Million Arthur: Arcana Blood - Story Mode (Twinblade Arthur)

Purchase the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/989550/Million_Arthur_Arcana_Blood/

"Every variant of King Arthur is personalized."

Million Arthur is a media series created by Square Enix, originally beginning with the release of free-to-play smartphone card game Magnificent Million Arthur during 2012. Set in an Arthurian-styled fantasy depiction of Britain, the series' overall premise involves a million different King Arthurs (each wielding their own Excaliburs) duking it out to unite Britain.

One such entry of this series is Million Arthur: Arcana Blood, a fighting game developed by Team Arcana (of Arcana Heart fame), with Square Enix co-developing and publishing this game. Originally released in Japan in arcades (via Taito's NESiCAxLive2 distribution service) around November 2017, this game would be ported to the PS4 (within Japan only) around November 2018, before receiving a global release on PC (via Steam) around June 2019.

The game has four basic attack buttons - standard light (L), medium (M), and heavy (H) attacks, as well as a special Element attack (E), which also inflicts several effects on hit. Fire element attacks deal extra damage over time, Ice element attacks give extra hitstun, and Wind element attacks regenerates your health slightly. Each character is assigned to a specific element, with their element attack only using that assigned element.

Each element has a "counter element" - attacking using a specific element attack after another specific element results in a forced counter-hit (for example, following up a Fire element attack with an Ice element attack triggers a counter-hit). Meanwhile, following up an element attack with the same type of element attack adds bonus damage throughout the combo, until the combo ends, or another attack with a different or no element is used.

The game's main support attack system (the "Million Knight Summons") also makes use of the elements. You get to choose three of these summons, and use them by inputting 214 + A/B/C (A uses the left assist (which are represented by cards in the HUD), B uses the middle assist, and C uses the right assist). Using them uses up points (which are shown in the HUD) - the amount of points used depends on the assist, and cancelling attacks into these summons forces a recharge dependent of these used-up points.

Meanwhile, meter (Elemental Gauge) is used for super attacks, which comes in two flavors - Million Skills uses up 100 meter and are your standard super attacks, while Million Excalibur uses up 200 meter, has the universal command of 214 + two attack buttons, and are your strong cinematic super attacks. Besides that, Enchant Boost (ABC) uses 100 meter to buff you, with all normal attacks inflicting element damage (specific to your character's chosen element), and Limit Break (D + any other button) is a burst mechanic that also increases your max meter from 200 to 300.

Mechanically, these are the only things of note. The game is an anime-styled airdasher fighting game, so you also have airdashes, chain combos, superjumps, etc. Oh, and Iori Yagami (from the King of Fighters series) and Koume Sakiyama (Lord of Vermillion IV) are also playable characters. They (alongside Wildcat Arthur) don't have a proper story mode route, though. Which sucks. I wanna see Iori Yagami talk shit to the main cast.

The game's story involves a pair of (what I would assume) students from the modern age being isekai'd to this series' Arthurian Britain - these are both Twinblade Arthur and Iai Arthur, and they want to return to their world (which can only be done by obtaining "Arcana Blood" from battling other opponents). A tournament ensues, which is basically used by the twins who summoned them as a front to enact Merlin's plans of finding the right King Arthur(?). Officially, the winner of this tournament would be recorded in the two new Arthur's Akashic records (which are in reality a travel guidebook), but it is presumably a lie to gather up opponents.

Story Mode has your chosen character participate in said tournament, with it culminating with Iai Arthur losing control of her powers and becoming the game's final boss... being overall a buffed version of her playable self (and the fact that this form isn't at least a skin makes me want to jump off a cliff). Like Nitroplus Blasterz's own boss-only buffed version of Al Azif, she isn't that scary to deal with once you simply rush her down. Realistically, the hardest part of her stage is to both keep her in the corner (so I could speed up the process of beating her ass), and to not drop my combos (because this game slows down sometimes as a result of the particle effects being poorly optimized, which messes up my timing).

Видео Million Arthur: Arcana Blood - Story Mode (Twinblade Arthur) канала ziodyne44