I've been reading a lot of discussions over BlazBlue: Continuum Shift over the past week. A lot of them were about the new characters, the small aesthetic changes in the playing field, and most importantly, the edits in the moves of various fighters. I'm not a big fighting fan, so knowing how some moves will not be able to be jump cancelled doesn't really affect me, but reading people talking about how most of the changes are being seen as nerfs for their respective characters just by reading it and not actually playing it boggles my mind.

Noel was probably the most commonly seen name I've run across when it came to the nerfs, next to Rachel and I think Carl as well. Far too often have I read comments which had "Noel" and "nerf" in the same sentence. Then I had a thought, when was the last time something good actually happened to Noel?

A large portion of her roles in the story were either doing something because a higher command told her to do so, or accidentally getting into a fight due to miscommunication. The other fighters had their roles, granted they weren't very strong, as they were trying to find information about key characters, or trying to find answers to their questions. But this kind of thing rarely occurs for Noel, she only gets into fights mainly due to miscommunication or higher authority. It's disheartening.

Aside from the alternate story when Noel is being chased by Litchi to try on clothes (which I think is more weird than anything else), there is no happiness to be seen anywhere with her. Jin and Ragna act like pricks around her, Carl had his mind warped and sees Noel as more of a foe than a friend, Tager pretty much dislikes anything involved with the NOL so he doesn't care, etc. So it's like Noel is really on her own without having a purpose.

And this is made worse when she interacts with Nu, which makes her feel more like a thing than an actual human being. So depressing.

And with this nerf thing, it's no wonder she has such a sad face most of the time. She's like the Trix Rabbit, constantly suffering, never being able to get what she truly wants. And the cereal is, like, happiness or something, I dunno.

Just look at how sad this girl is.



She doesn't look like someone who should be beaten up, much less someone who should wield guns more than half the size of her body. She doesn't deserve the poor treatment after all that she's already been through. Next time you run across a Noel, look in your hearts, and think twice about what you are doing. :(