BlazBlue: General thread.

Okay, just finished CS True Ending, and I'm still confused as to what the hell is going on. Could anyone clear a few things up?

1: In CT, what the hell was that thing in space with the laser? Was that the Amaterasu unit? And what did Rachel mean when she said it would be 4 years til it could awaken again?

2: So, if Terumi was only ressurected at the end of CT, how did he manage to posess Jin in the past?

3: What the hell is Takamagahara, and why is it trying to kill everyone?

4: So, is Nu inside Lambda?

5: Is the answer to all these questions just ITS THE CONTINUUM SHIFT!!!

Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...

What is the Takamagahara? Well, the character pages writes:

A man-made entity (heavily implied to be a supercomputer) of unknown origin and purpose with the ability to manipulate space and time. It actually posseses three minds/selves, which observe every possibility of existence. Though its original purpose is unknown, it works to destroy the Master Unit, Amaterasu, so that it can control the flow of space and time, and give existence a cold, mechanical sense of order.

As for Lambda and Nu... Well.. I'm still not entirely clear on all of it myself, but here's what I can tell you.

Lamda-11, Mu-12, and Nu-13 are all Murakumo units. Them and Noel are all clones of Saya, each from a different continuity. There are 10 other Murakumo units before them. Lambda is the 11th, Mu is the 12th, and Nu is the... well... 13th. The Murakumo units at large seem, if I'm understanding this right, to be machines created to bring order to the world with all the chaos caused by the boundary and the continuum shifts. Nu-13's soul is assumed to have been plucked from the boundary and placed in Lambda 11. It wasn't until the True Ending that Lambda's soul woke up and remembered everything she was as Nu-13, and sacrificed herself for Ragna and Noel's sake. It's very likely that she'll be back in yet another form in the next game.

Just remember that the Continuum Shifts activate a "Groundhog Day" Loop, indicating that everything that happens to every character are all the true events of the story until they all form together to create the true true ending.

edited 19th Jan '11 7:03:37 PM by DRCEQ

Thanks boobie lady!

Changing the subject, now that I've played CS, I cant see how Rachel is much different from her CT version. The only changes I can detect, apart from her new drive, are that her 6A seems to have lost some range, George XIII moves slower, and the pumpkins dont seem to stay on screen for as long. So I really dont know why she's suddenly low teir. Of course, that might be because I'm not brilliant at the game and cant pull off complex combos. That and I actually suck pretty bad as Rachel.

Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...

• is suddenly tempted to make a post about the current mass (not personal)opinion about Boobie Lady...*

Well, shall I do it, or not....

You're talking about Litchi, not me, right? :p

Holy crap, the fight with ragna and Hakumen in that vid was epic.

@DRCEQ: Yeah... It gets depressing that most of the time I go, all I heard about her is "She's a stupid idiot". As if she took Carl's place as the 'Possible Scrappy', and then removed the 'Possible'.

She's far from stupid, but she does let her desperation over Arakune get the best of her in the end, and it seems she's maid a stupid decision that isn't obvious to her.

Look, for all we know the NOL, evil as they may seem, are the only thing keeping the world together. Litchi has sided with them for a reason that I think goes beyond just Arakune, notice she didn't make her decision until she came on the realization on the connection between those harnessing the boundary's powers. What that connection is, we don't know yet, and it'll probably be revealed in next sequel's climax.

@DRCEQ: Ask that to forums like Game FAQS.

You'll more likely to see them just claim stupid for that one decision. And her decisions to let go of Arakune everytime she beats him into submission are also considered STUPID.

I do know she isn't stupid, and that I'm not gonna argue about the plot (did that a lot of time). But the state of the current fandom distresses me (about her being the possible new Scrappy of Blaz Blue), that's it. Hell, I think TV Tropes also followed that notion!

Fun fact: I had a friend who visited an anime con this January (before today) and got to ask Mori something, whereas he mentions that Litchi is still genuinely good. It still saddens me that tropers still saddle her with True Neutral alignment. I still believe in the notion that she's Neutral Good.

edited 20th Jan '11 3:34:32 PM by ChrisX

If an allignment could be given to her, then she is Neutral Good because she has nothing but good intentions in mind. I never doubted her in the story. I mean, I know she hasn't pulled a complete Face–Heel Turn but you can't deny that from a player's point of view, it is a very misguided step for her to take.

Um... what constitutes you as a Face–Heel Turn? Everyone seems to treat her as already doing one by joining NOL. The antagonist group.

If Word of God says she's STILL GOOD, when who are we to say that she's actually turned?

Face–Heel Turn can be about 'going from protagonist to antagonist', and I think that's what the fans tried to convey. Word of God may say she is good, but she's now on a bad place, on her own choice (because apparently, people forget that 'give up already for own good' is also a choice), and apparently that constitutes as a reason to hate, or a reason to plaster her with negative tropes like Love Makes You Evil.

I meant to say that ever since CS, the Litchi haters have become more vocal than Noel haters, or even Carl haters.

edited 20th Jan '11 6:36:50 PM by ChrisX

Potential unmarked spoilers for the uninitiated below, you have been warned. Though I tried to spoilertag some of the most important stuff.

• The giant Kill Sat is Take-Mikazuchi, I believe it was a gigantic fucking version of a Nox Nyctores under control of the NOL (whether that means Saya or Hazama is up for debate). I'm not entirely sure about the "four years" thing, but I guess that's the minimum amount of time needed for the magical Kill Sat to recharge after firing. It was thought that the big-ass laser combined with the Cauldron somehow caused the many continuum shifts in CT, but it turns out they were really caused by...
• The Amaterasu Unit (or Master Unit), one of the Sankishin ("three sacred treasures," notice the references to Japanese mythology here?) that lies somewhere within the Boundary and can only be found by the holder of the True Azure Grimoire (or Blaz Blue, the dubbing kind of mixes these two up in CS). I believe the fluff stated it was a supercomputer that held the record of every single timeloop within its system before it "rebooted" the universe. Currently destroyed after Noel opened up the path as Mu-12, and then Saya delivered the killing blow off-screen after the events of CS.

Technically, Terumi never really "died." In the beginning of Hakumen's story in CS, it's revealed (sort of) that Terumi tried to trap Hakumen and Jubei within the Boundary. Jubei managed to use the Ars Magus in his eye (the now-eyepatched one) to switch with Terumi instead before the gate closed. However, it seems that Terumi somehow found a way to exist as a spirit and escape (whether he always had this power or somehow discovered it in the Boundary I can't remember). From then he pretty much had free rein. Can't trap an incorporeal spirit. Though Relius made him an artificial body to use at some point (the one we now know as Hazama), nothing really stopped him from possessing Jin.

On a semi-related note, there's some debate over whether Jin was actually possessed or merely had his natural crazy turned Up To Eleven through Hazama and/or Yukianesa after Saya gave it to him.

Someone probably answered this already, but from what I've figured Takamagahara is a supercomputer that exists in some "other" space with three connected "minds" that is trying to manipulate the time loop in order to produce the ideal outcome for itself, like most of the villains in the story. Rachel was acting as its "observer" until they decided that Rachel's act of activating the Tuskiyomi Unit was against its ideal path, so they dumped her and gave her status to someone else (Noel, I think?)

What they didn't count on was that Terumi would also be doing the same thing: keeping a record of every single time loop until it could find the one nanosecond of time where Takamagahara's attention would be focused on Ragna and away from him. As a result, Terumi used this opportunity to upload some sort of magical computer virus developed by "Phantom" that would trap Takamagahara in a logic loop for eternity, effectively removing them from the game.

Short answer? A Wizard Did It.

Slightly more elaborate guess: The Murakumo Units are all clones of Saya, so it's possible they have some sort of wireless connection with each other even if they don't realize it. After all, in the True Ending of CT, simply being in proximity to v-13 caused Noel to turn (personality-wise) into her /-12 form, and v-13 was not actually killed, as Hazama and Relius were able to recover her body from the Cauldron at the epilogue of CS story. So perhaps v-13's personality was able to assert itself inside Lambda's body through a wireless connection and proximity.

However, I'd probably go with A Wizard Did It. It's much easier.

Hope this helps.

edited 20th Jan '11 7:59:58 PM by DocHaus

That's the reason why I put Never the Selves Shall Meet on the work page. Lamba 11 almost completely freaked out after coming into momentary physical contact with Noel, similar to what happened with Nu-13.

As far as Litchi goes, who gives a good goddamn about what the Fan Dumb thinks. And Gamefaqs? Half those morons can't even spell. She's a Neutral Good character in a desperate situation. She's neither stupid, or evil.

Anyone wanna answer my earlier post and explain why Rachel is low teir now? I've seen some insane CS Rachel combos on youtube. It doesn't seem to me like she's lost any power.

Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...

Well, those Fan Dumb people are here in TV Tropes, editing articles and plastering negative stuffs like Love Makes You Evil to Litchi... Sometimes, Fan Dumb can be telling some harsh truth...

(slightly off topic to a more general thing) Is it just me or haters are usually more vocal than supporters? And why?

For tier discussions, I'd say you can ask to the Dustloop forums. That has got to be the most intensive tier discussion forum I've ever heard. Go share your ideas with how Rachel isn't bottom tier. I rarely do tiers in any games I played so I can't help you (I just pick and main my fave story-wise, no matter how crappy they are game-wise).

I hardly ever see any Rachels online. It's almost always Ragna, Hakumen, Hazama, Litchi, and the occasional Noel. When I do fight a Rachel though, they generally present a good challange because they love to spam Lobellia the whole match.

The problem as I've heard is that a good Rachel player in CT could wipe out a good chunk of your health in one combo, so Arcsys decided to nerf her combo damage. The problem, however, is that they nerfed the damage of too many individual moves to the point where it would take several hits just to take away 3500 damage when someone like, say, Arakune could take off that much at the start of his combo with the bugs thrown in. In the upcoming (I hope) CS 2 patch they are going to re-re-balance the characters and among those things try to strike a balance between CT Rachel and CS Rachel.

Granted, I wouldn't know, as I don't actually play Rachel except as an occasional joke when I find someone willing to play locally. But this is what I have seen.

Not that it is impossible to win with Rachel, but when fighting someone of equal or greater skill it becomes hella difficult.

edited 21st Jan '11 8:17:38 AM by DocHaus

That and the fact that she's ridiculously hard to use effectively. Unless you just spam lobelia the entire match.

Of course, it's not like I give two shits about character teirs. I was just wondering why everyone suddenly started bashing Rachel after CS came out. I guess since I can't pull off insane 50 hit combos, I never notice her damage nerf. Does anyone play her and care to share some simple combos?

Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...

Get thee to Dustloop.com, they have an entire subforum dedicated to Rachel Alucard. Just to be nice, here's a whole thread that doles out basic attack information and some BnB combos for said vampire rabbit lady. You can post there if you want, but its easier just to lurk and learn. It's what I did for some characters like Tager when I wanted to do better than just mashing buttons (protip: mashing buttons with Tager does not help fight anyone outside of the newest of the noobs).

So I asked this on the Blaz Blue Itjust Bugs Me page, but I'll put it here as well:

Most of the characters are using Nox Nyctores, which are crazy powerful, but Tsubaki is using an Ars Armagus.

Does it surprise me that Terumi gave her a weapon that is not as powerful as the ones the people she is supposed to kill are using?

NO. IT'S TERUMI.

But that being said, how exactly does she stack up against the other characters in-story. We know Bang is considered a joke (although that is starting to change), but what chance did she really stand?

edited 21st Jan '11 12:33:56 PM by HandsomeRob

One Strip! One Strip!

I fear the worst will end up happening to Tsubaki and there will be nothing anyone can do. I think she'll be fated to die. Though she might make a last minute attempt at redemption, Izayoi will ultimate take her unless she gets rid of it.

Of course, I hope that doesn't happen, and that Makoto, Noel, Carl, and maybe even Jin will be able to show her that her life was good on it's own, without Terumi telling her what is best.

We got a bunch of mortality rate guessing for BB characters here. Go help out!

Tsubaki is below average, though only slightly.

Anyway, I've been slightly scouring through examples about people similar to Litchi's situation. Anyone could give examples about 'Good people in Bad/Evil group'? From other games, preferably.

On topic of this, a similar Fan Dumb about lowering a character alignment due to joining bad guy organization occurred in Guilty Gear too (Anji was touted from True Neutral to Lawful Evil just for joining That Man)

edited 21st Jan '11 3:35:34 PM by ChrisX