BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger IGN Review

IGN writes:"Being a devoted follower of developer ARC System Works -- the folks behind the Guilty Gear series -- I was ecstatic when I first found out that BlazBlue was on the way. The oddly-named 2D fighter would serve as the (dare I say it) spiritual successor of the Guilty Gear franchise and preserve the developer's legacy for creating wildly imaginative, fast-paced fighting games with nice visuals. Although I was sad to hear that Guilty Gear might eventually bow out to the BlazBlue name, I was eager to get a fresh start. And now that BlazBlue is finally here, I couldn't be more pleased with the final product.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is one of the most polished, fun fighting games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Although the game will have a much more limited appeal than mainstream powerhouses like Street Fighter and Tekken, this gem of a fighter really needs to be played by anyone even remotely interested in fighting games. There's almost nothing about this game that rubs me the wrong way and ARC System Works has thought of every little detail a fighting game fan could want.
"

[LiquifiedArt]

KOF13 has a LOBBY system, which every online fighter needs. It allows for 6 people to be in a lobby and they can all spectate 1 match between two of the 6. Additional KOF13 has Team battles of 3v3.

I'd like alittle more information about the online portion of BlazBlue!

[Tacki]

Blazblue has 6 player lobbies as well, if that's what you're wondering about.

[TheMotherFcker]

idk about that but you can record matches

[Godmars290]

Sorry dude, but its KOF12 in the time period I'm from.

[Game13a13y]

yea, the lobby system is awesome. wish SF4 was like that too.

[Livenow]

but I'm really a one fighting game a year type of guy.

[GameGambits]

The online portion to BlazBlue is the best so far for any fighting game to this point and date. There's an interview over at 1up.com with one of the game devs who gives it to you with no fancy words or BS how the online kicks so much a$$! Oh to add, the past few days I've been watching a guy on justin.tv play this game live on his stream(HD capture too oh boy), and the online has no hitches. It's the smoothest net code holy crap!

Seriously I was between this and KoF12 myself, but after watching the live stream and now this 9.4 from my favorite game site well I'm sold! This summer is lacking in super quality games across all genres, so I highly recommend it. I'm getting the PS3 version for dpad purposes, but even 360 only guys would have a win game here to get.

This game rocks! :D

[ultimolu]

Getting this game.

[INehalemEXI]

indeed

[ChampIDC]

Been watching it played on justin.tv a lot. I can't wait.

[TheMotherFcker]

stop twisting my words!

[Simon_Brezhnev]

im getting this game anybody who wants 2 play me on PSN my sn is Lm_The_Boss

[Dragun619]

Now lets hope King Of Fighters is good game.

[ChampIDC]

I'm sure it'll be awesome. The only thing that I'm worrying about is the netcode.

[specdoTsign]

Having played both KoF XII and BB:CT in the arcades, it's going to be hard not getting both. These games are awesomely beautiful in person. I'm leaning towards KoF (because of the history of the game), but that limited edition BB:CT is looking sexy right now... *sigh* on top of all that I still have to get my Hori Real Arcade Pro stick... No money FTL!

[Silly gameAr]

It was between BlazBlue and Call of Jaurez. Getting this for sure. Free soundtrack? If it's like Guilty Gears' music, I would pay for it.

[teh-panda]

YES! a damn good fighting game gets a damn good score. This is what I like to see.

[KidMakeshift]

Now the game is good but Ryan is somewhat a sensationalist when it comes to anything Japanese (not to mention a snob when he talks about anime being greater than this or that. It gets f@cking annoying)

I've played this game over a dozen times at the japanese arcade in simi valley, CA. It looks great (both characters and environments) and plays like a slower version of Guilty Gear. But in all honesty the game isn't revolutionary. If you played Guilty Gear then you pretty much played this game.

It's fun but he definitely overrates it along with just about every japanese RPG review he does

[Midgard228]

tho people r retards, who cares if its not revolutionary, how does that mean its bad?

no one complains wen call of duty's are same games with new weapons and characters, no one complains about any shooter actually, but uh oh, its a fighting game, they r just button mashers! omg cuz shooters arent R1 or Right trigger mashers, OMG! omg omg. madden year 2003 to 3600 are freakin awesome lets buy it every year with same crap but complain of new characters, title and everything in a game u dont understand or like.

STFU, go play wat ever game u like and leave the fighting game fans alone.

least this game didnt put ugly graphics and downgrade gameplay....(Ahem SF4)

[Pheonix03]

Been waiting for Blazblue for over a year!! Can;t wait to play it. And I'm glad to see it scored higher than Street Fighter 4, heh, nice!!

This is one polished game. Rivaling SoulCalibur 1 in terms of content.

[Baka-akaB]

Great for the game and it's fans .
Lord knows the fighting games genre needed the revival in popularity it's currently getting .

Personally i aint a fan of Arc Systems and especially of this game , though i aknowledge it's worth .

One of the things that bothers me , lies with the animation , to begin with . I find it a bit subpar and rushed to obtain that neat and clean HD look (even much more beautiful than KOF despite the 3d backgrounds of BB)

And before some irked fans start giving disagrees , it's quite easy to see and check , if your interested in that area .

When i say the animation was sacrified for higher resolution ...I'm not talking about frame rate, I'm talking about the actual animation. Poses are held for a long time and they milk the hell out of individual frames instead of making an effort to have things flowing. All the effort has gone into detailed drawings and intricacies instead of creating high quality animation. This sort of thing is the difference between SF3 and GG... not the frame rate or image quality, but the number of frames (appropriately) used to express an action.

To have a good idea check this out http://www.zweifuss.com/ , you can look at the animations on demand from 3rd Strike. Every time a character falls over, crouches, jumps, whatever. High amount of frames for that action. Plus it's expressive and just awesome .

Something you can only observe being close in SF4 (though with less credits , since in 3d , even though it's freakishly hard to properly render 3d as 2d , with it's fluidity , deformations and exagerated feels , without looking wierd or just relying like everyone else on cheap cellshading crap ) or KOFXII .

You can also easily check this for KOFXII by tracking down non crappy and laggy youtube videos , Snk's own websites describing their whole process and a few galleries , or even multiple forums with high rez gifs of the characters .

Again this is just a pet peeve of mine . I have other issues with BB , gameplay related , but it's just a matter of preferences and tastes . I prefer vastly SF4 or KoXII but it's still a quite good , great even fighting game .

PS :
I however disagree with the article's claims that it's user friendly , especially just "because it got 4 buttons" . BB's learning curve is even stepper than in SF4 , unless already used to GG2 .

It was a disservice to SF4 , and it will be to kof or BB to claims those game are easy to get into .
Though it helped SF4 sells a lot , a huge amount of it's owners either gave up and resold it or remained noobs trying to abuse ryu/ken without much success .

[Midgard228]

um i think sf4 didnt have a learning curve. it was way to easy, SF3 had way more depth.

i luv guilty gear above all else, and Blazblue will take the candle for me. i;ve been playin since ggx1, thats wat? 8 yrs lol luv arcs games, and just luv the over all speed of the fight

[Baka-akaB]

It was easy for me too , but like you mention you've been playing games like GG for 8 years , so probably do fans of sf or kof .

Imo there is no way the general public bothered dealing with stuff like sf4's trials and challenges , or actually learning to play something else than spamming fireballs/shoryukens .

Most sf4 combos arent even that hard , and mostly normal moves and buttons , but they wont spent a lifetime learning the timing and training as needed . It's mostly basic training with a character then mindreading and matchups tactics.

Oddly they can spend an horrifying amount of time camping in fps or grinding in mmos , but they wouldnt do some basic training in fighting games ...

I've seen quite a few first enthusiast customers quickly return the game , after the initial frenzy around it .

I hardly picture them doing more on an obviously way harder Blazblue , so i chuckle a little when i read that it's user friendly .

[XDF]

Might have to pre-order the gamestop edition with the extra blu Ray disc.

[mochi]

PS3 version has many Japanese...

[bjornbear]

Why this a X360 review on IGN but then on PS3 section here? =S...either way awsum! might look into this

[devilhunterx]

xb2 dpad = -1 right there.