#xblaze lost memories

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Front and back covers of Es Works, a collection of extra art, design notes, and more by Konomi Higuchi.

This product was introduced to me by Luc from @triedpklove, one of the lovely people keeping the BB fandom on life support through their awesome work at the blog @blazbluebrackets.

[elq-uackity]

fancy kiri (date: december 2020)

bonus kiri/ripper doodle:

[abutterflysdrawings]

Ever since I played XBlaze: Lost Memories, I wanted to draw these two. I did not expect to like Kiri's character as much as I did, and his friendship with Es is so pure, I just had to draw them chilling ashgds

I have the headcanon that after Kiri walked out of the hospital, the Himezuru household decided to adopt him, as they usually do with random people without families- (It's the 'found family' household after all). Es is basically the only person he trusts though, and honestly, I can see him slowly overcome his adversion of being touched with her, simply because he trusts her so much. Sometimes he might even fall asleep holding her, as illustrated here.

Believe it or not I've been working on this drawing for months, simply because I had the characters done and all but the background and especially the overall feel of the drawing was really off to me, I ended up redrawing and editing stuff several times. But I think I eventually managed to do something with it.

Commission info / Don’t repost / Reblogs are encouraged / No mean things in the comments/tags.

[gear-project]

Annon-Guy: I was wondering that if you played them, what are your thoughts on the XBLAZE Games?

Secondly, what do you think of it's five main protagonists? Touya Kagari, Es (Her XBLAZE self), Hinata Himezuru, Mei Amanohokosaka and Kuon Glared Stroheim?

I actually *own* both Code Embryo and Last Memories on my PS3 Digital Library, though I haven't played them in years.

Vaguely speaking, the Xblaze "games" were the first time I seriously dipped my toes in to the Visual Novel Genre (aside Guilty Gear's Story Modes which are a derivative of the concept, early on).

From a somewhat casual perspective, I understand what Xblaze was trying to achieve, though I'd argue that other VNs have had much better execution and story-telling on the whole.

Still, being "part" of the BlazBlue universe did strike me as interesting, though I never did revisit the games for that purpose.

If I had the opportunity to play a full version of Dark War, I might have taken Xblaze in to deeper consideration on the story-telling front.

For Touya (when I learned about Dark War, his character arc's importance increased immensely... for reasons I won't spoil here.)

At the same time Touya reminds me of Naoto and his "Bloodedge Experience", though in Touya's case, he's a bit more passive compared to either Ragna or Naoto, which makes him less appealing in my humble opinion.

Es has two incarnations... the Es we "see" from Touya's perspective, and the Es we "see" in Lost Memories after a certain event occurs... I think her character development is something to witness if you haven't already. I actually really enjoyed that aspect of her, including how she later interacts with the Central Fiction cast.

Hinata, while her role in the story is no less important, is something of an odd-fit for the pacing of the story. We learn her secret along the way, but the way she behaves for much of the story implies she's very passive, much like Touya.

While it's true that Peace is always better than Conflict, when it comes to telling a story with drama, you at least need a character with some form of drive... Hinata would easily be mistaken for a background character if not for one key detail I won't mention.

I'm not really sure what they were trying to do with Mei, but I get that her "role" in some parts of the story fits in a grander history, so I guess that's something... But it's very easy to compare her to Rachel Alucard in that regard, and you either like her or you hate her for that reason.

Lastly, Kuon... I feel like Kuon could've used more screen-time for her parts of the story. She was a cool character, and a cool voice actress all things considered... but she just didn't get to be part of the story as much as the other characters did (though I assume they didn't want Kuon to upstage Es, but I think Kuon would've made a great rival for Es if written differently).

All things considered, I actually spent more time in Lost Memories than I did the original Code Embryo, so I'm not all that familiar with all the hidden routes in the story... I might revisit it one day if I get the urge, we'll see.

[toskarin]

Kikuo - Enigmatic Smile (2015 ver.)

from XBlaze Lost: Memories, by Arc System Works

[triedpklove]

ITS THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

*shakes you* PLAY XBLAZE PLAY XBLAZE PLAY XBLAZE

CODE: EMBRYO / LOST: MEMORIES

[goofballproximitysurveyor]

Also the part of Phase Shift i've been thinking about the most lately is Nine hating the name Konoe because her father chose it so once she becomes a ten sage she just insists on everyone calling her Nine and even if she didn't end up becoming one she probably would have still tried to change her name. idk I was thinking a lot about the naming conventions of the ten sages irt the XBlaze ten sages. Notably the implication in the voice demos in Lost Memories' settings being that Sechs especially doesn't want people finding out his real name because he just tries to kill you as opposed to Acht, Drei, and Avenge just being offended a fairly reasonable amount. It honestly would make sense if he had similar reasoning for it (or it possibly taking on a double meaning for him "losing" his old self in his identity crisis). Maybe I'm just transgender but there's always a certain weight to me that comes with someone really strongly hating their name or wanting to change it that I'm drawn to.

[annon-guy2]

BlazBlue Spin-Off Opening Voting Poll

[smellpelt]

what us ur favorite xblaze moment(s)

all the times touya screams jk but hmmm I like the scene towards the end of lost memories where Es runs out to find Touya and finds Kiri at the restricted ward. They're all being friendly and Kiri offers to help find who shes looking for and Es says how Touyas the most important person to her. Then Kiri tells her more about his deal and how he's looking for the bad guy "Touya Kagari" and Es understandably is thinking like fuuuck and then Touya shows up and Kiri becomes Freaks and Es starts realising that this was the person who she had been forced to watch kill her friends over and over and its like FUUCK I'm glad in the credits it shows Kiri is okay tho :)

I also like the scene where Hinata gives the embryo over to Es like girls is it gay to give another girl your heart

and Mei's story that's just her being super autistic so real

[your-phantomfield]

Es general relationship hcs?

Happy to, but before I get started on this, do you have an idea of which version of Es you'd like to see?

The Es from Central Fiction

The Es from XBlaze, early arc

The Es from XBlaze, post development

The Es from XBlaze, post Lost Memories

Something else... (Let me know!)

Surprise me ; )

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

From Arc Mix

A few edits by me, to clean up the edges. Hopefully you don't notice them!

[softcoresuffering]

Mei BBDW animation showcase. Skills, R/D/S, DD, AH. No music, slowmode.

[elq-uackity]

[gear-project]

Annon-Guy:

Cool. And I'm guessing XBLAZE Es would be like a standard jack of trades sense she doesn't have her BlazBlue counterparts crests and projectiles?

Lastly, how would they appear in Guilty Gear StrIVe's story? Time travel shinnagins, world hopping or... alternate reality versions where they LIVE in the Guilty Gear Universe!?!

Most Xblaze characters don't have as many powers to speak of compared to the BlazBlue cast (it is a prequel of sorts, but still). Es after she returned from hanging out with No Name ended up being an ordinary girl for the most part... so technically the end of Lost Memories takes place "after" Central Fiction (since it's a good ending for Es overall). They don't even bring up the idea that Nine and Es were once friends, neither. As for reasons, I would blame Happy Chaos for most if not all of what could happen, but that's just me. Nine would probably give him a good thrashing if Rachel didn't do so beforehand.

Of course, even if both of them attacked Happy Chaos, they probably couldn't kill him... just sayin'. Not an easy cockroach to squash.

[blazregaliadream]

Oh hey, if it isn't the Great Mage in her younger years.

[triedpklove]

THE XBLAZE SERIES IS LESS THAN 10 DOLLARS ON STEAM UNTIL JULY 13TH!!!!!!! You should perhaps pick it up and try it out for an epic visual novel experience:) especially for the common blazbluer who may have been hesitant on trying it out

code embryo

lost memories