Melty Blood/FAQ

General

What is Melty Blood Actress Again: Current Code?

Melty Blood Actress Again: Current Code (commonly abbreviated to MBAACC or just MB) is the newest version of the originally doujin fighter Melty Blood. The series originated as a spinoff fighting game/visual novel hybrid spinoff of Type-Moon's Tsukihime series. Over the years as its popularity rose, the focus on story was lost and the game mechanics were reworked drastically, eventually receiving a release in arcades as Act Cadenza in 2005. After several revisions, a sequel (Actress Again) was released in Arcades in 2008, and a new revision, Current Code, was released in 2010, reaching homes with a v1.07 edition PC port at the turn of 2012.

Why should I play it?

Melty Blood's gameplay is arguably one of the richest to this day in anime fighting games. There are 31 characters, each with 3 Moon Styles. On top of the differences in mechanics from Moon Styles mechanics alone, all characters also get changes to specials and normals. Some even go as far as differing in movement options and/or HP. Taken into account, the roster expands to 93 distinct characters, which all play differently from one other. There's no way you're not going to find at least one character+moon that suits your playstyle, tastes, or which at least "vibes" with you. As for gameplay, there's tons of different ways to interpret and structure your gameplan thanks to system mechanics like Reverse Beat. You could spend hours in training mode exploring Reverse Beat alone. And speaking of training mode, Melty sports one of the best in the business not only at the time of its release, but at present too thanks to enhancements from the community edition of the game.

Speaking of community, the game comes with a fantastic international scene of all skill levels, willing to show you the ropes or duel you to the death. Regardless of whether you have a local scene to play with you'll be finding games thanks to CCCaster, an open source rollback netplay client and game supplement that can offer you 3 frame delay connections to an opponent a continent away, on top of all the inherent advantages rollback offers. Unfortunately, the Steam version of Melty Blood has significantly worse netplay by comparison, and isn't compatible with CCCaster (Despite this we implore you purchase Melty Blood if you enjoy the game, in order to support Team French Bread). For this reason, physical tournaments take place on the Steam version of Melty Blood, and most if not all of your own labbing and online play will be on the community enhanced doujin release of the game, more information of which can be found at the Melty Discord.

If competitive play isn't your speed and you're looking for a more easygoing time, the game's soundtrack is universally agreed to be highly enjoyable, with seldom any song in the entire OST that's a turnoff. The game's aesthetic has also aged wonderfully, with some of the clearest and smoothest animated sprites in the genre; taking inspiration from Street Fighter III. This isn't even to mention that the game is packed with an arcade mode, a story mode, replay mode, and much, much more.

So whether you're a simple Tsukihime fan, interested in a new fighting game, looking for something they can occasionally open at random to kill time, or a competitive player hunting for a deep title to try, Melty Blood is the perfect choice. Once its incredible movement feel, boundless depth, immaculate presentation, and friendliness to modern or low spec devices come to your fingertips for free, you'll understand why it's widely hailed as the poverty game. If you're on the fence for trying out Melty Blood, you might as well give it a shot. At worst you lose some time, and come to the conclusion it's not for you. At best, who knows? With all the high quality content on offer, the sky is the limit.

Where can I get it?

Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code on Steam

The doujin version (that works with CCCaster) is harder to acquire. For information about how to acquire the doujin version, please ask on our Discord.

How hard is this game to play?

Like most fighting games, the execution requirement varies greatly depending on the character chosen. Melty Blood is designed from the ground-up to be very user-friendly however, and the execution level is something that any modern fighting game player would feel comfortable with. Players coming from slower Capcom-style games may find concepts like instant airdashing strange and unusual, but the difficulty is no greater than most advanced tricks in games such as SF4 or MVC3.

Gameplay

Picking a Character

Who's a good beginner character?

Full Moon Aoko Aozaki (Simple Mobile Gorilla)
Full Moon Len (Hard hitting neutral domination)
Nanaya Shiki (All Moons, pressure and/or mixup machine)
Full Moon Roa (Footsies character with range)
Full Moon Sion (Balanced pressure character with rushdown elements)
Crescent Moon Sion (Rushdown character)
Tohno Shiki (Preferably Full, also Crescent. Balanced neutral domination)

Some of the above characters may have more optimal combos which are difficult execution wise. Some characters may also have a lot to learn if you want to master them. However, in terms of fundamental teaching, starting levels of execution, and easy learning/interpretation, these are generally altogether your best picks. Of all characters, these will best help you learn Melty Blood, how to improve yourself with the system, and can net you decent wins based on good play. Some choices here may be more subject to exception in an aspect or two than others, but they still follow these guidelines well overall.

Onemi has an in-progress guide on reccomended beginner characters that goes further into detail here.

The Necos (Neco Arc and Neco Arc Chaos) may look tempting due to the damage they can output when allowed to run their game and the satisfaction of beating someone with a joke character, but they are poor choices to start learning Melty Blood. Do yourself a favour and avoid touching them until you build a better understanding of the game.

Tier List?

Please refer to the bottommost section of this page

Who should I play if I-

(Note that characters can very well specialize or do well in multiple things at once)

-want a shoto, or at least a "Melty shoto"? A.K.A. "fundamental" character with various-occasion tools

Aoko (F), Roa (F), Sion (C/F), Tohno (C/F)

-am an execution monster who likes long combos and thick pressure?

Arcueid (C/H), Hime (H), Kohaku (C), Maids (C), Powered-Ciel (Any), Roa (C), Ryougi(C/H), Satsuki (C), Vermillion Akiha (F)

Execution requirements may vary across characters here, but everyone listed fits these requisites nicely altogether

-want to aggressively mix people up all day?

Akiha (Any), Ciel (F), Maids (C/F), Miyako (Any), Kohaku (C), Nanaya (C/F), Vermillion Akiha (Any)

-want to zone/dominate neutral?

Akiha (F), Aoko (C), Ciel (C), Len (F), Hime (Any), KohaMech (Any), Mech Hisui (C/F), Powered Ciel (Any), Ryougi (F), Vermillion Akiha (Any), C/F-White Len (C/F)

-want to do well with setplay regularly?

Hisui (F), Nanaya (C/F), Maids (C/F), Satsuki (C), Vermillion Akiha (F)

-want a gameplan based on command grabs/grapples?

Kohaku (H), Kouma (Any), White Len (H)

Satsuki isn't "really" a grappler, despite having command grabs.

-want to suppress my opponent from playing as much as possible at any time?

Arceuid (C), Hime (F), Kohaku (C), KohaMech (H), Maids (C/F), Nero (C/F), Powered Ciel (Any, particularly F), Roa (C), Vermillion Akiha (F)

Training Mode

Who's the best training dummy and why?

Sion Tatari.

She has the most consistent hurtboxes and combo-properties of anyone in the cast, making her ideal to practice combos and setups on. In addition, she also has the most average guts/defense modifiers in the game, making her the best to lab damage with. On top of that, she has the fastest wakeup time in tandem with the speed of her 2A, making her the most ideal for labbing okizeme. The fact her 2A is also the fastest (outside the Necos) makes her perfect for practicing delay pressure. There's no reason to not use her by default in training mode.

What about other characters? For what reason should I use them as dummies?

Though Sion Tatari will cover a vast majority of the reasons you will ever need a training dummy, there are some character specifics you should know, in order to get the most accurate results from your testing. Below are characters with a description on what unique properties they have to offer:

>Kouma: Has the absolute flattest and lowest hurtbox when falling with his back facing downwards. This makes certain combos impossible on him specifically, as he will hit the ground quicker than everyone else. Furthermore, when it comes to combo properties, his hurtbox is among the odder ones.

>Ryougi Shiki: Has the weirdest combo properties of the entire game. If you think a combo should be universal, test it on her just to be sure.

>Archetype: Earth: Due to her large collision box, certain setups may not work on her. She is also one of the two characters where all her mashout normals are minimum 7f startup or so, ideal to test certain longer frametraps.

>Nero: Like Archetype: Earth, he has long minimum normal startup.

>Miyako, Len, and White Len: Due to their short height, comboing may prove to be a problem (though it rarely ever actually is). White Len in particular may be a problem if your character's confirms are stance dependent (e.g. C-Sion) as her animation for either is extremely difficult to tell apart on reaction.

>Warachia, Riesbyfe: Certain OTG properties may prove to be an issue. For Riesbyfe, she has the slowest wakeup speed overall in the game, so it's good to test certain okizeme on her. Warachia, similar to Kouma, may pose problems comboing off of certain falling properties.

>Aoko: Has the most deceptive wakeup animation in the game. If you need to practice setplay or meaties, you should remember to do it against her, since her hurtbox becomes active a while after her animation indicates.

Tournament/Offline Standard

What is the tournament ruleset?

Specific to Melty Blood, the winner of the previous match in a set may NOT switch characters. They may however, switch Moon Styles. This is to keep in accordance with native arcade ruleset as close as possible.

Though no stage is "officially" banned, communities typically tend to agree that being able to avoid certain stages due to dim lighting is preferable. For example, fighting White Len on the Archetype: Earth stage may be an annoyance. Fighting Akiha on Emerald Table is visually quite a dread. Usually people pick Classic Home; Evening Party, as its lighting is good and is quickly selectable.

The format itself is up to what the organizers decide. Whether it's Round Robin, Pools-to-Top-8, the Best-Ofs, everything can be different. Much like any other fighting game tournament however, granted there are enough people, the format is preferably Double Elimination, with BO3, until the Winners, Losers, and Grand Finals, which are all typically BO5.

Tech Help

Wired? Wireless? Ethernet?

TL;DR: Play fighting games with the system of choice (in this case, the computer,) wired directly to the router.

The reason this is so important is because when packets of information transfer from one computer to another, wireless connections tend to drop many of them along the way, causing a significant increase of random lag spikes and even greater delay. In order to fix this, you need a wired connection, which involves having your system/computer connected directly to your router. Some computers may already be set up like this. Others, mainly laptops, may not.

If they aren't, you can fix this with an ethernet cable, which are extremely cheap. Ones that are 20 feet go for about 15-25 US dollars. Not to mention, one ethernet cable can also help you in every game you play online ever. Modern consoles have ethernet ports too to prevent this exact issue.

Even if you don't feel playing wireless is an issue, the difference in performance is objectively undeniable. Wired connections can make playing between eastern U.S. to Europe stable with rollback netcode. A wired connection can be the difference between stable 2 frame delay connections in Under Night to sporadic 8-10 frame delay connections wireless with the same distance. It seriously changes a lot, and you'll be thankful you did it, if you haven't already. It's the closest you can get online to replicating a lagless scenario. And with the community version of Melty, that's actually at points quite possible. There's quite frankly no reason to not get one for online gaming.

Why does it feel like there's lag when a laptop with Melty is hooked up to another screen?

(To Be Filled)

Want to help with the Wiki?

Its really simple, Contact Shimatora via discord, found in mizuumi server to create an account. Once that is done please refer to the character page template and go from there. Please double verify on whatever you place. Of course *we* can look through the history so please be mindful.

Competitive Balance

Overview

Melty over the years has built a conflicting reputation on balance: C-Roa is almost a running joke among the western fighting game community, and there's plenty of silly hitbox diagrams circling the web. Don't be dissuaded by the surface level shock! While Melty Blood features what would be egregious amounts of bullshit in any other game, the tools at your disposal are rich and similarly bullshit enough to outplay them. Every character has traits that make them uniquely scary, and there's countless examples of lower tier characters sporting the exact toolset to wreak havoc on the upper echelons. Given the sheer number of characters avaliable, its inevitable there are certain skewed matchups, but there will also be another moon on the same character without such a disadvantage you can switch to in those situations. Even tournament results from the west and Japan alike reflect the dominance in skill over tiering, with a variety of different characters from across the tiers placing and filling out top 8s. So if you are concerned about how much balance affects your character choice, understand that excluding two of the joke additions (Neco Arc and Neco Arc Chaos), everyone is viable.

In short, play whoever you want.

Though Melty Blood's gameplay has MUCH to consider, tier listing has always been closer to agreeable. However, standout (and we mean REALLY standout) choices among experienced players that many others would not agree with are common (e.g. People unable to agree on who the best character is, Japanese players claiming C-Neco Arc is just barely viable, eclectic opinions on certain others), thus these tier lists shouldn't be taken as gospel-truth, no matter who it comes from or how widely circulated it is. That is how these things go after all. So make of the information you understand and are given however you will. What is posted here will be done in the vein of information for information's sake above all else.

Tier Lists

ScrawtVermillion's Tier List (2019 version)

(Click the above image for the link, click here for the original moon-implicit tierlist.)

OP Note: Saying that C-Kohaku and C-Arcueid share a tier with F-Hime and C-Roa is a rather unique opinion. New players looking to get into this game should not be agreeing for the wrong reasons (in this case, simple hearsay.) Ordered within tiers (left to right, strongest to weakest). Only High tier and above is strictly ordered. If there is no moon icon, it means all the moons that are not explicitly listed elsewhere on the list. According to Scrawt, every character outside of H-Necomech, H/F Neco Arc Chaos, and H/F Neco Arc viable characters.

Video explaining his thought process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcM6gZMTdPE&

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________