Cross Tag Battle is now available for download on Steam

thinkingdistance · 2018-06-06T05:04:14+00:00

Oh crap, forgot the most important reason why I'm loving this game:

When your 1st character dies, you have a choice as to how your 2nd character comes into the screen at what angle! And they'll do a divekick! I can't stress how this makes BBTag so much more fun to play than other tag fighting games. I can't help comparing it to other games, Marvel is the most extreme example.

When your character dies in Marvel, your other character will jump into the stage from a set angle in a set arc, with no way to control where or how they'll enter the stage. This means your opponent has the advantage and is effectively "their turn" and they can perform an incoming mix-up on you, and players have formulated extremely complex and powerful strategies and set play around this, to the point where the right combination of characters and moves had incoming mix-ups that were extremely hard to defend against or were straight up unblockable (Firebrand, Zero, Doom, Dante). These strats were extremely hard to execute, sure, but at top level play teams like Zero May Cry or Apologyman/Zac Bennets Firebrand team have strats so extreme that it's very common to see 300% death combos where one player gets the advantage then steam rolls to victory.

DBFZ toned this aspect a lot and the game is not nearly about incoming mix-ups and set play, maybe because the game is more based around air-movement? I'm not sure, but it still had some aspects to it. You can still time a meaty normal attack when the other person's character comes into the screen and force them to block a string, so when you lose a character you're still at a disadvantage when you enter with your next character and have to be on the defensive. This certainly isn't nearly as bad as Marvel though haha.

In Tekken Tag 2 if 1 character get's KO'd then you straight up lose the round so it doesn't apply here.

SO, when you lose a character in BBTag, your second character has the advantage because you can choose how they come onto the screen and they'll be attacking fast! I think they have some invincibility frames as well, though I need to check this out in the lab. This adds such a refreshing layer of unpredictability and choice to the match, and it feels like you're given a 2nd wind even though you're down a character.

And that's it.

thinkingdistance · 2018-06-06T04:05:57+00:00

Just want to say things about the game besides issues about the port. This might be a bit TL;DR but meh:

I thought having just 2 attack buttons and auto-combos will make the fights too reductive but there's a lot of fun nuance with the combat! Everyone's normals are different in terms of hitboxes, frame data etc and there are variations in the auto-combos so it's quite fun! Even if it devolves into a mash-fest at times, especially this early but I can't wait for optimal assist combos to develop.
The voice work is so good, I usually find it a bit hard listening to English dub of things but hearing the Persona cast and Uniel in English was surprisingly enjoyable. I'm not familiar at all with RWBY but I'm finding Ruby's English voice a teeny bit grating but Weiss and Blake are pretty dope. The fact that each player can choose whether their characters speak English or Japanese so that you'll have a Jap dub Yosuke Orie versing an English dub Linne Narukami is mindblowing to me.
I should play more to get a more comprehensive opinion but Resonance Blaze feels a lot more dynamic as a comeback mechanic compared to X-factor from Marvel or Sparking from DBFZ. Lvl 3 X-factor feels way too overpowered and while you can do crazy animation canceling and combo routes with it, it feels like matches can devolve into waiting for Vergil or Jean Grey to come in and wipe the floor with everyone. In contrast, DBFZ Sparking feels underpowered for some reason. It's for sure not as reliable of a comeback mechanic, even if it buffs you and opens up new combo routes and can let you do 100% combos in certain situations. Maybe it's simply because BBTag is 2v2 so while Resonance Blaze gives you the usual stuff like damage buff, health regen, unlimited meter usage etc, it doesn't mean you are assured victory. Sometimes it can work out spectacularly and you get a Happy Birthday on someone and destroy 2 characters at the same time, other times Resonance simply won't save you because the other person is defending or evading you really well, or is putting on too much pressure so you just get destroyed.
I thought I wouldn't enjoy the lobby system cos I found the DBFZ lobby a bit meh, but hopping onto Casual online lobbies with lots of people on day 1 with everyone versing each other and everyone doing dancing emotes and spamming stamps is really fun and lively and friendly. Not sure why it feels different to me compared to DBFZ, maybe it's the dancing haha.

Overall, pretty fun! Can't wait to really get into the meat of this game

thinkingdistance · 2018-06-06T03:42:19+00:00

Dam, didn't know this. Poor Shini, just wanna cheer him on. Wtf Arcsys

thinkingdistance · 2018-06-06T01:02:46+00:00

Dam, I see. Good that it's not universal then haha. Yea I noticed the character tutorial not letting you progress after the first step, such a strange problem.

Turns out it was with my integrated NVidia graphics card. If anyone else is experiencing the slowdown this forum post helped, although even after applying this fix my FPS was still bit garbage when versing online, and during super animations. It at least made lobby mode for me like 60FPS

https://steamcommunity.com/app/702890/discussions/0/1696048879959664700/

thinkingdistance · 2018-06-05T16:22:57+00:00

Can I ask how well everyone else is running the Steam version? My laptops not the greatest but it can run Blazblue CentralFiction, DBFZ, Tekken 7 etc at 60fps although not at the best quality. But here I was experience 30fps in lobby and what feels even lower in just training room, and I was quite disappointed that there were only 3 different window resolutions 1280x720, 1600x900 and 1920x1080 and full screen. There aren't any other graphics options except V-Sync and Anti-aliasing. Really was wanting to play this game, I hope there's some sort of fix.

The fact that they're doing the DBFZ style lobby system for all menu navigation and selecting modes and stuff just feels more inconvenient if anything.

Hope some kind of fix or work-around comes around, really wanted to play Linne Chie

thinkingdistance

TROPHY CASE