Recently, Arc System Works’ own Toshimichi Mori decided to sit down with us and discuss the design process for BlazBlue Cross-Tag Battle. In particular, we focused on what decisions were made when converting characters from other fighting games into a brand new crossover system. Take a look for a little bit of insight on why certain characters play the way they do.

Gamecrate: Certain BlazBlue characters have lost mechanics (such as Platinum’s random weapons), some have retained their mechanics (like Ragna’s health drain) and some characters have had their mechanics buffed by simplifying them (such as Tager’s magnetism always being active).

What made you choose which approach to take with which character? What sort of balance were you looking to strike between making characters simple to understand and having them retain their identity from prior BlazBlue games?

Toshimichi Mori: For "Cross Tag Battle" we reviewed every character. Since BlazBlue characters were originally made with a 1v1 format in mind, there were many mechanics that needed adjustments. We simplified moves that would be too limiting under a 2-character control setup, such as Tager's magnetism and Azrael's weak point system, to make them more intuitive.

However, simply simplifying moves will sacrifice the uniqueness of that character, so we tried to avoid that situation as much as possible.

GC: The Under Night In-Birth cast can all reverse beat but this isn’t mentioned anywhere in the game’s tutorials. They also all retain floaty arcing air dash, similar to their pursuit dashes from the UNIB series. What made you choose to retain these mechanics rather than normalize them to the BlazBlue style of comboing and movement that everyone else has?

TM: This game is a crossover game that features titles that have their original series. One of the aims for this game is to attract players of the original games to play this game. Thus we tried to preserve, as much as possible, mechanics and character identities from those games. Reverse Beat is one of the ways we preserved the mechanics from UNI. In BB's case, you have the special abilities from Drive; P4A has the Persona attacks.

GC: Most Persona characters have combos on 4A (back and A). Why is that? Another character to have this mechanic is Tager? Why is that?

TM: P4A has a mechanic known as one-button combo, and these were very unique. Since they were unique features that defined each character, we incorporated the 4A Smart Combos.

Tager has the 5A→5B→4D or 3C combo which was very memorable from the original BB series, so we added it this time.

Linne also has a Smart Combo from 4A. This was added to make canceling into Wind Slash easier.

GC: How did you choose what moves to give characters as assists? Some characters have distortions available to them as assists (like Hakumen). What made you choose to do that?

TM: Each Partner Skill (PS) have clearly distinguished uses, so we chose moves that conform to those uses. In general, 5+PS can be used to extend combos, 6+PS are ranged attacks, and 4+PS are anti-airs or moves that are effective at close range. Within this framework we may assign EX skills or Distortion Skills to further emphasize the character's identity.

GC: Since RWBY characters had no prior systems or gimmicks, how did you design them? Were you attempting to model them off BlazBlue or were you trying to give them their own identity?

TM: The RWBY characters were made for BBTAG. Since they are completely new characters, we did not want them to be similar to any other characters.

GC: What was the hardest character to convert to the BlazBlue Cross-Tag Battle system and why?

TM: There wasn't any one particular character that was difficult. Each of the originating games have strong distinguishing elements, so it was very difficult overall. If anything, I think Hazama and Aegis were the hardest. They were very popular characters from their respective titles, but at the same time were said to be very difficult to use. Simplifying their mechanics, while preserving their identities from the original titles was especially hard.

GC: What are some of your personal favorite characters?

TM: Strictly from a personal standpoint, I'd have to say Ragna the Bloodedge, the main character of the BlazBlue series. I wish for him to stand out against all the other main characters in this game.

GC: Was there any character that you wanted to include in the original release but ended up being too hard to convert?

TM: There weren't any characters that we had to exclude because of the game's mechanics. I would, however, contemplate about adding characters like Carl Clover from the BB series, and Shadow Labrys from P4A, since they both require controlling two entities at once.

GC: Do you feel the game is generally balanced and do you plan on releasing balance patches in the future should something end up imbalanced?

TM: Overall the game balance turned out the way I expected. I'd like to further adjust characters that still demand high level of execution and have a low usage population, so that they are easier to use.

GC: If you could include any character in the roster that wasn’t from the main four franchises, who would it be?

TM: Personally I would want 2B and 9S from "NieR: Automata," and Musashi Miyamoto from "Fate: Grand Order." That's strictly personal, however.