Hi, everyone! I hope you don’t mind me dropping in here. I’m writing an article on XBlaze Code: Embryo and wanted to get the deeper community perspective about the series now including a visual novel — pretty much the opposite of what you’d associate with an action-heavy fighting game like BlazBlue. Would anyone mind answering a few questions for the article?
Why is story important to the BlazBlue series?
What about the characters’ stories resonates with you?
Is a BlazBlue visual novel something well-deserved or totally wacky?
Are you going to play Code: Embryo? Why or why not?
Thanks. Just want to have some deeper context about how fans feel about Code: Embryo and the overall story.
I… can’t really answer the first question. Or, maybe, I’m not sure that it IS “important to the series” in any sense other than “It allows it to reach a wider audience than hardcore fighting game fans.”
I think the parts of the story that resonate with me are the ones where I can understand where the characters are coming from. I also enjoy the humor, though that’s not really ‘resonating’.
The visual novel is a little bit surprising, but considering that the game’s story mode is already basically a VN with occasional fighting sequences, it’s not really as big a leap as it might seem at first glance.
Probably not. VNs aren’t really my thing, and the timeframe in which the story takes place means that the characters who interest me more are unlikely to appear.
Thanks, Airk! That’s basically what I’m getting: that Code: Embryo helps the series reach a broader audience. Producer Toshimichi Mori basically mentioned the same to me, though it’s a weird thing in the States as visual novels are pretty niche here.
I have heard that BlazBlue’s story modes are actually quite good (don’t know if that’s true …?), but I didn’t realize they were similar to visual novels in and of themselves. Do you mean they’re just basically long dialogue sequences with some breaks for fighting, or what do you mean by that? That’s an interesting observation.
I’m definitely liking the humor in Code: Embryo so far, but I agree with you: I think this would be a lot more popular with fans if staple characters like Ragna or Rachel were involved. I do like that it’s giving me context for the lore of BlazBlue, though. It explains a lot of terms and things that I didn’t really understand before just playing BlazBlue’s versus mode.
Yeah, I don’t think Code: Embryo is going to do much to broaden BB’s appeal in the US; Honestly I’m a little surprised that Aksys thinks its worth the cost to localize, but they know better than I do.
BlazBlue’s story mode is “good” for certain values of “Good”; There is a LOT of it. It provides generally plausible situations for characters to fight in, establishes relationships between characters, and might even provoke some emotional response. It is, however, also, confusing, messy, and occasionally held back by anime tropes.
By “like a visual novel” I basically mean “It’s a lot of sequences of 2-3 characters talking to each other, followed by the occasionally dialogue/action choice” and then has the occasional battle mixed in. You can check it all out on Youtube if you’re curious.
I’m not even a huge fan of Ragna/Jin/Rachel/Noel/“BB main characters” for the most part, so even having them in C:E wouldn’t really improve my interest level, but it might with the fanbase in general. I don’t think folks over on this side of the pond, at least are clamoring for “another story in the Blazblue Universe”.
There’s definitely some ridiculous anime-ness in Code: Embryo so far, but it’s all stuff I’ve come to expect from visual novels (“extra” bathtub scenes, etc.). But you hit on everything that I like about Embryo so far, so it sounds pretty comparable to the regular BlazBlue story modes: establishing relationships between characters, evoking emotion in the player that wouldn’t otherwise be there, and giving some context to all the fighting.
I’m going to have to look up some of the story mode on YouTube, yeah. Any particular game’s story mode you recommend? I’m interested in the action choices you mentioned because Embryo doesn’t really have any choices at all, which is bizarre for a visual novel. The story changes based on what articles in a news aggregator you read, which is weird to think about because I’m basically just reading all the articles anyway, so it’s hard to get a grasp on how it’s working (or whether it’s totally a bust).
What characters would you be interested in seeing in a BlazBlue visual novel? Or, is there any reason why you wouldn’t care for “another story,” as you said, in the BlazBlue universe? Are they just so … much, or …?
Well, I missed CT, so I don’t know how the story was there - I think you’re probably better off watch the Extend version of the CT story, since apparently it’s basically the same only way less annoyingly stretched out.
Unfortunately, the choices in BB don’t really change the story - if you make the ‘wrong’ choice you end up in a “bad end” or a gag reel. It’s not actually like, a branching story or anything, really.
I’m more interested in the characters with interesting drama (Tsubaki) or the characters who are part of the history of the game (Six heroes, Rachel sortof.)
As for another story, I dunno, it’s an interesting world, but they haven’t really proven that they can do compelling story ABOUT the world, if that makes sense, and I’m not up for a random scattering of ‘all new’ anime-trope-characters…
Yeah, Code: Embryo doesn’t work how I initially thought it did. It’s not so much what you read as what you don’t read. If you miss key articles, you get a dead end, and the story doesn’t progress. You have to go back and restart that chapter (fortunately, the game makes this relatively painless). There are a few instances where if you skip articles, you miss out on certain scenes, but they’re non-essential (the girls showing off their bikinis, etc.) — not so much branching storylines, either.
So it’s more the world/the lore you’re interested in rather than the characters, mostly?
I think story telling is as good as it’s going to get in a fighting game with BB. I hate the half assed attempts other companies make. BB does a phenomenal job of providing a way to immerse yourself into the world. When you have questions, as one won’t do, like, “What are these weapons made of?”, “Why does this character do that?”, or how come anything? There are answers for you and the characters. Sometimes the character doesn’t know. Sometimes you learn and experience answers with the character you like, you bond with them, grow attached. I’ve always like how Ken and Ryu would bump fists at the start of their match, in BB there are relationships between everyone. It’s fantastic.
Also, it’s not so much the world/lore more than the characters so much as it is “There are some characters I like more than others and they don’t tend to be the important ones.”