I’ve been a fan of fighting games since the Tekken days. There’s nothing quite like mastering a character to the point where you have memorized every combo, every counter, ever nuance. It’s a genre that demands quick reaction time and decision making skills. All of this holds very true in Arc System Works latest 2D fighting masterpiece, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.

Coming off the success of the Guilty Gear series, the team at Arc System Works started development on the spiritual successor to the beautifully animated steam punk fighter. Though the Guilty Gear series still lives on in Guilty Gear 2, a complete departure from series norm, it was time for a new fighter from these masterminds.

BlazBlue is your typical 2D fighter, and a lot of comparisons can be made between it and Guilty Gear. The two main characters, Ragna the Bloodedge and Jin Kisaragi, bear striking resemblance to Guilty Gear poster boys Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske. Fortunately, that’s where most of the similarities end on the design side, as the rest of the roster fills out with 10 very unique characters. Except for Bang Shishigami, who looks sort of like Strider on steroids. Each character is substantially different from the others, with different control methods, speeds, and combos. For instance, Arakune is a blob of energy, and instead of running above ground when dashing, he goes underground and pops up a certain distance away. That makes Arakune demand a completely different strategy in terms of movement. These little variations can be found in all characters, and they all seem very balanced.

The presentation is phenomenal. Every character is very well animated in their own special way, and there are some very nice touches in the realm of mid skirmish voice acting. Depending on what characters are fighting at the time, they will say different things. Some instances of the system get annoying, but overall it adds a real sense that the characters are more than just cardboard cutouts with different attacks. The soundtrack is fitting, as well. The Limited Edition of the game comes with a 2 disc soundtrack with 42 tracks, so it doesn’t skimp in that department.

At first glance, the game screen can be a little intimidating. There are the basic meters such as Health, Barrier, and your Heat Meter. All of those are pretty self explanatory. Then you have special meters for certain characters, like a Curse Timer for Arakune and a Nail Count for Bang’s special attacks. There is one other meter between the two health bars called a Guard Crush meter. If a player gaurds too much, and is repeatedly attacked, they can be sent into a Barrier Break mode unintentionally, opening themselves up to more powerful attacks.

The controls are pretty standard, with some interesting twists thrown in to make special attacks a little easier. You have your basic Weak, Medium, Strong attacks, along with a Drive attack that performs a more character specific action. For Noel Vermillion, the hottie with the guns pictured above, this launches you into a Chain Revolver. It’s a devastating combo if used correctly. A simple combo can be performed by pressing the Weak, Medium, and Strong attacks in order. Also, two special attacks for each character are mapped to the right analog stick, performed by flicking it up or right. Once a character has built up 50% heat, they can unleash a Distortion Drive attack by flicking the right analog stick to the left. And there’s one last uber attack that can only be triggered on the last fight of a match if the opponent has less that 20% health, and you have 100% Heat. These attacks are called Astral Heats. Pulling off an Astral Heat is as simple as hitting the opponent with an attack triggered by flicking the right analog stick down. What happens after they are hit depends on which character you are using. You can usually maximize the damage by pressing a certain combination of buttons while the Astral Heat is in effect. It’s basically and guaranteed win, which is why it is only usable under such strict conditions. Now, all of these special attacks are performable with button input as well. Some online battles can be customized to remove the ability to use these easier input methods. Chances are, you’ll learn them all anyway in a heated button mashing match. Games like these just take time to master.

There are a ton of defensive and maneuverability skills, as well. You can do a standard block by pressing away from your opponent, or put up a Barrier to limit damage even more by pressing the A and B (In Arcade terms, not the actual buttons on the gamepad) buttons together. You can do simple dashes, double jumps, and charge jumps as well. When in the middle of a combo, if you press A, B, and C together, you perform a Rapid Cancel. With skill, this can be utilized to cancel a combo midstream and launch into another. All of this comes together to make a very intricate system where timing and reading your opponent’s movements is key. And it all makes you feel very powerful when you master the controls for a character.

The Story mode caught me by surprise. I was expecting the standard tournament fighter setup, where you would play through the story with one character and basically get the whole thing from beginning to end. However, starting up the Story Mode for the first time launches into a lengthy cutscene with voice acting over anime stills. The fact that it is all on stills is sort of disappointing. The voice acting is all over the place in terms of quality, which is also something I’ve come to expect from this genre, but there are more good than bad from my current experience. After the opening, you can choose which character’s story to play. I played through Ragna’s story first, and realized that to get the full force of the narrative, I would have to play through all characters. This isn’t some simple tournament tale; rather, it is an intertwined web of stories, all leading to an ultimate goal. You can’t see the true ending until you have completed the Story mode with all characters, but given the default difficulty setting in the Story mode, this won’t take experienced fighters very long to accomplish.

The one thing that annoys me about the Story mode is the method through which you have to get 100% completion on each character. Every scene gives you a percentage toward total completion. This includes dying. So, in order to get everything, you have to go through the game numerous times. Luckily, there’s a quick skip option for the story sections in between, and, like I said before, the difficulty in story mode isn’t too hard.

There are a couple other standard modes, including basic Arcade and Score Attack. The real draw for replayability, however, is the online mode. It’s straight to the point, load up, kick butt multiplayer. In a few of the matches I played, I did experience some slowdown, but it was consistent slowdown. There was never any game-breaking lag. For the most part, however, the game is completely lag free, so long as you and your opponents are on a decent connection. And since this game is highly dependant on frame by frame reading of your characters actions, no lag is key. There is a cool spectate feature, and you can record replays of your fights or the fights you spectate. Voice chat is also supported for those players who like to talk smack when bringing the pain with their favorite character.

Final Thoughts:
While BlazBlue doesn’t do anything to push the genre forward in any extreme ways, it still has its place as one of the best fighters in a long time. There are some features that I would have liked to see, such as Replay Recording in Story and Arcade mode, mainly for the fact that I have had some epic fights in those modes that I’d love to keep around to show off. All in all, if you are a 2D fighter fan, you owe it to yourself to pick up BlazBlue. If you’re not, I can’t think of a better game to get you into the genre.  It’s also highly recommended to seek out the Limited Edition, as the DVD that comes with it has a wealth of strategy information for each character.  A must have!

Score: 9/10

• Pros
  • Fluid, gorgeous 2D animation bliss
  • Balanced characters with lots of variety
  • Recording your online matches is awesome!
• Cons
  • Some slowdown when playing online
  • Playing Story modes over and over and over and over…
  • No good in-game tutorial for newbies who don’t read the manual
• Random Fun Fact
  • No cross-dressing fighters!

BlazBlue is developed by Arc System Works, and published by Aksys Games.  It released on June 30th, 2009.  This review was done on the PS3 version.  Online experiences may vary greatly.