Guilty Gear to BlazBlue…so how’s it going?

Hello internets,

My name is Christine, and I’m a fairly awkward semi-otaku with anti-social tendencies, so naturally, I work at Thumbmonkey. Besides anime and manga, video games are a huge part of my life – particularly 2D fighters and RPGs, and yes, I share Mike’s soft spot for retro games (FFIV, FFVI, Tetris Attack, and MegaMan 3 are some old favorites).

Ahhhh, memories....

So this Sunday, I spent a solid 8 hours straight playing even more BlazBlue. For years I’ve been into Guilty Gear (stubbornly maining Anji), so much that I haven’t really moved on from Accent Core on PS2, so BlazBlue is my first real go at a current gen fighter. There were some brief attempts at SoulCalibur IV and Street Fighter IV, but let’s save that trauma for later.

So BlazBlue is awesome. There are so many features and new shiny things and pretty character design – though at first, I had some mixed feelings. I really had my doubts about the “Easy Specials” settings (using directions on the right analog stick to automatically perform special and drive attacks) – probably where the notion that BB is just “GG for casuals” came from (not that I’m so hardcore anyway). Of course, it can be disabled, but really? Easy specials?

But the more I get into it, the more I realize that hoping to pick it up and feel as at home as I do with GG was entirely the wrong approach. When I first started playing BB, it felt so weird compared to what I expected. I considered switching the D button to HS position; blocking with A and B instead of P and K was so awkward; accidentally doing a Barrier Burst while trying to block was a bit of a nightmare; even figuring out where to look took me some getting used to. But it is actually starting to feel comfortable now that I know a bit of what I’m doing, at least enough to stop rage button mashing or spamming D quite so much. I’ve somehow managed to work my way to Level 30 with Noel, and getting the “Carpal Tunnel” trophy is sadly rewarding in its own way.

Noel is my new Anji...they both have a weapon in each hand, so it was an obvious choice right?

So what most impresses me is the network play. This is a totally new addictive experience for me, enough that I end up just hitting Quick Match, and before I know it, it’s 3 AM. I might even start looking forward to the snarky-comment headset guys, it is so much fun, and so much more rewarding than just playing the CPU. Arcade or story on Hell difficulty doesn’t even push you to strategize the way that another person will. (And somehow Hakumen and Nu seem easier on Hell – wtf?)

Thanks to my older brother, I also like watching video games, and the ability to review matches from other players is amazing to me. That you can go to the ranking lists and download a match from just about anyone (like the top-ranked player of your favorite character) is just so nice. Even if I watch and think “Wow, I suck compared to them,” it’s totally worth it to see the combos, holy crap the combos. I prefer watching matches, but there are also some really nice combo videos out there:

So BlazBlue has a really complex story and all this unlockable artwork, and I just waste time playing arcade (practicepracticepractice!!!) and network matches. I’ll get around to the rest of it eventually, but until then, I’ll be failing against every Tager on PSN.

Tl;dr: BlazBlue, party time, excellent. I hate Tager.

Add comment August 4th, 2009