Crazy Is Cool: Kokonoe's fighting style when she's finally a playable character, consisting of her pulling out various ridiculous weapons and gadgets and having Distortion Drive where she summons a giant Golden Tager to fire a Wave-Motion Gun.
Designated Villain: For this game's story mode, Litchi can come off as such, aside being a mere Type IV Anti-Villain. She has her own Sympathetic P.O.V. and a good portion of the Sector Seven Story revolves around her POV, and she's completely non-malicious and only fights when provoked (excepting the climax where she is forced to with Relius nearby, but still with remorse), but due to the No Campaign for the Wicked in play, the player is not allowed to control her and instead given the control of her aggressors (Bullet and Tager), just because of her allegiance.
Evil Is Cool: Azrael is this game's best example of going out of its way to make a character an unstoppable badass and making him look good while doing so.
Hottopantsu for Bullet. "SEXY!" addendum optional.
Associating Kagura with anything pirate-related.
Chronoel: Noel's new Chronophantasma design. Mostly used by the Japanese.
Gundam Tsubaki: Izayoi, because of her lots of Gundam references.
Game-Breaker: Kokonoe, who has caused the competitive community to seriously discuss a character ban for the first time since Akuma was banned from Super Street Fighter II Turbo tournaments. Nerfs have started to fix this but she is still very much top-tier.
Unlimited Kagura has an OD Distortion where he rides his motorcycle into the opponent. Against normal characters this does a lot of damage, but against Relius and Carl this is a One-Hit Kill due to Nirvana and Ignis' Super Armor. Hopefully this gets patched out for the folks who do Unlimited Mars, as playing with either Clover against Kagura is a game of chance on whether or not he uses it.
If you use Noel's Astral on Kagura, she'll do her normal win animation of running off screen from him but the camera stays focused on Noel as she runs out where the stage is programmed.
Due to the fact that Terumi's stomping win poses count as hits on the combo counter, they add points to the score counter. When he defeats Ragna, Terumi is guaranteed points from a post-match 10-hit combo. This has been exploited for Score Attack use.
If you use Relius in Highlander mode on the Vita, there's a massive amount of lag, regardless of whether or not Ignis is out, for whatever reason. Carl thankfully doesn't suffer this, despite having his own puppet.
Litchi's Arcade win quote against Mu refers to her old world-hating form and says that she doesn't necessarily disagree with its overwhelming hatred that she wanted the world to be destroyed. This comes to a head during the story's climax, where Litchi sides with Relius to "recreate the world" where Lotte Carmine lives, meaning that Litchi actually has a secret resentment for the world. Before you call her obsessed like usual, perhaps you may want to notice that the current world would lead Roy to become Arakune and had Litchi contact Boundary corruption to save him, eventually robbing her her chance to live as a normal human being (and dooming her to become the next Arakune) in the current world, which makes her character and decision become more pitifully miserable. It's that kind of world.
ArcSys previously worked on Persona 4: Arena. In the original Persona 4, Izanami was revealed to be the ultimate antagonist, revealing that the previous Big Badswere just her pawns. The same thing has happened here, though the developments might not stick, depending on what happens in later games. Still, it's going to take a lot to dethrone a Goddess of Death as the main antagonist, and unlike in the Atlus version, this version of Izanami isn't running on Blue-and-Orange Morality or "doing what she thinks the best for humanity", but solely in for her own cruel ideal of a "Death World", thus far less sympathetic and more cruel.
He's Just Hiding: Many are skeptical of Terumi, Hazama and Platinum's deaths, due to the fact that these deaths were such an Anti-Climax. Library Mode reveals that Hazama and Platinum are explicit cases of Never Found the Body. Even Terumi, who has what appears to be a very definitive death, the fact that Blazblue very rarely keeps anyone dead makes his death unconvincing. The fact that all three are confirmed to be playable in Central Fiction doesn't help.
There's a lot these this time around, but the standout example is probably Kokonoe. Her entire playstyle pretty much revolves around fucking over the opponent's movement options, which is a pretty essential component in a fighting game. Her combos did tons of damage from relatively simple motions, and she was the one of two characters note The other is Arakune, and he can't do much with it outside of curse with an unblockable setup that only a select few characters could escape. It got to the point when tournament scenes outright banned her from use. She's so good that even when they nerfed her in a patch that came out in March 2014note The patch was to bring the console exclusive characters to the Japanese arcade cabinents, she is still considered by many to be the best character in the game.
In 2.0, Nu was said to take over Kokonoe's place before the game was released to console. Once the game was released and North American players got the game, she was found to be relatively good, but nowhere near the levels the Japanese players said she is.
Hilarious in Hindsight: For the past two games, just about everyone and their grandmother has been belittling Kokonoe's lack of direct activity despite the fact that, as the daughter of two of the Six Heroes, she should have inherited enough power between Jubei and Nine to easily be one of the strongest characters in-series. (And the one time she actually did use the magic passed down from her mother, Kokonoe ended up killing Relius and thwarting the creation of another Black Beast.) Even when she's made playable in the console version of CP do characters like Ragna and Rachel spare no time in taking potshots at her alleged fighting ability. Then players had a chance to experiment with Kokonoe. Let's just say she most certainly lives up to the hype.
Makoto get a lot of flames for being "trash tier." In Makoto's case, people are hopeful that another balance patch will bring her back up to something resembling her Blazblue Continuum Shift self.
Extend is giving Makoto an altered Space-Counter input (214D) and special cancel to Lv2 D attacks, whereas Bullet gets a side-grade to Miquelet Capture, leaving the latter trapped in "trash tier". It appears as if Bullet's design truly is cursed, but the loketests may show a different side of this story.
Amane is this to some as being the lowest tiered character in the game, mainly due to his weak damage on hit and very dependent spacing on his some of his attacks. The fact that his Distortions disable his Drive also doesn't help, but he's still far from being non-viable in the proper hands due to his zoning and massive Scratch Damage power.
For some, Terumi fits this bill, mainly cause compared to his Hazama-self, he lacks the mixup needed to break past a foe's defense, and he's more about all-out offense should he land a hit (as well as having lower HP). Mainly Hazama players found him to be not as practical in comparison despite his massive meter potential and his Drive specifically being geared towards high meter gain-rate.
When Hakumen activates Overdrive in Japanese, Tetsuya Kakihara says "Yunito Kido!", but a lot of people mishear it as "UNIT COOKIE DOUGH!", and tend to refer it as such when describing his Overdrive.
Terumi's maniacal laugh has become one in its own right.
Just in case you were thinking Imperator Librarius might be misguided in some fashion, or that Terumi and/or Relius didn't fly across the line in an earlier game, the three of them open every cauldron in the world for the sake of disintegrating every living being on earth and using their souls to summon - and slay - the Master Unit. Everyone who was terminally corrupted by the time Kushinada's Lynchpin activates dies anyway and gets absorbed into the Embryo instead, which the Imperator, now outed as Hades: Izanami, evoked from the remains of Take-Mikazuchi. Not one of them had any remorse over this heinous act.
Most Wonderful Sound: The new, crunchy on-hit sound, especially during Terumi's Astral Heat.
Narm Charm: After Tsubaki/Izayoi is finally freed from the Imperator's control, she breaks down crying and begging for forgiveness in Jin's arms, and then Noel and Makoto break down into crying with her. While it's somewhat sweet (after all, they're finally reunited and they've all been through a lot), the noises they make are quite loud and ear-grating, not to mention over-acted. The Narm Charm comes in as some people find it still adds to the heartwarming... ness of the scene.
Player Punch: The True Ending and Epilogue. Ragna manages to destroy Take-Mikazuchi and free Nu from its core, Terumi is slain by Hakumen, and Relius is stripped of all of his resources. Relius' perfectionist attitude does not take failures well, causing him to suffer a massive breakdown, and he's now at the mercy of both his son whom he mocked before (and extremely traumatized casually long ago) AND the woman he's been playing like a puppet by using her love interest as leverage note with said son and woman actually caring about each other, meaning that their cooperation this time may open up a path to resolution or redemption. The heroes instate a good-natured, more proper leader (Homura, son of Tenjou) as the new (and rightful) Imperator of the NOL, which will help dispel its infamous reputation (in and out of universe) as a tyrannical organization. Happy ending? Wrong. Saya reveals herself as Izanami and the cast are completely helpless against her (Izanami never having required Terumi and Relius' help in the first place). Nu stabs Ragna in the back and Izanami forces his Grimoire to go out of control, turning him into a mindless berserker. Jin and Noel try to stop him, but are defeated (and in Jin's case, severely wounded). The epilogue has Rachel explain to a vengeful Tsubaki that either Jin or her have to kill Ragna before it's too late. Oh, and the new NOL, despite the alignment change, now ends up understaffed due to Izanami's actions, meaning that facing her in the future will be even hardernote Not to mention, they only managed to instate Homura because Izanami lets them instead of them executing a proper takeover, and according to Kagura, only half of the Duodecim agrees to join up with him in rebelling and instating Homura, so in case everything's free, the new NOL may have to face insurgencies of pro-Homura and anti-Homura..
Replacement Scrappy: A lot of fans think that Hades Izanami is just a Flat Character who wants simply to kill everybody "because she's the goddess of death" compared to a nihilistic, sadistic psychopath who loves to watch others in pain, and an amoral Mad Scientist who wants to be the god of a perfect world.
That One Attack: The Imperator's Magic Spheres, mainly because they are considered a different attack then Take-Mikazuchi which means you can get hit by Take-Mikazuchi's throw(Also a That One Attack) and be spat right into one of the spheres and take extra damage. The only way to get rid of them is a drive, which is hard for certain characters because it has to hit the middle.
That One Level: The period of a few chapters where Ranga can't use his Azure Grimoire in the story mode because of Celica has you face Jin and Azrael. The problem? Ragna can't use any of his Drive attacks at all, which means that not only is Ragna unable to use his own gameplay style, he can't use distorions. The worst part? Doing a drive results in you getting stuck in place (where Ragna does his activation for Blood Kain but can't) for a attack and since this is Jin and Azrael, you're fighting the two worst characters for such a thing.
Newcomers Azrael, Bullet, and Amane don't get that much screen time at all. Azrael, while a major force, is pretty much just an obstacle for the heroes to overcome. We never find out what ultimately happened with Bullet's squad or her connection to Kokonoe, and Amane doesn't even try to involve himself in the main conflicts. Bullet's issue gets resolved a little bit come Chronophantasma Extend, but Azrael and Amane don't get much.
Mu and Izayoi. Despite being Super Modes for Noel and Tsubaki respectively, whom both get plenty of screentime and Character Development to attain these forms, they're actually very underutilized and you only get to use them in one fight each.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some of the chracter's Arcade paths provide some interesting plot points that are never addressed in the main story mode.
Azrael's ending has both him and Ragna unleash their full power and go all out against the other. Now while Ragna does fight Azrael in the main story mode, he chooses to restrain the Azure Grimoire and not fight all out showing a major growth in his character. Azrael then turns his attention to Kagura before being sealed away again, and his Power Limiter isn't even mentioned. While Ragna did grow as a character from not using the grimoire, how amazing would it have been to have an Unlimited Ragna vs. Unlimited Azrael fight.
The aborted arc at the end of the Sector Seven storyline. It's set up to be the climax while Ragna and Rachel do something else, but it's just dropped and forgotten about in favour of having the minor plot of explaining why Ragna was able to go back in time in spite of other characters having done the same thing before wrapped up before the real conflict starts.
Trapped by Mountain Lions: The end of the "main" route before all three of them converge has Ragna, Rachel, and Noel out doing something while everyone else meets up for the climax. Notable in that this is the A plot and the climax setup is aborted.
Unexpected Character: Terumi. In the same vein as Izayoi, nobody ever suspected that Hazama, of all people, would get a second form. That is, they didn't expect 1) Terumi being a different entity from Hazama all along, and 2) they're now separated into 2 bodies.
this is a One-Hit Kill due to Nirvana and Ignis' Super Armor. Hopefully this gets patched out for the folks who do Unlimited Mars, as playing with either Clover against Kagura is a game of chance on whether or not he uses it.