The biggest news, of course, is the new meat brought to the table. At this moment we have 1 confirmed new character, Tusbaki Yayoi. Now, I spent four hours playing BlazBlue's story hoping to find her, and I came up totally lacking, though I'm told she was one of Jin and Noel's classmates. Well, that's good, since she's apparently here in particular to assassinate the two. Also, prepare yourself for new stages (meh) and new moves (yay!) In particular you can make out a new distortion drive for Rachel and a projectile attack for Carl.
Oh man, poor Gii seems to be continuing his relationship of abuse to Rachel, and I love it. Here's hoping more information comes back soon, and that Jubei becomes a playable character!
(Via Moetron)
Obviously I want revolutionary changes and additions all the time, but I'll take the progression train.
When a game series only makes incremental changes I really don't stick with the future installments or I jump on the bandwagon later than everyone else. I only have 2 Guilty Gear games out of the bazillion they've made, no Soul Calibur, no Street Figher, no King of Fighters, and no Tekken. I used to own 2 of the Smash Bros. games(GC and 64) and if I had the Wii I most certainly would not get Brawl, lol. What this does is give me more motivation to hold off on buying a current gen console and a copy of the Blazblue that is now available in stores since this new version will apparently be better than the one that is out right now.
Like, does spending the money on a subpar (in hindsight) product become a waste, or did you value the time/experience between iterations as a similar value. Now, I'm not often in that camp, but I feel like I have already gotten my $60 dollars out of BlazBlue, and will continue to in the near future, so if the newer one offers me a similar occasion, I won't bat an eyelid at picking it up.
@John_Martone: if you want to see Tusbaki in Story Mode. Pick Noel and finish all match with a Distortion Finish to unlock Noel past and see Tusbaki.
Have you not even finished either of their routes yet?
All I know is I hope they keep Akiha's English voice actor for her in this new game that I'm bound to pick up inevitably anyways.
Not much is known about Tsubaki Yayoi's past, other than the fact that she was a classmate at the NOL's military academy in the same class as Noel, Jin and Carl (before he disappeared). Wikipedia says that she's also apparently a relative of Jin, but I don't quite remember that part. Tsubaki is mentioned briefly in the story as another soldier in the employ of the NOL with ties to Noel, but is not that important until the epilogue of BlazBlue's True Ending. In the epilogue, the NOL's Intelligence Chief Hazama tasks Tsubaki with leading a special unit to hunt down and kill both Jin and Noel for going AWOL. Though in reality...
[SPOILER:]
...Hazama is actually the evil being called Terumi, the one who had a hand behind almost every bad thing that has happened to all the characters in BlazBlue canon. After the events of the True Ending in the story, Noel has learned about his true identity, which is probably why Terumi is working behind the scenes to get her labelled as a traitor and hunted down. As for Jin, he seems to have gone batshit insane in his own way, either because of that crazy sword he carries or maybe he was always a few seaweed wraps short of a sushi party.
*shuts storybook*
In any case, it's good to see that the new character isn't just going to be a palette swap, though if they threw in Jubei, Hazama and/or Kokonoe as new characters somewhere down the line that would be even cooler. The only question for us console owners of the game would be if we're going to have to pay extra for the new stuff, and how much. If it's $10-15 DLC, I might be willing to do it, but if it's the full $60 then it'll have to wait until I can scrounge up some more cash.
I can't wait, BlazBlue is freaking awesome. I just hope Jubei is playable, lol. And i wonder if this'll be a full priced game or hopefully it could be DLC for less.