'BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger' makes a run for the border, fails

GameNorth writes:
"Looks like Canadian gamers looking forward to Arc System Works' latest super-stylized two-dimensional fighting game, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, are gonna have to wait an extra few days to pick up a copy. According to our sources in the retail industry, one of the major Canadian distributors for stores such as EB Games, Future Shop, and Best Buy has been held up at the American/Canadian border and will not arrive until Monday at the earliest. However, some smaller Canadian chains, such as MicroPlay and VideoGamesPlus, who use a different distributor altogether, have received a limited quantity. For those eager to play it over the weekend, act fast and you may just get the chance!"

[Parapraxis]

Wow actual news haha
Gotta check out this game, it looks pretty good.

[Expy]

Yea, this site is in need of real news... Planning to pick it up when it crosses the border.. lol

[ultimolu]

It is.

Do it now. :P

[GameGambits]

Sucks to be Canada. This game is awesome!

Anyone got any tips to beating Score Attack mode? I can get up to Rachel Alucard just bout everytime, sometimes I beat her, sometimes I don't... the times I do I can beat Hakumen no problem, but V-13 just crushes me... Anyone know a super cheap character/tactic to beat the whole thing? :P

[Kira83]

I'd say over half of released games don't hit around here for a week sometimes two after thier street date. We're used to it.

[N4g_null]

This game is awesome! Man I love arc systems and they did a great job on this game. I want more characters though! The fighting styles are so varied though.

[ExgamerLegends2]

they put Ky kiske and Sol badguy as DL characters just so they can show Ragna and Jin how its done lol. That'll never happen

[Veneno]

this is a button masher/projectile spam fest, but there's an audience for it. KOF is next week so this will work for me.

[Baka-akaB]

While i'm not really a fan ( just see my post history) It's actually a hard game to master .
Simpler moves doesnt mean simpler or more accurately worse game .

Blazblue's majority of moves arent that hard , what matters is when to do them , your pace and how much you'll be countered .
Not to mention the pletora of guard , and attack cancels it got , punitions against turtles , infinite abusers etc etc

Kof isnt next week btw , but the end of the month , though i'm expecting it much more as well .

[Midgard228]

veneno
sorry buddy but judging from ur icon u cant talk fairly especially since u never played it, ive played all KOF's and they r just ok. any game can be a button masher if u mash the buttons, u must really suk if all u can play is KOF and u just mash buttons at every other fighter.....tsk tsk sad.

honestly every single person is the same in KOF, how many more Kyo's will be in it? hmmm kyo, kyo classic, K, that new Nameless guy, Ash, Iori, wtf its stupid.

to many copy paste characters in one game.

now im still gettin it just cuz i;ve played them all but i know i'll like BB better since i've been hooked on Guilty gear for 8 yrs. sorry KOF is a corner rape game i know cuz i do corner raping....slow gameplay too lol.

[Baka-akaB]

sigh ... imo just like he doesnt know what he's talking about with BB , you dont seems to do much either when it comes to KOF .

[Midgard228]

LOL WELL I ACTUALY HAVE PLAYED MOST OF THE kof'S I HAVE HOPES FOR KOF 12 and crap caps was on sry lol.

i've played most fighting series and i just say how i feel after actually trying them. come on lol, 5+ characters that all have Kyo's flame? i dont care if they r clones or not its sorta lame, also freakin LAME is K isn't in KOF 12, WTF

[Baka-akaB]

NP lol
And well with Kyo , ash and iori , it's 3 flames users , so it's an ok number .
And you complain about their numbers yet want to add another one like K :p?

Beside why the obsession with them ? There are enough other differents and varied characters even with the trimmed down kof XII's roster .

Even at it's worst (imo precisely starting with '99 , the beginning of the crap ) everytime they added a kyo/clone or two there was at least 6 others differents chars

[Veneno]

That's just MY opinion of BB. No need for personal insults. You guys dissed KOF but I ain't gonna cry about it. I've had BB since launch, because i am not complete if i dont get every fight game that comes out, and I even got the chance to play my buddy's early japanese import copy so I know better than any of you.

I'm just saying that in fight games, specials and combos should require skillful input and timing. GG did this well, but BB is too scrub friendly to be taken seriously. But with all the fighters coming out, there is something 4 every one.

PSN ID: Super-Combo- (Yes, two hyphens. Let's fight this out! :)

[N4g_null]

Veneno this game depends on your projectile set up. Each character fights with an exploit and the game is more about using you moves in a successful manner than just knowing or being able to do the moves. It makes the game way more deadlier on top of that I love the character design way better and I grew up drawing SF characters LOL.

It'f nice to see a fan here but this game has the potiential to catch on, easy executable moves and great art, yet a hidden challenge once you meet some one else that is very good at it.

Most projectiles can be jumped over completely. Most real moves involve a combination of two special moves. Which is pretty sweet. The game play flows quite nicely too. I've been playing the import at work all day dissecting it. I really like what they did with this game design.

[Veneno]

But from what I've played there isn't much there. I'm also disappointed by the small roster of characters. you need at least 20 nowadays so there aren't as many mirror matches happening, which is what I've been seeing online with BB.

Arc Systems has made forgettable fighters in the past (Battle Fantasia anyone?), and alot of them don't even leave Japan, which is a shame because I REALLY wanted to play Fist of the Northstar, one of my favorite animes.

What I can say is that this game is absolutely beautiful and I'm glad that Arc Systems and SNK are keeping this style alive, because I am sorely disappointed by the new 2.5D look of Street Fighter. but i guess the Fight game fans are the hardest to please.

[Baka-akaB]

Well i just disagree here . Even as a non-fans of BB (mostly in my case cause i dont like arc's games and style much , and i feel they sacrified the quality of animations for high quality 2d graphics , unlike KOFXII , and animation is a pet peeve of mine) i personally can't deny it's depth .

What you describe here would suit more imo the likes of Melty blood or arcana hearts , funs games but without . hell Arcana fake being deep by killing most possibility of infinite , but that doesnt cut it imo . Both remains fun though but mostly anime like experience for anime fans .

In BB you'll see a lots of Jin and Noel online , because those two are the easiest for spammers . Just like Ken was the choice for scrubs , and like people will flood KOF with kyo and iori (and fail) .
But you wont go that far ahead like that ...

As an example , C button when close is often the obvious choice for Jin spam users. However it's easily predicted and when fully blocked, he will then be completely open .

PS : And i was absolutely pleased by Capcom's 2.5D . IF only KOF could have gone that way for it's 3d version .
Completely retained the style of graphics and animation , while in 3d . And most of all hitbox that are as good than in 2d games , and dont feel awkward like it usually do .

Give me that 3d over Crappy and rigid cellshading any day , like do too many anime fighters nowadays .

[Veneno]

That SF4 is 2.5D, it's that it just plain doesn't look great to me. I think it's because they didn't spend enough time polishing it up. The animations are not very detailed, There are strange deformations in the character models in certain animations, such as chun-li's and Akuma's winning animations you can see odd deformation in their shoulder area when they are winding up their arms.

This is the biggest shortcoming for 3D. Since the in-between frames are produced automatically, there is very little room to change each frame, whereas with old-skool 2D, each frame of animation is created EXACTLY the way the artists want it to look, so therefore, there's no compromise in how anything looks.

[Baka-akaB]

Not detailled enough ?
Again i disagree , i havent seen that good since SF3 , and soon KOF XII .

And actually far too often lately 2d animation do compromise a lot , way too much . I've already said the following in the paste but ..

Take Blazblue (and GG or hokuto no Ken anyway ) , imo sacrificing animation for resolution is not the way to go! . 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.

http://www.zweifuss.com/ check this out, 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.

Nothing come close to SF3 in that regard , except two "cheating" games wich use 3d : SF4 , with it's obvious 2.5d ... and KOF with the use of 3d models first , for the animation , that are then latter redrawn in 2d .

hell it's even why Capcom is so adamant they wont give the Remix treatment to SF3 like some likes to beg . they've even tried it with SF2 HD remix , and it isnt even close yet to SF3 .
i dont see any project of the same caliber coming out , without 3d being involved being it entirely , or partially

[N4g_null]

WOW Baka-akaB you think BB is crap and rigid? Also the characters have different play styles and V-13, and Tagar have to be some of the most deadly characters yet I have not made it too all of them yet.

I'm not really here to be a critic but for those that are reading and wonder what is so special about this game. I have to say it's how the game can be played compared to other fighters. This game rewards constant attacks and it also rewards skilled counters. One mistake can kill you and the action is non stop.

this is how the game is suppose to be played.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

The moves are not just done and some thing happens. You have droppables and even marionettes helper fighters along with spam defeating moves.

You don't find moves like this in many other fighters plus I love the art in this game NOEL's animation are great also. You wouldn't think a gun user would look so cool.

This game is very much made for vets and people smart enough to become vets in fighting games. You have to really pick this system of fighting apart. The true competition is online and at the arcade.

Veneno the deformation you are talking about is because of the tech they are using. 3D studio max lets you slide muscles along the anatomy yet most animation packages in games do not allow this. Seriously 3d is still behind 2d animation. Maybe we will get the poer to use that fix in the next gen.

I agree with the animation thing also yet maybe it's not detail maybe it is just execution and the character of the animation. I think this is also why I like Blazblu alot because their is so much personality dripping for those animations and designs.

Hey we all have our preferences though. It's good to see this game getting some press though I was expecting N4G to ignore it.

[Baka-akaB]

Hum Scissor_runner , i was talking about 3d anime games with cellshading , or if you prefer licensed games .

Games like dbz and bleach with rigid models so unlike the anime they tried to mimics and do so with a coat of pencil shaders around character to make it feels like 2d.

BB isnt rigid animation wise , nor is any 2d fighter obviously anyway , they are all very organic . it's a problem inherent to 3d models that only games like SF4 tried fixing with proper muscles and also (very important ) clothes deformations .

My only beef with BB's animation like i said is them skipping animations for more focus on graphics and poses .

besides gameplay wise i've done nothing but defend the game in this thread

[Veneno]

that the characters actually do feel like they are performing the moves in the game, rather than just seeing some frames of animation in 2D, but it looks like KOF 12 is looking to fill in the gaps. The action in the game looks very fluid, but I agree with runner in that you see the characters personality more with the 2D art style.

Perhaps each fighting game developer should have one series that's pure 2D and one other that's 3D, that way everyone's happy. SNK seems to be the only one heading in this direction with KOF 12 as 2D and the new Samurai Shodown, and possibly a new Maximum Impact, in 3D. It would be sick to see Namco Bandai do a 2D Tekken like fighter, and to see Capcom make a new 2D Hi-res sprite fighter. Even sega should do a 2D fighter.

[Baka-akaB]

SNK isnt good at all with 3d . So until they get a better grip and handling of it , they should just train with new ips in 3d .

Anyway they shouldnt continue the quite awful Maximum impact line , but a new one if they even redo a 3d kof . The upcoming samurai spirit also looks quite awful (not only technically as it looks ps2 gen , but crappy in the gameplay too) .

And it's a shame , i somehow always dreamt of a Last blade/Samurai showdown sporting soul calibur level 3d , or maybe even a crossover with SC .

I however dont see what would Namco be doing with 2d fighting or what would be the point ... not with tekken at least . While goofy and not as deep as VF , Tekken's focus still remains some appearance of realism in both looks and gameplay . They probably dont have big 2d animators left anyway .

Anyway unless Blazblue and KOF are bigger success than expected , in sales , and really on SF4's heels , wich is unlikely ... capcom probably wont go back to full on 2d .
They did with sf2 , because it's their emblem title , and while it sold awesomely well , it was too much work .

With SF4's and Tatsunoko's 2.5d success ... i bet , again unless KOF/BB exlodes things , you wont see a 2d capcom fighter again .

[Veneno]

There's so much rumor and speculation about this game. Do you think it would be a 2 or 2.5 D affair? Same thing with MvC 3.

I just feel that people are lowering their standards when it comes to 3D fighting games. Yes they can be fun, but they just don't have that human touch that the 2D classic style has. I mean,will these new 3D transformers movies ever be as classic as the old-skool 80's 2D? never. 3D technology just isn't advanced enough to a point where devs can make characters exactly as envisioned.

Oh, and I played the hell out of Maximum Impact.

[Baka-akaB]

Well i dont work there , so obviously what i say is just pure conjecture but yeah , i expect the same deal with a possible Capcom VS SNK or Marvel VS capcom , than with Capcom vs tatsunoko . Either 3d with cellshading or sf4's engine , in a 2d representation .

Imo it was pretty much a test drive . Not to mention that i dont see them not milking that new SF4 engine .

With over 50 capcom+marvel characters , there is no way they'd do a 2d game imo with the standards set by games like SF2 hd remix , SF3 , KOF XII , Blazblue .

Too time consuming , expensive and still the silly and oh so wrong stigma that 2d is inferior to 3d , among the general masses .

[N4g_null]

Baka-akaB you are so right about 3d when it comes to making it look like 2d art.

The best answer is morph targets they do what bones can not do but are very expensive for consoles to do spec wise.

I feel your pain though. Good convo I'm out of bubbles now due to the fanboy rages that run this web site LOL. Talk to you another time.

[Gitaroo]

Im one of those angry dood thats nagry about this.

[Midgard228]

luvin it, i think i like it better than guilty gear :)

[John HX]

Because last time I checked, the euros of us who are stuck on a 360 aren't getting this at all... That's some proper injustice for you right there.

[josephayal]

I HAVE THE GAME, IS REALLY AMAZING BUT VERY SLOW

[Sangria]

At least be glad you know you'll have it, Canadians. Here in Europe, we still don't know if we'll ever see it. We had to wait one year for Guilty Gear Judgment on PSP or Guilty Gear XX Reload on PS2.

I'm glad PS3 is zone-free so i'll just import it this week, but i'm not sure European 360 owners can do it as well. Guilty Gear is a great series but it takes one hell of a time to come in Europe.