Having played virtually all mainline instalments in the BlazBlue franchise since its original 2010 PAL region release of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, playing BlazBlue: Entropy Effect was a tad surreal at first. Developed separately in collaboration with Arc System Works by 91Act, the team behind the long-running mobile game BlazBlue: Revolution Reburning, this turns the formula many fans have come to know and love on its head. Featuring a selection of characters from the Blazblue universe, it incorporates them into an entirely new world, unique setting and, most notably, a new gameplay style. For the first time, players will take ten characters from the series and put them through their paces in 2D side-scrolling roguelike action environments, each stage you go through getting increasingly difficult, the upgrades you unlock getting more and more challenging – until you succeed or (at least, at first) fail.
To reiterate, BlazBlue: Entropy Effect should be considered an entirely separate experience from any other game in the franchise. The character assets are familiar, and the characters are recognisable, but the worldbuilding is not. In many ways, it feels like the characters are there to merely be familiar faces when the team at 91Act could have very well created their own characters and own IP to incorporate the game into. As I will elaborate later, this is not necessarily a bad approach. The narrative is not fantasy-oriented, but instead set in a cyberpunk dystopia where the world has become plunged into chaos, and your only chance to save the world as we know it is through training fighters through a cyberspace environment known as ACE. Like many roguelike games, the story is there and interesting enough to keep players engaged should they wish to be invested in the gaming experience more deeply, but is also easily skippable should you be after just the core gameplay loop.
The core gameplay loop is surprisingly fun, especially if you play using a controller instead of the somewhat wonky (in this reviewer’s opinion) default keyboard control scheme. Set across a range of highly-detailed 2D side-scrolling environments, the combat is fast, fluid and aesthetically pleasing – as you launch a range of unique attacks, combos and skills against the swarms of enemies you face against each level, broken up every few stages by a genuinely challenging boss, serving as a skill gap guarding the next set of more difficult challenges. Each level is differently themed based on your chosen element type for that area, with a large range of different boons, elemental buffs, skills and more at your disposal for completing them – some character specific, some not – ensuring that each crawl results in a different experience. Add in event stages, the ability to accumulate and spend in-game currencies for temporary and permanent boosts and more, and what you have is a typical, well-implemented roguelike experience – with a decent challenge, and offering enough that I found myself keen to keep going for “just one more run” on a loop.
The big draw card is ultimately the characters, and this is where I can appreciate 91Act working the licensed Blazblue characters into the mix. They would have already worked with these characters for years, knowing their ins and outs, and it shows how the characters handle when using each of them. Each character feels unique to play, both from the high-quality combat animations that have them flying across the screen performing trademark moves, but also the unique skills and gameplay approaches that separate them from their counterparts. To me, Taokaka has always been my favourite go-to character in the series, and in just this one example, the development team managed to embrace everything I love about her style into the different gameplay constrictions.
Being a smaller-scale game, it would come as little surprise that they didn’t bring in each character’s English voice actor to record lines. However, when you boot up the game and are given language options, this is the initial impression you get – given the option for Mandarin, Japanese and English language audio options for different parts of the game. However, the characters you control will all have their Japanese voice-overs either way. This is not a detriment to the game per se, especially given during combat, voiceovers primarily consist of grunts and common sound effects, but is something to keep in mind nevertheless. However, when present, the newly recorded English audio is crisp, clear and of good quality.
BlazBlue: Entropy Effect is a well-thought-out, fast-paced if not somewhat run-of-the-mill roguelike game that is worth checking for both fans of the genre, and even those fighting game fans looking for a solid entry point into the genre. Whether going in solo like me, or tackling the game’s co-op options, they have the core elements down pat, and from the look of things, future development in mind for longevity.
A PC (Steam) Review Key of BlazBlue Entropy Effect was provided for the purpose of this review.
