BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

What it is

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle brings together fighters from four separate franchises — BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth, and, for the first time ever in a fighting game, RWBY — into a simplified 2v2 tag-team format designed to be more approachable than Arc System Works' typically demanding, execution-heavy fighting games. Developed and published by Arc System Works, it released on Steam on 20 November 2019 at NZD 36.99, following an earlier console release, with dedicated visual-novel-style story episodes for each represented series.

Its review corpus, 2,251 in English, sits at a strong Very Positive 82.9% (1,866 to 385), and reading through it in depth reveals a genuinely well-liked fighting game whose PC-specific release is documented, independently and repeatedly, as one of the roughest ports in its developer's catalog.

Genuine accessibility that earns real newcomer praise

Reviewers consistently credit BBTag with lowering the genre's usual barrier to entry without feeling like a lesser experience. "If you look down through the user reviews, you're going to see a lot of people saying the game is good, and a lot of people saying the game sucks. So is the game good or not? The answer is that the game is good, but ultimately not everyone will appreciate the kind of game it is," writes one detailed reviewer, explaining that BBTag intentionally simplifies inputs and attack options compared to other anime fighters. Another reviewer frames the appeal directly for genre newcomers: "one of the best Anime Fighters for Fighting Game Newcomers... if you aren't looking for the 'hardcore experience' of Guilty Gear or og Blazblue, but you still want a game that is highly competitive and challenging, then this is one of the best games to pick up." A separate reviewer, not normally a fighting game player, states plainly: "bought the game just for the RWBY content and still enjoyed it and I'm not really a fan of fighting games" — real, credible crossover appeal beyond the genre's usual audience.

A PC port reviewers independently document with the same specific evidence

This corpus's dominant, most striking complaint concerns the Steam release specifically, and it's worth taking seriously precisely because so many reviewers cite the identical, specific evidence independently. "This is probably the worst port to date on launch. When you disconnect from Steam it says 'Disconnected from PlayStation Network' — very classy," writes one detailed reviewer, and that exact detail — a leftover console-specific error message never updated for the PC release — recurs as a specific, memorable, verifiable fact rather than a vague "bad port" complaint. A separate reviewer lists further concrete technical failures: "fullscreen mode is broken; and windowed mode only has 3 presets with 2 of them having bad downscaling... keyboard prompts keep popping up even if you're using a controller." A third reviewer describes a workaround rather than a fix: "I went into the nvidia control panel and changed a bunch of settings and now the performance is great. The developers still did a bad job of optimizing the game, but at least the issues are fixable" — useful for prospective buyers, but a fair reminder that the burden of fixing a poor port fell largely on players rather than the developer.

Real value and content-access complaints

Beyond the technical issues, a separate, specific complaint concerns how much of the advertised crossover roster actually ships in the base purchase. "Game kinda sucks without the dlc... 90% of the characters are locked by yet another pay wall," writes one reviewer, a concrete complaint about a game whose entire premise depends on its character roster. A separate reviewer raises a different, more structural gap: "it's sorely missing an Arcade Mode or something roughly equivalent... I am writing this review from the perspective of someone who plays primarily alone," highlighting a real limitation for players without a consistent opponent.

A fair, more measured veteran critique

Longtime fans of the underlying BlazBlue and Under Night series raise a more specific, mechanically grounded complaint distinct from the port issues. "This game stands up well enough on its own but it fails to hold on to many things that made Central Fiction, Under Night, and Xrd good... universal DPs/reversals are a very bad mechanic to veterans of the original games, because some characters are balanced around their lack of these," writes one detailed reviewer, arguing the simplification that makes BBTag approachable for newcomers specifically undermines what made individual characters feel distinct in their source games. That's a fair, specific trade-off worth naming — the same design choice earning newcomer praise draws real, technically literate criticism from the games' most invested longtime fans.

What the achievement data confirms about the online community

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle's achievement curve shows online-specific milestones sitting notably low even relative to typical single-player progress achievements — "Win Ranked Lobby" sits at just 7.3% and reaching Ranked Silver rank at only 3.2%, compared to 55.3% for the top general-combat achievement. That's consistent with the "small, largely inactive online community" complaint documented throughout this corpus — a real, checkable sign that competitive online play reaches only a small fraction of the overall playerbase years after launch.

Verdict

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle delivers a genuinely accessible, well-designed crossover fighter that succeeds at welcoming newcomers the genre usually intimidates, and its four-franchise cast remains a real, distinctive draw. But its Steam release carries a specifically documented, independently corroborated reputation as a poor port — right down to a literal leftover console error message — and a thin, paywalled roster plus a shrunken online community are real, concrete value concerns on top of that. Worth it for the crossover appeal with patience for technical workarounds; consider console versions if port quality matters more to you than platform convenience.