Finally finished BlazBlue ChronoPhantasm’s main story the other night and my god was it as good as everyone told it would be. First things first I really like how the story gave more of an arc for Ragna, dressing down the reckless and borderline apathetic personality he’s built for himself in pursuit of revenge. Pointing out how Ragna lacks any real conviction behind his power, making him no better than a monster. A flaw in Ragna’s character that has always been there, even if it was obscured from us till now. But what really makes this arc so compelling is how exactly Ragna evolves. Celica is the perfect foil for Ragna not only because she is a living breathing counter to his powers but because her kind and polite personality balances out his rude and crude attitude. She holds Ragna accountable when he is being a jerk and pushes him to share his true feelings with others. Celica is the one who makes Ragna take off his mask as the Grim Reaper. Celica doesn't just help Ragna obtain a real reason to fight, but pushes him to become the Man who brings hope to the Dark War. Beyond Ragna’s relationship to Celica, his new reason for fighting is compelling because of how it contrasts The BlazBlue and his old self. As Ragna points out The BlazBlue is the power to take, it is not just a weapon but a vampiric parasite that robs life away from everything it touches. Shown best in Ragna’s Drive, Soul Eater, which consumes the HP of Ragna’s opponent and gives it to him. As the Grim Reaper Ragna would destroy everything in his path to find Saya, not just destroying The Cauldrons but scaring the Hierarchical cities themselves, hurting the innocent people that lived there. Ragna was someone who only took away from others. Now By fighting to not to lose anything else ever again Ragna rejects both the power of the BlazBlue and his old self to become someone better, a true man and hero. Leading to the ultimate climax of Ragana’s story, his rematch with Nu, where instead of fighting to destroy her, he fights to save her.
Beyond Ragan himself I love how the game finally gives Bang his flowers. Bang has always been my favorite character, thanks to his heroic convictions and boundless kindness. Showing comparison to both friend and foe alike. Even adopting many wayward children. But of course in the previous two games he was treated largely as a joke character with rare moments of greatness. In ChonoPahantasm they cut back on the jokes and finally give Bang the spotlight. Not only rewarding his conviction by reuniting him with his lord, but allowing him to be the one to save the world by doing what he was always meant to do, hammer in the nail. Also love the conflict they create for him with Relius, by having the two people Bang cares about the most siding with Relius.
And with Relius as my transition point lets talk about how ChronoPhantasm uses the rest of its cast. My favorite part of the climax is how it manages to bring in almost every character for the final battle, highlighting the growth of characters like Tsubaki, Noel, and Jin while also contrasting it against the poor choices of Litchi and Carl. Of course not every character gets something to do in the end. Arakune and Bullet are both noticeably absent from the climax with Tao just straight up disappears from the story after a certain point. However their absence in the climax doesn’t hurt the story in any meaningful way and I don’t think their inclusion would necessarily improve anything.
If I did have anything to complain about in Chronophantasm’s main story it would be how Hazam/Terumi is side stepped in the climax to give Hades Inazumi the full spotlight, which I admit is a fairly biased nitpick, especially since he still has an opportunity to shine in the next game. A more substantial issue I have with the game is the reveal that Terumi was never actually considered a friend by the rest of the Six Heroes, with them all knowing he was a bad person from the get go. I feel like it really undermines the cruelty and tragedy of his betrayal. That instead of the 6 Heroes being stabbed in the back by someone they considered a friend and comrade, they’re just betrayed by the one guy they never liked in the first place.
Also The boss fight against Take-Mikazuchi is a massive disappointment. Like I love the fact that we actually get to fight this monster, with a major story fight against a character outside of the rooster actually being playable, but unfortunately the actual design of this fight is terrible. Almost every attack the boss uses is a screen nuke with knockback effect that blasts you to the end of the stage, which is a problem because the stage for this boss fight is dramatically longer than previous ones and the boss is always on the other side of the stage. Ultimately this makes the boss fight not only twice as long as it needs to be, but derives most of the difficulty not from the fight itself but from just being able to reach the boss. Oh and the boss's hit point is in the air so you can’t really use most ground combos in this fight, severely limiting your options. And I get why the boss fight is like this. They wanted to make you feel like you’re really fighting this giant monster capable of leveling entire cities, but there had to be a better way of getting this across while also making the fight work in harmony with the game’s mechanics and strengths.
