I haven’t played much of BlazBlue: Entropy Effect since it launched into early access in 2024. What I played then was a bit of a mixed bag: I came away impressed with the roguelike element, which had you piloting various characters from the mainline BlazBlue fighting games in side-scrolling combat arenas not dissimilar to Dead Cells. Unfortunately, everything else left me either cold or confused. Now it’s heading to consoles as BlazBlue: Entropy Effect X, developers 91Act have trimmed the fat, cleaned up the narrative, and delivered a banger of a 2D action game.
First things first, ACER is gone (although your character is referred to as Doctor A, as an obvious nod). Anyone who played the early access or PC version of this will remember that you spent half the game piloting a cutesy little robot around a Cyberpunk city. It was, to be brutally honest, boring and out of palace, and always left me itching to get back to the action. None of that has made it into X, instead focusing on the characters themselves and a Quintet of scientists investigating the Sea of Possibility, essentially a VR simulation that allows you to unlock memories and potential, known as Shards of Possibility.
Sadly, the narrative still doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s the weakest element by far, but at least there’s context to what you’re doing, and a group of different characters to add colour and personality to the world you’re in. As before, though, the meat of the game is still the Diving, which is now much more frequent and varied than it was.
Essentially this means assuming an avatar from one of 16 characters (14 from the mainline games, as well as ICEY from FantaBlade’s side-scroller of the same name, and the Beheaded from Motion Twin’s Dead Cells, perhaps as a nod to 91Act’s obvious inspiration. Each plays differently, with varied movesets, weapons, and stats, meaning it’s well worth working towards unlocking more and more.
Each run begins with you selecting a character and fighting through the first room to unlock your first Potential. These permanent skills and buffs add things like a triple jump, special ground or aerial attacks, or altered special moves. You’ll unlock more Potentials as you play, but the random nature of the progression means while you’ll always be working towards something, you won’t always know what.
As you clear each room in BlazBlue: Entropy Effect X, you’ll be given a number of choices. Exchange, for example, allows you to use Exchange Points earned in other rooms to buy things like more heals or skill boosts; Rest rooms let you gain back a percentage of HP; Sortitio rooms just give you free buffs and boons, no questions asked. Primarily though, you’ll want to unlock Tactics, which are elemental attacks that either power your weapon or add effects to your avatar like a ring of lightning orbs, or are-of-effect poison. As you progress and level up these Tactics, they layer on one another to create unique builds.
Once you’ve finished a run you will be given a score and the option to save the Avatar, which also allows you to make Legacy Skills. These can then be applied to future Avatars, giving you not only the character-specific special attack, but also the borrowed special attacks from up to two others.
Outside of the standard runs are various modes such as Entropy Mode and Extreme Mode. Entropy Mode introduces enhanced versions of boss fights, tougher enemies, and more lethal traps and hazards, while also adding things like Trials to the room rotations, which reward you for completing a set number of rooms with a permanent debuff. Extreme is very much like Entropy mode, but with added issues like Mutations to make it even tougher. There’s also an online co-op mode, which I couldn’t test pre-release but which will, from experience, add another dimension of mayhem and tactics to the action.
Talking to the other scientists in your group will unlock other modes and options, too, such as the ability to spend currencies to grant your avatars permanent buffs, or even a boss rush training mode. There’s a lot of content here, even without the massive roster of playable characters and the frankly dizzying amount of Tactics and special moves available to you in a given run.
BlazBlue: Entropy Effect X is a superb side-scrolling action game. The sheer amount of content on offer is enticing enough, but the animations and combat feedback are on-point throughout, making each character feel different but no less satisfying to pilot. The story can be tricky to follow, but your fellow scientists who help operate the Diving Bell System have their own backstories and side-concerns that add depth and emotion to what you’re doing.
As an evolutionary offshoot of a hardcore one on one brawler, BlazBlue: Entropy Effect X does a great job of translating its world, themes, and atmosphere to a completely different genre, and the decision to rewrite the story and focus more on character and world-building rather than ACER’s distracting sojourns is a wise choice. It makes everything feel more immediate, thematic, and essential, upping the stakes and focusing the entire experience.
