Melty Blood: Act Cadenza Ver. B PC (with English patch)
Developed by: Type-Moon, French-Bread
Date Published: June 2007
Platform: Arcade, PC, PS2 (Japan Only)

Melty Blood is an exclusive Japanese 2-D fighting game within a 2-D environment, with much similarities to fighting game series Street Fighter and Guilty Gear.
Acquiring this game will consist of you importing it or finding an ISO version of it.
This node will focus on the most recent release, Melty Blood: Act Cadenza ver. B PC for Windows.
Alternative versions include (in order of releases):

      Melty Blood (PC) 2002
      Melty Blood Re-ACT (PC) 2004
      Melty Blood Re-ACT, Final Tuned (PC) 2005
      Melty Blood Act Cadenza (Arcade & PS2) 2005
      Melty Blood: Act Cadenza ver.B (Arcade) 2007
      Melty Blood: Act Cadenza ver.B2 (Arcade) 2007

Story

Unlike other fighting games, Melty Blood's background story is based on the virtual manga series by Type-Moon called "Tsukihime", released in 2000. In a nutshell, the manga follows a boy named Shiki Tohno who has the special ability to see 'death lines' on objects and people, due to his severe injury from an accident. The ability of seeing these 'death lines' allowed him to find presence of evil and trace/cut it with some sharp object, which would immediately annihilate whatever target. In Melty Blood, the general storyline of "Tsukihime" is applied as you play different characters from the manga on Arcade Mode. However, all story dialect is in Japanese, so if you can read it, sweet. If you're like me and can't read Japanese, then enjoy everything else that is provided.

Gameplay

Melty Blood is not that different compared to other recent fighting games, particularly Guilty Gear, followed by Street Fighter. In this game players are allowed to play 23 different characters, each with their own special moves and super specials. Controls are based on d-pad movement and four buttons, which are the light, medium and heavy attacks and shielding. The game allows multiple button pressing to execute different attacks, for example, a low attack and shielding (with left or right directional) will do a grab move. In addition, players can double dash, double jump (triple for some characters), and air dash (double for some characters). A nice feature that was implemented is the simplicity of special attacks. For those who know their Street Fighter, every character has more or less the same button inputs as Ryu's special attacks. Meaning, special moves are relatively easy to do in Melty Blood.

Several concepts can be used to improve the player's skills in battle:

  • Ex-Shielding: Simulate's a parry by using shielding on an attack at the right moment, allowing a quick stun and allowing a free attack.
  • Magic Circuit: This is the super special meter which can be charged up upon attacking the enemy, or being attacked, and can be used to execute super specials. Unlike other fighting games, when a player's bar reaches maximum (300%), the magic circuit goes Max, allowing those to use increased strength super specials and heat and bloodheat mode. In both heat and bloodheat mode, players are allowed to regenerate health as well as the accessibility of the character's final special attack for massive damage. Unfortunately, being in Maximum, heat, or bloodheat mode will continuously reduce your magic circuit bar and then reset to normal.
  • Clashing: Much like two people hitting swords together. No one gets hurt and both sides are allowed to continue their attacks after the clash.
  • Aerial and Tactical Recovery: Players are allowed to recover on the ground or mid-air in a hop-like motion to whatever direction possible after a break in a combo.

Arcade Mode

Players follow their chosen character's story and participate in ten matches, two of which are specific one-on-one battles that are essential to the story's progression (middle and end matches).

Versus Mode

There are a lot of options within Versus Mode players can mess around with, including:

  • Vs. Player Mode
  • Vs. CPU Mode
  • Replay: All ending matches under Versus Mode are pre-recorded and are placed into the Replay option if accepted. Players can also trade recordings with others by sharing the replay data. Must be done outside the game by accessing your game folders.
  • Tag Battle: Players are allowed to create 2 on 2 battles where players control one of two characters, switching in-between battles by tagging in. First character to fall loses the match.
  • Team Battle: Much like tag battle, but all four characters are on the same screen in battle. Players are allowed to play only one of the four characters.

Survival Mode

Players continuously battle one CPU after another in increasing difficulty until defeated. Little health is returned after every bout.

Practice Mode

Players can hone their skills here. Many options are available to help suit your need, for example, unlimited magic circuit or an attack display. Replay is also available.

Sound

  • Voice-over: Mostly everything you hear is in Japanese and there are no options to change it to your desired language. Few character's voices are annoying, but bearable.
  • Music: Suprisingly, the tracks are pretty good as you'll hear several genres including funk, jazz, techno, and rock. Of course, it is a Japanese based game, so expect that Japanese influence to go with those genres.
  • SFX: Those wonderful sounds are intact and makes sense when you throw that first punch.

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