This is a great year for fighting fans so far. We got Street Fighter IV, re-releases of Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves and King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match, both with online play, King of Fighters XII coming out soon and looking extremely good, and this little game called BlazBlue:Calamity Trigger.
Let's go straight to the point here: if you are a fighting game fan, chances are you heard of the cult favorite Guilty Gear series. And if you are a fan of said game, you need to go pick up BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Right now.
BlazBlue is the new Aksys fighting game for Xbox360 and PS3 developed on the Arc Systems plataform. From the same design team from the Guilty Gear series, this brawler is the spiritual sequel to the last Guilty Gear game, an evolution of the series that takes the frenetic fighting action of GG to the next level.
You can expect everything you know and love from GG here. Hand drawn high resolution character sprites, beautiful fluid animation, creative character designs, crazy voice overs, engrish sentences("Let's enjoy a great showtime!"), and a great soundtrack, matching the pace and mood of the game's unique universe.
Not only all the factors are there, but the game is really damn fun. Having a simplified four button layout reminiscent of the Samurai Shodown series(weak,medium, strong, and a special button) it makes it easier for newcomers to have fun. That does not indicate, however, that the game lacks depth. On the contrary, the game still has the deep technical aspects any respected fighter of this caliber should have.
The art design in this game is incredible. Beautiful 3D backgrounds. Creative characters, all with their respective insignias that show a lot of work and attention to detail. Crazy concepts like the Shy-Guy gooey Arakune and his insects, bad ass hero Hakumen, Iron Tager and his magnetic powers and so on. Each character has a playing mechanic specific to themsleves. For example, the sexy doctor Litchi has her staff that she can throw around the stage, leave it at places, jump on top of it and control it like a marionette, while the vampire girl Rachel controls the wind to her advantage to strategically place opponents in range of her traps. Ninja hero wannabe Bang uses railroad nails to fight, and he places devices around the screen that propels like a dash effect. Little boy Carl controls a puppet that fights for him with its own life bar, while the crazy psychopath Jin uses ice element attacks to freeze the enemy. As you can see, every character plays in different mechanics and it adds so much diversity to the game.
The music also feels like an evolution from the GG franchise. Don't get me wrong, I loved the GG soundtrack, but this feels more well thought-out, more in tune with it's respective character's personalities and stages. Like in GG, there are the special songs depending on the characters fighting, nemesis, or story advancement.
The game has a lot to offer as far as play modes go: arcade mode, story attack mode(more like get-my-ass-kicked mode), story mode, network mode, replay mode(which you can download from other players on the leaderboards and watch), training mode, and galleries of unlockables. Story mode alone has a lot of replay value all in itself. Every charachter has a story to play through, told through a series of voice acting and scenes of the characters between their fights. Also, each character's story has multiple branched paths, and the story unfolds based on your choices and fighting methods at key events.
Network mode is where you fight people online. The netcode on this game is very competent, as I have yet to experience any signs of lag during any of my matches. The game lags a little bit before the fight starts while it synchronizes the players data, but by the time the fight starts everything is caught up and smooth.
With all these modes, the branching stories, and characters that all play very differently from one another, this is a lot of bang for your buck. Specially if you pick up the inital print of special editions that are the same price as the regular game, and have a DVD with strategies and combos for every character, as well as a two CDs of the game's well composed soundtrack. Basically, if you are a fan of fighting games, you need to pick up BlazBlue. Specially if you are a fan of Guilty Gear. This is the next step up, and what a beautiful, intense, crazy step this is.
