Fedra reviews Blazblue

Fedranime reviews

Blazblue Continuum Shift

Hello I am Fedra the bloodedge. As many of you know, I really like anime. If you didn’t know, well screw you. I’m a huge fan of many other reviewers such as Nostalgia Critic, Linkara, and the Spoony Experiment. So after a while I thought of making my own reviews of anime and video games that I like.  So what better way to start something new than with something I really like, Blazblue Continuum Shift for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation.

 

Blazblue is a fighting game by AKSYS games, best known for their previous work on

Guilty Gear series. I’m just going to come out and say this, I really love this game. It has a good story, the characters are amazing and actually have depth and goals, and the fighting is beautifully orchestrated. So lets dive in and see what the story is.

The game begins with an amazing anime style opening that I just have to watch every time I start up the game. We also are given an introduction to the backstory and the main characters. If you never played Calamity Trigger which came before this like me, this is going to be a godsend because you will be lost without it. Apparently there was this thing called the black beast which went around and terrorized everyone. Then these guys called the 6 heroes showed up (Half of which you can play as) and killed it. Unfortunately the beast created a substance called seithr which can kill people over time, forcing humanity to relocate to the tops of mountains. A few years later we get our protagonist, Ragna the Bloodedge (seem familiar) who wants to overthrow the government in charge of the cities because we need a plot.

Now, Blazblue has multiple story campaigns, each one for different characters such as Ragna, Jin, and Noel. Each one has a true ending, and bad ending, and unfortunately, a gag ending. While the true and bad endings are really good, the gag endings are a bit weird though I will address that later. Each one is very good and allows you to actually get a feel for the characters. For example I originally hated Carl Clover because he is weak, has bad attacks, a stupid drive, and relies mostly on his doll to attack for him. After finishing his story campaign, I still hate him for those reasons but I have SOME respect for him. In my opinion, the best story campaigns are Bang’s and Taokaka”s (Don’t ask)

Now lets move onto the important part. The combat. The combat is really good. The characters each have their own unique fighting styles and can pull of cool finishing moves. There’s also a trick were if you use their taunt at the beginning of the battle they have enough energy to pull of their strongest finisher right at the start. Personally I really like using Makoto, Valkenhyme, and Bang in my fights for multiple reasons. Bang is incredibly powerful and it’s just cool to see the amount of ham this guy’s personality is made of.  Valkenhyne is just a badass battle butler who can transform into a werewolf. And Makoto has incredibly strong attacks and is the fastest character in the game. Also, this is the game for button mashers. Right at the beginning of each match you can choose to go into stylish mode which basically means if you hit the B button enough times and randomly press the arrow pad you can use their strongest attacks.

Now comes the part that I really don’t like, what is wrong with the game. One of the most glaring issues I have with the game is the gag endings. When I was playing through Ragna’s campaign there came the choice of either sleeping or training. Unaware of the effects I chose sleeping. What happened can only be described as trippy since it involves Ragna getting flattened by Tager, who then explodes on him, being chased by Jin, Terumi, Cal, and Arakune, and finally being traded to them for a tuna. At the time I was not aware of the gag endings so I was just thinking “What the crap?” all the way through. However some of the gag endings, such as Bang or Carl’s are actually quite good and sometimes touching. Of course this brings up my next issue, the characters. One of the ones who really creeps me out is Jin Kisaragi, Ragna’s brother. I’m not sure if it’s just an intense rivalry or something else but every time the two show up in a scene together it’s essentially just Jin yelling out “WAHAHAHA! AT LAST DEAR BROTHER! WE MEET AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME FOR THE LAST TIME! IMA STAB YOU WITH MUH ICE KATANA!” This might seem weird, but Jin is not my least favorite character, no that is reserved for someone else, who I hate to my entire core. PLATINUUM THE FRACKING TRINITY, as shown on the right. She is essentially EVERY anime I hate, Sailor Moon, Arcanna Heart, and Fracking Mermaid Melody all rolled into an annoying body that I can’t wait to beat the crap out of! Heck, her pupils are FRACKING HEARTS! Do you also want to stave her head in in versus mode because I would so join you in that!

All in all, despite all of the bad parts of the game, it’s still very good. It’s not perfect but it’s always fun to play and most of the characters are likeable. I cannot recommend this game higher, go out and buy it if you have a 3DS or PlayStation. That’s it for the first edition of Fedranime reviews. Catch you later.