BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

by Arc System Works

Vitals:

• Fighting game
• Wait for the sale ($9.99)
• Approx 30-45 min for a single play through
• High replay value

There are few things more exhilarating than button desperately mashing punch, kick and block, screaming obscenities while trying to eek out that last bit of damage to bring your buddy down in the third round of a hard fought match. There are also few things more satisfying than hitting a finishing move perfectly to KO your opponent and few things as soul crushing as having victory snatched from your grasp after a rousing start in the final battle. Blazblue: Calamity Trigger offers everything fans of the fighting game genre have come to expect, interesting characters, varied and exotic locales, several modes of play, cheesy voice-overs and best of all the opportunity to beat your friends to a pulp. Unfortunately it doesn't go much beyond that basic formula and the glue that holds these pieces together is spongy at best.

The library of characters isn't huge, but there is definitely variety

The game features 12 playable characters each with their own, somewhat limited, set of moves. The characters speed and style are well varied so player should be able to find at least one that suits them. Command lists contain 10-20 different moves giving non-button mashing players a decent sized arsenal. While none of the moves require vast strings of input to pull off they all require translation from the games designations, “A” for weak attack “B” for medium attack “C” for strong attack and so on, to the control setup the player is using, be it keyboard, PS3 or Xbox 360 controller. It seems likely that this is the result of the cross platform nature of the game though one wonders why the games developers would force the player to do the conversion when they could have easily gotten the computer to do the translating work by simply adding a select controller option.  

All it takes to pull off this move is a charged combo bar and one button. You have to figure out what button that is first though

The game offers several modes of play. The first, and arguably most relevant given the origins of the genre, is arcade mode. Arcade in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is not fundamentally different from any other fighting game. The player chooses a character and must battle each other character in best two out of three match-ups with minimal story line in between. Story mode in contrast involves clicking through unnecessarily long, poorly written, terribly voiced narratives to reach single elimination battles where one loss leads to game over. For some reason the developers also decided to include decision moments in the story line which if navigated incorrectly can lead to an abrupt game over. The game also features versus mode for battling it out with your friends, however if you are playing on PC investing in a few of your favorite controllers will be a good idea since space on one keyboard can get tight. Obviously there is a training mode where players can practice moves and hone their skills against a computer opponent whose behavior they define. And finally the game features score attack mode in which the player battles computer challengers to achieve a high score based on combos, damage taken and number of rounds won.

Sounds interesting right? Yeah, it's not

Overall BlazBlue: Calamity trigger isn't a bad game it’s not an especially good game either. Given the number of characters several hours could be spent beating all of their arcade and story sequences. Replay value for the game increases dramatically if you have a friend who’s into fighting games. The game goes for $9.99 on Steam which seems a little high for this title. So unless you are an avid fighting game fan I’d say you’re better off waiting for a sale on this one.