Welcome to Skullgirls X BBTAG Update #2. This one is gonna be big because I'm gonna show you the updates on my projects. Let's dive right into the update.
Here is my new project, my fan-made character select screen for Skullgirls X BBTAG with the current 14 portraits of characters in their BBTAG palettes. It is similar to the one in Skullgirls, with the size selection and the pedestals on top, but it's modernized to have button keys below, with the MK button for back. The portrait of Marie in Orie's colors being above Squigly in Hilda's colors makes more sense because she is the Skullgirl of the story and she will likely stay at the top row and middle column to match the placement of the character select screen in Skullgirls.
The selection doesn't have a random selection to emulate the placement from the early stage of the character select screen from SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level, with the six characters from the base roster in the middle. Along with other projects, I made this through Canva, which is much better, much more flexible and it has much more flexibility than Microsoft Paint.
My above projects are coming along nicely now that I have Marie's Orie palette on them.
My Discord server banner art for my special online casual is also coming along nicely to carry the current 14 Skullgirls characters in their nifty and stylish BBTAG palettes now that Marie in Orie's colors is on it. Also threw in an updated picture of Filia in Labrys' colors.
Now that I have Marie in Orie's colors, all of my projects are coming along nicely, but please be aware that Marie's idle stance is a preview and it will be replaced with a final one once she is released on Mobile. It lacks a flame effect she bears and the final image will have it. That's why until then, I wouldn't want to use this line below.
"Rivals, TV stars, sisters of a kingdom ruled by a noble family, ASG warriors, best friends, Parasite users and Fortunes! The Skullgirls X BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle cast of 14 characters is coming along real nicely!"
I gotta hand it to the devs. They are hard at work on Marie so far. They are posting a behind the scenes look every day at 4 PM here to give us insights on how playable Marie plays differently from her boss version. They pretty much shown almost everything. There is one thing that made me very hyped up.
You know that her maid's outfit seals the deal for Purity & Strictly to fit well with her playable version, right? There is another thing that also does. Marie's relegation to her playable self has given her the power to summon her skeletal Stand, Hilgard to lend her a hand, similar to what Orie does. That's another thing that also seals the deal that Purity & Strictly is a perfect fit for Marie so that she can eligible for an Orie palette and a ticket to my special online casual. And she's gonna be an undead version of Orie, no doubt about it. Can't deny that. If they added boss Marie to the palette editor, I can make an Orie palette out of her boss version too.
They are on the source of getting all of her animations done and most of them are finished. That's when they can confirm that the art is safe enough to get to the clean up and tiedown phase in getting her ready for her Alpha without any glitches and that's what they meant by safe enough.
I got an answer to my question I seek on what will happen to boss Marie if her playable version is announced. Turns out that I can still fight her boss version, even though I have her playable version on my team on Arcade Mode, but not on her story because her Story Mode is gonna be half visual novel on how Marie bears a connection with the Skull Heart. I'm fine with having playable Marie fight boss Marie. But that would be even more interesting if they just replaced her boss version with playable version that plays like her boss version.
Before I close this out, there's a piece of information that I want to share and it's gonna be a sad one. Last week, the devs have released a global update that affects 2nd Encore and Mobile on all platforms. I'll go over the changes they pushed.
Real-World Hate Groups:
This applies to the political hate among Nazis that wear armbands. In this case, the Egret soldiers are no longer wearing their armbands on certain art and in game. Now this is something that I can actually agree with and that it because of Nazis. Though the Renoirs may be crappy, it is a military thing that armbands, flags and symbolism are three things that caused real-world hate groups.
Character Sexualization:
Skullgirls was known for its female characters that show their underwear in some art and that's the example of sex. Now, they removed the censored the art that show the female characters' underwear. This is one of the things that caused controversy. This is a shock after seeing that. But they said that there is sex among younger characters. They censored that so that pedophilia wouldn't be committed.
Depictions of Racism:
If you played Big Band's story, it no longer has an art of white cops taking down a black cop named Ben Birdland and it's no longer available to view in the gallery because of racial violence they had to censor. The voice lines that pertain to racism were also removed. This is another thing that continued controversy.
Removal of the Soviet Announcer pack:
Now, things have taken a turn for the worse when the Soviet announcer pack was removed because it applies to racism. When I said things have taken a turn for the worse, the removal of the announcer pack angered the community.
That update sparked controversy to make players uninstall the game and they can no longer support it until they reverted the changes, so they created a petition to petition them to undo the changes. I'm quite surprised that they had to push out the controversial censorship update before the update for the Japanese PS4 version and the Xbox port drop. But it came out well with more flexibility than before, thanks to the codebase upgrades that make console development much easier going forward. After all, the networking refactors established more smoothness and more flexibility on online multiplayer and on how they deliver updates than before. But the Switch version is apparently lagging behind...
I'm gonna tell you this. It has come to my attention that every controversial update angers the community and they uninstall the game and pledge not to support it until they drop the update that alleviates controversy. The one on Paladins, which is now no longer available on the Nintendo Switch after the Anniversary update dropped recently, was no exception.
The 64th Open Beta update introduced a terrible new card system called Cards Unbound. What makes it controversial is that it is a pay-to-win system that involves grinding to strengthen cards and talents. It is so controversial that it angered the Paladins community real bad that they had to uninstall it and pledge not to support it. That is until the 67th Open Beta update, which removed Cards Unbound to mitigate controversy, have dropped.
But that controversial censorship update cannot stop me from supporting Skullgirls. Even though I don't appreciate them censoring and removing art that depict sex and racism and removing voice lines that contains racism and the Soviet announcer pack, I respect their decision to distance myself from the controversy that I wouldn't be a part of. The show must go on. Especially when I'm listening to BBTAG music. I must focus on waiting for more important things, like the update for the Japanese PS4 version, the Xbox port and Marie. Justice Sword, Active Angel, Walpurgisnacht and Purity & Strictly depend on it.
However, I can't go full blast just yet. Not until Marie is fully released. Even so, the new characters' fully voiced Story Modes will not be available upon Marie's launch because they are getting ready to begin recording sessions for the large returning cast needed to voice the myriad of characters that appear across all 18 Story Modes in 2nd Encore. Once they are doing so, I want some ingame intro dialogues and generic and character-specific voice lines for when their teammate has died and calling their teammates for the assist.
All of my projects are coming along nicely now that I have Marie in Orie's colors on them and they will be coming along nicely even more once I have the final picture.
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