BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Standard Edition

 (8 customer reviews)

This is a fantastic game. The amount of care and attention that went into its creation is constantly evident. There are three main things rare among fighters that this game does enormously well:

1) The fighting style of each and every character is creative and meticulously crafted to be unique and fun;
2) Despite that, the game is somehow finely balanced;
3) The deeper aspects of the game do have a steep learning curve, but enough shortcuts are etched into that hill that newbies should keep up admirably and enjoy learning.

How it manages to pull off all these things so well is a mystery to me. I would place BlazBlue high on a list of examples of game design as art.

The downside of these balancing acts is the relatively small number of characters, but personally I'm fine with that. There's no question that the game delivers enough meat to sink one's teeth into, more than this and it might be difficult to chew. The music and graphics are also...Read more

I got Blazblue almost a year after the initial release. I'm fed up with Street Fighter 4. I'm tired of being torn to shreds online because of the precise timing combos require and how anyone with a fightstick can whoop me because they aren't using an XBox controller and have access to a turbo button. And because they've been using Ryu since they first played Street Fighter 2. Hadoken then Shoruken when I jump. I get it.

Blazblue is everything Street Fighter 4 isn't, but in the best way possible. It's 2D. It's got a clean, anime style that brings it 's twelve characters to life. Twelve may not seem like many, all the characters are brand new and there are NO clones. It does take a LOT of time to really know each individual character's best combos, however. Combos people will teach you over the great online mode. There's no "Create a Lobby" going on here. Search for a match, and you appear in everyone else's searches. Connections are good (unless indicated other wise), and as...Read more

This is not street fighter, and I think the comparisons to it are unfair. Street fighter is a different game and requires very different strategies regardless of the fact that they're in the same genre.

The story mode and character design will bother you if you can't stand anime. If you can get past that though, you're in for a treat.

BlazBlue is about combos, more combos and beautiful finishers. Every character plays VERY differently, they all have their strengths and weaknesses but they're not obvious when you first start playing. The battle system is based around using combinations of single buttons with different directions and rotations to accomplish different moves, however unlike street fighter, there's only a weak, medium, strong, drive (special), and grabs rather than dividing up kicks and punches. Blocking can aid you, but only up to a point.

The graphics are amazing. It uses 2D sprites and brilliant hand drawn backgrounds to create a feast...Read more