At the end of the top 8 for BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle at EVO Japan, Arc System Works announced the next set of DLC characters incoming for the fighting game, along with the fifth series teased back at EVO 2018.
The trailer showing off the four new characters can be seen below:
The first new character was teased at the end of the announcement of the arcade version of the game, BlazBlue Centralfiction’s Naoto Kurogane. Originally the protagonist of the Bloodedge Experience spin-off light novel series, he became playable in Centralfiction with a unique enhancer mechanic, where his special moves become stronger with new properties if they’re used while dashing. It remains to be seen how this mechanic will be translated into BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, if at all, but during the trailer he can be seen using an enhanced special at one point, so it’s possible it will be present in some form.
The second new character is Teddie from Persona 4. The trailer doesn’t show him using the various items he has access to in Persona 4 Arena, while his other moves will be familiar to players of his previous games, adapting his previous All-Out Attack as a new aerial attack. However, a small icon of one of his items can be seen in the corner of the screen when Teddie is in play, suggesting that items will still be present for him in some way.
The third new character is Under Night In-Birth’s Seth. He’s just as hard to keep track of as ever, but even having some experience playing as him in Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st] it’s hard for me to tell what he’s doing in the trailer, possibly meaning that he’s being pretty significantly overhauled for BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.
After those three, the trailer goes on to announce the fifth series to be Arcana Heart 3: Love Max SIX STARS!!!!!!, and that the Arcana Heart protagonist Heart Aino will be coming to BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. She comes with the series’ signature homing dash as well as her distinctive moves, although it’s hard to say that her sprite exactly fits with the rest of the characters in the game.
Naoto, Teddie, Seth, and possibly Heart will be coming to the game this spring, maybe alongside the arcade version of the game and the new balance patch. The end of the trailer also teases the reveal of a sixth series, color-coded with light blue and “coming soon”.
