Accidental Innuendo: One common way for Western fans to spell out BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend as an acronym is "BBCSEX". Given that Arcsys is based in Japan and not an English speaking country, this probably wasn't intentional, but we don't know for sure.
Thanks to Litchi's Face–Heel Turn, there has been a negative interpretation of Litchi: That she is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, using false kindness to charm other people to let her move as she likes, and when they prove useless; she will abandon them; or worse... she'll have no qualms or regret killing them for the sake of Arakune, showing her selfishness dialed up to eleven. Her pro fans would usually point out that her kindness are still genuine and she will definitely not enjoy working with the NOL, even when she has to if she wants to save Arakune.
Speaking of, there's also Relius Clover. While he is an extremely callous individual, everything he does, no matter how ghastly, is in the name of science. This ranges from his handling of the Clover ladies to the invocation of the Black Beast in That Which Is Inherited to even - gasp - the Mind Rape of Makoto Nanaya. Also, in his Arcade mode, he never acts aggressively towards his designated opponents, and he even warns Carl, the very son who has been unerringly hounding him for the entire story, not to throw his life away in such a mad pursuit. In Relius' Story mode (Darkness Visible), he gives Carl a glimpse of the world through his own viewpoint instead of coldly assailing him as seen in Carl's story. Is it possible that something befell Ada that moving her into Nirvana was necessary, and that events conspired to keep him from explaining to Carl? Maybe not, but that leaves the question where his pragmatism ends and the monstrosity begins.
Ass Pull: The game's ending. After Ranga stops Noel, it turns out that Terumi observed every possible outcome of the battle, including the one possibility that Takamagahara, the entity designed to The Omniscent failed to do. This all being Terumi's plan was never foreshadowed at any point.
Catharsis Factor: In both games, the player gets control of Unlimited Ragna after dealing with one or more opponents of SNK Boss caliber. Getting payback with this ungodly broken monster is sweet.
Bummed over the heinous actions of Hazama or Relius? Set one of them as your training dummy/punching bag and dive in. Catharsis made manifest.
On top of that, get used to nearly all of the Ragna and Noel you fight using the Stylish (combos are performed automatically) fighting style.
In Ragna's case, it got a bit worse by Extend due to his new buffs and the fact that he's considered the easiest character to play.
Continuity Lockout: Even if you watch the "previously" that gives you a very rough version of the true ending of Calamity Trigger, you're going to have a very limited idea of what's going on in this one's story mode. Extend fixes this to some extent, including a reworked version of the aforementioned true ending path in its story mode.
The drama CDs for The Wheel of Fortuneare only available in Japan. Being able to listen to them makes Slight Hopenote Makoto's story mode in Extend easier to swallow.
Apparently, Lambda has been given the name "Lamb-chan" by Japanese fans out of praise for her being a balanced version of Nu. American players, however, call her "Lamb-Chop" instead.
"Moo" and various other nicknames associated with cows and bovines as well.
Valk or Valky for Valkenhayn, because his name is too long and hard to spell for some people.
Loli Install for Platinum the Trinity's install distortion, as a Shout-Out to Sol's Dragon Install.
Japanese players tend to call her Peropero, which is the sound made when licking something. Specifically, lollipops.
Asstral Finish for Mu's Astral Heat, which is a Double Entendre due to the Astral looking like ass, and showing off Mu's ass gratuitously.
Assdrill Finish, Asstroll Finish, and The Sex/Raep Dungeon for Relius' Astral, where he ties the opponent up, walks up to them, and then the doors close in hilarious fashion, implying he's going to rape the opponent. Characters even gain specific lines for this Astral in Chronophantasma.
Bang is hands-down the best character in this version, tied with Valkenhayn, Litchi, and Ragna. During the transition from CT to CS he gained several priority and damage buffs which made him able to beat out nearly all other attacks and get insane damage off of wallbounce combos. In addition, if a player knew how to use Fuu-Rin-Ka-Zan, this could get even more ridiculous, with even longer and more damaging combos.
Litchi's okizeme is the best in the game due to her ability to effectively loop the opponent using a long combo into her Great Wheel super. By the time the combo ends and restarts, she has gained enough meter to use another Great Wheel.
Ragna's combos are extremely easy, last too long, and give him insane amounts of meter. This was all thanks to his nasty and newly-buffed 2C that was one of the best Fatal Counter moves in the game, and his amazing Belial Edge before it got nerfed. The next iteration had him nerfed to the ground until he was more properly balanced in Extend. His Extend incarnation also subverts the generic assumption from top-tiers in this installment: Ragna was top-tier in that said version but was far from an actual game breaker, funny enough.
Valkenhayn is what happens when you combine all three big aspects of the above characters into one. He has excellent meter gain, a rather low learning curve, and has insane shenanigans with his wolf form. A basic combo with a super ender could deal somewhere within the 5000s damage-wise. And his expert combos can go up to around 8000. Needless to say he was nerfed to some more reasonable levels later on.
CS2
Platinum the Trinity. One of her attacks hits you at all ranges, cannot be jumped over, and takes away one-eighth to a full quarter of Hakumen's (the second-highest HP character in the game) healthbar. The rest of her attacks qualify as well, able to lay waste to even the most skilled of Hakumen and Tager players due to their insanely-high damage and spamability.
Makoto became the new substitute for Bang, being able to deal insane amounts of damage from any range.
Noel became the new substitute for Ragna, not helped by the fact that she's easier than Ragna and her moves have higher priority and invincibility frames.
Hazama substitutes for Litchi in the fact that while he is the most difficult to play of the top tiers, he rewards players with amazing corner damage and meter gain. Even then he was high-tier in the previous game.
Subverted in Extend, which despite some characters being much weaker in that iteration, it's said to have the best balance of the series for those who've played and worked with it.
Tager in Continuum Shift is low-tier, but is widely hated by new players due to his high damage output and his Gadget Finger resets.
Early impressions of Continuum Shift II indicate that Arakune is once again evading the nerf bat with his infamous Curse loops and is for once the outright top dog in preliminary tier lists. Whilst everyone else seems to be very well balanced, at least he requires some technical skill to be used to the best of his ability.
Although this is lessened by the fact she's the game's Breakout Character and number one Ensemble Dark Horse, Taokaka took a drop in popularity in Continuum Shift for having the Taunt Loop, the game's only infinite combo. One mistake was all it took for a decent Taokaka player to repeatedly hit you with this combo until you died or at least had enough HP taken away for her to maintain her offense.
In Continuum Shift 2, with Makoto's ridiculously high damage output, high speed, good hit-stun and easy-to-use combos, many people complained when they found that Makoto could easily force them into the corner and then consistently hit them with 5-7k damage combos. She was considerably nerfed for Extend.
Valkenhayn reasons in his "Help Me Professor Kokonoe" segment that ArcSys hasn't made Kokonoe a playable character yet because they're waiting for the series's popularity to wane so they can use her as their trump card. While it has actually happened to the company as a whole, at least in Shaun K's opinion, one has to wonder if that's the reason why she was confirmed as a DLC character for Chronophantasma.
In his route, Carl hopes that he'll one day grow up to be a 'good' adult like Litchi. In Japan, he's voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro. He might not end up literally becoming like Litchi due to complications, but later on, Sawashiro started racking up a lot more sex symbolcharacters in her resume, so in a way, he does sorta become like Litchi... the voice of sultry sex symbols.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Continuum Shift Extend. It's the game you already have, but with more single player content, a new online system that probably isn't all that different, and all the DLC you paid for is already in the game, either unlocked from the beginning or unlockable.
Low-Tier Letdown: In vanilla Continuum Shift, Rachel is so hilariously underpowered from her severe nerfs that she's considered to be nigh unplayable.
Relius, however, is the undisputed king of this trope within the series. Doesn't matter who or what you are, he will use his Astral on you, take you to his "secret lab" and "conduct experiments" on you.
This is taken up another notch with his new Astral variant for Tsubaki, and the one for Bullet◊. As Makoto would say, "Come on, Colonel... what's up with that look?"
Kokonoe starts garnering much hatred for her actions, starting from minor things like refusing to help Litchi, making her desperate and pull a Face–Heel Turn, and especially... her treatment to Lambda. She admits to Lambda that even she's crossed the moral Point of No Return as a scientist and cannot be saved.
Terumi:
Creating the Black Beast, for starters. And creating the Azure Grimoire... both versions.
Personally mind-raping, and/or ruining the entire lives of almost every member of the main cast, and several secondary characters. Half the time he didn't even need to do it. He just enjoys what he does.
Terumi opened up the game crossing the line, but when he shoves Noel into the Cauldron to turn her into a Murakumo Unit, or rather the Kusanagi Unit, that... that was it. That was the line, way back there. Made even worse by the fact that in Noel's ending, he Mind Rapes her and erases her memories of everybody she ever knew or cared about. While laughing and mocking her feeble attempts to resist her temperament into Kusanagi.
How he treats Tsubaki in the console version after she loses her sight. For example, in Wheel of Fortune, he gives her a "The Reason She Sucks" Speech, telling her that she does everything she does for others only because she wants to feel needed, and she only wants to be close to Jin because she wants him to need her, she's nothing if she doesn't feel needed, and that Jin doesn't care about her. This causes Tsubaki to break down in tears, at which point Hazama is satisfied with himself, and happily trots off. Oh, yes, and he had no reason whatsoever to do this. Tsubaki was just unlucky enough to be in a conversation with him.
Tsubaki seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in her stories already. Cue Hakumen's bad ending. Hazama beats the blind Tsubaki up to mock Hakumen for having feelings for her. Even though he loses to Hakumen in battle, after Relius Clover gives him a hand and Kusanagi appears, Terumi uses Tsubaki as a hostage to make the H-man surrender - while also reminding him he will enjoy murdering his ex-love either way. All just a while after Haku and Tsubaki share a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
One of his biggest one includes trapping Rachel beneath the ground, mocking her hopes of fixing events, and then kicking her full in the face for fun. Rachel continues to snark at him the entire time, at least until the boot to the head.
Then there's Carl's bad ending in CS, where Hazama rips Ada apart while a helpless Carl cries and begs for him to stop. Hazama then picks up Carl by his collar, delivers a brutal "Break Them by Talking" to him, and ends by killing Carl by tossing him into the Cauldron. It's non-canon, but still."Why soserious,Carl Clover?"
Abusing his authority in the NOL to order Tsubaki to kill her best friend and the man she loves. When she fails to do either, he takes it a step further by selectively revealing to her the alternate past in which Noel did not exist and she would have worked with Jin instead of her. This inevitably leads to her Face–Heel Turn. He fails to mention the fact that, in that alternate past, she would have died a year before the game started.
In a true display of bastardry, he outright mocks Tsubaki right after she dies in her bad ending, actually laughing at her for dying. In the drama CD The Wheel of Fortune, this gets even worse: Not only does he mock Tsubaki for dying and laughs at her much like in her bad ending in Continuum Shift, but he actually kicks her dead body. In the face.
Read the Manipulative Bastard entry above for Litchi. Terumi plans everything to get her into desperation and be dependent on NOL from the start, like a doctor who poisons a population and tells them to get the cure by joining his 'cult'.
... You know what, look back at Hazama's opening movie. He just walks casually to the stage of Mu-12... activates the thing there... then cue to NOL branch, lots and lots of NOL soldiers, random Joes just doing their job and earning their living, being reduced to orbs (those are their souls) and the orbs was sucked into that... thing to activate Mu-12. Cue the psychotic laughter of Terumi. Long story short, Tsubaki's the only survivor of the Kagutsuchi branch still loyal to the NOL due to brainwashing. Noel defected after Ragna broke her tempering, Jin defected after the events of Calamity Trigger, and if Makoto hadn't turned traitor prior to her arrival at the Kagutsuchi branch, she sure did then.
For Relius:
Trapping his own daughter, Ada, inside the Nox Nyctores Nirvana, Moral Event Horizon: abandoning his children, and leaving Nirvana half-done, so that poor Carl has to clean up the mess easily takes the cake, then saddling his son Carl with Nirvana knowing full well that it will slowly devour his emotions.
Using the knowledge he gained from his experiments on his daughter, he "perfected" his doll-making technique and used his wife to make the new-and-improved version. Apparently with the help of Kokonoe.
Generally when Relius shows in a character's story path, it means he/she is on a one way trip to the bad ending.
He put Tager through a brutal torture in his bad ending, killing him simply to power up Ignis.
As mentioned above, Makoto's bad ending. What he does to her will most certainly make your blood boil (or alternatively, finally consider Relius a worthy and powerful villain that needs to be taken into consideration).
Narm: The game has a bad ending for every character. Some of them aren't especially since all they consist of is a bad encounter with Terumi, something that happens in a main of the supposed good endings. Some bad endings like Noel's and Rachel's leave the character in the exact same situation they were in in their good endings Rachel's ironically showing her getting rescued.
No Yay: Makoto and Relius are all kinds of wrong when put in the same arena. Relius is, well, Relius, her variant of Altar of the Puppet is visually demeaning and vocally disturbing (listen to him talk, then let it set in), she clearly wants none of it, and then there's her ''Extend'' bad ending◊ (apply directly to the cortex...). Is it any wonder she has a Particle Flare routine just for him?
Sequel Difficulty Spike: All the unlocks are now based on Score Attack rather than Arcade mode. On the other hand, story mode completion is much easier. Fewer paths require Distortion/Astral Heat Finishes, you don't have to lose every fight on purpose for 100% completion (Ragna's "Help Me! Professor Kokonoe!" segment even mentions that this pissed people off last time) and using "Taunt" the first time in battle will set your Heat Gauge to 100%. Score Attack is still ridiculously hard.
And don't forget the final bosses. Unlimited Hazama managed to make Unlimited Nu look like a chump. (No small feat). And Unlimited Ragna? He was the True Final Boss in Calamity Trigger. Now? He shows up as Jin and Hazama's normal final boss.
Also in Continuum Shift, for some, Score Attack, since it's the new way to unlock Unlimited Characters and it is very difficult to do it with every character.
That One Sidequest: ScoreAttack. The AI is ramped up in all the stages, making beating any of them a pain if you can't exploit them. Then you get the final four stages where you fight overpowered versions of 4 of the cast.
Specifically, you fight Unlimited Hakumen, Unlimited Hazama, Unlimited Rachel, and Unlimited Ragna (not necessarily in that order).
Thankfully in Extend Score Attack is toned down... but then you get Unlimited Mars, where you fight against a marathon of Unlimited Characters... with highest difficulty.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: With the balance changes provided by Continuum Shift II, some fans have had this reaction regarding nerfs and the game's overall change from "combo opponent to death" to "get opponent in the corner, then combo them to death".
, one has to wonder if that's the reason why she was confirmed as a DLC character for Chronophantasma.
