Forum - View topicThe X Button - Into the Blue
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Temuthril
Posts: 45 |
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Playing as a girl was possible in Rune Factory 2 atleast, as far as I know. |
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toddc
 Posts: 164 |
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Oh God, I was going to mention that in this week's column, but the character design really disturbed me, far past the usual moe-girl fighting game stuff.
You might be thinking of Daemon Bride. I didn't review it, though, and I don't believe a PS2 release was announced. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15335 |
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Hyuga: It's no the discs. It's the money for the dub actors.
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roesnail
Posts: 67 Location: San Diego |
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actually i think its not as bad as arcana heart. you should do a review in the next column. or at least tell everyone there is a free fighting game for download but its not your cup of tea |
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kamui85
Posts: 267 |
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Yes that’s the one! Daemon Bride! I thought it was for the PS2... but at least now I know its name! Thanks a lot! |
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Ashura Danshaku
Posts: 9 |
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Excellent job on the BlazBlue review; I think Todd pretty much nailed everything regarding this game. Especially Noel's character. Good God, I hate Noel. Thankfully, she's not nearly as terrible a matchup for Tager as, say, Arakune or Nu.
As a guy who is ultimately a fighting game fan first and an anime fan second, I was really skeptical about how much I really wanted to play BlazBlue, primarily because of the game's aesthetics. Anime-wise, this really isn't my beat; it's a little too, um, teenage for my liking. Too many belts, too many zippers, too many insipid shonen-manga one-liners I could call by the numbers. I can't help but think when I tap my foot through most people's story mode routes that "This would have been a lot cooler to me when I was, um, fourteen." (For the record, I am twenty-five.) Compared to the Guilty Gear cast, I believe that BlazBlue's relatively straight-faced cast is vastly underwhelming. Where BlazBlue's characters rely more on one's affinity for a certain kind of anime trope (the Goth-Loli vampire princess, the angsty shonen hero, the psychotic pretty boy, the HOT-BLOODED NINJA OF JUSTICE, the...hopelessly meek, incredibly thick, easily molested...police...girl?), I always felt like you didn't NEED to be an otaku to appreciate Guilty Gear's characters, and that was a great strength of their designs. You didn't need to watch one bit of anime to appreciate the bizarre awesomeness of a nine-foot-tall doctor with a paper bag over his head swimming through the ground to stab people in the ass with a scalpel. Or the effeminate little bounty-hunter boy in a nun habit and short-shorts with a gigantic handcuff around his waist, fighting people with a razor-bladed yo-yo and a mean-ass teddy bear. Shit, even the "serious" characters in Guilty Gear were amazingly goofy, be it the shirtless assassin guy with his face completely hidden by his hair who kills people with magic billiard balls, or perhaps the leggy assassin lady who can turn her hair into a sword or ride it like a surfboard. Even Ky and Sol were kinda goofy in their own way, what with the one's hobby being "collecting teacups" versus the other "LISTENING TO QUEEN". If anything, the story mode only adds to my disdain for the character designs; certain characters that I found merely boring knowing only how they PLAY became almost impossible to stomach knowing how stupid their story mode was (Again: Noel.) To be fair, others in the Story Mode proved at least mildly amusing (Bang, to a lesser extent Tager, Taokaka, and Rachel). Ragna in particular threw me for a loop as being much more amusing in Story Mode than he appears, if only for the almost mood-breaking crassness of his frat-boy comebacks to the dense expository monologues he has to sit through. I'm not really familiar with the guy who dubbed him for the English version, but he does a really good job with the delivery; he makes this guy a lot funnier than he ought to be! But that's enough with the negativity. In spite of the Story Mode, I really do like this game! Or at least, I like the way it plays. This game can be very accurately characterized as "Guilty Gear, but easier to learn." The vast majority of the core Guilty Gear mechanics remain, but a lot of the arcane fat from the system has been trimmed and there's generally less confounding elements for the novice player to face going in (less weird buffering mechanics and more emphasis on timing in order to land basic combos). I particularly like the new Barrier Gauge system, allowing Guilty Gear's Faultless Defense (chip-free blocking) to be used without consuming super meter. This is a godsend for characters that are prone to being put on the defensive like Tager; avoiding chip is much easier now without having to sacrifice precious super meter that you can only regain by getting in close and attacking -- obviously, a tall order for a huge, slow character with short-range attacks like Tager. The KOF-like throw combo system is also neat, allowing players to gamble the risk of a throw escape for the reward of higher, unscaled combo damage or tighter tick throws. (Or alternately, to be a jerk and rip apart poor newbies who are still learning how to tech.) However ho-hum their aesthetic designs may be, the mechanical PLAYSTYLES of BlazBlue's characters are all excellent and very well differentiated. With the vast array of character-specific subsystems, it's often accurately said that each character is almost a different game unto themselves. (Carl would be JoJo, Jin would be...Guilty Gear, I guess, and Rachel and Arakune would definitely qualify for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. George XIII = best Beta assist EVER!) Furthermore, certain of these characters seem to be great improvements on their Guilty Gear archetypes. My boy Tager in particular seems to be a real improvement on the Potemkin model. He doesn't have the raw mobility that Potemkin does to close the gap rapidly after a knockdown, but he compensates for that lower mobility with tools that help him a lot more in his absolute worst matchups -- namely, characters like Arakune and Nu, who have the power to pin him down with projectiles from way outside his attack range. He can magnetize the opponent to suck them closer to his attack range (no more jumping backwards for free, unless you like the taste of ATOMIC COLLIDER!), he can defeat projectiles outright with Sledge (often with a free combo or tick throw afterwards), he can defend against projectile supers like Jin's and Hakumen's with Voltic Charge (seriously, program Jin to throw his super the next time you're in training mode and hold down Voltic Charge. I guarantee at least a smile!), and he has an excellent desperation move in the form of Spark Bolt to catch and reel in a fleeing opponent. This doesn't make him much stronger than most heavyweight grapplers in these kinds of games, but it does reflect a very practical design consideration of what matchups you can overcome simply by manning up/being more clever/abusing backdash -> command throw (Noel, Rachel, Jin) and in what kind of matchups such a character actually needs a bigger, meaner gun in order to compete (again, Arakune and Nu). Bad matchups will always exist even in the best-balanced fighting games, but Arc's progressive attitude in developing Tager's moveset is really admirable here. Lastly, the tutorial/combo videos included with the deluxe edition are a HUGE feather in BlazBlue's cap. You'll still have to go to forums and YouTube for the full skinny on how the game works and plays, but the tutorial videos all do an excellent job of at least introducing confused new players to the kind of potential they can approach with their character of choice. (None of the tutorial videos can compare to Mike Z's excellent and hilarious Tager tutorial, though. 360 + B is indeed REAL SOVIET DAMAGE!) Bottom line is, as Todd observes, BlazBlue has a lot of growth potential as a game. I'll never be enamored with the story, but I will be thrilled as hell to see what kind of new mechanics they can introduce with any new characters they eventually introduce. EDIT: My only real nitpick with the review itself would be this:
Mai gets a really bad rap! Sure, it's hard to get past the "I am playing as a half-naked ninja babe with a rack like a watermelon stand" at first, but she's a surprisingly serious character in terms of how generally usable she's been in pretty much every game she's appeared in. And she has a surprising dark-horse angle going for her if you're even remotely good as her, too! You'd be surprised at the number of otherwise sharp, experienced players I've gotten a gimmick one-character victory on simply because they've never actually played against a real Mai player before! It's a shame she's not in KOF XII... I felt exactly the same when I played Rachel, though. She may be vampiric pedo bait in an excessively silly dress, but good God that frog is AMAZING. George XIII is my BOY. |
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Dreyc
Posts: 2 |
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Honestly I think all of the Blazblue characters have a feel that can be traced back to Guilty Gear characters. This comes from not from just looking at them, but getting a hands on feel for all their moves and trying out combos because I was trying to pick out a sub character for tournaments. Here's what I think they boil down to.
Ragna = Sol INFANO DEBAIDAA / BORUKANIKKU BAIPAA spam Jin = Ky ASOKA DA / COCONUT spam Noel = A.B.A. When you go into her drive there's that heavy feel like those guns weigh a ton which definitely felt like A.B.A's released mode. You also end a lot of combos with an air juggle into that revolver move like A.B.A's key eating thing. Also she has pretty insane priority during drive. Taokaka = Millia Nothing but crazy fast, a double IAD as well as a spammable move when they're in the corner. Litchi = Bridget/Venom Her move set changes whether she has the staff or not and I did a lot better when she had it for some reason, but her staff swings are pretty slow. But seeing as how you can set up that thing anywhere then issue a return attack is a lot like Bridget play. Iron Tager = Potemkin I hate the CPU when it picks this character. It always gets that annoying grab you there goes half your life move. Just the same as Potemkin. V-13/Nu = Dizzy As soft as paper but she can push back pretty nicely with her drive swords and grav shield. Just play get away and spam your stuff. Carl = Zappa Pet deals a lot of damage, but he can certainly hold his own if it's on the other side of the screen. Rachel = Testament Tree spam tree spam skull spam. Give her a full screen move too please. Arakune = Slayer This was surprising actually as I thought he would be Eddie, but he moves really slow and his dashes are teleports that can go through people. His moves are also fairly delayed, but hit hard. Bang = Anji Because of all the flair he puts into his moves, he's a lot slower than he could be, but even during those frame delays he can generate a hit much like Anji does when he twirls around and such. Hakumen = Kilff/Johnny/Baiken He moves a lot like Johnny with his hops and that funky kick attack that knocksback. But his sword swings are really slow and powerful like Kliff. His drive is based off counters to add a little Baiken spice in there. |
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