You may have heard of Arc System Works, the company devoted to perfecting niche “anime fighting” games. They’ve previously made the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series, but earlier this year, they launched Dragon Ball FighterZ. Aside from appealing to a large section of Dragon Ball fans, DBFZ was easily accessible for first-time players of fighting games. It seems fitting that their next game would cast a similarly wide net. BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle appeals to not one, but four fanbases at once, throwing together characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4, Under Night In-Bith, and RWBY. While some of these fighters have appeared previously in other Arc Sys games, Cross Tag mashes them into a new set of mechanics and broadcasts to new players. To be fully transparent, and to provide a backdrop for the rest of this review, I?m not a years-long veteran of fighting games. Sure, I?ve played rounds of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat with friends in nights of the distant past. But I didn?t try to learn a fighting game until Dragon Ball FighterZ. Since then, I?ve lightly toed the waters of Arc Sys’ other recent creations. By no means do I honestly know how to play either. And similarly, I?m mostly familiar with Persona 4 Golden, not the other three franchises included in Cross Tag.

Despite this profound lack of fighting knowledge, I feel pretty at home with BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. While fighters in other games tend to move too slowly for my tastes, th...