The day has come for players to try out BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle for the first time. As announced at the Tokyo Game Show, a playable build of the game is available to try at NYCC. It’s in a very early stage, obviously, and there aren’t any more characters or surprises yet. But it is the first chance to get a taste of most of the mechanics in the game.

The build has Yu Narukami, Yosuke Hanamura, Hyde, Linne, Jin, Ragna, and Ruby. Players attending the event have begun to share their impressions on Twitter. PG|SKD has done some write-ups, describing game controls.

There are five buttons: A, B, C, Assist, Tag

C is always an overhead, or 2C is a sweep

Special moves can be done with quarter circle motions (214/236). Supers are done by pressing two buttons at once. Performing Special moves with C costs meter as well.

It’s possible to keep an assisting character on the screen longer and to direct them to do attacks.

Throws are done with BC and they act similarly to throws in BlazBlue

Dragon Punches are done with AD (or A and Assist)

In part 2, SKD writes:

Resonance Blaze is sort of like X-Factor and Overdrive. It’s a comeback mechanic that’s available once the partner is knocked out. Resonance Blaze refills the meter quickly, makes supers stronger, and regenerates health.

There are auto-combos by pressing the A/B buttons repetitevely.

You can’t be thrown during blockstun, and also, when you press throw, the character will dash forward a bit to grab.

SKD and others have also tweeted a bunch of impressions and answered some questions:

Ragna has both berial edge and nightmare edge ???? — PG | SKD @ ARC REVO (@SuperKawaiiDesu) October 5, 2017

Hitting tag after calling the assist switches chars, call another tag move to keep the assist on the screen — PAG グローバ@NYCC-BBTAG (@GroverDP) October 5, 2017

5DD doesnt exist as a normal anymore. J.d is gone. His reg throw has command grab animation from a distance. Cant find j.2b yet — PAG グローバ@NYCC-BBTAG (@GroverDP) October 5, 2017

No card limit. But you can still hit them — PAG グローバ@NYCC-BBTAG (@GroverDP) October 5, 2017

In terms of music, the arc sys rep said expect the theme songs for the chars that are in as of rn — Ashawn Hamilton@NYCC (@_AetherStar) October 5, 2017

The build were playing rn isn't even the alpha build btw — Ashawn Hamilton@NYCC (@_AetherStar) October 5, 2017

He told me that the game at its core is blazblue so expect more blazblue chars than chars from other franchises — Ashawn Hamilton@NYCC (@_AetherStar) October 5, 2017

Stay tuned to SRK as we learn more; also, check out the first video of BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle gameplay.

Sources: PG|SKD; PAG|Grover; @_AetherStar