Customer Reviews

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Limited Edition

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This game has amazing sprites and backgrounds. Characters are blanced and the action is intense and fast. Its different from Guilty Gear as a whole, but after some practice aspects of the game make it feel guilty gearish. The spirits of Sol and Ky and others really do do live on this new franchise. This game is newb friendly, but unfolds as you learn the tricks of the trade and develops into a complex fighter. This is a must own!!! Its a shame because this game will not be recognized by many gamers. I say try it out and support ARKS...if you own the PS3 version i'll be there :D I main Ragna and Rachael

Get ready for the most technical, combo heavy fighting game in existence. But instead of playing online and wanting to throw your fist through your HD tv when you lose a match, this game will make you stare in awe at how awesome it is. No matter how many times I lost, I never got upset, and kept trying harder and harder to get better with my main character. Now on to the review.

Graphics - 10/10 - The best looking 2D fighter to ever grace the market, period. Everything is smooth and well rendered, and even the backgrounds and simple animations don't disappoint. You have to see this game in action at the highest resolution, period.

Sound - 10/10 - Both the English and Japanese dub are amazing, and the little quips that happen mid-fight between two of the story characters is also a nice little touch in immersion. Every sound in this game is amazing, and the soundtrack does not disappoint. If you've played any of the Guilty Gear series, then you know exactly what to expect with this game.

Control - 10/10 - Blisters. In a good way. I haven't enjoyed playing a game so much since SFA3, and the blisters were a welcome badge of honor. The controls for every character are smooth and responsive and really help to make you never feel cheated when inputing a chain, or combo.

Overrall - 10/10 - If you're a fighter fan, anime fan, or just love art, buy this game....now. Don't wait, don't think on it. Go down to Gamestop right now and pick this up, immediately, you will not be disappointed.

First let me give praise to what the developers have done here. This game offers some of the most impressive deep gameplay that you can find in a 2d fighter. The game, even though a spin-off of the Guilty Gear series may as well be a GG game. It keeps a similar art style, over the top characters, and general gameplay as its GG counterpart. With that being said I am also going to say that this game isn't for every 2d fighter fan. The extensive possibilities in the gameplay can be a turn off for some and at the same time a thank you to other players. Let me explain.

When you play through arcade mode you may find yourself winning, but once you go online and run across veteran players they will show you how you know absolutely nothing about this game and have a lot of learning to do. This is no button masher. This game requires precise planning, when it comes to combos, strategy, how to atack your opponent, when to attack your opponent, etc. On top of that this game is so fast at times that you don't have much time to think at all. Now these things can either be good news to you or bad news.

For those who are GG veterans, they will probably have a much easier time learning how to play than others. For those who are coming from let's say Street Fighter, they will find themselves in very unfamiliar territory. This is game is not your normal 2d fighter. The combos take a while to learn and master and you aren't going to get any where online unless you learn them. For those who appreciate all of these things I mentioned, you should go out and get this game; for those who are put off by the steep learning curve, well you decide.

I give the game 4 stars because I feel it deserves it. Perfect games deserve perfect ratings and this game falls short of that because it caters to the hard-core. It is not newbie friendly. The bonus tutorial disc is well appreciated, but I can't imagine how lost customers who buy the regular version in the future will be. For those who do buy the limited version, make sure you write down all the combos the tutorial disc gives you. You are gonna need them.

In various previews, honestly, BlazBlue came a bit too strong for me. High-paced fighting accompanied by flashy, in the word's truest sense, super moves only seemed... again, honestly, pretentious. After I thought I'd just burned off $65 on a mediocre, new (for me) fighting IP, I was only to be simply amazed at this astounding video game.

BlazBlue features 12 characters. 12 very different, clearly distinct stylish guys and gals and others. They are not like characters from the King of Fighters, all with different moves stemming out of same semi-/quarter- circle + punch/kick commands. To get to know, to be able to play with a character means that you have invested in a fair amount of time. Doing so is necessary for not only playing against other players online but against CPUs in Versus or Arcade Mode.

BlazBlue's initial release package (the Limited Edition), along with the game, includes a bonus Blu-Ray disc and two whole discs of soundtracks. Please, if you're able to appreciate video game music and are going to get this game, don't wait until Standard Editions replace the Limited ones on the store shelf and get it now because as good as the game is, those two discs of soundtracks are a legitimate music album themselves. You want a fighting game music to be on a orchestral, up-class, and royal atmosphere (contrary to SF or KOF or any other conventional fighters before), this is as good as it gets.

Even if you didn't care much for each character's unique move-sets or even the accompanying soundtracks, I want to believe that you, at least, care for what you see. I just cannot say enough for its fantastic visuals - colors are full, animations well-executed, effects notably placed. Cel-shading has never been presented at a better level and until the end of the ps3/360 cycle, it is not going to be outdone.

I want to end this short right about at this point, but I have to applaud the U.S. localization team. Well, sure the translations were smooth, but the voice actors and actresses. Watching dubbed animes these days, I guessed the U.S. performers just lost their fire or whatever, but boy was I surprised. From the objective point of view, it is definitely on par with the Japanese dub. I was pleased to be able to enjoy the game without having to toggle the sound to the original recording. Kudos.

BlazBlue is a bar-setting, near-perfect fighter that is, as complicated as it is, even beginner-friendly with its "Easy Specials" utilizing R3 on the ps3 controller. Original SF or KOF fans might feel a little uncomfortable at the characters' slightly different ranges of motion per press, but with time, that's bound to fade.

Actually, if you've been ready (for a long time) to embrace a deep, profound fighter with class and originality, BlazBlue would be the perfect game.

BlazBlue, the spiritual successor to Guilty Gear. Developed by Arc Systemworks, music composed by Daisuke Ishiwatari, original creator of Guilty Gear!

PROS:
Comes with two disc official sound track
DVD containing basic info on Bread and Butter Combos for all 12 characters
HD 2D animation is gorgeous! Can't say this enough, the 2D characters with a 3D background is eye candy. The animation for for Distortion Drives are well drawn. Online mode is superb. The netcode is quite impressive. It offers replays of top players with a rank of 1500 or higher for all characters to download and watch. Playing several hundred matches, even with lag, matches don't disconnect unless your ISP service just drops. Each room supports up to six players, so you can go vs. against several friends or co-workers.

CONS:
Small roster of characters, just 12

Even though the roster isn't that big, each character is unique with their own play style and Drive. No character is a clone of another which adds variety to the cast. I bought this Limited Edition a few months back, and never regretted it once. Best Fighter and new Fighter IP of 2009. Recommend this to anyone who loves 2D fighters or grew up playing them in the arcades.

There are those who said that the automobile would make trains and horses obsolete. There are also people who said that 3D made 2D games obsolete.

Both groups were wrong, and in this game we have a prime example of just how wrong they are. Fighting games could be said to have both come a long way since street fighter 2, and not changed at all. The truth is that while the fundimentals have not changed, the level of refinement has risen to an art form. Guilty Gear proved the market (and has become the benchmark) for extremly deep 2D fighting games, but it has become so deep and involved that new players drown in the same depth that makes the series so good.

BlazBlue is by the same design team as Guilty Gear, and they took serius time and effort to bridge that gap between the vetrans and the new players. placing the non standard abilitys of charicters on a single button rather then complex imputs makes it easyer to learn and pull off truely impressive things. The use of one touch special moves (a limited selection that on most charicters are moves you will be using a lot) mapped to the right analog stick opens most of each charicters playbook to everyone. Of course, having a million tools does no good if you dont know how and when to use them, so a vetran still holds the edge, but the gap is not the unbridgable abyss that it was in Guilty Gear's more modern decendents. on top of this is the impressively done story that requires you to play though each charicter and the final ending to really understand, and is compelling enough to warrent the time and effort involved.

Visually, I hope you have a large high definition TV or monitor to play this on, because the artwork and animations are hand drawn frame by frame poetry. The backrounds are filled with life and small details, and even the simple still images used to fill most of the story mode events are clearly the work of skilled artists. The few peices of animated cutscenes are drawn in a style consistant with the game itself, and their sparing use was a wise move, because the ones that do occour hold that much more impact.

Guilty Gear is known for its music, most of it done by the same artist, and all of it top quality material. I bought the limited edition, which came with the soundtrack, saving me from having to buy that seprately (the music is that good.)

I must admit I am not a big fighting game fan so I have still to appreciate the depth of this game although even I can tell how the counters and cancels will be helpful once I get used to thinking and pressing faster. I usually buy only one fighting game for whatever console(s)I own (to play with friends) and usually do not buy them at full retail price but when I saw this game in action and saw the limited edition I had to get it and I am not disappointed. Even for a fighting amateur like me it is fun although I am not going to win the latter matches before some more practice. The only thing is I wished the cutscenes were fully animated, I get the way they are done but with such a gorgeous animation for everything it seems like lost potential bliss. Just get this game, the designs, sound, additional content and animation are all on par of the great gameplay

Let me start off by saying this game excited me for two main reason. First, I grew up on SFII and Fatal Fury-type 2-d fighters that never killed the mechanics with overly complex motions for attacks or extreme combos like the Tekken series. Second, I prefer fighters as simple as possible so that I can have the maximum amount of fun playing it with friends in the least amount of time. My favirote fighter to this day would probably be Marvel Vs. Capcom II, but my other fav's include the Samurai Showdown Series, Fatal Fury series, SFII&III, Guilty Gear, and KoF, to name a few.

Blazblue is gorgeous. It has the absolute best and smoothest animation of any fighter I've seen so far and makes Guilty Gear look like Sesame Street at varied moments. The character animations are done with exact detail and don't sacrifice frames for speed. The moves are jaw-dropping sometimes and never fail to please. Noel, the main female character in the game, has a series of moves where silhoutte versions of herself trail behind her as she moves and I almost love play as her just in order to see the cool animations. In most cases, the animations are not over the top either, so they don't take up too much of screen and blind you to what your oppenent is doing if they dodged it(which has been a problem in some games, like the latter Guilty Gear). They also use a very neat cinematic style of storytelling between bouts that reminds me a lot of Anime or previous 2-d fighters as they were in the arcades back when. Overall the graphics are a 5/5.

The music...what more do you need to know, it's the same people who did the Guilty Gear series, which offers perhaps the most adrenaline-pumping compositions in gaming, or at least in a fighter. SF has classic songs we all love and all, but this game takes most(not all, there are a couple of stinker-tracks as well) of the music to a near-cinematic quality. Usually in a fighter I don't even hear the music as I intuitivelly drown it out, but I notice is quite often in this game. The soundtrack included is one fo the few game soundtracks I've recieved as a bonus I think I will have ever popped in my cd player on the way to work.

The characters are as varied and interesting as all of the beaming reviews have stated. It is very rare indeed to find a 2-D fighter that gives me 12 characters and I actually want to play all 12 in equal measure. SFIV for instance(sorry for beating a dead horse, but it's the best example atm), I only use about 6-10 characters at best. Even in my favirote game that I've almost mastered at this point, MvC2, I only play about 12 of those characters and don't touch the rest. In this game, I play them all and love them all for what they bring to the table. There aren't four slow-but-strong Zangief characters and there aren't seven weak-but-fast Cammy characters. There is one huge guy, about three quick characters, but all of them varied. The moves themselves are the simply but effective SF variety, ie down-downright-right-strong attack or something simple. The cool part is though that the varied strengths according to the button pressed do count for something and not just distance of attack. The "special" button, which is X also has many uses for every character. It works as a special regular attack or changes the type of attack for a special if used instead of a regular button and also provides character-specific actions when used in conjuction with the d-pad. Every character has vastly different fighting styles, most of which can be looselly based off the originals establish by something like SFII, but they are still fresh in their own way as well.

One thing I would like to point out as well is the awesom guard system they have in place. There is a bar that defines how much you can block somebody's attacks and it depletes slowly as you guard more and more without attacking. This feature is like a dream come true for me. A buddy of mine who always does nothign but sit there and block at the edge of the screen then counter would annoy the heck of me because it was terribly boring to play him. Not any more my friend, hehe. Now it hurts you over time if you continue this lame but effective strategy. The other guard forms are also much more effective and useful in this game such as reversals and counters, but they also eplete your special bar, and even in some cases lead to you lowering your defenses. If you perform a couple of last-ditch defensive manuevers, you enter "danger" mode and almost any attack will most likelly be the end of you. It's so well balanced that I can't even begin to describe how much it makes me wish someone had thought of this sooner. It's just so much more playable when the tables are evened out by these mechanics.

The only thing I will say I don't like is that there are almost no unlockables, except for the special moves that act like instant kill attacks for each character. You have to unlock them by beating the game with every character but three of them and, even then, you can only use the move in a very limited set of circumstances, so it is certainly a neat idea. I just hope that in a sequel that they add 2-4 characters or something to unlock, it would make this game near perfect.

Overall, this game is the perfect fighter for me and just what I've been waiting for to revigorate my interest in a nearly comatose genre. If you enjoy something that's simple but offers hours upon hours of enjoyment then I highly recommend this. If you're looking for "depth" ala-Tekken or Soul Caliber, this one probably isn't for you. You do owe it to yourself to give it a rent either way as it is a truelly unique and beautiful gaming experience either way.

BlazBlue is the most beautiful 2D fighter on the planet. That is obvious, what is not so obvious is how deep a fighting game this really is. Yes it has special over the top flashy moves. Yes it requires precision timing to execute moves and yes you have to know each character to "read their moves" so you can beat them. But the combo system in this game is the core of what makes it fun. If you want to really enjoy what this game has to offer, then you need to know how to perform the intensely long juggle combos in this game. Trust me, it's worth it. Other than that, you've got an engaging story (no...it's not your typical game where random combatants come together to fight in a tournament for no apparent reason). What else do you need for a fighter? Oh yeah, being able to get your hands on a copy would be nice. A cult classic for sure. Pick up a copy when you can.

BLAZBLUE : CALAMITY TRIGGER
After a long wait I finally get to try out BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger for the PS3. Being a GuiltyGear fan I had high hopes of Aksys pulling out a good game with its new and refreshing cast of characters, enhanced fighting system and online play. I can say that yet, after acquiring the carpal tunnel (25+ hours of playing) Trophy, I have not been disappointed with the features that this game has to offer.

OUT OF THE BOX
If you manage to get your hands on a limited edition, you will get a small box that will include the game case as well as a blue case with the bluray logo ontop. It will contain 2 Discs of the Soundtrack (The first CD being short loops and themes, and the 2nd being most of the character soundtrack and very odd remixes by DJ I-forgot-his-name) and a Blueray disc showing the main and most important combos to practice on.

THE GAME PLAY
The cast of characters is small compared to most fighters, yet each person can find their fighting style in them, whether you're a constant smasher, a technical, or simply making good abuse of high tier characters; they're all there. Each character has a specific Drive (Attacks you initiate with the X button) that makes them very unique and lets you have freedom of creativity to mix your own combos.

The storyline are very well depicted with detailed 3/4 shots of characters and facial movements, that is enough to bring the scenes alive and the voice acting (In English, so far) are very well done. Voices for Litchi, Ragna, Taokaka have little to none awkward moments. You can also view the storyline from the arcade in arcade mode which is more brief but finishing it will let you acquire the finisher for your character.

The online play is split between Player matches and Ranked matches. I've found that in player matches the information of the rooms are quite inaccurate, such as the amount of people in the room. For example if the room shows 1/4 playing, there is a big chance it might tell you it's full, and some times unable to connect. It doesn't destroy the gameplay but it does make it harder to find matches. Ranked matches will automically search for fighters with your fighting capacity - generally by your Risk Rating and Win Ratio %, making fighting in Ranked matches more enjoyable than a random people who's a born expert.

In terms of lag, it happens seldomly. Perhaps 1 in 20 matches (While fighting). There's a little annoying slow down in the beginning of every match (the intro/greeting) that improves as the fight is about to start. With a severely good connection between you and your fighter, you won't notice it at all, but you can expect for the intro lag to happen often, but it doesn't lag during the fight itself.

CONCLUSION
To me, Blazblue is all the I had expected and I can't really find anything that they had missed. They really put everything on this game and threw in a few cherries to boot, such as Learning with Litchi bonus as you are progressing through the storyline, viewable artwork in the gallery with commentary from the artists, as well as comical trophies that brings a few laughs if you have a sense of humor. I can't explain everything that this game has to offer but I can assure you that you won't be disappointed.

If you love 2D fighters - Get it. If you love Guilty Gear - GET IT.