This project I'm working on is my splash art for my Skullgirls X BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle Discord server banner. It's Skullgirls, but with characters in their totally nifty and fly BBTAG palettes that are allowed in my special online casual you are seeing facing each other on my beautiful art.
The stage lights, buildings and the filmstrips are on there to give it an art deco aesthetic Skullgirls has and that is because of movie theaters at night. It is coming along nicely, with Black Dahlia in Nine the Phantom's colors being an interesting one and it's because she has elemental bullets of fire, ice and lightning loaded in her gun and the Renoir sisters of the Canopy Kingdom in Mitsuru and Platinum's colors being next to each other as a callback to the 2nd Encore art and in response to Umbrella finally making her playable debut. And since Purity & Strictly is a perfect fit for Marie, her Orie palette will be up there.
That hit me. I heard BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle is coming to Xbox like Skullgirls is and my project is gonna commemorate that since both games are coming to the Xbox. Not to mention both games have the master volume setting that influences all audio volumes the upcoming update will have.
And here is the back of the splash art. It has the "Ladies and gentlemen, can't escape from crossing fate!" tagline, the text that explains the casual, three awesome characters as a mascot and the horizontal filmstrip with portraits of eligible characters in their BBTAG palettes, a temporary blank purple space and empty spaces that are reserved for future characters that are eligible and a join on lead in. It has the Steam logo to represent that I'll be running the casual on Steam. I have no plans to run it on console. If crossplay is implemented, I will add game console logos to this splash art so that console players can be welcome to join my casual. This has three fonts Skullgirls uses.
Since Marie is assigned to an Under Night In-Birth theme that fits well with her, Purity & Strictly, a temporary purple space after Black Dahlia in Nine colors for an Under Night In-Birth palette is already on there to reserve a slot for Marie. If it's an eligible character assigned to a BlazBlue theme, I leave a temporary blue space for a BlazBlue palette. If it's an eligible character assigned to a Persona 4 Arena theme, I leave a temporary yellow space for a Persona 4 Arena palette.
Fortunately, we're getting closer to info about Marie's Alpha as Black Dahlia is approaching her final release, but she has yet to get her Nine the Phantom palette you are seeing on both of my art. But her story mode palette is not yet revealed, so this is her last chance to get her Nine palette for beating her story. If she doesn't get it on her full release, it stays in my palette pack separated into two packs below. One for the 2.0 period and the other for the 3.0 period to contain characters in their palettes of non-BBTAG characters in my BBTAG 3.0 Character Pack wish list.
BBTAG 2.0:
BBTAG 3.0:
As mentioned before, the palette pack will also have palettes of non-BBTAG characters in my wish list with Fukua's Shadow Labrys palette after Filia's Labrys palette now updated to be in parity with the order of character introduction on the Persona 4 Arena row. A blank purple spot before Double's Merkava palette is still on there to pave the way for Marie's Orie palette if she doesn't get it during development.
Again, if Black Dahlia is fully released and her Nine the Phantom palette didn't make it into the game after looking through all of her palettes, she will stay up there on both packs, but must be after the Sealed-Weapon Annie to match the order of introduction of BlazBlue characters, putting the first three Season 1 Pass characters together on the same row. Whereas, Izayoi was first introduced before Nine.
And here's another graphic with all of the characters in their BBTAG palettes including the ones that already have theirs in the game sorted by introduction on the BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena and Under Night In-Birth characters still having the purple blank spot before Double's Merkava palette to reserve for Marie's Orie palette. Now, my main problem is Big Band's Iron Tager palette, even though he looks fly in it and he is so large. He doesn't even have the power of magnetism, okay?
The only one I still completely agree with on this BBTAG palette collection is Cerebella's Mika palette, and that is because of her forte of punching and grabbing things with her hat with living arms and Forceful Step is a perfect fit. It's because I was like "Cerebella is assigned to Forceful Step because she is into punching and grabbing things with her hat with living arms." That's exactly what I said when assigning characters to BBTAG themes. After all, Cerebella is basically Mika, but with a hat with giant living arms. There's no denying it.
Now, the release process on the console versions is gonna be more straightforward than ever going forward because the upcoming update for the PS4 comes with not only Black Dahlia. It also comes with a nearly full rewrite of the codebase that makes console development much easier going forward and online refactors that produce a smoother and more stable online experience and fix the lingering issues. The Switch version already launched with them.
Remember that part where a snag was hit when they were on the verge of releasing Annie and the Season 1 Pass on the PS4? That hurdle was created by waiting for Sony's green light announcement they had to pass since the release process on Steam is more straightforward than on Sony's end. Once submitted, they wait until Sony gives the greenlight to release and that's my favorite part of game development. It was worth the wait, but Annie's Izayoi palette is not in the game so that it can stay on my palette pack. But thanks to the nearly full rewrite of the port's codebase, console development is gonna be much easier going forward to make releasing patches on console versions of 2nd Encore easier.
The PS4 won't be the only console to get it because with the Season 1 Pass period expanded to Nintendo Switch and will soon expand to Xbox as we are waiting for word about it so that the launch party can truly begin, it is also gonna get the update as the blue and red certificates for Sony and Nintendo to greenlight are being processed going forward.
Then it's off to the wait for Marie and that's where I come in to wait until she is released on Mobile so that I can make an Orie palette out of her on the palette editor and put it on my projects. But Marie's Alpha will come after the general balance changes section that takes place after Dahlia's full release accordingly. It is my job to find out if Marie actually gets her Orie palette during development or not.
I am setting up the server for my online casual on Discord, but I am not ready to give you the link that gives you an invite yet. I need to make sure that everything's right first.
Alright, everyone, it's that time again that I'm about to pull a Goremiser for another SML Happened.
Hats off to the Moose and Beewolves for making their way to the Super Mega World Series. There has been some well developments. The Beewolves taken first blood on Game 1. On Game 4, a grand slam has been scored in the center field and I was very excited on that one. In the end, congratulations to the Moose as they are gonna be our Season 1 Super Mega World Champions and we'll see them again in Season 2, which will be different with twelve teams divided into two divisions the American and National divisions like the MLB, not the Nintendo and SEGA divisions. Again, congratulations to the Moose and they'll return in Season 2.
That's all I had to say for today. Remember, my friends, with Dahlia approaching her full release, you better lock your doors before going to bed. Otherwise, you may suffer a fate worse than death.
