TL;DR Nu died when Noel saved Ragna and broke the time loop in the 1st game, Kokonoe used her soul to bring Lambda online in the 2nd game, which caused part of Nu to manifest from her, saving Ragna (she has a thing for her) at the cost of her & Lambda's life, and the bad guys revive Nu in the 3rd game and Lambda somehow comes back too in the "Extend" version of the same game before both characters return in the final game. That's all the lore you need.
@@TheVanOvanShow @espurrseyes42 did mention her in the post, Lambda-11 is technically an earlier version of Nu-13 activated by Kokonoe but dies in the end of the story mode of Continuum Shift (2) but was revived in Chrono Phantasma. (3)
While not a balance change, SNK changed movesets so much between games that they'd sometimes offer secret "EX" versions of previous movesets. The King of Fighters '99 took this even further, with two previous movesets for Kyo becoming storyline clones Kyo-1 (94-95 moveset) and Kyo-2 (96-97 moveset). With Samurai Shodown 3, SNK decided to "double" the roster by offering two separate movesets for every character through the Slash/Bust system. While it started as just alternate movesets, some of these split movesets would eventually become their own storyline entities. Bust Nakoruru would become the darker personality Rera, Bust Haohmaru would become the demon Rasetsumaru, Bust Kazuki and Sogetsu were those characters possessed by the spirits Enja and Suija, which was later followed by Enja and Suija themselves becoming playable characters, etc
Cool video. Not exactly the same scenario, but this kind of reminds me of the Siegfried/Nightmare split in SCIII. Siegfried retained his stances and *most* of his moves and Nightmare kept one stance while gaining a new rushdown stance. I liked having 2 'flavors' of zweihander. It was handled better than 'let's give every good move to Astaroth and give terrible moves to Rock to make him trash' (seriously, his weapon is the same length as Astaroth's but he would hold the mace right below the head and swing with his arms tucked in as close to his body as possible). Then in SCVI they gave Nightmare some old stances/moves that overlapped with Siegfried (my main) and I just can't enjoy playing Nightmare now that he plays 'more like Siegfried, but he's not'. Oh and they stole what few good moves Rock had and ALSO gave those to Astaroth because instead of incresing your big body character count by 200% they'd rather...not...do that...
Wait, HUH?! Someone needs to make a video on Siegfried/Nightmare because I only got into Soul Cal with SCVI, and Siegfried was my sub, but now I wanna know the history in detail
@@DazIsBambo There's probably a video like that somewhere but off the top of my head: Siegfried was in Soul Edge (Soul Blade on PS1) and he could unlock Soul Edge as his ultimate weapon. The was also an unlockable palette swap of Siegfried called 'Siegfried!' where he's wielding Soul Edge (with no weapon stat modifiers) in the red corrupted 2P armor from his arcade ending (which becomes partially canon). Nightmare is part of the launch roster of Soulcalibur for the Dreamcast and Siegfried is unlockable via arcade mode (as a 'what if' scenario after he regains his sanity). There ***might*** be a slight speed difference with Siegfried being a tad faster, but the only difference between the two is Nightmare's BB is unique to him while Siegfried's BBB is the same as his 22_88 BBB (which Nightmare *also* has). In SCII Siegfried slowly begins sleepwalking night after night as Nightmare despite his attempts to get as far away from people as possible. Siegfried was Nightmare's 3rd costume with no gameplay differences. In SCIII Nightmare is now Inferno animating the discarded azure armor thanks to Zasalamel's magic. Siegfried is mostly intact with a few new attacks, Nightmare is mostly new with some mainstay techniques. Siegfried uses stances, Nightmare rushes you down. In SCIV they're both mostly the same as in SCIII except Siegfried wields Soulcalibur and has big anime crystal armor. Their animations are further differentiated. In SCV Nightmare is actually Raphael but he still plays mostly the same as in SCIV. Siegfried is old and fights pretty much the same as SCIV. In SCVI some of Siegfried's inputs got shuffled around a tiny bit (his new BB being his old b6, 6B) but Nightmare regained several Siegfried moves (because he's canonically Siegfried again in this SCI retcon-but-not-really-but-it-is-ugh) which makes Nightmare feel less like Nightmare imho.
@@JJSquirtle Never really felt like a mess to me. My enjoyment for playing 'Nightmare' in II just became enjoyment for playing Siegfried, plus I got a 'new' character to play with!
I disagree with saying lamba isn't new. she's very nu ;) terrible jokes aside, I legit do not understand what the thought process was for Chronophantasma Nu/Lambda. the fact they went to all the effort to make a mode change form, just to split them into two a little over a year later. and like, I fully agree with splitting the two - these characters, despite shared aesetics, have different gameplans and focus. they don't play the same. they are mechanically different characters, like sakura compared to ryu, so having both was absolutetly the best way to make fans of both styles happy. having some incredibly complex hybrid that, due to the hybrid nature, couldn't fully commit to either style even in their mode was just confusing especially since, unlike other mode change characters who tend to have very clearly defined differences in moves based on their mode, it was very easy to lose track of if you where in dia or luna form, especially early in the games lifespan, and muscle memory was a bitch for it since they had the issue of both forms being simmilar enough to confuse your automatic responses, but just different enough auto-piloting could get you to drop somthing crucial and yeah, even based on the famitsu interview I agree with the team that splitting them was the right call as it was very compex and left fans of both playstyles unhappy, but the fact they where merged to begin with baffles me still
I cut that terrible joke out of the video, only for it to end up in the comments LOL Glad to see someone else experienced the mess of CP1.0 Nu-13. Thanks for watching!
While it's completely understandable why the "balance update + 1/2 characters" expansion update model fell out of favor with fighting games, I genuinely like it because it leads to videos like this; I can experience firsthand how a character changes over time. While the new, patch-based model is more convenient, it also means that I can't rollback balance updates and thus need to rely on old videos, forums, and dead discord diving to be told how a character was supposedly played. From nerfs and buffs, to entire character reworks, we've seen it countless times; how a character is played will influence how a character is made.
You can rollback balance updates but that would require someone to still have the coding from that specific time period on hand and be able to teach you how to trigger only that specific version. (Which would require emulation)
@@557deadpool It can be an important point of discussion when talking about any balance changes. Maybe some move or aspect of a character was a bit too strong, needing some tooling to balance it out. Later someone brings up buffing said aspect, only to be reminded of what the old strong version was like. For competitive play it doesn't really matter what the thing was before the current patch, sure (except maybe in some day1 scenario, where players are still figuring out how the changes affect the meta), but that doesn't mean a character's history isn't worth discussing.
I think with the PC version of CP specifically, you can choose to use the pre-Extend version of CP rather than just the Extend version, but I’m not sure how far that goes.
really great video! the nu/lambda split is something ive always Known about but not put much effort into learning, so hearing about the full details here is perfect. keep it up!
Great video! I always hated playing against Lamda and Nu (I was a Ragna player so... yeah) but I noticed what you mentioned about the animation of the BnB feeling less satisfying/feeling worse; Nu's hits are a bit further, thus giving the sense of more bounce (finishing the combo puts the enemy full screen from you) while Lamda's combo keeps them low and brings them to you since her finisher puts them at midscreen. You're not crazy but it's not necessarily that they have Lamda has less bounce, necessarily. It is also the fact that the trajectory of the swords changes and Nu's cover more of the field compared to Lamda's.
I'm definitely in the Mode Change category. I really enjoyed the idea of changing modes to keep a combo going. And it infuriated me when the two were split. And YES I really hated that Lambda got Spike Chaser instead of Nu.
Fantastic video, felt like a trip down memory lane. Nu is my favourite fighting game character by a significant margin (Act Parser is simply just too fun a move/property), and the wild ride that was her balancing really is fascinating.
really appreciate this video. as a cf newcomer, i think nu and lambda ended up with different enough kits to both be worthy of different character slots. i would just like to add one more thing: of all the nerfs that nu received in bbcf, her drives no longer dealing chip damage is what really ends her. now, your zoning is no longer threatening, since the opponent is not in a hurry to approach you before their health or barrier gets too low (especially bad when so many characters have an anti-zoning super, so YOU are punished for zoning them by giving them free meter with your harmless projectiles, especially if they know how to instant block). if all you did was give nu her old chip damage back, she would inmeadiately become a decent mid tier just like lambda. it's always sad to see cool, but weak characters when it wouldn't take too much to make them good.
In the next game, Nu will become so invested in the delusion of her combos being Oops I Did It Again that she'll rename herself Britney Swords. (Great video!)
As someone who only played CT and CS, this video was a TRIP. My locals sparring partner mained Nu in CT, dropped her in CS as he saw her as a massively nerfed version, and that was it. I knew about the split and mode change versions but only in the nebulous theory of games we haven't played.
The reaction to Lambda and the first complete level of unfamiliarity was 100% my Carl Clover experience. Spent dozens of hours learning his mechanisms in CS. Then CP hit and all of a sudden the very basics of his combo routes had been broken and my skill was slaughtered almost instantly. I honestly dropped the series for years because I was so frustrated with what muscle memory was doing to me because of that. It's kind of refreshing in retrospect to know that not only was this experience more common, but also that I didn't even have it This Bad lol
I have a friend who experienced a similar thing with Noel. He still complains about it to this day and has had a straight vendetta against Blazblue and ASW since then.
CT was my first ever serious fighting game, which I picked up and bonded with alongside my long time best friend and rival. He played Ragna, I played Nu. He loved his rushdown, while Nu made me fall in love with zoning and spacing as a playstyle. As the revisions went by, I couldn't help but feel jealous as I watched his character got new tools and expanded options while I watch edmy girl become a completely different character with each new version of the game. I loved Nu. I adapted to and grew to like Lambda across her CS versions too. Everything after though, really felt like a betrayal of people who liked both flavors, with there always being at least one thing off that made her unplayable to me. Even now in CF I can't help but feel bitter that I can't play my favorite FG character, the one who got me into the entire genre, the way I used to. PS. CF Nu not having spike chaser is a war crime PSS. I'm now learning from this video and the comments that every jilted Nu player had the same braincell and moved on to CP Kagura specifically.
Hey I'm a fellow Nu player from CT. I too played all games and hated most changes. Currently I'm a Lambda main as she feels more like CT Nu. Nu takes too much work to deal too little damage.
I loved playing Mode Change Nu so much back in CP, she was my secondary. Of course, I mained Valkenhayn so switching modes mid combat and mid combo is normal for me lol This is a really good video both in concept and in execution. Nu's gameplay change history throughout the games is one of my favorites, and you've really managed to express what makes it so interesting.
Thank you for showing the normal inputs in the video instead of the number ones, I'm slow with numbers and people using those inputs always make understanding the input more complicated to me even though it's supposed to be simpler
Ironically, I thought Nu/Lambda was fun until they were split(I.E Chronophantasma Extend), with Form Swap being the most fun. But that is speaking as someone playing many years with BlazBlue and that same entry, playing with Litchi. And I definitely agree that Nu not having Spike Chaser is just....Hella awkward. It's just as bad as Hazama no longer 1 Framing Jayoku Houtenjin.
You covered every aspect of this character's gameplay history (besides BBTAG i guess), well done! BBCP Nu was too much of a headache for me that i just adopted Amane as my new zoner main. Ended up enjoying them both in CPEX and CF at least!
Great video! Love seeing more people go in depth with characters and the history of their mechanics throughout the series. Frankentank did one regarding the changes to Tager throughout the series, which I really liked too. Definitely would love more BlazBlue content!
Great video! This reminds me of SNK overhauling Kyo's moveset every few games till eventually we got KOF 2002 UM which had *4 versions of Kyo* (plus shingo whose moveset was inspired by Kyo)
Someone who knows Blazblue Story somewhat here- In Calamity Trigger, the canonical true ending to be exact, Nu-13 is killed by Ragna (protag) and then dumped into the Boundary (basically a soul dimension that has weird effects on those inside). But Nu-13 isn't a unique entity per se- she is a Prime Field Device, or an artificial human designed to explore said Boundary. There's only three left alive as of the story start- Nu, Mu-12 (the most powerful of them all, and also a major character's alter ego), and Lambda-11. After Calamity Trigger happened, Kokonoe (an eccentric and cold but brilliant scientist) found the body of Lambda-11 and brought her back to her base, eventually fishing up Nu's soul and placing it within Lambda after wiping her memories to use as an attack drone. In the climax of Continuum Shift (blazblue's second installment), Lambda regains her memories, but sacrifices herself to save Ragna's life. In Chronophantasma (base version), Nu-13's soul is fished up by the bad guys again, and she's back to life and being evil; gameplay wise, they made her a sort of stance character, having one stance be her zonery self from CT and the other being a more rushdown oriented version of the kit (based on the nerfed kit Lambda was dealt in CS, I believe?). In ChPh Extend, an expansion of Chronophantasma, Lambda is brought back again (the exact answers elude my memory at present, but pretty sure Kokonoe did some science nonsense to have a counter to Nu of her own). Nu's stance change was removed with Lambda's inclusion, as Lamb Chop took back the rushdown-y style and developed her own character instead of just being nerfed Nu. In Central Fiction, both are playable, and and they were in ChPh Extend (universal mechanic changes and balance changes excluded ofc)
The story writer (MoriP) didn't originally want to bring back Nu at all (as Lambda or herself) for story reasons, but given the nature of fighting games, he would eventually have to rewrite the script a bit to re-add these fan favorites. One could only imagine how different Blazblue would be if it sacrificed gameplay and characters for its original story...
Wait, he said somewhere he didn't actually want to bring Nu back? If so, that's interesting. Why did he write out Lambda? Did he just wanna kill the Murakumo Units every single game lol
@@DazIsBambo he really wanted to kill a murakumo unit permanently and Continium Shift was written as like ending of a story arc and at the and lamda even had some of nu's memories in order give our protagonist sister trauma
I think it was more as part of significance in the story itself. At the end of Continuum Shift, when she sacrifices herself to save Ragna from being killed, she also gifted him the Idea Engine (some science tool/core that Kokonoe either knew of or put in her), and that gives Ragna the ability to fight and win. Thus bringing her back would lessen how the story progress and would open a loophole in the story. Ragna saves Mu-12 but in the process sacrifices the Idea Engine (and his arm). The engine itself, if I remember correctly, is extremely OP when combined with Azure that Ragna has and basically broke the story so they get rid of it. Bringing Lamda back would've brought engine back in theory and then they gotta address that in the story which is already a shitshow. In the end, they decided that the story was already such a shitshow than why not stack more on top and they brought her back lol
Great analysis. As a Nu player, I particularly remember the insult in Continuum Shift where you could unlock Nu-13 after 'suffering' with Lambda-11, but this Nu was so OP that you felt shitty just playing her. But ohh, getting back the real Arc Parser then was sooo worth having friends ban her :).
96% of my playtime in BlazBlue was spent on story rather than gameplay. I've only ever played CT and CP I'm already missing half of the full story, yes, but I hardly even know what goes on. It's a kcuf. I still enjoyed it ♡ "BlazBlue story" is a very sufficient explanation
Balancing fighting game characters is hard. There are so many variables you can factor into making a simple jab and all the ways it interacts on hit/block, air/ground and such. Been slowly chipping away at my own passion project and I run into issues all the time where a move is very easily OP or horrible with the most minor of changes made. It's wild. What's funn tho is that SNK has been pretty bold with changing characters a bunch over the years, and it's funny that they usually seem very well received. Kyo keeps going back and forth between fireball and rekka movesets. Iroi became "claw Iori" in 13. Ryo, Robert and Yuri and Takuma changed dozens of times. Thing is, I do appreciate the effort that goes into the risk of changing a character up, even if it does end up with me disliking the change. Nothing ventured, nothing gained or learned. I actually prefer it over constantly remaking the same exact thing and trying to keep stuff fresh, but I would agree it's probs best to keep changes to a character softer and more gradual over time, to allow players to ease into them better. The character that is the focus of this video does seem like a mess. Never played the game, but I appreciate the insight and thoughts towards the concept.
Yeah, even tweaking characters in my build of MUGEN I sometimes end up discovering a simple change to one attack can either end up opening new unintended combo routes, or completely gut another move that was reliant on a setup.
Agreed on the MUGEN thing. All I did was give a character's jab 8 pixels of forward movement. That's not much. And yet that resulted in a character that's able to confirm into 50+% damage off of said frame-2 jab, and that's AFTER patching out an infinite that resulted from said jab's forward movement and a rekka that was +2 on hit.
You sir made a video on a topic I desperatley wanted someone to cover (and the fact that you switched from Nu to Kagura was even more funny because is what happened with me too lmao). In the end I love both Lambda and Nu for different reasons and they are Imo the best exemple of a clone character in fighting game's history but damn do I feel the pain of all the people that had to suffer through all the chages these characters went trough, ESPECIALLY If you started with Calamity Trigger (I started playing with CS2 and only got to play CPEX before CF so for me the characters where always separate). In the end I like how they ended up being in CF, Lambda feels way better than any of her iterations prior thanks to the options she has from her rekkas and arc sys made her combos more focused on corner carry wich makes sense since she kept Spike Chaser. Nu got Luminos wich I absolultely love soley based on the fact that you can now combo off her Crescent Sabre and can be incorporated both in her zoning and combos not just for oki, I just wished they didn't broke her knees going into CF.
I played every BlazBlue game (Not competitively, just singe player content and sometimes with a friend and stuff like that) and I'd always play Nu/Lambda until Chronophantasma where I switched to Kagura and until this day I haven't been able to decide between Lambda and Nu to get serious with Central Fiction, they both have stuff I loved from the original moveset and having to pick between Nu's annoying zoning mixups and Lambda's strong normals and my beloved spike chaser is too hard :( I do wish Lambda didn't have that weird visible stench they call "aura" tho
While I flirted with Accent Core, Calamity Trigger was the first fighting game where I really sat down and learned how to play beyond a single funny combo (Badlands loops on Testament were fun). Maining Nu was the best decision and worst mistake I could have made. Her simplicity meant she was easy to pick up while her crazy zoning let me focus entirely on offense as I learned the different ways to poke my opponent in to a combo. Defense was secondary because at the level I played at no one knew how to deal with Nu pressure, no one knew how to get in and the people who did usually just got Calamity Sworded and I could get out. When I tried lambda in Continuum Shift everything crashed down. I had no idea how combos are supposed to work, the concept of unsafe on block didn't exist in my head, and I had grown so used to the ease of playing Nu I didn't have the patience to learn how a fighting game really plays. I just wanted my funny push D character with the Eva Unit-01 color pallette.
The thing is lambda in continuum shift was a new character because if you play the Blazblue story mode you fight Nu as she was Calamity Trigger by her art cut-in and everything. EDIT: This integration of story and gameplay comes from the fact that Toshimichi Mori originally wanted to make Blazblue a RPG but because of corporate and financial reasons...he couldn't and had to settle for a fighting game
Aka ArcSys had lost Guilty Gear for a while(hence GG2 is so weird and vacant of characters and why Xrd came out so much later) and Blazblue was retooled into the FG ArcSys would live with until they got GG back. At least that's the way I read and heard things went down
That note is definitely ironic since BB was probably made a fighting game because they needed a new one after losing GG, meanwhile GG was also only made a fighting game after it's director originally wanted to make a MOBA-ish game or something. (Which eventually happened with GG2.)
Nu-13 is actually still playable in Continuum Shift Extend, she takes the place of Lambda 11's unlimited form. If I had to guess why this was done, I'd guess it's because of the Calamity Trigger Reconstruction story that was also added in Extend, and since Lambda is already basically Nu, they decided to make her playable as Lambda's unlimited form rather than adding a new character slot to fit her in and creating unlimited forms for both.
If I remember correctly, the first version of it did not include calamity trigger reconstruction If so: TLDR: Blazblue story Long Verison: If I remember correctly: Nu-13 dies in the first game(is revived in the third) but her soul is still alive in the second game so Kokonoe (a character in the story) takes lambda 11 who is a clone copy of the same character, again it’s weird, nu 13 is a clone of and then implants the soul of nu 13 in lambda 11 in addition to the soul lambda already has. Eventually in Lambda story mode she has a fight where she does basically a “fight your interself ie nu13” and that may be why nu13 has her own model artwork and character in the game.
@@No-yn7ry Yep, CT Reconstruction was added in Extend, it wasn't in CS or CS2. Lorewise, Lambda-11, Mu-12/Noel, and Nu-13 are all clones of Saya (Who is possessed by Izanami), I could go into greater detail about this but I'm not diving into that particular rabbit hole. When Nu-13 "died", Kokonoe took Nu's soul and placed it in Lambda, which I'm guessing also wakes up Lambda's dormant soul (Honestly, it's hard to tell who was really in control between Lambda and Nu due to the different stories in the game, the various mangas and the Blazblue anime making the events of the first two games very inconsistent), and after Lambda "died", Nu's soul went back to her body so it could restore due to her and Ragna's life link, which explains why she didn't show up until Chronophantasma, with Lambda somehow reappearing in the Embryo in her arcade story and finally showing up in CF's story mode.
Incredible video, rly enjoyed the way you presented each part as if we were experiencing the changes real time together with you. Imo the current version of Nu in CF is the worst changes from the past versions combined. On paper she seems good(if played 100% optimally) but having 0 options from up close, no reversal and the generally polarized gameplay that they have forced her into can be neglected by most of the cast. Movement is wild in BB and when your opponent inevitably gets in you are done for. Even though i did not play her initially in CP i agree it's the best version of her even though complicated.
Also 100% agree about Lambda's weird drive, rly feels stiff and generally a gimped version of Nu's.... One of the things that stops me from maining Lambda
1:34 Mum I'm famous! Also I enjoyed this video regarding the Nu changes I knew about the Lambda change in CS but my god CP was interesting to learn about. It is nice to hear about the history of a series I was late too and all the problems that came before.
The saddest part of the vid is that last “I don’t like her :(“ I FEEL that. I learned Noel and Nu back in CT, didn’t learn lambda at all and stuck with Noel for 3 games, tried out izayoi instead because Nu got too complex and relearned Nu again in CF along with Noel (who ALSO got MUCH weaker). I also miss spike chaser…
Lambda was the character that taught me to TK too! I played Chronophantasma's mode change Nu almost exclusively and she's still my favorite version of the character to date. I never really dropped her, but I haven't truly mained her since that game.
What happened gameplay wise between nu and lambda and how they eventually co-existed is exactly like what happened in real life with guilty gear and blazblue. I will not elaborate.
Minus the fact that BB is kinda in limbo if not dead, with next to no hope of getting more games since issues with CF, BBTAG, and Alt Dark War as well as the reacquisition of Guilty Gear for Xrd led to it getting sidelined and Mori eventually leaving the company or something.
sad you couldn't enjoy Nu after coming back, but understandable even if she's not very good,, I'll always be a Nu fan through and through. came for the funny drive ladders, stayed for the gravity cancels and depressing lore.
I remember being a Hakumen main when CT came out, and back in those days, his H normals didn't create that black hole thing when his sword hit a projectile, so you just had your command dash and your barrier. Nu-13 was a nightmare match up. She would zone you with swords all day as you inched forward step by step, making sure you had just enough barrier to put up with the next wave of swords, and enough stars to put the hurt in when you finally got in. But just when you got close and you think you're gonna punish her and get rewarded for all the work it took to get in, Nu would just Act Pulsar to the other side of the screen, so you had to do it all over again. It was a disaster. When a friend of mine who played Nu told me that the best way to deal with her was to "just block" I dropped CT like it was hot. To this day, I have no idea what Arcsys was thinking with Nu-13. She was WAY to strong for what little effort it took to learn her.
Btw for those who wonder why Nu was replaced to begin with - spoilers she died in the first game. Lambda is basically another version of her "robot" model with just a tad bit of her memories. Why Lambda was replaced by Nu in CH? She died too, while the first one got resurrected due to memes of Hazama and Relius. Why Lambda is back in CPX? Because she got resurrected too
Lambda had more than just Nu's memories in CS--Kokonoe literally pulled Nu's soul from the Boundary and put it inside Lambda. It's not so much a situation of "Lambda ending up with some of Nu's memories" but rather "Nu is getting her memories back." That's also why when she dies, she refers to herself as Nu again, because she remembered everything then. Also, it wasn't Haz or Relius who brought Nu back--Nu has what is called a Life Link with Ragna, which means that for as long as Ragna is still alive, Nu will resurrect herself.
Just a sidenote since CS Extend was my first game and just so all the bases are covered. Nu-13 was available as the Unlimited version of Lambda in that game though I haven't been able to pull any information on if she plays like she normally played or was more like Lambda in that one (and can't be bothered to boot it up). Anyways really interesting video, it's nice to know this is part of what you meant when you said you historically played zoners.
I appreciate such a nice comment! It's been so many years since I played Unlimited Nu-13 in Continuum Shift, but from what I remember, she did indeed play like her old Calamity Trigger self.
this video was awesome i got 4 blazblue games (central fiction, continuum shift extend, chronophantasma extend, and calamity trigger) because they were on sale in a bundle for like 80~% off i mostly only got it for central fiction and the other 3 where just neat little bonuses but this video has made me want to actually look into them ν13 & λ11 i just passed off as weird lore characters that i couldnt understand (i barely played either of them so i never realized λ11 was meant to be a rushdown character even though i usually love rushdown) but knowing the technical history of these characters makes me wanna play them tl;dr: good video ν13 & λ11 are more interesting than i originally thought
I didn't know anything about arcsys making weird changes, I think that's a blazeblue exclusive because as a fighterz Player a lot of the patches I've seen made a ton of sense!
A patch-update sold as a full price sequel in the era of patch culture is still utterly wild to me, there really isn't an excuse to do that anymore, but they did it anyways.
Sega did something similar with Vanessa Lewis in Virtua Fighter. Vanessa was introduced in Virtua Fighter 4 with the ability to switch between two movesets, one based on Vale Tudo and the other based on Muay Thai. The next year, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution was release. With the introduction of a new dedicated Muay Thai fighter (Brad Burns), Vanessa was stripped of her ability to change styles; she was now solely a Vale Tudo user. That really annoyed me, as the original Vanessa (with the style change option) really clicked for me, and the magic was gone when she was "reduced" to just Vale Tudo.
After CS Extend, I stopped getting blazblue games. I’d still follow them from afar so I knew about the mode change in CP and the split in CP Extend. I’d think about how funny and convoluted this is, even from a distance. Thank you for showing just how convoluted it gets.
I would have made so you can use calamity sword in dia form BUT after using it you switch to luna form and get stuck on it for 5 seconds as a punishment
Thanks for the vid! I've never been good at BB but I played all the extend versions splitsvreen with my and it's neat hearing the whole saga of my bros old main :33
As someone who followed Nu and Lambda's journeys since the very beginning (minus some of 2 and Extends because I couldn't be bothered to spend the money), this video feels like validation. One of my friends has mained Ragna since the beginning and another has mained Tager. They just... don't get it. Ragna's had some crazy changes and combo routes, sure. Tager's gotten A LOT of fun new tools to put him in a healthy place, especially compared to where he started in CT. But they've never dealt with losing, gaining, and half-gaining their MAIN CHARACTER. It's just an awkward feeling that's hard to put into words. Nu going to Lambda going to NuLambda going to Nu & Lambda was a trip, and not one I really deem pleasant. Nu got me to fall in love with the character and Zoning in general (Blazblue was the first 2D fighting game I actually kind of took seriously outside of Smash Bros, if you even count that). Lambda changed the script, but got me to fall in love with the new Act Parsers for Zone-to-Close style and taught me how to actually git gud scrub. Then I got busy with life, and the Mode Change became too much for me to bear. I probably wouldn't have even minded and would LIKE that version the best if only Luna AND Dia could use both Supers. CP was the version I started using other characters as my actual mains, purely because my brain couldn't process NuLambda anymore lol. And then CF, finally forcing me to try and choose between the two characters I'd fallen in love with playing. Not that the choice was hard for me anymore, because a Nu without Spike Chaser doesn't feel like Nu at all to me, no matter how cool her new combos are. I just can't play my old favorite gal because I'm too stupid to make that poorly-tracking replacement hit. I just want the simple oki of ground control. It's been a rough ride, but at least Arksys finally can't pull the rug out from under us anymore. And Thank You for understanding the pure joy that is landing the standard AntiAir D drive combo. It's what actually got me to start practicing combos, and just... feels SO good to work with. Memorizing the best angles for catching people, starting combos that lead to it, knowing when you can get that sweet sweet Crescent-cancel extension, closing out games with Calamity Blade as the finisher... it's the peak of Zoning satisfaction.
i will say i recently picked up blazblue after being introduced to the fgc through ggst and p4au like 7 months ago, and at the time i was enjoying the game but i couldnt exactly find a character i liked (i was considering ragna and/or celica but somethinf never felt right while playing them). this video lead me to discover how much i loved playing as lambda. and has also made me fearful if they ever make a new blazblue game and what will happen to her.
So the mini segue in 28:50 about how Lambda's combo seems to lack impact: I do not play BB, but at the end of Lambda's combo and before you talked about how unsatisfying it looks and feels I actually looked up at the healthbar to check the damage because it felt so weak. Just a funny anecdote that probably helps your point.
I started playing at Continuum Shift Extend so I was exposed to Lambda first, she was one of the first characters I picked up too and I thought she was cool there. Then when Chrono Phantasma dropped and I got that, that was my first time really seeing what Nu-13 could do and at some point in the game’s life I did decide to put the time in to learn Nu in that game cause, I just have a soft spot for stance switch characters in fighting games to begin with, they aren’t a preference I just legitimately enjoy the learning process. I was bummed when they separated the two but I get it. And it’s not too big of a deal for me. After Continuum Shift I was mainly hovering around Mu-12 and Hakumen, so learning other characters besides those two was just a for fun thing I liked doing on the side.
its was clear to me even in the early days of ct nu was one of arcsys most experimental characters, i imagine they had trouble fine tuning her since there hadn't been anything similar done yet
My opinion: I feel like the final game got into a win-win situation. Nu wasn't overly meta anymore, and Lamda got her own specialities upgraded well. In the end, it feels like these two characters are planned to be different but look similar. Amazing! I love BBCF. My first game was Continum Shift. So, I never knew Nu 13 can zone from a corner like that. And I liked Lamda's playstyle. So, I am glad Lamda wasn't removed.
With Phantasm, I feel they could have allowed you use of both supers, but changed your form with the use of the super- hence if ya in dia form and use the sword you change and vice versa
This was funny to watch, because as someone who got started with the PSP version of CT. The fused version is what she always was in my head, hence I didn't wanna touch her
Damn, didn’t know about mode change. I came into the series at CP Extend. Shit looks sick, wish they kept it. Ngl though, Nu 13 kinda deserves to be bad imo. It’s like, keep people out if you want, but it’s not gonna really do too much for you when a lot of character don’t mind blocking her reactable mix. I think it seems like they should have kept them together. You could have the strong zoning for the matchups where it’s more useful and the rushdown for the matchups where you need to get in. All tied together in an interesting and technical package where the full screen zoner doesn’t have a reversal.
Honestly prefer Mode Change Nu. There's way too much overlap with the two characters (also Lambda literally being a replacement for Nu because lore) to warrant them being separate characters, especially in a game where the gimmick is giving everyone a gimmick to make everyone feel special, even with otherwise similar characters. Hazama zips around on chains, Terumi builds and spams Supers. Tsubaki charges a meter to use EX Moves, Izayoi builds meter with specials and Mode Changes to gain new tools using that meter. Nu shoots swords, Mu lays turrets to shoot you and bounce shots off. Jin freezes and spends Heat on EX Moves, Hakumen does counters to build his autocharge meter that gets spent to do Specials... outside of his silly 100% Install that lets him KILL YOU. Etc. Etc. And then you have two chicks throwing swords, chasing spikes (before CF), crescenting some sabers, storming some sickles, doing similar command dashes, and using different versions of the same Supers, the exact same Astral, and Lambda just taking Nu's pre-Chrono theme instead of getting her own theme like Terumi eventually did after using Hazama's remixed Unlimited theme. There is no place for Lambda in Blazblue as she is.
Funnily enough, Lambda's return in CPEX actually has nothing to do with *Blazblue Story*. she's been dead since Continuum Shift. They brought her back purely to keep the gameplay style around while removing luna mode.
@@enigma6845 i thought she was back in cf because of the weird timeline bs that was the embryo? And thus stayed dead in the main universe outside that.
@@10001vader Yes and no, she was found in the Embryo in CPE by Mu-12 and Rachael, but she was just confused about who she was, so they helped Lambda remember who she is and brought her out of the Embryo, the part you see her in CF is her in the real world, not the Embryo, as it's after Celica disappears and before the assault on the Embryo to stop Izanami. The Embryo is complicated, it doesn't involve time travel or time loops, as the places inside of it are disjointed and the timeline still doesn't match up, and the real world just outside of it being consumed by Seithr to be remade, it's like an illusory replica of the world with people placed inside it with their memories altered until they're backed up while the world is remade, but it's not perfect, hence why Celica and Lambda are still running around, if it were time travel or time loops, Ragna would know who he is, Celica would still be dead and waiting to be resurrected by Kokonoe to kill Terumi, not wandering around Kagutsuchi, and Lambda would still be in Kokonoe's lab, not wandering around in the middle of CP and CF's events not knowing who she is.
I bought Blazblue Centralfiction 2 days ago, started playing it yesterday and noticed that there were 3 characters that are mostly the same. Learning about the wild ride was interesting, thanks for making this video Wait, the end of the video does not mention μ-No.12-, who's μ-No.12- then?
Mu-12 is the powered up/true form of Noel Vermillion. Nu, Mu, and Lambda are all clones of Ragna's sister. Mu-12's moveset is completely different from Nu/Lambda, so she's irrelevant to this video.
I like Nu-13 design, how easy would have been to make the anime mech chick the strongest character in your game. Lambda-11 was simply added to avoid the controversy
CP Nu reminds me of Ryu in MvC1 and his Ken and Akuma installs. Conceptually the idea of a character with a Rushdown Mode and a Zoning Mode with the ability to switch between them freely is genuinely awesome (though it seems a bit hard to balance), but Nu wasn't the character for it. Like you said, if you want to make a character that can do that they have to be designed around it from the start, and Nu clearly wasn't.
BBTAG isn't real guys, don't ask about it
thank god
But she got spike chaser back! 😅
But I like BBTAG😢
@@LAK2049
Same...
Can you please tell me what is the music at 33:00
TL;DR Nu died when Noel saved Ragna and broke the time loop in the 1st game, Kokonoe used her soul to bring Lambda online in the 2nd game, which caused part of Nu to manifest from her, saving Ragna (she has a thing for her) at the cost of her & Lambda's life, and the bad guys revive Nu in the 3rd game and Lambda somehow comes back too in the "Extend" version of the same game before both characters return in the final game. That's all the lore you need.
What
What about lambda 11 tho?
@@TheVanOvanShow @espurrseyes42 did mention her in the post, Lambda-11 is technically an earlier version of Nu-13 activated by Kokonoe but dies in the end of the story mode of Continuum Shift (2) but was revived in Chrono Phantasma. (3)
Thanks. Sounds as stupid as I thought.
@@thelawditself5586 Nu died, and came back two games later. There.
ArcSystems are actually the one who insisted Lambda-11 be in for the sake of gameplay, not the writer of BlazBlue
While not a balance change, SNK changed movesets so much between games that they'd sometimes offer secret "EX" versions of previous movesets. The King of Fighters '99 took this even further, with two previous movesets for Kyo becoming storyline clones Kyo-1 (94-95 moveset) and Kyo-2 (96-97 moveset). With Samurai Shodown 3, SNK decided to "double" the roster by offering two separate movesets for every character through the Slash/Bust system. While it started as just alternate movesets, some of these split movesets would eventually become their own storyline entities. Bust Nakoruru would become the darker personality Rera, Bust Haohmaru would become the demon Rasetsumaru, Bust Kazuki and Sogetsu were those characters possessed by the spirits Enja and Suija, which was later followed by Enja and Suija themselves becoming playable characters, etc
Cool video. Not exactly the same scenario, but this kind of reminds me of the Siegfried/Nightmare split in SCIII. Siegfried retained his stances and *most* of his moves and Nightmare kept one stance while gaining a new rushdown stance. I liked having 2 'flavors' of zweihander. It was handled better than 'let's give every good move to Astaroth and give terrible moves to Rock to make him trash' (seriously, his weapon is the same length as Astaroth's but he would hold the mace right below the head and swing with his arms tucked in as close to his body as possible). Then in SCVI they gave Nightmare some old stances/moves that overlapped with Siegfried (my main) and I just can't enjoy playing Nightmare now that he plays 'more like Siegfried, but he's not'. Oh and they stole what few good moves Rock had and ALSO gave those to Astaroth because instead of incresing your big body character count by 200% they'd rather...not...do that...
Wait, HUH?! Someone needs to make a video on Siegfried/Nightmare because I only got into Soul Cal with SCVI, and Siegfried was my sub, but now I wanna know the history in detail
@@DazIsBambo There's probably a video like that somewhere but off the top of my head: Siegfried was in Soul Edge (Soul Blade on PS1) and he could unlock Soul Edge as his ultimate weapon. The was also an unlockable palette swap of Siegfried called 'Siegfried!' where he's wielding Soul Edge (with no weapon stat modifiers) in the red corrupted 2P armor from his arcade ending (which becomes partially canon).
Nightmare is part of the launch roster of Soulcalibur for the Dreamcast and Siegfried is unlockable via arcade mode (as a 'what if' scenario after he regains his sanity). There ***might*** be a slight speed difference with Siegfried being a tad faster, but the only difference between the two is Nightmare's BB is unique to him while Siegfried's BBB is the same as his 22_88 BBB (which Nightmare *also* has).
In SCII Siegfried slowly begins sleepwalking night after night as Nightmare despite his attempts to get as far away from people as possible. Siegfried was Nightmare's 3rd costume with no gameplay differences.
In SCIII Nightmare is now Inferno animating the discarded azure armor thanks to Zasalamel's magic. Siegfried is mostly intact with a few new attacks, Nightmare is mostly new with some mainstay techniques. Siegfried uses stances, Nightmare rushes you down.
In SCIV they're both mostly the same as in SCIII except Siegfried wields Soulcalibur and has big anime crystal armor. Their animations are further differentiated.
In SCV Nightmare is actually Raphael but he still plays mostly the same as in SCIV. Siegfried is old and fights pretty much the same as SCIV.
In SCVI some of Siegfried's inputs got shuffled around a tiny bit (his new BB being his old b6, 6B) but Nightmare regained several Siegfried moves (because he's canonically Siegfried again in this SCI retcon-but-not-really-but-it-is-ugh) which makes Nightmare feel less like Nightmare imho.
Xianghua till I die
@@spiffythealien as someone who's only played II and VI I had zero clue of the mess in between
@@JJSquirtle Never really felt like a mess to me. My enjoyment for playing 'Nightmare' in II just became enjoyment for playing Siegfried, plus I got a 'new' character to play with!
I disagree with saying lamba isn't new. she's very nu ;)
terrible jokes aside, I legit do not understand what the thought process was for Chronophantasma Nu/Lambda. the fact they went to all the effort to make a mode change form, just to split them into two a little over a year later. and like, I fully agree with splitting the two - these characters, despite shared aesetics, have different gameplans and focus. they don't play the same. they are mechanically different characters, like sakura compared to ryu, so having both was absolutetly the best way to make fans of both styles happy. having some incredibly complex hybrid that, due to the hybrid nature, couldn't fully commit to either style even in their mode was just confusing
especially since, unlike other mode change characters who tend to have very clearly defined differences in moves based on their mode, it was very easy to lose track of if you where in dia or luna form, especially early in the games lifespan, and muscle memory was a bitch for it since they had the issue of both forms being simmilar enough to confuse your automatic responses, but just different enough auto-piloting could get you to drop somthing crucial
and yeah, even based on the famitsu interview I agree with the team that splitting them was the right call as it was very compex and left fans of both playstyles unhappy, but the fact they where merged to begin with baffles me still
I cut that terrible joke out of the video, only for it to end up in the comments LOL
Glad to see someone else experienced the mess of CP1.0 Nu-13. Thanks for watching!
One day we'll get Central Fiction Extend where they will add Kappa-10 to re-introduce the stance-change gameplay,
While it's completely understandable why the "balance update + 1/2 characters" expansion update model fell out of favor with fighting games, I genuinely like it because it leads to videos like this; I can experience firsthand how a character changes over time.
While the new, patch-based model is more convenient, it also means that I can't rollback balance updates and thus need to rely on old videos, forums, and dead discord diving to be told how a character was supposedly played.
From nerfs and buffs, to entire character reworks, we've seen it countless times; how a character is played will influence how a character is made.
You can rollback balance updates but that would require someone to still have the coding from that specific time period on hand and be able to teach you how to trigger only that specific version. (Which would require emulation)
Ok but counterpoint, it doesn't actually matter if that version of the character is out of date
@@557deadpool It can be an important point of discussion when talking about any balance changes. Maybe some move or aspect of a character was a bit too strong, needing some tooling to balance it out. Later someone brings up buffing said aspect, only to be reminded of what the old strong version was like.
For competitive play it doesn't really matter what the thing was before the current patch, sure (except maybe in some day1 scenario, where players are still figuring out how the changes affect the meta), but that doesn't mean a character's history isn't worth discussing.
I think with the PC version of CP specifically, you can choose to use the pre-Extend version of CP rather than just the Extend version, but I’m not sure how far that goes.
@@farout_tech and again, it doesn't matter because patches changed the character
really great video! the nu/lambda split is something ive always Known about but not put much effort into learning, so hearing about the full details here is perfect. keep it up!
Appreciate ya.
Great video! I always hated playing against Lamda and Nu (I was a Ragna player so... yeah) but I noticed what you mentioned about the animation of the BnB feeling less satisfying/feeling worse; Nu's hits are a bit further, thus giving the sense of more bounce (finishing the combo puts the enemy full screen from you) while Lamda's combo keeps them low and brings them to you since her finisher puts them at midscreen.
You're not crazy but it's not necessarily that they have Lamda has less bounce, necessarily. It is also the fact that the trajectory of the swords changes and Nu's cover more of the field compared to Lamda's.
I'm definitely in the Mode Change category. I really enjoyed the idea of changing modes to keep a combo going. And it infuriated me when the two were split. And YES I really hated that Lambda got Spike Chaser instead of Nu.
Fantastic video, felt like a trip down memory lane. Nu is my favourite fighting game character by a significant margin (Act Parser is simply just too fun a move/property), and the wild ride that was her balancing really is fascinating.
really appreciate this video. as a cf newcomer, i think nu and lambda ended up with different enough kits to both be worthy of different character slots. i would just like to add one more thing:
of all the nerfs that nu received in bbcf, her drives no longer dealing chip damage is what really ends her. now, your zoning is no longer threatening, since the opponent is not in a hurry to approach you before their health or barrier gets too low (especially bad when so many characters have an anti-zoning super, so YOU are punished for zoning them by giving them free meter with your harmless projectiles, especially if they know how to instant block). if all you did was give nu her old chip damage back, she would inmeadiately become a decent mid tier just like lambda.
it's always sad to see cool, but weak characters when it wouldn't take too much to make them good.
I'm pretty sure they do chip damage. It's barrier that negates chip.
@@renatoramos8834she doesn't. only during Overdrive does she deal chip damage with swords now
In the next game, Nu will become so invested in the delusion of her combos being Oops I Did It Again that she'll rename herself Britney Swords.
(Great video!)
This video only solidifies to me how much I love the character designs in this game. Probably my favorite in any fighting game ever
this is the weirdest fighting game lore i have ever seen
This video is already worth watching just to learn what tiger knee is
Ik its SO useful
Its my favorite opening move as lambda to stop people in their tracks
As someone who only played CT and CS, this video was a TRIP.
My locals sparring partner mained Nu in CT, dropped her in CS as he saw her as a massively nerfed version, and that was it. I knew about the split and mode change versions but only in the nebulous theory of games we haven't played.
You ain't crazy bro. Lambda's first drive hits are set and freeze them in place with longer hitstun.
The reaction to Lambda and the first complete level of unfamiliarity was 100% my Carl Clover experience. Spent dozens of hours learning his mechanisms in CS. Then CP hit and all of a sudden the very basics of his combo routes had been broken and my skill was slaughtered almost instantly. I honestly dropped the series for years because I was so frustrated with what muscle memory was doing to me because of that.
It's kind of refreshing in retrospect to know that not only was this experience more common, but also that I didn't even have it This Bad lol
I have a friend who experienced a similar thing with Noel. He still complains about it to this day and has had a straight vendetta against Blazblue and ASW since then.
CT was my first ever serious fighting game, which I picked up and bonded with alongside my long time best friend and rival. He played Ragna, I played Nu. He loved his rushdown, while Nu made me fall in love with zoning and spacing as a playstyle. As the revisions went by, I couldn't help but feel jealous as I watched his character got new tools and expanded options while I watch edmy girl become a completely different character with each new version of the game. I loved Nu. I adapted to and grew to like Lambda across her CS versions too. Everything after though, really felt like a betrayal of people who liked both flavors, with there always being at least one thing off that made her unplayable to me. Even now in CF I can't help but feel bitter that I can't play my favorite FG character, the one who got me into the entire genre, the way I used to.
PS. CF Nu not having spike chaser is a war crime
PSS. I'm now learning from this video and the comments that every jilted Nu player had the same braincell and moved on to CP Kagura specifically.
I read "boned with" lol
Hey I'm a fellow Nu player from CT. I too played all games and hated most changes. Currently I'm a Lambda main as she feels more like CT Nu. Nu takes too much work to deal too little damage.
I loved playing Mode Change Nu so much back in CP, she was my secondary. Of course, I mained Valkenhayn so switching modes mid combat and mid combo is normal for me lol
This is a really good video both in concept and in execution. Nu's gameplay change history throughout the games is one of my favorites, and you've really managed to express what makes it so interesting.
Thank you for showing the normal inputs in the video instead of the number ones, I'm slow with numbers and people using those inputs always make understanding the input more complicated to me even though it's supposed to be simpler
amazing video. would love more "patch history" videos. Great work finding all that old japanese arcade footage
Ironically, I thought Nu/Lambda was fun until they were split(I.E Chronophantasma Extend), with Form Swap being the most fun. But that is speaking as someone playing many years with BlazBlue and that same entry, playing with Litchi. And I definitely agree that Nu not having Spike Chaser is just....Hella awkward. It's just as bad as Hazama no longer 1 Framing Jayoku Houtenjin.
You covered every aspect of this character's gameplay history (besides BBTAG i guess), well done!
BBCP Nu was too much of a headache for me that i just adopted Amane as my new zoner main. Ended up enjoying them both in CPEX and CF at least!
Great video! Love seeing more people go in depth with characters and the history of their mechanics throughout the series. Frankentank did one regarding the changes to Tager throughout the series, which I really liked too. Definitely would love more BlazBlue content!
Great video! This reminds me of SNK overhauling Kyo's moveset every few games till eventually we got KOF 2002 UM which had *4 versions of Kyo* (plus shingo whose moveset was inspired by Kyo)
Someone who knows Blazblue Story somewhat here-
In Calamity Trigger, the canonical true ending to be exact, Nu-13 is killed by Ragna (protag) and then dumped into the Boundary (basically a soul dimension that has weird effects on those inside). But Nu-13 isn't a unique entity per se- she is a Prime Field Device, or an artificial human designed to explore said Boundary. There's only three left alive as of the story start- Nu, Mu-12 (the most powerful of them all, and also a major character's alter ego), and Lambda-11. After Calamity Trigger happened, Kokonoe (an eccentric and cold but brilliant scientist) found the body of Lambda-11 and brought her back to her base, eventually fishing up Nu's soul and placing it within Lambda after wiping her memories to use as an attack drone. In the climax of Continuum Shift (blazblue's second installment), Lambda regains her memories, but sacrifices herself to save Ragna's life. In Chronophantasma (base version), Nu-13's soul is fished up by the bad guys again, and she's back to life and being evil; gameplay wise, they made her a sort of stance character, having one stance be her zonery self from CT and the other being a more rushdown oriented version of the kit (based on the nerfed kit Lambda was dealt in CS, I believe?). In ChPh Extend, an expansion of Chronophantasma, Lambda is brought back again (the exact answers elude my memory at present, but pretty sure Kokonoe did some science nonsense to have a counter to Nu of her own). Nu's stance change was removed with Lambda's inclusion, as Lamb Chop took back the rushdown-y style and developed her own character instead of just being nerfed Nu. In Central Fiction, both are playable, and and they were in ChPh Extend (universal mechanic changes and balance changes excluded ofc)
Also, now that you note it, it's weird how few "full" zoners exist in modern fgs. Or fgs in general
The story writer (MoriP) didn't originally want to bring back Nu at all (as Lambda or herself) for story reasons, but given the nature of fighting games, he would eventually have to rewrite the script a bit to re-add these fan favorites. One could only imagine how different Blazblue would be if it sacrificed gameplay and characters for its original story...
Wait, he said somewhere he didn't actually want to bring Nu back? If so, that's interesting. Why did he write out Lambda? Did he just wanna kill the Murakumo Units every single game lol
@@DazIsBambo he really wanted to kill a murakumo unit permanently and Continium Shift was written as like ending of a story arc and at the and lamda even had some of nu's memories in order give our protagonist sister trauma
I think it was more as part of significance in the story itself. At the end of Continuum Shift, when she sacrifices herself to save Ragna from being killed, she also gifted him the Idea Engine (some science tool/core that Kokonoe either knew of or put in her), and that gives Ragna the ability to fight and win.
Thus bringing her back would lessen how the story progress and would open a loophole in the story. Ragna saves Mu-12 but in the process sacrifices the Idea Engine (and his arm). The engine itself, if I remember correctly, is extremely OP when combined with Azure that Ragna has and basically broke the story so they get rid of it.
Bringing Lamda back would've brought engine back in theory and then they gotta address that in the story which is already a shitshow.
In the end, they decided that the story was already such a shitshow than why not stack more on top and they brought her back lol
Great analysis. As a Nu player, I particularly remember the insult in Continuum Shift where you could unlock Nu-13 after 'suffering' with Lambda-11, but this Nu was so OP that you felt shitty just playing her. But ohh, getting back the real Arc Parser then was sooo worth having friends ban her :).
96% of my playtime in BlazBlue was spent on story rather than gameplay. I've only ever played CT and CP
I'm already missing half of the full story, yes, but I hardly even know what goes on. It's a kcuf. I still enjoyed it ♡
"BlazBlue story" is a very sufficient explanation
Balancing fighting game characters is hard. There are so many variables you can factor into making a simple jab and all the ways it interacts on hit/block, air/ground and such. Been slowly chipping away at my own passion project and I run into issues all the time where a move is very easily OP or horrible with the most minor of changes made. It's wild.
What's funn tho is that SNK has been pretty bold with changing characters a bunch over the years, and it's funny that they usually seem very well received. Kyo keeps going back and forth between fireball and rekka movesets. Iroi became "claw Iori" in 13. Ryo, Robert and Yuri and Takuma changed dozens of times. Thing is, I do appreciate the effort that goes into the risk of changing a character up, even if it does end up with me disliking the change. Nothing ventured, nothing gained or learned. I actually prefer it over constantly remaking the same exact thing and trying to keep stuff fresh, but I would agree it's probs best to keep changes to a character softer and more gradual over time, to allow players to ease into them better.
The character that is the focus of this video does seem like a mess. Never played the game, but I appreciate the insight and thoughts towards the concept.
Yeah, even tweaking characters in my build of MUGEN I sometimes end up discovering a simple change to one attack can either end up opening new unintended combo routes, or completely gut another move that was reliant on a setup.
Agreed on the MUGEN thing. All I did was give a character's jab 8 pixels of forward movement. That's not much. And yet that resulted in a character that's able to confirm into 50+% damage off of said frame-2 jab, and that's AFTER patching out an infinite that resulted from said jab's forward movement and a rekka that was +2 on hit.
All I can say is that despite everything, Nu-13 is the one that awakened my sexual attraction to slender floating mecha women with floating swords.
You sir made a video on a topic I desperatley wanted someone to cover (and the fact that you switched from Nu to Kagura was even more funny because is what happened with me too lmao).
In the end I love both Lambda and Nu for different reasons and they are Imo the best exemple of a clone character in fighting game's history but damn do I feel the pain of all the people that had to suffer through all the chages these characters went trough, ESPECIALLY If you started with Calamity Trigger (I started playing with CS2 and only got to play CPEX before CF so for me the characters where always separate).
In the end I like how they ended up being in CF, Lambda feels way better than any of her iterations prior thanks to the options she has from her rekkas and arc sys made her combos more focused on corner carry wich makes sense since she kept Spike Chaser. Nu got Luminos wich I absolultely love soley based on the fact that you can now combo off her Crescent Sabre and can be incorporated both in her zoning and combos not just for oki, I just wished they didn't broke her knees going into CF.
I played every BlazBlue game (Not competitively, just singe player content and sometimes with a friend and stuff like that) and I'd always play Nu/Lambda until Chronophantasma where I switched to Kagura and until this day I haven't been able to decide between Lambda and Nu to get serious with Central Fiction, they both have stuff I loved from the original moveset and having to pick between Nu's annoying zoning mixups and Lambda's strong normals and my beloved spike chaser is too hard :( I do wish Lambda didn't have that weird visible stench they call "aura" tho
"Visible Stench" is sending me. It's so true.
While I flirted with Accent Core, Calamity Trigger was the first fighting game where I really sat down and learned how to play beyond a single funny combo (Badlands loops on Testament were fun). Maining Nu was the best decision and worst mistake I could have made. Her simplicity meant she was easy to pick up while her crazy zoning let me focus entirely on offense as I learned the different ways to poke my opponent in to a combo. Defense was secondary because at the level I played at no one knew how to deal with Nu pressure, no one knew how to get in and the people who did usually just got Calamity Sworded and I could get out.
When I tried lambda in Continuum Shift everything crashed down. I had no idea how combos are supposed to work, the concept of unsafe on block didn't exist in my head, and I had grown so used to the ease of playing Nu I didn't have the patience to learn how a fighting game really plays. I just wanted my funny push D character with the Eva Unit-01 color pallette.
The thing is lambda in continuum shift was a new character because if you play the Blazblue story mode you fight Nu as she was Calamity Trigger by her art cut-in and everything.
EDIT: This integration of story and gameplay comes from the fact that Toshimichi Mori originally wanted to make Blazblue a RPG but because of corporate and financial reasons...he couldn't and had to settle for a fighting game
Aka ArcSys had lost Guilty Gear for a while(hence GG2 is so weird and vacant of characters and why Xrd came out so much later) and Blazblue was retooled into the FG ArcSys would live with until they got GG back.
At least that's the way I read and heard things went down
Unlimited Lambda in BBCS is Nu, a nice little bonus.
That note is definitely ironic since BB was probably made a fighting game because they needed a new one after losing GG, meanwhile GG was also only made a fighting game after it's director originally wanted to make a MOBA-ish game or something. (Which eventually happened with GG2.)
Nu-13 is actually still playable in Continuum Shift Extend, she takes the place of Lambda 11's unlimited form.
If I had to guess why this was done, I'd guess it's because of the Calamity Trigger Reconstruction story that was also added in Extend, and since Lambda is already basically Nu, they decided to make her playable as Lambda's unlimited form rather than adding a new character slot to fit her in and creating unlimited forms for both.
If I remember correctly, the first version of it did not include calamity trigger reconstruction
If so:
TLDR: Blazblue story
Long Verison:
If I remember correctly:
Nu-13 dies in the first game(is revived in the third) but her soul is still alive in the second game so Kokonoe (a character in the story) takes lambda 11 who is a clone copy of the same character, again it’s weird, nu 13 is a clone of and then implants the soul of nu 13 in lambda 11 in addition to the soul lambda already has.
Eventually in Lambda story mode she has a fight where she does basically a “fight your interself ie nu13” and that may be why nu13 has her own model artwork and character in the game.
@@No-yn7ry Yep, CT Reconstruction was added in Extend, it wasn't in CS or CS2.
Lorewise, Lambda-11, Mu-12/Noel, and Nu-13 are all clones of Saya (Who is possessed by Izanami), I could go into greater detail about this but I'm not diving into that particular rabbit hole.
When Nu-13 "died", Kokonoe took Nu's soul and placed it in Lambda, which I'm guessing also wakes up Lambda's dormant soul (Honestly, it's hard to tell who was really in control between Lambda and Nu due to the different stories in the game, the various mangas and the Blazblue anime making the events of the first two games very inconsistent), and after Lambda "died", Nu's soul went back to her body so it could restore due to her and Ragna's life link, which explains why she didn't show up until Chronophantasma, with Lambda somehow reappearing in the Embryo in her arcade story and finally showing up in CF's story mode.
Incredible video, rly enjoyed the way you presented each part as if we were experiencing the changes real time together with you. Imo the current version of Nu in CF is the worst changes from the past versions combined. On paper she seems good(if played 100% optimally) but having 0 options from up close, no reversal and the generally polarized gameplay that they have forced her into can be neglected by most of the cast. Movement is wild in BB and when your opponent inevitably gets in you are done for. Even though i did not play her initially in CP i agree it's the best version of her even though complicated.
Also 100% agree about Lambda's weird drive, rly feels stiff and generally a gimped version of Nu's.... One of the things that stops me from maining Lambda
1:34 Mum I'm famous!
Also I enjoyed this video regarding the Nu changes I knew about the Lambda change in CS but my god CP was interesting to learn about. It is nice to hear about the history of a series I was late too and all the problems that came before.
Hahaha, thank you for the games!
The saddest part of the vid is that last “I don’t like her :(“ I FEEL that. I learned Noel and Nu back in CT, didn’t learn lambda at all and stuck with Noel for 3 games, tried out izayoi instead because Nu got too complex and relearned Nu again in CF along with Noel (who ALSO got MUCH weaker). I also miss spike chaser…
Lambda was the character that taught me to TK too!
I played Chronophantasma's mode change Nu almost exclusively and she's still my favorite version of the character to date. I never really dropped her, but I haven't truly mained her since that game.
I love the "x is *the* BlazBlue zoner" bit. Kinda reminds me of the "alright, let's do this one more time" scenes in Spider-Verse
6:26 I mean... the answer is very simple as to why Nu isn't in BBCS... she's fucking dead
What happened gameplay wise between nu and lambda and how they eventually co-existed is exactly like what happened in real life with guilty gear and blazblue. I will not elaborate.
Huh?!
Minus the fact that BB is kinda in limbo if not dead, with next to no hope of getting more games since issues with CF, BBTAG, and Alt Dark War as well as the reacquisition of Guilty Gear for Xrd led to it getting sidelined and Mori eventually leaving the company or something.
I hope BB gets it's "Strive" in terms of graphics overhaul and popularity.@@espurrseyes42
"Except spike chase, which will never change." - Why must you hurt me this way?
sad you couldn't enjoy Nu after coming back, but understandable
even if she's not very good,, I'll always be a Nu fan through and through. came for the funny drive ladders, stayed for the gravity cancels and depressing lore.
Hello from the blazblue cord
CP1 and 2 Nu was some of the most fun i've had with her despite the work and struggle lol
But i've always been a fan of stance character
I remember being a Hakumen main when CT came out, and back in those days, his H normals didn't create that black hole thing when his sword hit a projectile, so you just had your command dash and your barrier.
Nu-13 was a nightmare match up. She would zone you with swords all day as you inched forward step by step, making sure you had just enough barrier to put up with the next wave of swords, and enough stars to put the hurt in when you finally got in. But just when you got close and you think you're gonna punish her and get rewarded for all the work it took to get in, Nu would just Act Pulsar to the other side of the screen, so you had to do it all over again. It was a disaster.
When a friend of mine who played Nu told me that the best way to deal with her was to "just block" I dropped CT like it was hot. To this day, I have no idea what Arcsys was thinking with Nu-13. She was WAY to strong for what little effort it took to learn her.
Btw for those who wonder why Nu was replaced to begin with - spoilers
she died in the first game. Lambda is basically another version of her "robot" model with just a tad bit of her memories. Why Lambda was replaced by Nu in CH? She died too, while the first one got resurrected due to memes of Hazama and Relius. Why Lambda is back in CPX? Because she got resurrected too
Lambda had more than just Nu's memories in CS--Kokonoe literally pulled Nu's soul from the Boundary and put it inside Lambda. It's not so much a situation of "Lambda ending up with some of Nu's memories" but rather "Nu is getting her memories back."
That's also why when she dies, she refers to herself as Nu again, because she remembered everything then.
Also, it wasn't Haz or Relius who brought Nu back--Nu has what is called a Life Link with Ragna, which means that for as long as Ragna is still alive, Nu will resurrect herself.
Im so happy nu got weaker in final game and lambda got better. They're actually two different characters now, and they're both fightable against now
Just a sidenote since CS Extend was my first game and just so all the bases are covered. Nu-13 was available as the Unlimited version of Lambda in that game though I haven't been able to pull any information on if she plays like she normally played or was more like Lambda in that one (and can't be bothered to boot it up). Anyways really interesting video, it's nice to know this is part of what you meant when you said you historically played zoners.
I appreciate such a nice comment! It's been so many years since I played Unlimited Nu-13 in Continuum Shift, but from what I remember, she did indeed play like her old Calamity Trigger self.
this video was awesome
i got 4 blazblue games (central fiction, continuum shift extend, chronophantasma extend, and calamity trigger) because they were on sale in a bundle for like 80~% off
i mostly only got it for central fiction and the other 3 where just neat little bonuses but this video has made me want to actually look into them
ν13 & λ11 i just passed off as weird lore characters that i couldnt understand (i barely played either of them so i never realized λ11 was meant to be a rushdown character even though i usually love rushdown) but knowing the technical history of these characters makes me wanna play them
tl;dr: good video ν13 & λ11 are more interesting than i originally thought
I didn't know anything about arcsys making weird changes, I think that's a blazeblue exclusive because as a fighterz Player a lot of the patches I've seen made a ton of sense!
A patch-update sold as a full price sequel in the era of patch culture is still utterly wild to me, there really isn't an excuse to do that anymore, but they did it anyways.
Okay, but hear me out: mode change characters are *sick* though.
Sega did something similar with Vanessa Lewis in Virtua Fighter. Vanessa was introduced in Virtua Fighter 4 with the ability to switch between two movesets, one based on Vale Tudo and the other based on Muay Thai. The next year, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution was release. With the introduction of a new dedicated Muay Thai fighter (Brad Burns), Vanessa was stripped of her ability to change styles; she was now solely a Vale Tudo user.
That really annoyed me, as the original Vanessa (with the style change option) really clicked for me, and the magic was gone when she was "reduced" to just Vale Tudo.
22:50 She isn't Nu, she's Lambda
This video made me laugh a lot and the Britney edit was brilliant
After CS Extend, I stopped getting blazblue games. I’d still follow them from afar so I knew about the mode change in CP and the split in CP Extend.
I’d think about how funny and convoluted this is, even from a distance. Thank you for showing just how convoluted it gets.
I would have made so you can use calamity sword in dia form BUT after using it you switch to luna form and get stuck on it for 5 seconds as a punishment
I totally agree on the combo feeling thing you mention! I didn't know what felt different but it totally did!
What a fucking punchline. "She's too much effort."
Idk how I got recommended this video since I don't play fighting games at all.....but you kind of got me interested in this game series lol
Thanks for the vid! I've never been good at BB but I played all the extend versions splitsvreen with my and it's neat hearing the whole saga of my bros old main :33
I learned Tiger Knees because of Lambda too, and I haaaaated the stance change thing in CP lol.
Tbh I kinda like idea of a mod change Nu/Lambda mostly because I like having a lot of shit. But I do admit that splitting supers is pretty funny
The changing mode thing sounds dope as hell
Can't wait until the next one where they nerf Nu again by turning her into Pi 12, a grappler
As someone who followed Nu and Lambda's journeys since the very beginning (minus some of 2 and Extends because I couldn't be bothered to spend the money), this video feels like validation.
One of my friends has mained Ragna since the beginning and another has mained Tager. They just... don't get it. Ragna's had some crazy changes and combo routes, sure. Tager's gotten A LOT of fun new tools to put him in a healthy place, especially compared to where he started in CT. But they've never dealt with losing, gaining, and half-gaining their MAIN CHARACTER. It's just an awkward feeling that's hard to put into words.
Nu going to Lambda going to NuLambda going to Nu & Lambda was a trip, and not one I really deem pleasant. Nu got me to fall in love with the character and Zoning in general (Blazblue was the first 2D fighting game I actually kind of took seriously outside of Smash Bros, if you even count that). Lambda changed the script, but got me to fall in love with the new Act Parsers for Zone-to-Close style and taught me how to actually git gud scrub. Then I got busy with life, and the Mode Change became too much for me to bear. I probably wouldn't have even minded and would LIKE that version the best if only Luna AND Dia could use both Supers. CP was the version I started using other characters as my actual mains, purely because my brain couldn't process NuLambda anymore lol.
And then CF, finally forcing me to try and choose between the two characters I'd fallen in love with playing. Not that the choice was hard for me anymore, because a Nu without Spike Chaser doesn't feel like Nu at all to me, no matter how cool her new combos are. I just can't play my old favorite gal because I'm too stupid to make that poorly-tracking replacement hit. I just want the simple oki of ground control.
It's been a rough ride, but at least Arksys finally can't pull the rug out from under us anymore.
And Thank You for understanding the pure joy that is landing the standard AntiAir D drive combo. It's what actually got me to start practicing combos, and just... feels SO good to work with. Memorizing the best angles for catching people, starting combos that lead to it, knowing when you can get that sweet sweet Crescent-cancel extension, closing out games with Calamity Blade as the finisher... it's the peak of Zoning satisfaction.
Holy shit. You are me.
@@DazIsBambo Actually, I'm a separate character meant to replace you in the patc-
i will say i recently picked up blazblue after being introduced to the fgc through ggst and p4au like 7 months ago, and at the time i was enjoying the game but i couldnt exactly find a character i liked (i was considering ragna and/or celica but somethinf never felt right while playing them). this video lead me to discover how much i loved playing as lambda.
and has also made me fearful if they ever make a new blazblue game and what will happen to her.
morrigan's theme always brings a smile on my face
So the mini segue in 28:50 about how Lambda's combo seems to lack impact: I do not play BB, but at the end of Lambda's combo and before you talked about how unsatisfying it looks and feels I actually looked up at the healthbar to check the damage because it felt so weak. Just a funny anecdote that probably helps your point.
I started playing at Continuum Shift Extend so I was exposed to Lambda first, she was one of the first characters I picked up too and I thought she was cool there.
Then when Chrono Phantasma dropped and I got that, that was my first time really seeing what Nu-13 could do and at some point in the game’s life I did decide to put the time in to learn Nu in that game cause, I just have a soft spot for stance switch characters in fighting games to begin with, they aren’t a preference I just legitimately enjoy the learning process.
I was bummed when they separated the two but I get it. And it’s not too big of a deal for me. After Continuum Shift I was mainly hovering around Mu-12 and Hakumen, so learning other characters besides those two was just a for fun thing I liked doing on the side.
its was clear to me even in the early days of ct nu was one of arcsys most experimental characters, i imagine they had trouble fine tuning her since there hadn't been anything similar done yet
She died. Then she didn't. She diedn't.
The combo feel of Nu vs Lamda definitely explains why Nu's gives me a headache after a bit and Lambda's doesn't.
CT Nu's zoning is one thing but having jump cancels on 5D, and even on block, was the kinda thing that put her over the top.
Cp nu is so cool I wish they had adjusted that version instead of separating them again
My opinion: I feel like the final game got into a win-win situation. Nu wasn't overly meta anymore, and Lamda got her own specialities upgraded well. In the end, it feels like these two characters are planned to be different but look similar. Amazing! I love BBCF.
My first game was Continum Shift. So, I never knew Nu 13 can zone from a corner like that. And I liked Lamda's playstyle. So, I am glad Lamda wasn't removed.
With Phantasm, I feel they could have allowed you use of both supers, but changed your form with the use of the super- hence if ya in dia form and use the sword you change and vice versa
This was funny to watch, because as someone who got started with the PSP version of CT.
The fused version is what she always was in my head, hence I didn't wanna touch her
The TvC music is going insane thanks
Damn, didn’t know about mode change. I came into the series at CP Extend. Shit looks sick, wish they kept it. Ngl though, Nu 13 kinda deserves to be bad imo. It’s like, keep people out if you want, but it’s not gonna really do too much for you when a lot of character don’t mind blocking her reactable mix. I think it seems like they should have kept them together. You could have the strong zoning for the matchups where it’s more useful and the rushdown for the matchups where you need to get in. All tied together in an interesting and technical package where the full screen zoner doesn’t have a reversal.
I found out that you also play on Hibiki and decided that we have a similar attitude towards fighting games and I will like your content :()
*Robert Garcia has joined the chat*
*Sie Kensou has joined the chat*
Sometimes, you just gotta enjoy the silly mechanics
I agree; the mode change version is what made me pick her up.
Sadly rachel was left mostly the same until the last game when they removed pumpkin 😔
Honestly prefer Mode Change Nu. There's way too much overlap with the two characters (also Lambda literally being a replacement for Nu because lore) to warrant them being separate characters, especially in a game where the gimmick is giving everyone a gimmick to make everyone feel special, even with otherwise similar characters.
Hazama zips around on chains, Terumi builds and spams Supers. Tsubaki charges a meter to use EX Moves, Izayoi builds meter with specials and Mode Changes to gain new tools using that meter. Nu shoots swords, Mu lays turrets to shoot you and bounce shots off. Jin freezes and spends Heat on EX Moves, Hakumen does counters to build his autocharge meter that gets spent to do Specials... outside of his silly 100% Install that lets him KILL YOU. Etc. Etc.
And then you have two chicks throwing swords, chasing spikes (before CF), crescenting some sabers, storming some sickles, doing similar command dashes, and using different versions of the same Supers, the exact same Astral, and Lambda just taking Nu's pre-Chrono theme instead of getting her own theme like Terumi eventually did after using Hazama's remixed Unlimited theme. There is no place for Lambda in Blazblue as she is.
Funnily enough, Lambda's return in CPEX actually has nothing to do with *Blazblue Story*. she's been dead since Continuum Shift. They brought her back purely to keep the gameplay style around while removing luna mode.
Actually it does, Lambda's Arcade mode in CPE explains why she appears alive in CF, her arcade story is set inbetween CP's story and CF's story
@@enigma6845 i thought she was back in cf because of the weird timeline bs that was the embryo? And thus stayed dead in the main universe outside that.
@@10001vader Yes and no, she was found in the Embryo in CPE by Mu-12 and Rachael, but she was just confused about who she was, so they helped Lambda remember who she is and brought her out of the Embryo, the part you see her in CF is her in the real world, not the Embryo, as it's after Celica disappears and before the assault on the Embryo to stop Izanami.
The Embryo is complicated, it doesn't involve time travel or time loops, as the places inside of it are disjointed and the timeline still doesn't match up, and the real world just outside of it being consumed by Seithr to be remade, it's like an illusory replica of the world with people placed inside it with their memories altered until they're backed up while the world is remade, but it's not perfect, hence why Celica and Lambda are still running around, if it were time travel or time loops, Ragna would know who he is, Celica would still be dead and waiting to be resurrected by Kokonoe to kill Terumi, not wandering around Kagutsuchi, and Lambda would still be in Kokonoe's lab, not wandering around in the middle of CP and CF's events not knowing who she is.
I bought Blazblue Centralfiction 2 days ago, started playing it yesterday and noticed that there were 3 characters that are mostly the same.
Learning about the wild ride was interesting, thanks for making this video
Wait, the end of the video does not mention μ-No.12-, who's μ-No.12- then?
Mu-12 is the powered up/true form of Noel Vermillion. Nu, Mu, and Lambda are all clones of Ragna's sister. Mu-12's moveset is completely different from Nu/Lambda, so she's irrelevant to this video.
@@wakkaseta8351 Blazblue story, ok. Thanks for the feedback
@@AofCastle
Since when does having a completely different moveset qualify as Blazblue Story?
Cool video! I'm that Sin you played against in strive :)
stellar video my guy
I like Nu-13 design, how easy would have been to make the anime mech chick the strongest character in your game. Lambda-11 was simply added to avoid the controversy
That Britney Spears cut in killed me. Great job LOL
I just remember despising Nu in Calamity Trigger when I would reach her in Arcade mode
All my quarters went down the drain trying to beat her, haha.
CP Nu reminds me of Ryu in MvC1 and his Ken and Akuma installs.
Conceptually the idea of a character with a Rushdown Mode and a Zoning Mode with the ability to switch between them freely is genuinely awesome (though it seems a bit hard to balance), but Nu wasn't the character for it. Like you said, if you want to make a character that can do that they have to be designed around it from the start, and Nu clearly wasn't.
LOL what a note to end the video on, good shit this video was great
0:29 Timeout Tager WHO??
XD