Noel’s true form, Mu-12 (pronounced “mew-twelve), has been confirmed as the “new” final character for BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (BBCS) console version! Lucky for us, Famitsu leaked this valuable info a couple days ago. For those of you who don’t know what Blazblue is, let me break it down real quick. Think back to Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, Dead or Alive, Guilty Gear, Marvel vs Capcom, Soul Calibur and all the fighting games you’ve ever held dear to your heart and mash all the good things about them together – you’ll get Blazblue. Though not a 3D fighter, by no means is Blazblue NOT next-gen. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to get a new TV as soon as you pop in that sexy Blu-Ray (assuming you have the PS3).
Not everything is known yet due to an incomplete story mode, but I’ll do my best to fill you in. Mind you, I will be assuming you already know the basics regarding the storyline. V-13 from Calamity Trigger has finally been destroyed by Ragna, and has now been replaced by Lambda-11. Lambda is Kokonoe’s cobbled together version of V-13 and has been designed to go after Hazama (who’s possessed by Terumi, an evil ghost). Just a sidenote, from what I understand, each Nu-like android is a type of “Murakumo unit.” When Lambda (or anyone else in the game) goes after Terumi in Arcade Mode, he unveils the true form of Noel Vermillion after inheriting the most powerful Azure Grimoire and combining with a customized Murakumo Unit.
At the moment, there aren’t really any solid move-lists available for Mu-12, but it is publically known she will use a giant sword as her weapon. More specifically, the sword behind her which is reminiscant of the encasement in which V-13 uses to store her armor. Though Mu-12 is another murakumo unit, i seriously doubt her play-style will be remotely close to Nu. I think Aksys knows better than to make replica characters. Hopefully her playstyle will be unique enough. At any rate though, concept art is certainly accessible, which I took the liberty of putting in the post. For any seiyuu geeks, the same person who does the voice work for Lambda and Nu, will also be doing Mu. According to 30Ninjas, “Kondou herself will also be voicing Lambda-11, Nu-13’s replacement in Continuum Shift, whose basic move-list is similar to her previous incarnation, although how the movies themselves operate have vastly changed in terms of speed, power, and overall mechanics.”
30Ninjas also stated how, “Many fans believe that Mu-12’s confirmation is a partial response to the recent leak of the arcade version.” Personally, I highly doubt that. I didn’t really go back to check into the comments section to see if the author retracted any statements, so remember the following could potentially be null & void. Yes, the new version of Blazblue: Continuum Shift WAS leaked and has been out for some time now, but people are missing a gigantic picture here.
1. Majority of the people who know about the leak are people who are HEAVILY into the Blazblue scene in the first place
2. People have downloaded BBCS have downloaded it NOT to serve as a game, but for early practice until the console version comes out
3. Sparring mode for a maximum of 14 minutes per session
4. Only certain people can run the game on his or her PC – MUST have a good computer w/a great graphics card
5. Mac users are exempt from BBCS
6. Actually performing commands is another thing. Getting a controller to work is a REAL chore. Whoever has a TE fight-stick though
7. Arcade mode can only be fought on Normal mode
8. There’s no “true” training mode where the CPU stands still to let you really practice
9. Probably the second biggest problem…NO STORY MODE…>.>
10. The first biggest issue: NO ONLINE CAPABILITY O.O
With that said, as someone who plays Blazblue all the time and has candid conversation with a healthy amount of the BB community, I can confidently say everyone who downloads the “pirated version” WILL be buying it. We were going to in the first place, and still plan to. The notion how some critics think this leak has caused “the death of arcades” is incredibly dumb. I don’t particularly like arcades that much, but still know a lot of people love the feel of an arcade stick over a controller or keyboard any day. You’ll have to read the rest of 30Ninjas article regarding the supposed downfall of arcades and such.
Continuum Shift will be releasing for the PS3/Xbox360 in Japan over the Summer, and in the U.S. around the same time the first game was released. A new Legion and Tutorial mode will become available along with a new story mode. Until it actually comes out, feast your eyes on the Mu-12 pics below 
Nuuuu! Don’t become a heartless machine, Noel ;-;
You know, when you think about it, She looks very protoss.
Aaanyhow, I hope nothing strangely unbalancing happens to Mu-12. We Rachel players are still twitching from Arcsys’ antics.
Lambda now being on the FORCES OF GOOD almost makes me want to sub her. Though the goodbad morality in BB is a little gray, except for terumi. No surprise that condomu is also behind Mu; that’s in natural order, mm. There’s no other.
And yeah, BBCS just butchered my PC. Guess I’m waiting on the 360 release >.<
Ningyo´s last blog ..Moe = Pedophilic Intentions
I’m a Blazblue fanatic. I bought a 300 dollar fightstick to play the game, I pirated bbcs, when the pirated version didn’t work i bought a 300 dollar graphic card,etc etc. Too bad you play on PS3, though. I’d love to get some matches in with you.
Hey there. Good Article, but I want to address some things you said about the leak.
1. Majority of the people who know about the leak are people who are HEAVILY into the Blazblue scene in the first place
True, but leaks tend to spread. In fact, being that the BBCS leak is free, I know a lot of people who downloaded it just to try it and then subsequently got into the BlazBlue scene. Word of mouth sorta works like that.
2. People have downloaded BBCS have downloaded it NOT to serve as a game, but for early practice until the console version comes out
Totally disagree. My friend has a computer with a high def monitor that he hooks up to a plasma screen TV to serve as a platform for spectators. It’s practically a league. BBCS has pretty much totally replaced BBCT as the game we all play. Heck I have even seen people build custom made Arcade cabinets simply for running BBCS.
3. Sparring mode for a maximum of 14 minutes per session
It’s 15 minutes actually, but who is counting? So you have to re-enter sparring mode when the time limit goes up. It’s not like its costing you quarters.
4. Only certain people can run the game on his or her PC – MUST have a good computer w/a great graphics card
TOTALLY disagree. The rumors about this needing massively high end hardware are profoundly false. The first system I saw this run on was an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB of ram, 3 GB of system ram, and Direct X 10.1 and it ran smooth as butter. That is pretty standard for a gaming PC. The lowest specs I saw this run on were 256 MB ram and 2 GB system ram and it still ran smooth as butter and you can even go lower than that! There is a background pack that you can DL that replaces the moving backgrounds with still images that will make the game run on practically any setup. Long story short, you don’t need a good PC at all to run this. Even though BlazBlue is massively pretty, its still just a 2D fighter.
5. Mac users are exempt from BBCS
Bootcamp. Seen more than one person do it.
6. Actually performing commands is another thing. Getting a controller to work is a REAL chore. Whoever has a TE fight-stick though
A real chore? It comes with a config program that lets you map whatever controller you want. It asks you sequentially to map buttons for every direction and every button you want, even the redundant ones! This worked just fine with a PS2 to USB converter which worked for both my standard and fightstick controllers. One of my friends had an issue which for some reason wouldn’t run the config program with his controllers attached, but then he just got the brilliant idea of using Joy2Key and mapping his controller to buttons on his keyboard and this actually ended up even better, because now he could program shortcuts to throws, barrier guard, barrier burst, and other stuff like the console version.
7. Arcade mode can only be fought on Normal mode
The leak has an options menu. The options menu is fairly exhaustive including options for difficulty, time, life, continue options, event mode, and much much more. It basically has every option you may have in the console version and then some. Difficulty goes from very easy to hell. It saves options to your D drive, but even if your D drive is not writable, there are versions that temporarily reassign the BBCS folder to your D drive so that it writes just fine.
8. There’s no “true” training mode where the CPU stands still to let you really practice
Got me there, but I remember the old days of the first Street Fighter II, when I would just put in a dummy 2P and wail on him. If it was good enough then it is good enough now. Oh the highest life setting and 5 round matches, you’ll get sick of practicing before the dummy dies.
9. Probably the second biggest problem…NO STORY MODE…>.>
There is story in the arcade mode, and it is good!
10. The first biggest issue: NO ONLINE CAPABILITY O.O
Yay! I don’t get to hear racist and homophobic comments spouted in my ear every 3 seconds. Yes, there is no online mode, but a lot of the core VS community don’t particularly care about that OR story mode.
In short, I understand why you posted what you did. You do have a point the BBCS leak won’t effect sales of CS much. If anything, it is effecting current sales of CT. Not everyone has joined the next generation yet. Some Wii owners are picking up their first second console because of say Heavy Rain, God of War 3, or Final Fantasy 13 soon and won’t be buying CT because of the CS leak. Many Wii owners will not be buying a PS3 or Xbox and will be using the CS leak as their only outlet. Then there are PC gamers alone who are furious that a game that at this point is pretty much proven to be easy to port to a PC (its a leak dammit!) won’t be coming till almost a year later for them. There are any number of people who will have the BBCS leak replace the console version for them.
That being said, anyone who CAN buy the console version probably will. It’s one thing not to give a shit about different modes like legion and tutorial mode but its another to give up a whole character! At this point Mu-12 is basically 50 dollar DLC and she is worth it. But look at that. A news story about Mu-12′s confirmation, backed up by both Famitsu and an interview with her voice actor what, 2 or 3 weeks after the leak? It’s totally a response to the leak. 100%. Everything Arc System Works does at this point will probably be done with the leak in mind. Honestly, they may have planned Mu-12 from the beginning, what with the apparent Mu files in the leak, but her unveiling was totally a response to the leak, and anything else they do will be a response as well, because that is how you deal with leaks, with hype. It’s how X-Men Origins: Wolverine dealt with it, and its how BlazBlue will too.
If Arc System Works hypes the shit out of their console release, the leak will act for them rather than against them. They are making a big attempt to do exactly what you said: make the leak seem like training rather than a replacement. Mu is a big step in this.
Honestly, this can only work out in favor of us, the gamer! If ASW goes into a panic mode and starts pimping the console version of BBCS, then everybody wins! Let’s face it, before the leak, most of us were ready to all dump our wads of cash on CS before we even knew Mu was in it. Hazama and Tsubaki were enough. We were willing to pay 50 dollars for two new characters and of course the existing character updates. Isn’t that a little nuts! But we were willing to do it anyway. Now, the leak happens and it is very likely we will be getting more, hooray!
TL;DR
I think its obvious that Aksys doesn’t give a shit about the CS leak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIxt-dEzglo
That’s Aksys Games (the guys who port the game) jokingly making a comment about the piracy. Arcsys (the guys who actually make the game).
There’s a difference.
Aksys has a great sense of humor about it, mostly because its not their personal work being pirated. Arcsys on the other hand spent a lot of time making that game as their personal work. They are much more pained by the recent TaitoTypex2 hack and the accompanyment of their game being the first Taitox2 game pirated.
sorry for the poor language but…THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s upsetting to notice that a good chunk of the ct community has went off to play cs at a arcade or either on their pc. I actually had a few good fights against those that was once there. My Ragna needs some tweaking here and there as my Rachel could improve in her pressure field though this is all CT talk.
Like I told FaS before. I may main Rachel due to her uniqueness in the next game and still sub Ragna but if mu-12 combat happens to be up close superior pressure then Ragna I am so going to drop him. This is the most fan are of her I seen so far.
P.S.~~ You killed all my hopes of Noel being Saya. Your so mean.
[...] in the last couple posts about Mu-12 being in consoles versions Blazblue & Continuum Shift full console trailers, there was a lot of speculation as to how Mu-12 splays. [...]