Author: Casey "Waveflame" Rinaldi

With the Japanese release date of BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle having arrived, many players are getting their hands on early copies of the game, providing us with a look at certain types of content before the full release for other regions in June — particularly the four Day 1 DLC characters.

As such, we have a compilation of Astral Heats for Team RWBY’s Blake Belladonna, BlazBlue’s Platinum The Trinity, Under Night In-Birth’s Orie, and Persona 4 Arena’s Kanji Tatsumi. Blake’s Astral is clearly an homage to Adam Taurus’s (who happens to be Toshimichi Mori’s favorite RWBY character), attack from the Black Trailer, as Belladonna slashes her foe up with Gambol Shroud before sending them to the ground, where they disintegrate into tiny black pieces against a blood red background. Meanwhile, Platinum, Orie, and Kanji have retained Shining Layered Force, Rest In Piece, and The Man Series: Brofist, from their respective origin games. You can see all four of them in English below.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle arrived on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC in Japan today, Thursday, May 31st. A North American release on the same platforms will follow this Tuesday, June 5th. A European release for PS4 and Switch, by PQube Games, is scheduled for Friday, June 22nd.

Source: Zyxxlolz

With the Japanese release date of BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle having arrived, many players are getting their hands on early copies of the game, providing us with a look at certain types of content before the full release for other regions in June — particularly the four Day 1 DLC characters.

As such, we have a compilation of Astral Heats for Team RWBY’s Blake Belladonna, BlazBlue’s Platinum The Trinity, Under Night In-Birth’s Orie, and Persona 4 Arena’s Kanji Tatsumi. Blake’s Astral is clearly an homage to Adam Taurus’s (who happens to be Toshimichi Mori’s favorite RWBY character), attack from the Black Trailer, as Belladonna slashes her foe up with Gambol Shroud before sending them to the ground, where they disintegrate into tiny black pieces against a blood red background. Meanwhile, Platinum, Orie, and Kanji have retained Shining Layered Force, Rest In Piece, and The Man Series: Brofist, from their respective origin games. You can see all four of them in English below.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle arrived on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC in Japan today, Thursday, May 31st. A North American release on the same platforms will follow this Tuesday, June 5th. A European release for PS4 and Switch, by PQube Games, is scheduled for Friday, June 22nd.

Source: Zyxxlolz

The 2018 Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition ELEAGUE Invitational is fast approaching, with the players in Group A battling it out this Friday — June 1st — on both Twitch and TBS. This past Friday, ELEAGUE held a preview show where the lineups of each of Groups A-D were fully revealed, and they are as follows:

Group A:

• Echo Fox|Tokido
• CO|Dogura
• ARES.RB|Luffy
• RISE|MenaRD
• SonicBoxx|JB
• CYG BST|PR Balrog

Group B:

• Echo Fox|Punk
• Echo Fox|Momochi
• NVD|Phenom
• CYG BST|Fuudo
• 801 Strider
• Commander Jesse

Group C:

• NuckleDu
• F3|Brolynho
• Echo Fox|Justin Wong
• RISE|Smug
• RB|Snake Eyez
• Mousesports|Problem X

Group D:

• FUDOH|Fujimura
• FUDOH|Haitani
• PG|Infiltration
• Hx.Twitch.CYG BST|Daigo Umehara
• Filipino Champ
• iDom

The Group A Round Robin action begins at 3:00 PM ET (Noon PT) at twitch.tv/eleaguetv, with TBS coverage beginning at 11:00 PM ET/PT. The remaining three Groups will kick off during those same hours respectively — with Group B battling on Friday, June 8th, Group C facing off on June 15th, and Group D going to war on June 22nd. The playoffs will take place on Friday, July 13th, at 5:00 PM ET on Twitch, with TBS coverage continuing at 11:00 PM.

Who do you think will be the two survivors of each of these four Groups? Share your thoughts and predictions with us in the comments section below.

Sources: ELEAGUE; Liquipedia.net

The Japanese website for the upcoming BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle has recently been updated, revealing that the next Arc Nama stream will be held on Friday, June 15th. This will be an interesting broadcast, as it will be the first monthly stream following the title’s full release, making its potential contents all the more interesting.

Even though this month’s stream was the first to not feature any character reveals, and the 31-character lineup for Evo 2018 has already been set, we still have nine DLC characters (whom will comprise Cross Character Packs 4-6) left to be revealed. Recent datamining of the Nintendo Switch’s open online beta has indicated the remaining fighters to be BlazBlue’s Izayoi, Nine The Phantom and Mai Natsume, Persona 4 Arena’s Mitsuru Kirijo, Akihiko Sanada and Labrys, and Under Night In-Birth’s Yuzuriha Sougetsu, Merkava, and Mika Returna. There have also been rumblings of Senran Kagura’s Asuka and Yumi potentially Crossing Fate with the four core franchises of BBTAG (though that has been denied). While we currently have no idea what ASW plans to show off, there’s a strong possibility that Cross Character Pack 4 could be revealed.

As always, you can catch the action at twitch.tv/arcsystemworks at 4:00 AM PT (6:00 AM CT, 7:00 AM ET).

What are you hoping to see revealed on the upcoming stream? Give us your thoughts and predictions in the comments below.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle will be released for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam in Japan this Thursday, May 31st, with a North American release on the same platforms following next Tuesday, June 5th. A European release by PQube for PS4 and Switch will drop on Friday, June 22nd.

Source: blazblue/jp/tag

Earlier this month, it was announced that another top fighting game player would be departing their current team and joining free agency. After signing with the organization back in 2015 as their first fighting game player, Antwan “Alucard” Ortiz, has left Flipside Tactics due to contract expiration.

His accomplishments under the F3 banner include: placing 7th at Frosty Faustings VII, 9th at Combo Breaker 2015, 7th at SCR 2015, 3rd at Youmacon 2015, 2nd at Naptown Clutch V, 5th at KIT 2016, and 3rd at Frosty Faustings VIII in Ultra Street Fighter IV; scoring 3rd at Combo Breaker 2015 and Frosty Faustings VIII, 7th at Summer Jam 9 and ESL Dallas, and 2nd at Youmacon 2015 in Mortal Kombat X; finishing 5th at Texas Showdown, Defend The North and East Coast Throwdown 2016 and 4th at The King of New York and Texas Showdown 2017; the pinnacle of his success came with 2nd place finishes at Absolute Battle 2016 and NYU Spring Fighter 2017, with him most recently coming off a 33rd place finish at NCR 2018.

It will be interesting to see which organizations may vie for his services, as he is a proven threat in multiple games. Flipside Tactic’s fighting game roster still includes Allan “LuckyL0ops” Parris (Dead or Alive 5: Last Round), Thomas “Brolynho” Proença (Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition), Daris “DR Gross” Daniels (Injustice 2, Dragon Ball FighterZ), Darnell “Sleep” Waller (Killer Instinct), David-Paul “AutoMattock” Mattock (Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition) and Parker “Ofidyan” Morris (Mortal Kombat XL, Injustice 2).

You can see tweets from Alucard and Flipside about his departure below, as well as an official statement on their website.

Well, I've had an amazing run with F3, but my contract with them has officially expired. I loved my time here but I just feel like for me to reach my full potential I need a change of scenery, so I am looking into new opportunities. As of today I am a free agent. Round 2! Fight!

— alucarD (@313alucarD) May 9, 2018

After three wonderful years, it's time to say farewell to the Bird of Hermes, @313alucarD – we'll miss you, Count.https://t.co/UVACFnCG4R pic.twitter.com/XjCQd9ZoER

— FlipSid3 Tactics (@FlipSid3Tactics) May 9, 2018

All of us here at Shoryuken would like to wish both parties the absolute best of luck in the future.

Sources: 313alucarD (Twitter); FlipSid3Tactics (Twitter); flipsidetactics.com