I: Three completely new characters have been revealed. Can you please tell us something about each of them?
M: Starting with Amane, it was Ragna’s voice actor, Tomokazu Sugita, who brought us his initial concept.
I: What! Which part of Amane was Sugita-san’s idea?
M: The Drive (character’s special ability) called “Spiral” that uses a drill and can overheat, making it impossible to use for a while, and the overall feeling of dancing while fighting.
I: Aha, so Amane fights with a drill?
M: Yes. Amane ended up to be a good design of a long-ranged character. He can pull the opponent in with his cloth, or he can perform a multi-hit attack with the drill. For the experienced players, his fighting style can be summed up as “The character who cares about hit-confirms a lot”.
I: So he ended up as an advanced character for experienced players?
M: Yes. Furthermore, even if you block the drill, the chip damage is still quite large. Also, since he can only fight at the very long range or at the very short range, I do think that he’s going to be played by the experienced players.
I: I can’t remember any other character who cares about chip that much. Moving on, what does Azrael have?
M: Azrael is a soldier that belongs to the same “Sector Seven” organization as Tager, who can implant weak points into the enemy with his Drive, The Terror. The idea is that he puts a curse on you for a short time. When a Drive attack connects, a weak point is put on you, and when it’s hit, your hit stun becomes much longer and attacks gain additional effects. Though his fighting style revolves around finding the way of applying the weak points to the opponent, his attack power is quite high, so you can still fight well even without using Drive. Since his movement is on the slower side, he’s pretty close to Hakumen in terms of gameplay.
I: Did his original idea belong to you?
M: Yes. It was me who came up with this idea. In the whole BlazBlue cast, there was no character that had a reason to furiously fight against every single opponent. Thus, the idea of a “Tyrant character” was born. Both Azrael and Bullet were made specifically to make an impact on the story. This time, when we told the staff about their roles in the story, they were excited about how to derive their fighting styles from it. And then I made new adjustments, and the cycle began anew.
I: Okay, lastly, what can you say about Bullet?
M: Well, she’s quite large-breasted, isn’t she? (laughs) Jokes aside, she’s based on Tager’s initial design that we didn’t use: “You can throw your enemy by pressing the D button”.
I: Though she doesn’t look like one, she’s actually a grappler with strong throws, isn’t she?
M: She’s not simply about throws, more about “Strike throws” that stun the enemy when you hit with them. You quickly throw the enemy and go for a combo right away.
I: Can you escape throws in the middle of a throw combo?
M: You cannot. However, since it’s a strike throw, you can block the initial strike. I think that, out of all the new characters, Bullet is the easiest to play. Not only does she have the strike throws, but she also has a projectile, so the overall balance is pretty good.
I: Will you recommend Bullet to the players who can’t decide on a character to main?
M: Yes. Since she has a great feeling about her, I’d recommend everyone to try her out at least once.
I: Now then, what part are these characters going to take in the story, and how are they related to the existing characters?
M: First of all, as you might guess from his attention to young handsome boys, Amane is interested in adding Carl to his traveling troupe. However, he also interests Rachel for some reason, so there’s going to be some interaction between them, too. This is not related to the story, but you should see Amane’s opening animation. Every single member of his troupe comes out (laughs). His Astral Heat was also a hell to produce; our team members have put all their blood, sweat and tears into it.
I: Sounds like fun (laughs).
M: Azrael has been sealed by the “Sector Seven” organization that Kokonoe and Tager belong to. Since he doesn’t differentiate between friend and foe while enraged, he has put a limiter on himself. Also, since he’s a battle maniac, he doesn’t care about winning or losing in a fight. He’s quite troublesome to deal with for everyone involved (laughs). Naturally, among the existing characters, he has a deep relation with Tager and Kokonoe. By the way, since this installment revolves around Sector Seven a lot, the Sector Seven characters now take a much bigger role in the story. Ah, I almost forgot to say how amazing Yasumoto-san’s voice is, do look forward to listening to it.
I: Indeed, Yasumoto-san’s voice seems to fit him well.
M: Finally, we have Bullet. She, too, is a character that’s related to Sector Seven. When the game is released in the arcades, I recommend you to check out the story mode as soon as possible. I’d especially recommend you to pay attention to Amane and Bullet’s dialogues, since they’re pretty interesting.
brofist ;p
