 build, inactive characters called in for assists are highlighted in the color of their team to differentiate them from the players.
• Combat Hand Fan:
  • Yukiko's weapon, befitting an Ojou/Yamato Nadeshiko-type Lady of War. While she can throw her fans as projectiles in addition to using them for melee purposes, the bulk of her medium- and long-range attacks are magic-oriented.
  • Yumi's weapon. Lacking a Persona, Yumi is more direct in her fighting style compared to Yukiko.
• Combination Attack:
  • If your Clash Assault connects with a grounded opponent, your inactive character will jump in and join in on the attack to deal additional damage, and the final strike creates a "cross" pattern on the last hit.
  • Distortion Skill Duo allows you to press your partner button while using a Distortion Skill to burn two additional Skill Gauges and have your inactive character jump in and perform their own Distortion Skill.
  • You can also spend whatever is left in your tag meter to temporarily call your partner in order to perform infinite assists for as long as there is meter left in the Tag Gauge. Your characters will then switch once the gauge is depleted. With this you can turn essentially any character into a puppet character so long as you still have both your characters.
• Combo Breaker: You can spend your entire Assist Gauge while under assault (either while blocking or getting hit) to have your inactive character drop in to attack and switch places. That said, players have to be wary as tagging in to an invincible move will just put them back into the untenable situation they wanted to get out of, only sans tag resource.
• Comeback Mechanic:
  • Resonance Blaze, which can be activated when one character is defeated. It slowly recovers HP, causes you to automatically gain Skill Gauge stocks, increases the max number of Skill Gauge stocks with the total amount dependent on what level your Resonance Gauge is at, powers up your Distortion Skills, and seems to apply similar effects to Overdrive in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma and Central Fiction.
  • If Yang enters 35% HP or less, her Semblance triggers, which cues a Background Music Override, gives her a Battle Aura, and causes all of her punch-based attacks to hit more times and enhances all of her Skills.
• Composite Character: The BlazBlue characters appear to be heading this direction by combining their movesets across the series and even borrowing moves from their Unlimited forms. Ragna, for example, can use both Belial Edge and Nightmare Edge ^note which replaced Belial Edge in Central Fiction, has both the short and long-ranged versions of Dead Spike and can use his Unlimited form's Dead Spike with the two follow-ups at the cost of one unit of the Skill Gauge.
• Cool Sword:
  • Ragna's Aramasa, a BFS that can transform into a Sinister Scythe.
  • Hyde's Insulator, which can destroy other EXS Abilities.
  • Jin's Yukianesa, a katana made of un-melting ice, plays it both ways.
  • Weiss's Myrtenaster, a Royal Rapier armed with multiple varieties of Dust that gives her access to a slew of Elemental Powers.
  • Nu-13's Murakumo is so cool that she merges with it and uses it to summon even more swords.
  • Es has a Murakumo of her own, a greatsword able to absorb seithr and create energy "spikes" in the wake of the blade's trails.
  • Blake's Gambol Shroud. A katana-pistol hybrid weapon that she can swing around on a ribbon. The sheath works like a cleaver.
  • Orie's The Ruler. A Royal Rapier that lets her summon Thanatos (no, not that Thanatos) and fight alongside her.
  • Jubei's Musashi. A pair of katana that can cut through souls, dimensions, and the fabric of reality.
  • Hakumen's Ookami, a giant katana almost as long as Hakumen is tall that has the power to slice through Ars Magus.
  • Averted with Yu. He has a common Katana as his weapon. Then again, that's not where his powers come from.
• Cool vs. Awesome: Four main heroes from different games are about to cross paths, it doesn't stop there!
• Counter-Attack:
  • Each character sports a universal counter known as a Reversal Action, which is activated with A+D.
  • This is Hakumen's gimmick, as a good chunk of his moveset is composed of command counters that activate if struck directly by the enemy. If the timing is off however, then he is left open to retaliation.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: A common complaint in early builds of the game was that Ruby had an extremely high-pitched, grating voice, which didn't help as she had a loud cry for every attack and especially didn't help in a Mirror Match. Eventually Lindsay Jones came back to re-do her lines, and these complaints have since lessened.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • For the purposes of accessibility, BBTAG is explicitly being designed to work well on controllers. This is a heavy deviation from the rest of the series and most fighting games, which are typically designed for fight sticks first to replicate the arcade experience. For example, whereas Overdrive in Chronophantasma and Central Fiction required pressing all four face buttons at once (though this can be "fixed" through button mapping), Resonance Blaze in BBTAG only requires a simple press of the Partner button when you are fighting solo.
  • One of the biggest changes is that, unlike nearly every other ASW fighting game, BBTAG only uses three attack buttons: a Light Attack (or A), Heavy Attack (B), and C, the latter of which is used for Clash Assault, universal sweep attacks and Aerial Specials. D, used for Drives in the main BlazBlue titles, tags characters in and out, while a fifth button is reserved for Partner Skills.
  • For the first time in the BlazBlue series this game uses auto-combos/smart combos, which are input by either Button Mashing Light Attack or Heavy Attack in addition to standard combos. However, to mix it up, each character has different smart combo inputs, some of which are exclusive to them. For example, Yu, Yosuke, and Linne have smart combos that can only be performed by mashing Light Attack while holding Back (which for the Persona characters, is their auto combo from the original Persona 4 Arena game), while Hazama is the only character who has an aerial smart combo usable by mashing A.
    • Adding into this, special moves that are allocated to being smart combo inputs (e.g. Ragna's Not Over Yet being 5BBB and Hazama's Jabaki/Venom Sword being 5AAA) no longer retain special special-move-based properties, meaning they no longer inflict any special-based chip damage on block. But since they now count as quote-on-quote "normal moves", they can be cancelled into Distortion Skills mentioned below.
  • Distortion Skills are Super Moves are done with a single motion and two attack buttons similar to the Marvel crossover games and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Dragon Punches or any other similar reversal attacks are done with pressing only two buttons instead of a proper motion, which is most likely a nod to both the Furious Action from the Persona 4 Arena games, and via Under Night In-Birth's proxy, French Bread's more recently developed Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax, which also uses two buttons for a universal reversal special available to all characters. Needless to say, anyone expecting characters to play exactly like their source material is bound to feel the changes hard.
    • Distortion Skills also can no longer be super-cancelled into from Skills AKA actual special moves, likely as a balance to the overall amount of tag-team damage that's possible to output. Though they can still be super cancelled if Resonance Blaze is active.
  • Using an Infinite Worth EXS in Under Night summoned a pillar of light standard to all characters that would trigger the attack if it connected. In BBTAG, the actual attack animation for the Infinite Worth EXS is the trigger hit instead, making it harder for some Under Night characters to connect with their Astrals. On the other hand, they One-Hit KO now, unlike in Under Night.
  • Noel's Astral Heat is her Chronophantasma/Central Fiction Astral but with the properties of her Calamity Trigger/Continuum Shift Astral, thus making it not a Counter-Attack unlike its previous appearances.
• Dance Battler: Discussed by Yukiko and Weiss in their unique battle intro.
  Yukiko: I shall show you my greatest fire dance!
  Weiss: How lovely, I'm a confident dancer myself. Allow me to join you.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Ragna and Hyde, as per the usual.
  • Ruby Rose as well. Despite her primarily dark-colored outfit, she's one of the most idealistic characters in her home series. Downplayed with Blake, who's an Anti-Hero who wears black and white.
  • Waldstein has a design that just screams "villain". He's also one of the protagonists of UNIEL.
  • Naoto Shirogane uses darkness skills, but she is a detective who seeks the truth when investigating cases. Ditto Naoto Kurogane, who uses his blood to attack like Carmine but also serves as the Hot-Blooded hero of Bloodedge Experience.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts:
  • Ruby's hits are less impactful than that of her peers, but she specializes in high hit counts and speed that make those softer blows add up.
  • Yosuke pushes this even harder than Ruby; his attacks deal even less damage per hit, but this is offset by his incredible agility and multi-hit attacks.
  • This is pretty much Seth's gameplay in a nutshell as well, dealing multiple weak hits to the enemy to keep them busy while he dashes all around the stage.
• Defend Command: Aside from the typical "hold back to defend" in 2D games, there's also the Reject Guard that works similarly to Marvel's Advancing Guard in that a successful block will result in the opponent being pushed back from you. This costs one Skill Stock, however, so that it can't be spammed continuously.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Despite being playable characters back in the original Arcana Heart games, Saki Tsuzura and Weiß are only portraits for the player's online profile here.
  • Given she only appears while equipping Izayoi here, Tsubaki Yayoi's base form is not present at all.
  • Yuuki Terumi is reduced to only appear in one of Susanoo's intros, not being a separate character like in the main series.
• Denser and Wackier: Much like the Lighter and Softer entry below, BBTag is a glorified Gag Reel.
• Dialogue Tree: Teaming certain characters up can yield these, resulting in special intros, win poses when an assist character is present for the KO and banter in the victory screen. Characters also have special call-outs for Partner Skills if they're from the same franchise in addition to the main protagonists (Ragna, Yu, Hyde, Ruby, Heart, Yumi, Akatsuki) with each other. The heavy emphasis on team-related dialogue means that there's little in terms of banter targeted at the opponents, unlike prior games from each of the three main franchises where voice clips varied depending on who is fighting at the time.
• Downloadable Content: Confirmed so far is a series of "Season Pass"-style downloadable characters, also with the "all-in-one pack" option. There's a total of 20 DLC characters with Blake and Yang being free DLC. The first character pack (Platinum, Kanji and Orie) was available for free during the first week after release.
  • Later followed by a Spring 2019 update that introduced Naoto Kurogane, Seth, Teddie and Heart Aino, which was also made free to players who purchased every other DLC pack beforehand.
  • The 2.0 update added in Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf to the roster, with 9 newcomers set to drop alongside the update proper in November 2019 for another season pass.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Yosuke wields a pair of kunai.
  • Linne wields a broadsword and a knife named Mumei and Nanashi, both in a Reverse Grip.
  • Alongside Ouroboros, Hazama wields a pair of butterfly knives.
  • Noel's Bolverk is a pair of guns.
  • Makoto fights with two tonfa-like armguards, used to increase the force of her punches.
  • Blake wields her gun-kusarigama-sword with its sharpened sheath.
  • Yang is equipped with a shotgun gauntlet on each arm.
  • Jubei's Musashi is a pair of katana.
• Dynamic Entry: If you have a full Cross Gauge, or your active character is downed, you can press L1 to perform a Cross Burst, which dumps your entire Cross Gauge to have your inactive character switch in with an attack.
• Easter Egg: Teddie's Mystery Food X projectile normally deals damage and drains a Skill Gauge stock on contact with any character. However, if Mai Natsume picks it up, it has the inverse effect, referencing her ability to eat Noel's cooking and like it.
• Enemy Mine: Certainly the case if Ragna is placed on a team with Jin or Nu-13 or Hazama.
  • Also when Hakumen is placed on a team with Nu-13.
  • And when any of RWBY are placed on a team with Neo. But Yang especially.
  • Adachi with the Investigation Team, with the exception of Yu.
  • Susano'o with borderline every BlazBlue character.
• EX Special Attacks: Present universally among the cast, performed with a motion input and the C button along with a cost of 1 bar. Of note is that this was a mechanic previously seen in both Persona 4 Arena and Under Night, while it remained exclusive to Jin among the BlazBlue roster.
• Fairytale Motifs: Team RWBY all borrow cues from classic fairy tale heroines: Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Belle and Goldilocks, respectively.
• Fanservice Pack: Most of the RWBY cast adapted to the anime-styled artwork and animated cutscenes used in BBTAG appear bustier than usual compared to their original appearances. For example, Ruby has a modified version of her Beacon Saga outfit (a two-piece jacket/shirt) that accentuates her chest more ^note compare her original artwork◊ with the game's official artwork◊, while Blake ^note compare her official artwork◊ with the original◊ and Yang ^note compare her original design◊ with BBTAG◊ have even more pronounced busts than before despite their already-existing bustiness. Pretty amusingly, Weiss is the only RWBY heroine to not get a bust upgrade^note though she still has, erm, other assets. Subverted in their in-battle sprites (which are fairly faithful to their original depictions in their own show).
• Fighting Spirit: Yu and the other Persona characters, who fight by summoning a manifestation of their inner self known as a, well, Persona. Orie's EXS ability allows her to summon her own familiar, Thanatos.
• Finishing Move: Astral Heats return and retain their use as the over-the-top cinematic finishers from BlazBlue. They can only be performed in Resonance Blaze, with the opponent team only having a single character left and the meter being maxed out at 9 bars (which necessitates a Level 4 Resonance Blaze).
• Flower Motifs: Both Ruby Rose and Rachel Alucard have roses as a theme. Ruby's Semblance causes rose petals to appear as she moves, while Rachel's Silpheed is indicated by rose petals blowing in the wind.
  • Yukiko Amagi is here as the Cherry Blossom Girl. Her Astral Heat is adorned in it, even.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: This only really applies to the base 20 characters, which is equally split between male and female fighters. Factor in all the DLC, and the ratio is skewed more towards the female side.^note There are currently 23 guys (Ragna, Jin, Hazama, Azrael, Tager, Jubei, Hakumen, Naoto Kurogane, Susanoo, Yu, Yosuke, Kanji, Akihiko, Teddie, Adachi, Hyde, Waldstein, Gordeau, Carmine, Merkava, Seth, Akatsuki and Blitztank) compared to 30 girls (Rachel, Noel, Makoto, Nu, Es, Platinum, Izayoi, Nine, Mai, Celica, Chie, Yukiko, Aegis, Naoto Shirogane, Mitsuru, Labrys, Elizabeth, Linne, Orie, Vatista, Yuzuriha, Mika, Hilda, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Neo, Heart and Yumi).
• Golden Ending: The final "Cooperative" ending hidden behind the BlazBlue path requires that the player see every single possible ending, unlocking dialogue options for Ragna to take upon replaying his story. By not trusting Hazama, placating Nu and encouraging cooperation between the other fighters, Yu, Hyde, Ruby and their respective allies show up to join the final battle.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Azrael, Chie, Waldstein, Makoto, Yang, and Akihiko prefer to get physical, compared to other fighters who primarily use weaponry or familiars. That said, Waldstein, Makoto and Yang do use Wolverine Claws, tonfas and Power Fist respectively, while Akihiko occasionally summons his Persona, but they all chiefly remain close-range brawlers.
• The Grim Reaper: Ragna has the moniker. In addition, Gordeau has "Grim Reaper" ^note referring to his special move of that name as a stat on his character card.
• Guest Fighter: Cross Tag Battle marks the fighting game debut of Team RWBY, the eponymous four heroines of an anime-styled web animation series produced by Rooster Teeth.
  • Heart Aino from Arcana Heart joins the fight in a 2019 update for the game and a sixth "fate" crossover was also promised in her debut trailer, meaning there will be another guest fighter from elsewhere as well. These were revealed to be from Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf, with Yumi, Akatsuki and Blitztank among the first of 9 newcomers for the 2.0 update.
• Here We Go Again!: In the Under Night episode's ending, Hyde seems to think that they've returned back home... only for Ragna, Yu, Ruby, Azrael, Aigis, Kanji and more to show up - the System had successfully recreated the Under Night universe and pitted the entire roster in a free-for-all tournament one more time. Linne realizes that they need to go through the whole ordeal of fighting everyone one more time.
• An Ice Person:
  • Jin Kisaragi retains his unique ability to freeze opponents solid with his Drives, Special Attacks, and Distortion Skills, rendering them briefly immobile. Much of his moveset also consists of creating structures out of ice and using them to attack.
  • Weiss incorporates some ice attacks into her fighting style with her Semblance and Dust.
  • Mitsuru also has ice attacks and, like Jin, can freeze her opponents with the help of her Persona, Artemisia.
  • One new scenario in the 2.0 update shows a team-up with resident ice users Jin, Weiss, Teddie and Yumi.
• Inconsistent Dub: In Persona 4's Japanese version, the characters were mostly on a Last-Name Basis with each other, which was changed in the English localization to be on a First-Name Basis. Cross Tag Battle uses direct translations from the original Japanese version and resorts to using last names again - exceptions apply to closer friendships like Chie and Yukiko, and Akihiko and Mitsuru. In addition, a few character names were changed; see Inconsistent Spelling.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Two DLC characters are spelled differently than in their home series, Aegis^*normally Aigis and Neo Politan^*normally Neopolitan, but this wasn't the first game to deviate.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: The Episode RWBY ending has the team transported back to their dorm plus the red Keystone and the System in a weakened form. They eventually decide on keeping the thing as a pet.
• Instant Runes: Weiss's Semblance, Glyphs, takes the form of these; they can serve a wide variety of functions depending on the Glyph used. In gameplay, this takes the form of being able to cast spells at a given range and having access to Glyphs as a method of controlled mobility.
• Jack of All Stats: Owing to their status as being stock standard characters in each of their games compared to the other, more outlandish and gimmicky characters, Ragna, Yu, and Hyde are all given an even four stars in each of their stats except Luck.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Ragna, of course. He swears a lot and prone to trash talk, but he's also the unassuming hero of his story.
  • Hyde, like Ragna, is a bit rough around the edges but unquestionably a good kid.
  • Kanji is a confrontational delinquent, who nonetheless cares very deeply for his friends and has a gentle heart under his tough-guy exterior.
  • Weiss is an uptight rich girl and demanding of her teammates, but is quite clearly outraged when an opponent brings them down in battle, and also she has a soft spot for her partner Ruby.
• Katanas Are Just Better:
  • Jin, Yu, and Hyde wield katanas.
  • The unsheathed version of Es' Murakumo also resembles a katana (or nodachi), though this is only seen in XBlaze and during her Astral Heat in Central Fiction.
  • Blake's Gambol Shroud likewise has a katana form.
  • Hakumen's Ookami is classified as a nodachi, though it edges into Oddly Shaped Sword territory due to its seemingly blunt, rhomboid-shaped tip. Jubei's Musashi is also a pair of katanas.
• Kinetic Novel: While Episode BB has a few choices to make throughout the story, Episodes P4A, UNI, and RWBY have no choices and follow a linear plotline.
• Lag Cancel:
  • Generally, you can cancel Smart Combo A (except its finisher) into Smart Combo B, then a C move (optionally), then a special move or a Distortion Skill. You may sneak in Partner Skills in between. In Resonance Blaze, you're allowed to cancel specials into DS. Under Night characters can perform most of these cancels in reverse order much like their home game.
  • Linne's EXS, Speed Star, allows her to dash cancel specific moves by double tapping forward.
  • Hakumen, like in his home game, can cancel his specials to another, but now they cost 1 skill gauge each time.
• Leitmotif:
  • The character themes of every character from their home games make a comeback, and randomly plays in a match should they be among the four participants present.
    • For BlazBlue and Under Night characters who shared rivalry themes, their themes are used if the related characters are on the same team. For example, Ragna teaming with Jin, Rachel and Hazama will have "Under Heaven Destruction", "White Requiem" and "Nightmare Fiction" play respectively. Notably, despite Jubei and Nine not sharing a rivalry theme, teaming them up here will play "Reincarnation" - Nine's theme when paired against either Celica or Kokonoe.
  • The four RWBY heroines' themes are medleys of one of their theme songs from the show, along with another songs that are also from their series.
  • The main theme for BBTAG, "Crossing Fate", have four different versions each done in the style of the four franchises. The BlazBlue version brings the epic Daisuke Ishiwatari-style heavy rock soundtrack we've come to expect; the Persona 4 version exchanges for violins and a piano; the UNIEL version is a more electronic piece reminiscent of Hyde's theme; and the RWBY version features a soft piano intro transitioning into triumphant live guitar.
  • A special theme also plays if all four characters present in the match are from the same series. BlazBlue characters have their version of "Crossing Fate", Persona 4 Arena characters have "Shadow World" from Persona 4 Golden with a very slight chance of "Pursuing My True Self" from the original Persona 4 overriding it (or "Burn My Dread" from Persona 3 in the case of the Shadow Operatives), the Under Night In-Birth characters get "Unknown Actor", and an all-RWBY match has "Red Like Roses Part II".
  • The themes that play when characters perform their Astral Heats are all different as well. BlazBlue and Under Night fighters reuse "Crossing Fate" and "Unknown Actor", Persona 4 Arena characters retain "Fog" from their use of Instant Kills in their home game, and the RWBY girls use "This Will Be The Day".
• Let's You and Him Fight: The story is set when the 40 members of the final roster are sent to the "Phantom Field", which resembles all four of their worlds merged into one. A mysterious voice reveals that there are four special Keystones which represent each world, and everyone must fight each other in a Tag Team-based tournament to obtain said Keystones in order to escape. Most of the combatants believe that the voice has given each of them different instructions to incite fighting between all of them, but a few grow wary of this as the tournament progresses. Much of the buildup to the final sections of each route is the main character and several others realizing that fighting isn't outright necessary to escape, although the Under Night ending reintroduces this again by forcing everyone into a battle royale in Kanzakai.
• Life Drain:
  • Ragna's Drives, Special Attacks, and Distortion Skills can restore a tiny bit of HP when they connect. In addition to restoring his actual health, health regenerated by his attacks doesn't take out of the red portion of his health gauge, allowing him to restore additional health while on standby or in Resonance Blaze.
  • Carmine can restore some of his health by landing his normal throw or command throw via the last hit of his 'A' smart combo.
• Lighter and Softer: In comparison to a lot of BlazBlue games, especially Central Fiction, much of this game's scenarios in Episode Mode are mostly Played for Laughs.
  • The Extra Episode takes it even up a notch, as instead of being tasked to retrieve Keystones, the fighters are now asked to... fill out a card with stamps that can only be obtained by increasingly ridiculous non-fighting activities, like cook-offs, running through mazes and ping-pong matches. Hilarity Ensues.
• Limit Break: Each character has their own Distortion Skills they can use to lay the smackdown on their foes. These get buffed while performing a Cross Combo or during Resonance Blaze.
• Little Red Fighting Hood: Ruby, obviously.
• Long-Range Fighter:
  • Nu-13, Yukiko and Vatista all have very high Range stats, and the former is particularly infamous for this.
  • Weiss and Gordeau respectively attack with ice shards and a very long scythe and have slightly above average Range stats (though they're not quite as helpless if the enemy closes in).
  • Hazama and Rachel are also meant to fight at a distance, combining them with their mobility for zone control to put limits on where the enemy can go and what they can do.
• Mana Drain: Gordeau's EXS Ability has been adapted to drain the opponent's Skill Gauge when he connects with specific attacks and Assists, as opposed to the GRD Meter in Under Night.
• Mascot Fighter: The game combines franchises that Arc System Works had some involvement with, and a franchise that was created by a (sadly deceased) fan of theirs, all in one game.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Between the four mentioned series and their respective franchise owners: Arc System Works, Atlus, French Bread, and Rooster Teeth.
• Meaningful Rename: The terminology for super moves has been changed from "Distortion Drive" to "Distortion Skill," as Drives aren't the only type of superpower in play anymore. That said, the term is actually a combination of two terms from BlazBlue and P4A: the former's "Distortion Drives" and the latter's "SP Skills".
• Mirror Match: The story opens with Ragna being (unwillingly) teleported to the Phantom Field then immediately being forced to fight a copy of himself.
• Missing Secret: There are arcade cabinets in the hub that acts as a main menu, and there is even a path leading to them. It seems like they might be used for something, such as an Arcade Mode, but they ultimately do not have any function.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: The RWBY girls all have these. Ruby's scythe has a large sniper rifle built into the haft, Weiss' rapier has a revolver-like mechanism for holding different Dust vials (and this gives her a lot of quasi-magical abilities which effectively lets the sword double as a magic wand), Blake's folding ninja sword has a pistol built into the grip and the sheath is itself a weapon, and Yang's gauntlets have shotguns built into them that Yang keeps loaded with incendiary ammunition.
• Moe: An In-Universe statistic, no less. Ruby, Weiss, Es, Platinum, Orie, and Vatista all have their Luck stats replaced with a Kawaii stat. Es has the lowest rank, a still respectable 9 stars. Platinum, Orie and Vatista all have 10 stars. But Ruby and Weiss are the undisputed queens of cute, as they both have 12.
• Multiple Endings: There are 7 endings to the story. The Persona, Under Night and RWBY campaigns have one ending each while the BlazBlue route has 4 - the last of which can only be unlocked by completing the other stories:
  • In Episode BlazBlue, Ragna and Jin's victory over System restores their universe as normal while side choices made during the story influence the last few scenes in different ways. If Ragna chooses to trust Hazama, the latter takes the BlazBlue Keystone for himself to continue plotting; this actually leads into the Extra Episode from the 2.0 update. If he doesn't, the ending changes depending on who Ragna opts to prioritizes meeting between Noel and Rachel, who - depending on whether Ragna trusts Hazama or not - may take Jin's place in the System fight. Noel's ending is the more straightforward between the two as Ragna leaves her behind in Makoto's care with the worlds restored. Choosing Rachel results in Es using the other Keystones to seal away System while Rachel reveals the truth behind the Phantom Field.
  • Episode Persona sees the Investigation Team return to Yasogami High, only to realize that Ragna, Noel, Hyde and Ruby - all of whom lack their memories - have appeared as transfer students.
  • Episode Under Night ends with the entirety of the cast trapped in the Under Night universe during the Hollow Night. The restored System uses this as an opportunity to commence a free-for-all battle royale, causing Linne to realize that they need to repeat the entire thing all over again.
  • Episode RWBY has Team RWBY return back to Beacon with System trapped in their universes' Keystone.
  • The Cooperative ending sees Ragna, Yu, Hyde and Ruby defeat System, now powered by all four Keystones. After celebrating their victory with Weiss, Linne, Yosuke, Yukiko, Chie, Noel, Jin and Rachel, the universes are restored back to they once were.
  • In the Extra Episode, Naoto Kurogane and Ragna's defeat of the false Susano'o allows System to be restored after Hazama's schemes left her drained. Because of her weakened state, she is unable to send the fighters back to their respective universes unless they were to compete in more tag battles, which would allow her to gather more energy from their combat. With nowhere else to go, the cast prepares to do battle with each other over and over again until they get to return home.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The BlazBlue cast has the unique distinction of being the only characters to use the "=" in their names as spaces ^note the "=" is occasionally used in names written in Japanese and is referred to as a "double hyphen" just like in the main BlazBlue games, whereas other characters have their names written normally. Furthermore, unlike the other characters (whose names are in all capitals), Es's name is written with a lowercase S, just like how it was in Central Fiction, whereas Nu's name is rendered with her corresponding Greek letter and "No." placed before her designation (ν-No.-13-) in the manner of Chronophantasma and Central Fiction ^note the character select screens in Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift omitted the "No." for the Murakumo Units (i.e. ν-13-).
  • Due to Resonance Blaze being based on the Overdrive mechanic, the BlazBlue characters additionally have their unique sigils appear behind them as a visual effect when activating Resonance Blaze, just like Overdrive in Chronophantasma and Central Fiction. The sigils also appear when they are brought in to initiate Cross Combos.
  • The P4A characters have the same animations when performing a Clash Assault as when they execute an All-Out Attack ^note which is also a universal overhead in their home game. Similarly, some of the BlazBlue characters have their Crush Triggers repurposed for Clash Assault (otherwise they use their normal overhead attacks). The Under Night characters mostly use their j.C attacks after a leap forward, referencing the Assault mechanic from their home game.
    • To further go down this road, the Persona cast reuse their Furious Actions for their Reversal Actions, as the latter was based on the former.
  • Using an EX Skill (which consumes one Skill Gauge) causes the character to blink blue and make blue Speed Echoes appear, just like Skill Boost in Persona 4 Arena.
  • All of the UNIB characters introduced after the first gameplay trailer have the first letter of their names in red in their respective reveal trailers, like they do at the character select screen and pre-battle screen of their respective game.
    • In addition, the Under Night cast is on a strict First-Name Basis deal just like their home game, whereas the rest of the cast is referred to by their full names.
  • In the English dub, the Persona cast occasionally add Japanese Honorifics when talking to other characters, as in the main Persona games. No other characters in the game do this, despite the presence of other Japanese characters in the roster like most of the Under Night roster.
  • In BlazBlue, Hazama is one of the few characters who doesn't possess a proper dash; his dash commands simply cause him to quick-step forward or backward. Thusly, his "running" animation in BBTAG is simply him multi-stepping in rapid succession. On the other hand, Tager, Azrael and Hakumen - the only other BlazBlue fighters here who do not run in their home series - are adapted differently, Tager can only walk while Azrael and Hakumen are capable of both normally walking and dashing.
  • The "Distortion Skill" name for this game's Limit Breaks combines the names from terms used by the ones seen in BlazBlue (Distortion Drive) and Persona 4 Arena (SP Skill).
  • The cut-ins for the Persona 4 Arena characters when performing assists or tags are taken from the VS screens in their home game. Likewise, the Under Night cast (and Akatsuki) recycle the ones taken when performing an EX attack. Heart uses her VS screen and Super Move Portrait Attack artwork. Yumi uses her artwork from the cover of Estival Versus.
  • For Astral Finishes, while BlazBlue characters obviously use their Astral Heats, Persona characters use their Instant Kills and RWBY characters' own are brand new, Under Night characters get theirs from their Infinite Worth EXS's which only served as powerful super moves in their home series that can only be used when low on health, Heart uses a combination of her Critical Heart, each character's most powerful move in her home game what uses full gauge to use, and Arcana Blaze, each Arcana's most powerful move what can only be used during Extend Force.
  • When activating said Astral Heats, the BlazBlue cast has their emblems glowing in red as usual, the Persona characters show their cut in when going into Awakening, the Under Night characters use the animated cut-ins tied to their Infinite Worth EXS, AH characters have both their Super Move Portrait Attack when using their supers and sigil+Arcana artwork combo when using Arcana Blaze and while the RWBY characters don't have a unique cut in, their Astral Heats are shown with a background of the shattered moon familiar to the series.
  • When Yang taps into her Semblance further, I Burn overrides whatever song is playing. On one end, this is akin to Super Mode sequences from other Arc System Works fighters like Sol's Dragon Install in Guilty Gear Xrd and Bang's Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan. On the other hand, it's a Call-Back to the exact same Heroic Second Wind Yang found herself in her DEATH BATTLE! against Tifa Lockheart.
  • This picture◊ from part of the story mode shows Ruby wearing a Yasogami High uniform, but with her hood over it, just like how she wore her Beacon Academy outfit.
  • Blake comments when partnered up with Jin that she's used to fighting alongside an Iaido user, referencing her old partner, Adam Taurus.
  • Orie and Weiss's victory screen has the two swearing to be the best possible partners to each other while they're fighting together, in reference to Weiss promising Ruby the same after she accepted that Ruby as her leader. Doubles as an Actor Allusion, as Orie and Ruby are both voiced by Saori Hayami in Japanese.
  • For the RWBY characters, their animation during a time up loss see them slump down into the sitting positions seen in Volume 3's intro. See here.
  • Colors 8 through 13 are all references. Color 8 is a Guilty Gear reference^note Except for the Persona 4 Arena characters, who instead get another Persona reference, Color 9 is BlazBlue, Color 10 is Persona, Color 11 is Under Night, Color 12 is RWBY, and Color 13 depends on the character and reference.^note For example, Gordeau's Color 13 represents X-Men's Gambit, Weiss's refers to Disney's Snow White, and the Persona 4 Arena characters get some Persona 5 counterparts If they are already apart of that universe, they will represent another character of that universe. In most cases, some characters reciprocate by having common color schemes.
  • Towards the end of the P4A route, Ragna grumbles about Rachel and tells the group that he plans to make her cry, which is a reference to Ragna and Rachel's intro from Chronophantasma.
  • While most characters have unique interactions when paired up together, Team RWBY and four of the Six Heroes (Hakumen, Jubei, Nine and Platinum) are the only characters to have special intros if all of them are present in the same match. The 2.0 update added in another 4-way intro between Ragna, Jin, Noel and Celica.
  • The character select screen organizes the roster based on their first playable appearance in their home series. On particular notes:
    • Mika is dead last among the Under Night roster, likely a reference to her being the only one who was taken from a future version of the game.
    • Mitsuru, Akihiko and Aigis all take up the penultimate slots on the Persona 4 Arena section due to being the second to the last wave of time-unlocked characters from the game's original arcade run in Japan. Labrys, who was in that last wave due to serving as a boss character, is the final slot on that section. Same goes for Elizabeth. Adachi is the final slot in the whole section since, as of the latest update, he's the only character who comes from Arena's sequel, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and the logo changes to reflect it.
    • Notably, the BlazBlue side does have one gaffe. With all the DLC unlocked, Izayoi's spot is placed before Azrael's despite the latter being introduced first in their shared debut installment.^note Azrael was one of the first three newcomers introduced in Chrono Phantasma, while Izayoi was added in later.
  • The Under Night characters are the only fighters who can transition to a weak auto combo from a strong one, similar to how the Passing Link and Reverse Beat systems from their home game worked.
• Nerf:
  • The new control scheme means that Rachel's Sylpheed can't be activated on command like previous games and must be triggered with specific moves, which limits the freedom with which she can use her Drive.
  • Yosuke's ability to chain aerial specials has been pared down due to losing several moves between Arena and BlazBlue.
  • Yukiko's max Fire Boost stacks have been bumped up to 9, making it harder to hit max stacks for the same effects.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game takes the assets - both the characters and the stages - from its participating franchises: BlazBlue, Under Night In-Birth, Persona 4: Arena, and Arcana Heart. The RWBY characters and Yumi, who haven't made an appearance in a 2D fighter before, are made from scratch. For Akatsuki Blitzkampf however, Akatsuki reuses his sprites from Under Night In-Birth, while Blitztank's sprites are new.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Due being reused from a game developed by a different studio, the UNIB characters' sprites look noticeably different from everyone else's, lacking outlines and possessing brighter, more vibrant shading.
• Notice This: If all of the conditions to execute an Astral Heat are met, the Resonance Blaze gauge and Skill Gauge will become enveloped in a bright orange flame aura.
• Officially Shortened Title: The title's official abbreviation is BBTAG instead of something like BBCTB.
• One-Steve Limit: There are two fighters named Naoto in the game - the Bifauxnen detective from Persona and the Hot-Blooded brawler from BlazBlue. For bonus points, their respective last names - which are dangerously similar to each other already - contain the Japanese words for "white" and "black". Their shared intro in the 2.0 update pokes fun at this. Their names aren't even different in the life bars! You can run a team that simply says "Naoto/Naoto".
  • Orie's EXS Ability familiar and Elizabeth's main Persona here are both named Thanatos.
• The One Guy/The Smurfette Principle: The character introduction trailers are structured in a way that there is always one character sticking out that is the opposite gender of the rest of the revealed characters. From the male side, it's Hazama in trailer #2, Waldstein in #3, Tager in #5, Kanji in #6, and Hakumen in #8. From the female side, it's Ruby in the teaser trailer, Linne in #1, Yukiko in #4, Aegis in #7, and Heart in #10. #9 is different, since it reveals all remaining nine DLC characters at once, including the two only male characters of that trailer, Akihiko and Merkava. Only the teaser featuring Blake and Yang is the complete exception, but the trailer itself is unorthodox to all the character introduction trailers.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • As a carryover from Persona 4 Arena, Naoto Shirogane has the unique Fate status. Like most character abilities, this has been streamlined from its home game; simply hitting either opponent with Anti-S SP Pistol Beta or the Cross Combo/Resonance version of Anti-S SP Pistol Alpha will immediately inflict the Fate status, marked by a glowing red skull will appear next to the opponent's Cross Gauge. After this happens, Naoto can instantly kill the opposing character by connecting with either her Hamaon or Mudoon Distortion Skills.
  • Everyone also has their own Astral Finish to do this as well.
• Out of Focus:
  • The majority of the roster make appearances throughout Version 2.0's Episode Extra, whether they had major or small roles. However, the only characters that didn't show up at all are Nu-13, Kanji, Naoto Shirogane, and Vatista.
  • With Naoto Kurogane as the lead in Episode Extra, he is later accompanied by Heart and Yumi. Together, they're ultimately lead to go up against a copy of Susano'o. However, despite his status as a leading rep of a franchise, Akatsuki doesn't join them. Along with several other characters, he shows up after the aforementioned battle had concluded.
• Playing with Fire:
  • Yukiko's specialty, courtesy of her Persona, Konohana Sakuya.
  • Yang also gives off this impression when her Rage Semblance kicks in and she gets serious, though it's more a visual thing. However, it does give her attacks the same effect as striking with any fire-elemental attack when they connect with the opponent.
• Power Creep, Power Seep:
  • Inevitable considering the wildly varying scales of power across and even within the four series featured in Cross Tag Battle. BlazBlue alone includes the likes of Ragna (fighting and winning against a world superpower alone and effectively becomes a god-slayer at the end of his story), Hazama (as powerful as Ragna for most of the series), Hakumen (was able to hold his own against an Eldritch Abomination that devastated the entire world on his own in the past, and is still considered to be insanely powerful at 20% of his normal strength), Jubei (hailed as the strongest being in existence and on par with the aforementioned Hakumen and Hazama even after becoming a Handicapped Badass), Nine (the wife of the aformentioned Jubei, and a master of magic and sorcery, of which considered Story-Breaker Power on BlazBlue universe and borders on Superpower Lottery), Azrael (so overwhelmingly powerful that even Hakumen runs away from him), Es (The Juggernaut most of the time in story and held her own for a while against Susano'o, game's version of 100% Hakumen, and the aforementioned Susano'o (a literal God of Destruction) himself who can effortlessly give Curb-Stomp Battle to most characters mentioned above. The Persona 4 Arena characters have defeated multiple Eldritch Abominations that could've easily ended the world and Yu has the ultimate power of truth, not to mention one of the strongest Personas ever in Izanagi-No-Okami through his mastery of the Wild Card. At the lower end of the scale, the RWBY heroines have yet to face threats as dangerous as those, though they're still certainly badasses and probably a good match for the characters from UNIEL.
    • This gets lampshaded in Ragna and Blake's team outro. Ragna dismisses his defeated opponents as small fry while Blake comments about how arduous the fight was for her. For the sake of game balance of course Ragna and Blake are evenly matched, but the dialogue really suggests that in story terms, Blake has just realized that she wouldn't stand a chance against him, and considering who her partner is in this scenario, she's very much right.
    • This was also lampshaded by Tager with his pre-battle interactions with Kanji by stating there are differences in their power levels, and they need to be careful about this match.
  • This comes up in many of the Story modes. In fights against the really strong characters like Azrael and Jubei, the other characters quickly realise they're not doing any damage and decide to flee rather to continue fighting them. The Persona 4 cast acknowledges this right away in their story mode, choosing to run from most people they encounter and stay on the defensive.
• Punched Across the Room:
  • Azrael's style of fisticuffs consists of several hard-hitting strikes and haymakers that send the opponent flying every which way.
  • Makoto retains her personal Drive, Impact, from the BlazBlue games, which can be additionally used to launch her otherwise stationary Comet Cannon for similar results.
• Puppet Fighter:
  • A feature of the Persona 4 Arena characters, who fight alongside their Personas. Unlike P4A, Persona users are no longer bound to the Persona Gauge and can no longer experience Breaks although Persona can still be destroyed, damaging their user. Orie works similarly with Thanatos.
  • Also technically possible for a short period of time for anyone since you can spend your entire Tag Gauge to temporarily call in your other character to do infinite assists until the gauge runs out. See Combination Attack above.
  • Celica is a notable subversion, despite looking like one. Since she has no fighting skill by herself (she only can heal), her puppet Minerva has to do all the fighting for her.
• Randomized Title Screen: The game opens with two random characters flanking the title, who then read out the name with fluency from good English to Engrish^note While the RWBY characters change languages depending on settings, the rest of the roster's Japanese cast call out the title.. Version 2.0 includes the English dub saying the title.
• Razor Wind: Ruby's Petal Burst Distortion Skill involves using her Semblance to dash through her opponent. The ensuing slipstream strikes the opponent for multiple hits and high damage.
• Recoil Boost: Yang improvises a powerful shoulder tackle by using the blast of Ember Celica to propel her forward at high speed.
• Recycled Soundtrack:
  • All characters have their old themes from their source materials. The BlazBlue characters who first appeared from Calamity Trigger through Continuum Shift Extend have the original versions of their songs from those games, not the newer "II" versions from Chronophantasma onward. This is somewhat strange as the first character trailer had "Lust SIN II" playing instead. Notably, the RWBY girls' themes in-game mash-up their main Leitmotifs from their debut trailers with another song from the series' soundtrack. Ruby, for instance, has both "This Will Be The Day" and "Red Like Roses Part II" as her theme here.
    • An interesting note about the music for the BlazBlue and RWBY fighters is that all their themes have had to be edited in order to loop properly like the Persona and UNIEL ones whereas they were all full songs in their source material. The RWBY girls' themes are all mash-ups which connect back to each other, and some BlazBlue songs needed to have parts omitted entirely like the extended intros.
  • As noted in Leitmotif above, BlazBlue and Under Night characters who shared rivalry themes will have those tracks played as their themes if they're paired up together.^note As of the base roster, these teams include Ragna/Jin, Jin/Noel, Ragna/Rachel, Ragna/Hazama and Sector Seven (any combination of Tager, Makoto or Azrael). With DLC, this gets expanded to the Six Heroes (Hakumen, Jubei, Platinum and Nine), Jubei/Nine/Celica (Reincarnation was originally used as Celica and Nine's rivalry theme in Central Fiction, but was added for Jubei and Nine's team-up theme here), Ragna/Hakumen, Hakumen/Izayoi, Noel/Izayoi, Hyde/Seth and Hakumen/Susano'o.
• Red Baron: The BlazBlue, P4A, and UNIEL cast are introduced via descriptive titles, with the P4A characters borrowing their titles from their home game, BlazBlue and UNIB representatives are given a mix of monikers from their series and unique names not used thus far. The RWBY cast are not given these, however; using the title of their corresponding Image Song instead.
• Reduced to Dust: Blake's Astral Heat ends with the opponent turning to dust that flies away upon the final hit.
• Regenerating Health: Your inactive character will gradually restore the red portion of their health gauge over time. Entering Resonance Blaze will also grant this effect to your remaining active character.
• Running Gag: The Luck stat given on character cards is subject to change depending on particular attributes of the character in question, even if the given stat isn't possible to use as a rating scale. For example, most characters with That One Attack use that in place of Luck ("George XIII", "Grim Reaper", or "GETB"), others just have particularly defining traits ("Ragna" for Nu, "Kawaii" for RWBY characters, Es, Orie, and Vatista).
• Say My Name: Characters may call out their partner's name (or a moniker of theirs) when calling them for assist attacks, but these vary based on team composition - this can only happen if the fighters hail from the same series; the only exception are the main protagonists (Ragna, Yu, Hyde, Ruby, Heart and Yumi^note Surprsingly enough, despite being the main protagonist of his own game, Akatsuki does not have any unique assist call-outs at all - even with Blitztank or the cast of Under Night (as his appearance here takes more after his stint as a Guest Fighter there)).
• Scratch Damage: As per the norm, Skills and Distortion Skills can inflict chip damage on block, although it can't kill. Resonance Blaze additionally allows you to deal chip damage on normals and enhances the amount of chip damage you deal based on your Resonance Level. Hyde's unique gimmick gives him chip damage on all sword attacks by default; this is compensated by Resonance Blaze doubling his non-Skill chip damage, giving him terrifying amounts of chip power.
• Shock and Awe:
  • Yu, Kanji, Akihiko and Adachi's Personas grant them power over electricity.
  • A good chunk of Rachel's attacks also consist of using lightning to electrocute the opponent, often from afar.
  • Tager has a number of electrified attacks as well, most of which serve to magnetize foes so that Tager can draw them into his preferred attack range (usually for the purpose of more easily landing one of his devastating command grabs) and/or manipulate their positioning during combos to extend them in ways that wouldn't normally be possible.
  • Thanks to his Blitz Engine, Akatsuki can incorporate electricity into his martial arts.
• Shotoclone: Keeping in line with their source games, we have Ragna, Jin, Es, Yu, Hyde, Linne, Yang, Heart and Akatsuki.
• Sibling Team: Choosing Ruby and Yang, Aigis and Labrys, Nine and Celica or any combination of Ragna, Jin, or Noel will result in this.
• Significant Double Casting: Played straight for Noel and Nu as well as Jin and Hakumen, whom share the same actors in both languages. Noel and Nu are both clones of Ragna and Jin's sister, Saya. While Hakumen is an alternate version of Jin from another timeline who lost his original body and who's soul now resides within the Susanoo Unit.
• Sinister Scythe: Wielded by three heroes no less with Ragna's Aramasa, Ruby's Crescent Rose and Gordeau's Devourer.
• Skill Gate Characters: Jin and Noel are rated as such, given 7 Stars in their "Casual" stat. However, while Noel really does tend to drop off the map in high-level play, Jin is also considered Difficult, but Awesome and typically dominates the charts in BlazBlue. Weirdly, Chie is also lumped into this category with the same "Casual" stat, despite being more of a Glass Cannon.
• Something about a Rose: Rachel and Ruby. Both lampshade this.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Having only Persona 4 Arena characters in a match replaces the Background Music with "Shadow World" from Persona 4 Golden, which is by far the least intensive song in the game and doesn't sound at all fitting as fighting game music.
• Spotlight-Stealing Crossover:
  • For obvious reasons, this applies to the BlazBlue side, which has their name plastered on the game's title and has 10 characters on the base roster of 20, as many as the other three series combined.^note As of the November 2019 update with 53 characters, BlazBlue has a total of 19, Persona 4 Arena has 13 characters, Under Night has 12, RWBY only has 5, Akatsuki Blitzkampf only has 2 characters while Arcana Heart and Senren Kagura only have 1 each.
  • As far as the Persona 4 Arena characters go, characters that debuted in Persona 4 have the lion's share of roster presence compared to characters from Persona 3, despite the two games having equal representation in their home fighting game.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: All of the fighters are rendered with 2D sprites while backed by 3D environments.
• Stalked by the Bell: A unique variant is introduced with the Rampage Time mechanic added in Version 2.0. Rampage Time triggers if the in-game clock hits 80 seconds (100 seconds after a match starts), after which the game will start nagging the players to get a move on by giving them constant free Skill Gauge.
• Story-Breaker Power: In the P4A episode, System knows that if Rise and Teddie were fighting with the Investigation Team, their navigational abilities would have them be given too big of an advantage given how they can know if they can avoid fights and reach the exit as soon as possible. Because of that, Rise and Teddie weren't part of the tournament tag battle.
• Suddenly Voiced:
  • Cross Tag Battle marks the first time the Under Night In-Birth cast have fully-voiced English dialogue.
  • Downplayed on the RWBY side of things; Neo didn't have a credited English VA until this game.
• Super Mode:
  • After one of your characters is K.O.'d, the Cross Gauge transforms into the Resonance Blaze Gauge. Pressing R1 with a live charge will cause your active character to enter Resonance Blaze, which gives you Regenerating Health, constant rapid Skill Gauge generation as long as you aren't burning meter, a boost to Skill Gauge generation, an increase in the maximum level of the Skill Gauge, and a massive boost to chip damage. The potency of Resonance Blaze's effects scales with the level of the Resonance Gauge, which increases as you land Partner Skills.
  • Chie retains access to her Power Charge Distortion Skill, which grants her a temporary boost to Skills used while under its effect.
  • Yang's Rage Semblance causes her body to be wreathed in a flame-like glow and turns her Super-Strength up to eleven, but it requires her to basically be on her last legs with a near-depleted Aura, in effect turning her from a Lightning Bruiser into what is basically a Glass Nuke. It can also stack with the Resonance Blaze.
• Super Move Portrait Attack:
  • Akin to Persona 4 Arena, Distortion Skills in BBTAG are accompanied by a portrait of the character executing the attack.
  • Astrals for the Persona characters are additionally accompanied by their Awakening cut-in from their home game. Astrals for the UNIEL cast use the animated portraits from their Infinite Worth EXS. The Arcana Heart cast use the expressive portraits that are always accompanying the fights in their home games. The BlazBlue characters instead have their sigils flash like normal as it was originally.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Ruby's trademark Crescent Rose. Ragna's Aramasa also counts, as does Blake's Gambol Shroud.
• Tag Team: As the title implies. Fights are 2v2, and fighters can switch in and out on command or execute powerful Combination Attacks. More unique to this game is that each character has multiple assist attacks that can be used on command, rather than just one. Alongside that, as noted above under Combination Attack, is the ability to use your entire Tag Gauge to be able to use infinite assists one after the other for a short period of time.
  • This is actually justified in-story. The rules of the Phantom Field dictate that fights must always be between teams of two, and cannot happen otherwise.
• Take That!: Jin's character card gives him a Casual stat of 7 stars, which is likely a reference to a certain infamous cheese tactic from previous games.
• Tarot Motifs: What unites the Persona cast.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Teaming up characters who normally don't get along or have very different personalities inevitably leads to this. For example, Ragna and Azrael, Blake and Hazama, and Jin with nearly everybody but especially Ragna and Noel.
• Time Skip: Each series is represented by characters taken from a specific point in time from their respective canons:
  • The BlazBlue roster is current as of BlazBlue: Central Fiction; indicators include the presence of Es (who made her debut in said game), Noel's new uniform without the hat and Hazama lacking any Terumi-esque mannerisms. The story mode muddies things, as Ragna recognises Es, yet Platinum still houses Trinity's soul, making it unclear when exactly this game is supposed to be happening. Susanoo's later inclusion continues to muddy things up, as Terumi only comes into possession of the Susanoo Unit after killing Hakumen, who is still alive and well in this game. In Episode Extra, it's implied that it happens after the events of Central Fiction, yet quite a lot of the characters (such as Naoto) don't recognize each other, seemingly meeting for the first time.
  • The Persona 4 Arena cast seem to be taken from the events of the first Arena game, with the current roster having lacked any characters taken from the sequel until Adachi's inclusion. The fighters do, however, seem to come from after those games, as reference is made to Mitsuru, Aegis and Labrys, but it's also clear Yu hasn't seen the others in a while.
  • The Under Night roster is seemingly current given their series only having one game to their name. Hyde's interactions with Gordeau in the Under Night route suggests that Hyde's arcade route in his game that ends with him fighting Hilda is the canon ending of that Night, but that it was some time ago in-universe. The fact that he recognizes Carmine, when their encounter only occurs in the latter's Arcade Ladder, suggests that other Arcade run-ins will also have happened. Though, given that he and Vatista not only know each other, but are on rather friendly terms, it's also possible that Vatista's arcade is the canon route, especially since Hyde still fights Hilda there (but loses). Hilda's later inclusion seems to confirm this is the case.
  • The RWBY heroines, as their costumes and the fact that Yang still has her right arm can attest to, are taken before the events of Volume 3's finale and subsequent time skip in their universe. Neo's presence is another muddying factor, as she's in possession of Roman Torchwick's hat and changes from her default outfit into her Volume 6 one in one of her victory animations, which can only be the case after the Time Skip due to his death.
• Time Stands Still: Just like Overdrive in the main games, Resonance Blaze forces the match timer to freeze while either character has it active.
• Transfer Student Uniforms: When asked why he's in his old uniform even though he was summoned from his new school, Yu off-handedly mentions that he kept wearing it even after he transferred schools. Yosuke immediately asks how he didn't notice that everyone else was wearing something different.
• Trapped in Another World: The game centers around the characters from four (Later seven) different franchises being trapped in an unknown world, having to fight amongst themselves and collect some objects called "keystones" to be able to go back home.
• Trash Talk: Tons of it, sometimes even between partners. It's all generally Played for Laughs, of course.
• True Companions: All of the Investigation Team, and Team RWBY too. To a lesser extent, there's Hyde and his "family" (Linne, Waldstein and Vatista).
  • Team RWBY is one of three quartets among the entire cast to get a special four-way battle intro:
    Ruby: Hellooooo! How's everyone doing?
    Blake: Team RWBY is back.
    Yang: Alright, let's make this a good one!
    Weiss: Then I'll count us down: Three... Two... One...
    All: FIGHT!
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • In their special intro together, Gordeau offends Yukiko by expressing surprise that she is even a fighter at all, not realizing that her Persona can conjure up a towering inferno within seconds.
  • Hyde also has a foot-in-mouth moment when he quite rudely tells Ruby to stay back and let him do the fighting if she's scared. The contrast in their fledgling abilities is brought to light as Hyde has childhood experience in kendo thanks to Yuzuriha and a full month's worth of rigorous training under Linne and Waldstein under his belt. In comparison, Ruby grew up in an isolated homestead in a world where Animalistic Abominations have pushed most of humanity behind heavily defended walled cities and to the brink of extinction, and she was trained to fight since she was a young girl by her heroic Huntsman uncle. For people familiar with Hyde's home game, this is Fridge Brilliance as standing up for a seemingly harmless girl who is actually not so harmless is how he first met Linne. Ruby herself lampshades this in her response:
    You don't have to fight if you're scared of me showing you up.
  • The above exchange never takes place in the Japanese version and Hyde instead simply tells her not to slow him down if she intends to fight with him.
  • Luna is very quick to dismiss Linne as a pipsqueak, even though she's one herself. Linne takes it in stride and decides to let her skills do the talking for her. This shuts Luna up quickly.
  • Azrael actually overestimates Chie, thinking that her title of "Carnivore" (which she considers personally embarrassing) actually means Chie is on his level or even stronger than he is... and considering his collection of similar titles (Mad Dog, Genocider, King of Atrocity, etc.), it makes sense why he'd think so. While Chie is strong, Azrael is a One-Man Army and a Person of Mass Destruction. Chie... isn't any of those.
• Video Game Dashing:
  • Ruby's Semblance allows her to essentially teleport-dash using Super-Speed in one of eight directions, including through the opponent. You can take advantage of this to create some neat cross-up options when combined with a Partner Skill.
  • Azrael also retains his dash when double-tapping forward in addition to walking, unlike the rest of the cast who are restricted to one type of movement. Ditto Hakumen.
• Violence is the Only Option: In a fighting game, this is a given, but that doesn't stop the Persona cast from trying to avoid picking fights with other characters in their parts of Episode Mode. It never succeeds, as characters from every other series prefer fighting over talking things out to begin with, so the Persona characters get thrown into fights for increasingly petty reasons.
• Wham Line: Twice in the EVO 2017 reveal trailer, punctuating that this game won't be a "normal" BlazBlue experience.
  Ragna: In that case, all I have to do is BEAT ALL OF YOU up! (Yu and Hyde appear on the scene)
  (later)
  Ruby Rose: (right before the trailer ends) Now hang on just a minute! Ah, this looks interesting! Mind if I join the fight?
  • Want to know how big those Wham Lines were? Just watch this live reaction clip from EVO.^note By the way, if you want to see something that'll make you laugh, keep an eye on the guy holding his phone in the bottom right corner of the frame.
  • At EVO 2018, the remaining DLC characters were officially announced. That in itself wasn't a surprise since many folks knew who to expect via datamining. It was what came at the end of the trailer: a fifth square, this one colored pink, added to the logo with its own Wham Line.
    A new fate intertwines.....
• Wham Shot: At the end of the EVO 2019 trailer revealing two new fates, as the image begins to fade to black, it suddenly cracks like glass and shatters, revealing the parasol belonging to Neo Politan as her Leitmotif One Thing plays.
• World of Badass: All of the franchises featured in-game, and here they are pitted against each other! Which one will come out on top?

---

RESONANCE FINISH!

---