I will be talking about Blazblue: Calamity Trigger
Blazblue is available on Xbox 360, PS3, Arcade and on PC (EU and JA only)
Blazblue is available on Xbox 360, PS3, Arcade and on PC (EU and JA only)
Blazblue (pronounced Blaze Blue) is a personal favorite of mine and is probably one of the most unique fighting games you will see.
Blazblue may scare you away with it's unorthodox characters, visuals and game play. But behind it's unusual exterior is a deep fighting game that is a challenger to Street Fighter's crown as king of fighting games.
Presentation:
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| Here you see Rachel Alucard (left side) and Ragna The Bloodedge (right side) |
Blazblue has a purely anime aesthetic that works but may scare off some people. The style is well done, detailed and matches the feel of the game very well. When the game play starts you will notice the beautiful, HD sprites used for the characters and a slick interface. Another cool thing about this game's visuals is that it uses gorgeous 3D backgrounds that fit in surprisingly well..
Overall, the visuals in Blazblue's HD visuals are colorful, slick and very well done.
Story:
The story in Blazblue may confuse and bewilder some people at first but eventually you'll understand everything and get absorbed onto the world of Blazblue. I haven't gotten through the whole story yet so I can't really say how good the main plot is. In the story mode you will have many paths to go through and several endings, but only one ending will continue the story. Once you complete every character's story mode you can choose to see the True Ending and fight the final boss and such. The story mode is long (in kind of a cheap way) and will take you a while to complete because in order to unlock the true ending you have to see every character's endings and paths.
Gameplay:
Blazblue is one of those easy to learn, hard to master games. The game uses a simpler special attack format consisting mostly of quarter circle forward (hadoken move) or backwards. This kind of move set makes the game much easier to grasp and also makes it less frustrating to learn all of the moves. The game also utilizes the right thumb stick for quick specials that will be invaluable to you if you are new to fighting games and such.
Blazblue's cast of characters is minuscule compared to the latest Street fighter and Mortal Kombat games. The cast consists of 12 well balanced, totally unique and easy to learn characters ranging from a cyborg with swords for wings, a vampire princess to a masked swordsman and a blob of bugs, each with their own Drives.
The game uses a very simple 4 button system of weak, medium, strong and Drive attacks. Drive attacks are character-specific moves and abilities and are used to execute powerful and effective moves. For example, Ragna The Bloodedge's drive: Soul Eater, thieves away an opponent's HP and adds it to his each time one of his Drive attacks connect.
Every character (excluding one, Hakumen) has a Heat Bar, which is used to execute powerful and dynamic Distortion Drives which are moves such as unleashing a flurry of bullets, a powerful counter-attack and a powerful pile-driver. Every character can unlock an Astral Heat which works somewhat like a fatality in Mortal Kombat, they are fun to watch and end fights with a bang. Astral Heats are hard to hit with and can only be executed if the battle is on it's final round and the enemy has only 20% of their health.
There's a large amount of gameplay modes to be played in Blazblue such as Arcade, Story, Versus, Score Attack and Network Mode (online)
Sound:
Blablue's soundtrack can be somewhat described as a Rock Opera. Every character's themes are expertly crafted and captures each character's personality and fighting style.
The voice acting in Blazblue is good, although some lines may make you cringe in your seat (I'm looking at you, Jin) or sound plain awkward. But, what game doesn't have this problem? If you downright hate the English actors you can hit the options menu and change it to Japanese. One thing I think most people will not like it that during the fighting is that the characters will say their lines like crazy and may annoy you, I myself took a bit of time to totally get over it.
Parental Notes:
Most of the objectionable content in the game is the swearing there are frequent uses of d*mn, a**, sh*t and h*ll and some less frequent uses of b*tch and b*stard. Also, one of the characters, Litchi Faye Ling, is rather revealing. One of the other characters, Noel Vermillion, in her story mode talks about her problem with her lack of.... endowment...
this game is rated T for a reason!
Verdict:
Presentation: 9
Story: 8
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 8
Overall: 8.5
- Blazblue is a fantastic fighting game with great game play, well balanced fighters and interesting world, but loses points for voice acting flaws, some slightly overpowered characters and a needlessly long story mode.
- Blazblue is a fantastic fighting game with great game play, well balanced fighters and interesting world, but loses points for voice acting flaws, some slightly overpowered characters and a needlessly long story mode.
