529

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, which I’ll refer to as CSE from now on, is a 2D fighting game by Arc System Works which has been on the consoles for a while, but was recently ported onto Steam for Windows following their success with their port of the first game in the series, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.

Gameplay

A lot of people find it rather difficult to play fighting games using the Mouse and Keyboard setup, so the game does support controllers, along with local versus mode so you can play against your friends. When compared to other fighters such as Street Fighter, Blazblue’s mechanics are more complex and deeper so its not as great of a pick-up for players looking to learn how to play fighting games but like all things, if you’re dedicated enough to practice, you’ll be able to play the game no problem, though it may take some time compared to people with experience in other fighters. However, if you’re just looking for casual play with friends,  the game comes with a beginner mode, called Stylish, which gives the user one-button combos, similar to Persona 4 Arena’s combat system. Whether you’re new to the BlazBlue series or fighting games in general, CSE offers a fairly in-depth tutorial on the game’s mechanics and general advice for each character in the game so players wanting to learn the franchise can do so without pressure in the tutorial and training modes.

Other gameplay modes included in the game are:

• Versus – A standard 1v1 match against a friend or a computer.
• Score Attack – 1 player fights various computer controlled characters to get a high-score.
• Unlimited Mars – Score Attack with smarter bots and enemies have stronger and alternate abilities.
• Challenge – 1 player attempts to perform combinations of moves (combos) fluidly on a passive bot.
• Abyss – A pseudo-dungeon where players can buy upgrades to their characters to fight against regular and Unlimited Mars

For collectors, you earn currency to buy items with in the gallery, such as the boss characters from Unlimited Mars and the Story, artwork, and additional voice-packs. In addition to all these extra modes that provide plenty to do, especially if you’re still a beginner and have a hard time completing certain modes, the game also comes with a story mode, which I thought was rather long and text-heavy for a fighting game. Some people may like it, others probably won’t since fighting games aren’t usually known for their story. The story is fully voiced in English, also Japanese as DLC which is currently being included for free, presented in a similar style to visual novels, with the character model appearing on screen standstill, and occasional artwork.

The game’s main story is coherent enough and even gives you a playthrough of the previous games’ main plotline, but the writing itself made various out of place references to internet culture and was, in general, so bad that you hope they were trying to be ironic. They have to be right? No one could possibly think naming your main character The Bloodedge was a good idea. Right?

Apart from the main storyline, is a series of lore, entitled, Teach Me Miss Litchi!, which doesn’t offer anything in terms of gameplay, but creates some humorous skits and touch upon the world’s lore, which I admittedly do not follow very well since anything that has to do with multiple universes and time travel just flies right over my head.

The game’s online is rather barebones, but functions without any major hiccups. The standard amount of settings for 1v1 versus like, the number of rounds, duration of each round, how many players can be in the lobby, who gets to participate in the next round, usage of special characters, and whether to make a private/public/ranked (to play for Player Skill Rating and earn a spot on the leaderboards) lobby are all included, but not much more.

Graphics

Being a 2D fighter, the game’s graphics were never that demanding to begin with so being on the PC doesn’t offer as much in terms of graphical improvements as it would with other genres. While it does output in “native” 1080p compared to the consoles’ 720p output, it doesn’t seem to do anything as the graphics both in-game and in the menus look identical to their console counterparts, even with Anti-Aliasing set to 4x (the maximum the game allows).

The artwork and in-game backgrounds are very visually appealing, but doesn’t really mean much when the in-game character models and even the menus are so jagged.

Audio

The game’s voice acting was done fairly well in both the English and Japanese dubs of the game. I thought the game’s soundtrack was really solid, but lacked variety as  pretty much every track in the game was a variation of fast-paced, anime theme song, so people who don’t enjoy that style of music probably won’t enjoy this game’s soundtrack either. The game’s sound effects were varied enough too so you have a good idea of what’s happening and won’t get confused by the verbal diarrhea that tends to occur when people start executing faster combos since all the game’s characters seem to love shouting out what move they’re using.

Verdict

One of the issues of the game I didn’t talk about previous was that this was a port of a game originally released 4 years ago on consoles, with the DLC included in the Extend edition only being a year younger. In that time, consoles have already received the series’ next installment, Chronophantasma, which is likely to be ported onto Steam eventually as well. The game also carries a $30 price point on Steam while you could it for $20 on consoles rather easily.

Pros

• A lot of game modes
• Great soundtrack for fans of anime-style songs
• Good art direction
• A fairly detailed story mode for a fighting game
• Very deep game mechanics

Cons

• Not as many characters compared to other fighting franchises
• Cringe inducing writing
• No real graphics upgrades from the console version so everything looks jagged and blurry
• No variety in the soundtrack
• Barebones online
• Outdated game
• Price point

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend is an extremely solid fighter in terms of gameplay mechanics and the variety of modes you can play offline, however the game’s online features are rather minimal and despite the upgrade from console to PC hardware, no real improvements are made to the game’s visuals. The game is also a hard sell since the game’s price point is extremely high for a port of a 4 year old game, especially when you know the sequel is already out on consoles and probably will be ported to the PC as well. If you’re looking a relatively challenging, fast-paced fighting game and don’t mind the game’s cost despite being outdated, CSE is definitely a game you should pick up, and a solid:

8/10