My New Addiction

Yep, I finally took the fighting game plunge again. Here's a little background. As a kid I used to excel at playing fighting games. I could go to an arcade and waste quite a few hours and a handful of quarters on the likes of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 2 respectively. I was pretty good at it. I like to think it was the fact that as a young man my reflexes were just a bit quicker than they are today. This is one reason why I shied away from fighting games or games that involve twitch game play to begin with. Not that I completely stay away. I am a Modern Warfare 2 fanatic and I do pretty well in the game but it's not because I run around  in the game with a shotgun like all those kids hopped up on energy drinks do. My motor skills aren't up to that speed anymore. But I do play conservatively and you'd be surprised how well that works for some people. 

Anyway, lets not get sidetracked here. In any case, fighting games are all about strategy. As Joseph Gordon-Levitt said on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the other night, playing Street Fighter 2 was almost like playing a form of chess. It takes proper positioning and anticipation for your opponents' movements and habits to be successful. Fast forward a few years and now fighting games are all about button mashing to reach those insane combo levels that kids crave. Not as simplistic and strategic as the days of Mortal Kombat 2 and Street Fighter 2 with their limited animation and effects. This is exactly why I stopped playing.

To be fair though, I'm not saying BlazBlue is in any shape or form simple. This is coming from the crew that brought us Guilty Gear and that's a pretty in depth fighter. No, BlazBlue is less about button mashing and more about timing. It does abide by most of the fighting game rules. Each unique character has their own special moves and abilities which can be chained together to make some pretty devastating combo displays on screen.  Need an example? Check out the video below to see some of the combos that can be done with the character, Hazama, from Continuum Shift. 

Kinda crazy right? Well contrary to what one might think, none of that is accomplished with button mashing. It's all achieved with specific commands that need to be timed appropriately, going off animation cues by the characters. It sounds harder than it really is, although I have to admit it is pretty hard. I've only had the game since Saturday but I'm loving it so far. I will mention that Continuum Shift is different from Calamity Trigger in that it has several other characters, a continuation of the story from Calamity Trigger, as well as a brand new Beginner Mode for all the button mashers out there so they're not left in the cold. So yea, this fighting game has a bit for everyone. Not to mention it has a pretty slick art style. I'm not exactly into anime as much as I used to be but I love the art in this game. Very vibrant and colorful. Not as dark and drab or covered with blood splatters like most fighting games these days. 

In closing, if you're a fan of well tuned fighting mechanics and still enjoy 2-D offerings, this is definitely worth a try.