THE DIRECTION THEY TOOK THIS SERIES WAS GREAT!
Game: BlazBlue Entropy Effect
Platform: PC
Genre: Action Roguelike, Multiplayer (PvP), Hack'n'Slash
Overview
If you expect this new title in the series to be similar to their past releases. You would be mistaken, as they have opted to take a very bold approach to the popular BlazBlue series of fighting games and expanded out with an attempt on something new.
BlazBlue Entropy Effect is a 2D side scrolling action roguelike with metroidvania elements sprinkled in if you can survive long enough to reach that point.
I really appreciate the amount of detail and effort that went into this game during Early Access, as well as the fact that they tried to include more material and made changes to many of the prior existing elements of the game to keep it feeling new and worked on it, rather than just not doing anything as we see with so many Early Access games that either never get finished or release in an unpolished state.
Story
In the real world, there is a virus that has been creeping up the coastline known as the Entropy Particles that, when administered to a human host, causes their mind to unravel and become damaged until their ultimate death. There is no cure, resistance, or way to defeat it, and it eventually destroys 99% of humanity.
The remaining 1% flees with their uploaded minds to the virtual world of ACE, which was created during the crisis before it destroyed humanity. They strengthen their minds here in an attempt to possibly develop a resistance or a way to fight back the virus in the hopes that mankind will once again return one day. Because terrorists and people are scheming to destroy humanity, you must piece together the story by digging deeper into the mind training system or all of humanity will be lost forever.
Graphics & Presentation
During my 7 hours of Early Access and 7 hours of Full Release. I'm can confidently say that I am quite happy with how this game turned out artistically, with the styles of the backgrounds, characters, and lighting, as well as the shield breaking mechanic, which makes me feel like I'm playing a full on fighting game. The fact that they did this without breaking character as an Action Roguelike demonstrates how imaginative developers can be when given the opportunity to move out of their main zones.
If you pay attention after a few hours, you'll notice that the stages are mostly recycled in the same order or slightly out of sequence, they're uninteresting to look at, especially after going through the same level and background 20 times. The gameplay itself isn't really affected, though it's probably just burnout from playing the game for so long and getting used to everything already but I did feel it was lacking.
Regardless of who you are, you will undoubtedly find a character from the ten available prototypes to play as and fully immerse yourself in their playstyle. You may choose to play Hakumen to be safe, or you may prefer Taokaka because you enjoy catgirls. Even if you don't win, the game does an excellent job of allowing you to use your past attempts to improve your future runs and complete tasks in mind training.
Gameplay
The gameplay includes a lot of combo styles, and you must always pay attention to the current optimization you have obtained from the current run since they will unlock different skills and their corresponding combo inputs that you can play around with.
You will not always have them unlocked on every run because, as a roguelike, you are not guaranteed to receive the same build, especially if you are continuously switching between characters, as everyone has their own playstyle and skills.
However, you can mix and change styles by equipping your prior prototype runs with the prototype that you want to use now, entirely changing their legacy skills and how they work together or even against each other changing the feel or rotations of them.
Conclusion
This is close to being a 10/10 for me; the only issues are that the online PvPvE does not appear to be fully developed, since the ping is a horrific 100+, making it plagued by lag and pointless to play unless you are inside their range for their server.
Blazblue Entropy is one of the few games you pick up once and then find yourself returning to every few days or weeks since you know it's an engaging game while also being difficult enough that completing a 100% run is not going to be that easy.
If you're only interested in the Blazblue name and the fighting part of the series, you won't enjoy this as much as I did because it's not a regular Blazblue game.
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