BlazBlue: Entropy Effect is a 2D Roguelike Hack and Slash Action Platformer developed by 96Eyes for PC via Steam as well as iOS and Android. It is a Spin-Off of the BlazBlue fighting game series from Arc System Works and features the game's characters. The game entered Early Access on August 15, 2023 on Steam and was released on January 30, 2024.
The game is set in a futuristic world ravaged by a phenomenon known as Entropy Effect. To counteract the Entropy Effect, the MegaCorp SkysEyes has developed a training simulation program known as "ACE" to train the minds of the world's inhabitants to resist and cleanse the effects of Entropy. Within this digital realm, players of ACE, known as "ACERs", take on the form of heroes from another world to fight through ACE.
You take on the role of one such ACER who is enrolled in SkysEyes' Mind Training program. What appears to be routine training takes a strange turn when you happen upon a mysterious, shapeless entity that holds within it the power of Phenomena, fragments of the past found within ACE that hold within them the chance to alter the course of destiny. With the wheels of fate beginning to turn, it falls upon you to unlock the secrets of the Phenomena and unveil the truths behind SkysEyes and the Entropy Effect.
Playable Characters
- From BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger: Ragna the Bloodedge, Jin Kisaragi, Noel Vermillion, Taokaka, Hakumen
- From BlazBlue: Continuum Shift: Lambda-11
- From BlazBlue: Chronophantasma: Kokonoe
- From BlazBlue: Central Fiction: Hibiki Kohaku
- From BlazBlue: Remix Heart: Mai Natsume
- From XBlaze Code: Embryo: Es
This game contains examples of:
- Alternate Continuity: This game is set in an entirely different continuity separate from the rest of the series, with the only connection between them being the characters used in Mind Training.
- Ambiguously Evil: During your mission, you hear rumors of a rogue ACER named Stan. He is known as a wanted criminal and is described as exceedingly dangerous, being blacklisted from SkysEyes on multiple occasions to the point where several legends around him have popped up, such as a story of him hacking SkysEyes and stealing millions of AP. You wind up bumping into him on multiple occasions (involuntarily, no less) where he is revealed to be a raving conspiracy theorist who believes that SkysEyes and anyone associated with it is evil; however, he doesn't display any particularly evil tendencies of his own besides having a few screws loose. After clearing Mind Challenge Phase 2, you get roped into an impromptu interrogation by SkysEyes' Security Bureau, where you have the opportunity to rat on him or protect him as a friend.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Entropy Particles are a key material to the game's setting. They originate from the Entropy Ocean that surrounds the plateau that the game takes place on and their properties are as mysterious as their origins. The player discovers via the Phenomena that SkysEyes was conducting experiments with Entropy Particles at some point in the past despite the fact that they are supposedly difficult to transport in large quantities and dangerous to handle.
- Cast From HP: This, alongside Life Drain, is Ragna's primary gimmick: His Skill, Carnage Scissors, costs HP to cast, but heals Ragna if it connects, and many of his potentials grant him additional ways to spend HP for attacks (special mention goes to the "Blood Kain" potential, which applies this to all of Ragna's attacks). Ragna's Legacy Skill is Dead Spike, which pays 20% of the user's HP to shoot a projectile forwards that deals damage and heals the user when it hits enemies.
- Counter-Attack: Kokuujin: Yukikaze (Empty Sky Form: Winter's Riposte) is Hakumen's Skill and has him generate a shield in front of him. If an enemy attack strikes him from the front while it's active, Hakumen will block the attack and transition into an invincible counter that slices through foes for heavy damage. When passed down to another character via Legacy Skill, the skill becomes Kokuujin: Jinrai (Empty Sky Form: Spring's Thunderbolt), where the user creates a glyph that renders them momentarily stationary; if the user is struck while the glyph is active, the offending attack is nullified and the user calls down a powerful lightning strike. Jinrai is also available for Hakumen as a Potential, and is easily his most damaging attack.
- Dash Attack:
- Most characters have the ability to perform a unique attack by inputting Basic Attack while in their dashing animation. Some can also upgrade this with Potentials to boost it or alter its effects.
- Hakumen's dash is unique as it has a hitbox and can strike foes by charging into them with knockback. As a tradeoff, Hakumen's dash lacks invulnerability frames by default and can only gain an invulnerable dash by claiming a specific Potential.
- Door to Before: In Area Omega, there are several warp points scattered across the map that will activate once you pass through them. You can use a warp point to travel to any other unlocked warp point, saving you time backtracking when you need to go to a previously visited area such as a shop or boss room.
- Final Boss: Clear the Elite Sample of Area Omega, and you get to challenge the Ultimate Sample and final boss of Mind Training: Susano'o. Additionally, once you've completed all the Mind Uploads, you can face the Ultimate Trial: Susano'o again, but this time with a third phase that mimics the 2D fighting games.
- In Name Only: The only connection this game has with the core BlazBlue franchise is the use of its characters, who are also completely plot irrelevant and can be functionally replaced by any arbitrary collection of characters. Everything else, including its setting and plot, are completely new and have no connection to anything else in the series.
- It Only Works Once: A single Evotype can only be used once in a Mind Challenge. Once it is used, regardless of whether or not you won or lost, that Evotype cannot be used again. This will eventually force you back to Mind Training to create a new Evotype to replace consumed ones.
- Macrogame: Several forms, in fact.
- Playing in ACE rewards AP, which are a currency spent to unlock Mind Upgrades and attempt Mind Challenges. Mind Upgrades are permanent effects that apply persistently in ACE once unlocked, while Mind Challenges are "boss" stages that reward Prototype Analyzers and other rewards for completion. Recording a certain number of Tactics in Mind Training will also give AP bonuses.
- Each time you finish a run in ACE, your character progress is saved as an Evotype with an assigned Rating. In Mind Training, up to two Evotypes can be used to pass down Active Skills and Legacy Skills based on their Rating to subsequent runs, powering up future characters. In Mind Challenges, you must attempt each Mind Challenges using a saved Evotype, which require an Evotype of a high enough Rating to unlock and will give you the character you played as with all of their upgrades and Potentials to fight with.
- Metroidvania: Once you clear three areas in Mind Training, you unlock access to Area Omega where, unlike the self-contained instances used in the normal stages, you play through a sizeable randomly-generated open-world map where you are given free reign to explore. Here, further character progress is achieved by using your remaining Exchange Points to buy from the shop and seeking out treasures that grant a substantial EP and AP bonus. In addition, there are two more major encounters here to complete your run: a miniboss Elite Sample and the Ultimate Sample.
- Multiple Endings: Mind training always concludes the same way - with a fight against Susano'o - but the main story has multiple endings.
- Mythology Gag:
- Losing to Susano'o while playing as Hakumen or beating Susano'o as Ragna both award a unique achievement.
- Likewise, losing to Arakune as Kokonoe will also unlock a similar achievement.
- During the final phase of the Ultimate Trial the health bars from Central Fiction replace the HUD and the camera zooms in to mimic the presentation of the Blazblue fighting games.
- Mighty Glacier: Hakumen is relatively slow to move or attack, but to compensate he hits extraordinarily hard, has very high starting HP and he starts with a damaging dash.
- New Game Plus: Finishing the storyline will permanently lock you out of other endings on that playthrough. However, you can "Inherit" your Prototypes, Evotypes, Mind Upgrades, and Crystals to a new save.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The sprites and assets (such as Japanese voice work) for the playable cast is reused from their appearances in BlazBlue: Central Fiction.
- Sprite/Polygon Mix: All assets in the real world are rendered in 3D. In ACE, characters and enemies are 2D, but the background and setpieces are in 3D.
- Starter Mon: You are given Hibiki Kohaku for free to start with. All other characters must be unlocked by spending Prototype Analyzers.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: You are accompanied by a female handler from within SkysEyes who is meant to assist you with the Mind Training program. However, once she learns about the Phenomena and how they provide visions of the past, she deviates from her job and decides to help you investigate SkysEyes to see if they're up to something shady.
