I got this game because I am a BlazBlue fan but this is honestly an amazing standalone game especially because the story seems to have nothing to do with BlazBlue

Bit of a passion-driven review here. Talks about my experience with becoming obsessed with it.
I'm a big fan of hack and slash, rogue likes, co-op, and futuristic neon vibes. At first I kinda let the anime look of the game and the fact that it was associated with a fighting game (that of which I have never played) put me off from it for months and months after it released.

The first thing I noticed as soon as I launched the game was the fact that the game brought up the option to mess with the sound volume settings. Upon doing so, the game blasted me with the most beautiful, floaty synthwave I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. (lookup "Prototype Blazblue Entropy Effect OST" on youtube if you want to hear it yourself) It was a sign that this game was what I was looking for this whole time.

Over the course of the next few days, I had become truly and utterly obsessed with it. Every little detail about the game was just like seeing color for the first time again, a wondrous, child-like experience for me. The soundtrack, the combat, the progression, it was all so... i don't know... relieving? To see this kind of game take shape AND be actually good.

I could talk about nitty-gritty specifics, but other reviews have done that already. What I'd like to focus on beyond simply "The reviewer felt like he was on cloud 9 the whole time" is the negatives and how they have overcome them.

First off, being associated with Blazblue - weirdly - has literally no bearing on the game outside of making it cooler. The story barely touches on them, why they're here, etc. From what info I can dig up, blazblue was essentially strong-armed into the identity of the game early on in development. It was originally going to be a completely new IP. So the only real downside to them being here is that the story makes no effort to explain why on earth they're here. Between that, and the meh translation, I stopped paying attention to the story at some point or another. It didn't affect my ability to be enthralled by the game.

Second, the art style being anime - while I do like anime looks normally - kinda lent me this idea that it would be low quality. Theres a TON of mediocre anime hack and slash games.
However, Blazblue uses the anime art style to its great benefit. They didn't simply take blazblue characters and shoehorn them into the game. They imprinted the very soul, tone, and artistic direction of the game into them. They. Literally. Glow. The lighting effects in this game are already off the charts, but when you enter into any sort of darkness, your characters literally explode with color in some of the best sci-fi neon aesthetics I have ever seen, among the likes of Tron. The characters Visual Effects on their attacks become translated into this hardlight, holographic look which serves to further root them into the game's visual identity. So while story-wise, its weird that they're here, in presentation, they BELONG.

The game has also undergone a lot of progression changes and improvements, big overhauls. Great stuff.
The game also fun fact, almost died immediately after its release, because the publisher pulled out for some reason. The devs were therefore facing bankruptcy and the head of the studio had to take out huge financial changes in his life to keep the studio afloat. Eventually he was able to rehire his staff and they have kept working on the game, and its stronger than ever. Now, completely free from the clutches of a publisher. An underdog, AND a comeback story all in one.

Blazblue Entropy Effect colored my soul a new shade I have never seen before.
Give this one a shot, boys.

As a big fan of the main blazblue series i thought id give this a go and i have very mixed feelings.
So combat is really good, altho some chars and abilities clearly stand above the rest. some chars feel super powerful from the start, others somewhat underwhelming.

Concerning upgrades, its nothing special compared to most roguelikes with a reputable name, its not bad, but not worth mentioning either if you are familiar with titles of this genre. That said gameplay is fun and motivating, and its not that long of a game. However at least from trying several chars, the most efficient way to play both offensively and defensively seems to be centered around having lots of dashes/jumps available (for the most part).

What massively threw me off personally in this game is a couple things:
- blazblue characters to play
- robot themed hub area
- normal human world like story cutscenes

This game feels as if they just took a big pot and threw in whatever 3 random artstyles they could. Everything in this game feels super disconnected from each other and has nothing to do with blazblue except the characters and also just looks as if it literally was 3 different games thrown together. another major annoying part of the game, was the final boss - whose final form will be a completely different type of battle. Maybe it was a bug but all my controls and abilities etc got switched around and that made it horrible.

So yea if you are only here purely for playing a blazblue roguelike, then u probably can give it a go, otherwise id recommend against it. also of course, like most roguelikes it kinda gets repetitive quickly.

looking only at the roguelike part id give this a 6-7/10
looking at the whole package id give this 5/10