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 (夜刀 Yatō) 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 (万鬼会 Bankikai) 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 (namely Waldstein) 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 that of French Bread's previous Type-Moon based game, Melty Blood and its updates, and Arc System Works's Guilty Gear and Blazblue, with an additional gameplay systems introduced for this game. Following the standards of other 2D fighting games, the goal of the game is to deplete the opponent's Vitality (or VIT) gauge to zero. A single match can consist of multiple rounds, referred to as "Clauses," which can be won in not only the aforementioned way (reducing the opponent's VIT gauge to zero), but also by either holding the higher remaining VIT when a "Time Up" occurs, or more rarely, upon a double down in which both fighters are knocked out at the same time which grants an extra round regardless of who had the advantages in matches. 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 (called "Passing Link") but these moves also retroactively can be cancelled with a technique called reverse beat. Most other 2D fighters allow the simple A-B-C attack strings but will not allow strings such as C-B-A. With reverse beat, moves such as a heavy attack, with high amounts of recovery frames, can be cancelled into a light attack to quicken the recovery so as long as the move was not utilized previously within the same combo. 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 provide a variety of effects such as an extra attack, an extra jump, etc. 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 while certain characters have more mobility options than others, such as Linne, Seth, Nanase, Eltnum and Akatsuki. 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.
