BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is probably the most anime fighting game being played at major competitions apart from Dragon Ball FighterZ, and the latter only beats it out because it’s literally based on an anime series. The latest BlazBlue is a wild game that produces incredible tournament moments on a regular basis. The latest of these highlights came courtesy of last weekend’s Anime Ascension and left both players blown away.
Like many of the fighting games developed by Arc System Works, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle includes superpowered, one-hit kill moves known as Astral Heats. Every character has one, and they’re dead simple to perform. That said, there are a variety of requirements that must be met before characters can use Astral Heats, including the loss of their partner and maxing out the super gauge during a limited window of time. They’re fun to play around with but ultimately unreliable in most matches.
These limitations didn’t stop a BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle player named Kiomi at Anime Ascension. Down on life after eating a massive Hazama combo from Vivian, who was his losers bracket opponent, Kiomi threw out an Astral Heat with Jubei that managed to hit Vivian. The reason it connected was because Vivian happened to be in the middle of airdashing in order to keep Kiomi trapped in the corner, which also meant Vivian was unable to block. The large hitbox of Jubei’s Astral Heat meant that the move still landed cleanly even though Vivian was behind the character, leading to a win for Kiomi.
The camera immediately shifted to both players as their faces ran through a variety of expressions, the most obvious being Kiomi’s apparent shock that the Astral Heat hit and Vivian’s disbelief that that’s how he lost the game.
As two of the best BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle players in Southern California, Kiomi and Vivian are no doubt used to silly moments like this one happening during matches. They both placed in the top 8 at Anime Ascension—third for Kiomi and seventh for Vivian—out of a bracket of 65 total competitors. It just goes to show that you have to be ready for anything if you’re going to play one of the most hectic fighting games out there.
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