What are you playing right now?

[Zevox]

The beta for BlazBlue Cross Tag just began, so I've started toying around with that. Unfortunately, no training mode in it - which I guess I should have seen coming, since Dragon Ball FighterZ's beta didn't have it either - so my first little while with it has just been going into versus mode against computers set to the lowest difficult to try and practice basics.

So far, definitely has potential. Since the characters I play in BlazBlue and Persona aren't in the beta I've mostly been playing around with Ruby and Weiss, emphasis on Weiss, and they seem fun. There's a mechanic with Weiss I'm having a hard time figuring out involving setting up glyphs around the stage, guess I'll likely have to wait until the game's out and I have training mode to figure that out, but it doesn't seem crucial to using her. Ruby's command dash seems very good, reminds me of Wesker's teleports from Marvel 3 - albeit not as good as those, since it has no invincibility on it.

I am a bit concerned that the control scheme for the game is... well, if not dumbed down (which is a phrase I kind of hate with regards to fighting games but almost seems appropriate here, with so many moves wrapped into being auto-combo filler), at least set up in such a way that it will make the characters feel and play a lot more alike than they should. Though I definitely really like that every character gets three different assist moves, all of which can be used, rather than just one (Dragon Ball) or three but you have to pick just one (Marvel vs Capcom), though. I hope they add that to Dragon Ball FighterZ when it inevitably gets a sequel or expanded version. They've got some pretty interesting mechanics revolving around assists and character switching in general, too, which look like they'll probably define the game's overall gameplay, especially at higher levels.