Under Night In-Birth


Under Night In-Birth is a visual novel and 2D fighting game co-developed by Ecole Software and French-Bread, known for the licensed fighting game, Type-Moon’s Melty Blood series. Since its initial arcade release in Japan, Under Night In-Birth has received numerous version updates, adjusting various system features and character attributes as well as adding several new playable characters to the roster.

Plot

The game takes place in a fictional modern-day setting some time in the 21st century. A phenomenon called the Hollow Night has been enveloping particular regions of Japan once a month for several centuries. Each area engulfed in the Hollow Night is beset by shadow-like creatures called Voids that utilize and feed upon a power known as "Existence", or EXS. Normal humans cannot see or come into contact with Voids, but certain people have the potential to perceive them. Those who acquire this perception are targeted by Voids and risk either being consumed by them or losing their sanity. Under special circumstances, a person who maintains their sanity after being attacked by a Void can become a being known as an In-Birth. If a person or even an In-Birth becomes a fallen type of Void, their EXS transforms into FLS, the power source of the Voids and the man-made ancient being known as Autonomic Nerves, powered by Curse Commandment. While the status places a person into a sort of limbo where they are neither living nor dead, they also gain the ability to control Existence. Hyde Kido is one of the victims, who survived the attack and becomes an In-Birth.
Many characters are involved with the Hollow Night phenomenon, and several of them are affiliated with particular organizations. Two main rival groups, the Nights Blade and Licht Kreis, both serve to maintain order in areas affected by the Hollow Night but differ in their methods. The now disbanded Nights Blade primarily hunted Voids, while Licht Kreis uses its lawful order and hierarchy to protect civilians and police other In-Births on the use of their abilities. A third organization, Amnesia, is more chaotically structured and seeks to stop the influence of both the Nights Blade and Licht Kreis. A fourth faction known as Demon Society used to exist and managed to catch the attention of both Amnesia and Licht Kreis. However, due to a freak incident during a gang war against Amnesia, the faction is now disbanded after the death of their leader, Ogre. Due to an incident involving one of the higher ranking male members of Licht Kreis defecting and joining the Night Blade centuries ago, the group's leader, Adelheid, dismissed the male members of Licht Kreis. The male members of Licht Kreis created their own independent organization called Ritter Schild, which mainly specialized in investigating the mysteries behind the Hollow Night. The last organization is a student run organization known as the Existence Force Guardians, or EFG for short, which specialized on teaching new and young In-Births to control their EXS, but forbids them from abusing their EXS abilities. As the artificial beings since the ancient time, the Autonomic Nerves units are programmed to watch over the Hollow Night, no matter whose master will be.

Gameplay

The gameplay is similar to Melty Blood, Guilty Gear and Blazblue, with additional gameplay systems introduced for the game. Following the standards of most 2D fighting games, the game focuses on 1v1 battles. The game works under a four-button layout with the four buttons being A- Light Attacks, B- Medium Attacks, C- Strong Attacks, and D- the universal mechanic button. The three normal attack buttons are able to cancel into each other but these moves also retroactively can be cancelled with a technique called reverse beat; with reverse beat, moves with high amounts of recovery frames can be cancelled into a move with less recovery frames. Every character has their own unique special, input-based moves as well as a character specific Force Function move done by pressing B+C together that are character-specific. The A+D button combination is the universal throw technique and specific characters also have another ability tied to pressing A+B together while it is also another option to use a universal dash when held forward along with the button combination. The game does not have traditional "air-dashes" and instead has an angled hop that acts as the "double jump" of the game, barring certain characters. The super meter, referred to as the EXS gauge, fills up whenever a player lands an attack or is hit by an opponent. The special moves when used with the C-button without 50% of meter will use the B-version of the attack while when the meter is sufficient, a powered up EX version of the move will be used instead with extra properties or more damaging effects. When the super meter is at 100%, characters can utilize their Infinite Worths that are highly damaging techniques that are the strongest moves they possess. A stronger version of this can be utilized when their health is below 30% where pressing all four buttons will activate their Infinite Worth EXS which is the true highest damaging technique accessible to the character. Lastly, a technique called Veil Off can be utilized if a character has above 50% meter where, after a slight invulnerable state and blockable "burst" occurs, the character enters a powered up state where they are able to do more damage as well as utilize their rapidly draining super meter without limitations, aside from the 30% health requirement for the IWEXS.
The main feature that is associated with the fourth D-Button correlates with the mechanic known as the Grind Grid that dictates the flow of the match. Situated in the bottom middle of the screen between the two players' super meters, the GrD Gauge is the "tug of war" mechanic that rewards both offensive and defensive play. As the circular timer on the GrD Gauge approaches a full revolution, the actions of the players influence the amount of GrD Blocks they obtain in a GrD cycle. Landing attacks, walking forward, landing throws, taking throws, and blocking the enemy's attacks will reward GrD Blocks while getting hit, walking backwards, whiffing throws, and getting grabbed will deplete GrD. At the end of the cycle, whichever player has the most GrD blocks will be granted with a temporary buff called Vorpal State. The character with Vorpal will glow blue, have a 10% damage buff, gain access to character specific Vorpal Traits, and be allowed to use an active cancel known as Chain Shift. Utilizing Chain Shift will consume the current Vorpal State buff, freeze the screen for a quick duration, and reset the character who used it back into a neutral state as well as converting any GrD Blocks into extra super meter charge. It is in the players' best interest to seize Vorpal State as often as possible to gain the most advantages it brings. From there, the D-button influences the GrD Gauge for the player's use in influencing the GrD Cycles. Holding down D will have the characters "Concentrate" which will rapidly accrue GrD Blocks in exchange for super meter, although it can be done without meter. Forward and D is an "Assault", a jumping forward air dash-like that gives a GrD Block and issue a command jump where its distance is calculated relative to the player's proximity to the opponent character leading into offensive pressure. "Ground Assaults" will never jump over the opponent while "Air Assaults" can. "Air Assault" can also be done via traditional Air Dash input, which is tap forward twice. Holding back and D activates "Shield" which is an advanced guard that is essentially the barrier block or push-block mechanic from other fighting game titles. There are two types of Shield techniques, one being the regular "Shield Block" and other being "Guard Shield". Both fulfil the same purpose in pushing away opponents who are mounting an offensive, gaining frame advantage after shielding an unsafe move, and granting GrD to the defending player but Guard Shield is utilized if the player presses D as they are blocking after an attack lands. While gaining GrD, Guard Shields costs meter to utilize and quick usages of Shield Blocking is generally more advantageous. Guard Shields are colored green while Shield blocking is colored blue. Should a player get hit or thrown while they have their Shield up they will enter "GrD Break Status" where they lose all the previously mentioned abilities granted by the D-Button for a certain period of time. The player also has the option to "Guard Thrust" where they either utilize 50% of their meter and forcibly enter GrD Break status to launch a fully invincible attack to knock the opponent away to reset the pace of the match or expend their Vorpal State. GrD Breaking also applies if a character is hit with the burst from a Veil Off or if a character utilizes their IWEXS without Vorpal.
added a new feature known as "Cross-Cast Veil Off" where if a character has more than 50% meter and Vorpal, they can cancel into an alternate version of Veil Off where they can chain together EX moves and utilize their IW/IWEXS should they meet the requirements.

Characters

While the game used the same playable characters on a few updates, Sion Eltnam Atlasia in Melty Blood and Akatsuki in Akatsuki Blitzkampf made guest appearances. They were only played by Japanese voice actors in the game. The main characters later appeared in with English dub voice actors.
The game began development in 2010. Nobuya Narita discussed how the project arose from the team's experiences working on Melty Blood. French-Bread originally planned to work on the high-definition title for Melty Blood, but development later stalled while Type-Moon went on to work on Mahōtsukai no Yoru. Early prototypes eventually provided the foundations for Under Night In-Birth. Narita particularly emphasized that they wanted to differentiate the game from Melty Blood, so the lore, visuals, systems and combat flow are much different from the previous work. It is also the team's first game to run in high definition and features hand-drawn high-resolution sprites. In March 2013, Sega added support for its ALL.Net P-ras Multi service, a distribution network that allows multiple arcade owners to receive copies of the game without providing e a dedicated arcade cabinet for each copy. Other games that utilize this service include Arc System Works' Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R and Triangle Service's Game Center Love.

Release

released the arcade version in Japan on September 20, 2012. A major revision of the arcade version, entitled Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, was released on September 9, 2013. It was announced that Arc System Works would release the game for PlayStation 3 on July 24, 2014 in Japan, A 2015 release for North America and Europe was later announced. The North American release date, which was set for March 31, 2015, was revealed on the GameStop website. However, Aksys Games revealed the true release date for Exe:Late, they said that the game will be releasing on February 24, 2015 for the PlayStation 3, as well as confirmed there wouldn't be an English dub in Western releases. Exe:Late was also released on Steam for Microsoft Windows systems on July 12, 2016.
A further update to the game entitled Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late was announced on May 15, 2015. Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late was released on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Japan on July 20, 2017, then in North America and Europe on February 9, 2018. Exe:Late was also released on Steam for Microsoft Windows systems on August 20, 2018. Exe:Late is then re-titled to the update below, Exe:Late, for those who owned PlayStation 4 and Windows versions.
Yet another revision of the game, entitled Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, was released for PlayStation 4 and Switch. It was announced at EVO 2019 for February 20, 2020 release, while Europe released the game on the next day after the release date in both Japan and North America. Its PlayStation 4 version act as a straight update for those who owned PlayStation 4 version of Exe:Late, while PlayStation owners who purchased Exe:Late PlayStation version which isn’t PlayStation 4 get a limited discount from its launch release date until April 30, 2020 in both Japan and North America, and April 31, 2020 on Europe. Also to the PlayStation 4 owners who owned Exe:Late to update, contents which were added to Exe:Late update remains paid DLCs. The Steam for Microsoft Windows release is planned to be released on March 27, 2020, and may share same straight update situations as PlayStation 4.

Reception

The PlayStation 3 version of Under Night In-Birth received a 29/40 from Famitsu. Destructoid said that it was "an intelligent, tactical fighting game that I'll surely be playing for a long time to come." IGN said it was "One good fighting game. Maybe it's not as deep as previous Arc System Works games, but successfully achieves what it is aiming: to let the player enjoy it." Eurogamer concluded "an interesting 2d fighting game with a very unique fighting system. Just try it, and you'll be amazed."