It’s become something of an obnoxious tradition for fighting game makers to release a game, add on a couple more characters and re-release the game, and then add on even a few more and do it all again. Arc System Works enthusiastically embraces this convention, each release extending the already-impenetrable storyline, and I have to admit I have no idea how many BlazBlue games there are now (I know I own three, and I was thinking about buying the most recent for the Xbox One that I bought but don’t really use very often, except I don’t know which one that is and I don’t know if another improved re-release is imminent). I guess even they don’t want to source everything from a single well, though, which is perhaps why they’ve branched out into, of all things, the visual novel genre. Xblaze is a currently two-part series which, somehow, is part of the BlazBlue universe; I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but it is. It’s seemingly incongruous for a visual novel to be tied into a world-renowned fighting game franchise, but then, I suppose it’s no weirder than spinning off into beach volleyball.
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