It has been a long time since the 1001 list has given us a fighter, and an even longer time since it has said we need to play one with two-dimensional sprites taking the spotlight, but two fighters are coming along at once here, starting with BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.
'Calamity' might as well be a descriptor of my efforts in fighting games. Notoriously complex and deep, the fighting genre exists for passionate fans to devote hours and hours in search of true mastery of a single character, let alone a single game.
Me? Just give me the one and looks cool and show me where the do stuff button is...
Frustrations
Calamity Trigger opens with an anime montage of shots and people that mean absolutely nothing to us, and will likely not look anything like their in-game counterparts, but for once that's not because of the limits of early consoles, but because not even purposely drawn anime can match the sheer detail and style that the game will show us.
The introduction to the story mode shows barely any animation at all, as some scientists a few hundred years into the future have some problems with something or other, again none of which makes sense to anybody picking up the game for the first time.
I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia and nothing matches, so don't worry about any of this. Besides, BlazBlue is a fighting game, and what fighting game has ever had a good story mode? That's not what they do, but here I am, seeing if this game happens to be the exception to the rule.
It is not. It really, really, is not. Whether a result of the translation or the voice work, this story is awful, and it just keeps going.
Five minutes later, we find out it was all a bloody dream anyway, so what have we learned? This guy has siblings? One of which is a dick, the other probably dead? If I read Wikipedia right, this guy is the bad guy, but this dream of his paints him as the good guy.
Is that a case of expert-level writing which tells us that bad guys think they're actually the good guys? No. It's just bad writing, and it's only going to get worse.
It's time for our first BlazBlue fight. I'm on the PC version here, controller in hand, with nothing but the controller settings menu to tell me what the gist of the combat system is. I'm not one for tutorials in fighters, clearly. If it feels cool and lets me look good, I'll be interested. If I have to learn what a dash-cancel is and then perfect its use, I'm out.
The game has pretty much every button dish out some kind of attack, from weak little jabs to screen-filling visual masterpieces - providing you can make sense of what on Earth is going on, and know what on Earth it was that allowed you to do that.
Ragna here moved like his shoes were made of concrete, and I was immediately put off by that. Waggle the right analogue stick, though - because every button is made use of - and the artwork comes alive, with effects that dazzle and wow, and hopefully show me hitting the target and dishing out some damage.
It's hard to tell sometimes. With backgrounds as impressively created as the characters and a camera that is fine with not bothering to follow and frame the action, you can lose yourself quite easily.
Oh, for goodness sake. Calamity Trigger is not doing itself any favours.
I play board and card games of all kinds. Some people play only what their friends are playing, like Magic or Pokémon. Some people play only what their friends are playing, but it's some nerdy Japanese import game that sells itself on its artwork, which usually involves absurdly proportioned women, uncomfortably young women, and animals saying the darnedest things, and you look at these people and say to yourself "Well, that's weird.", and they try to convince you that, no, actually it's a clever game and the look is just how they do things in Japan, we don't really like young cartoon women, really, no, not us.
Puh-lease. BlazBlue is not as in-your-face as some properties I've seen, both video game and tabletop, but this shit just drives me up the bloody wall. It's not even the sexism or objectification of women that's my problem here, it's just that it feels like it has been written by a thirteen-year-old that might grow up to regret what he's written, but you know there's a chance they won't.
And you know what the worst part is? It all looks really rather nice.
Fun Times
Abandoning the story mode for the arcade mode we're onto character number 3 in my search for someone who moves at any sort of pace and attacks when I want them to - incredible, really, for a game with more attack buttons than buttons.
It's Jin's turn to try and impress me and, slowly but surely, he does. I absolutely cannot say that I'm getting to grips with the mechanics, because I most definitely am not, largely button-mashing my way into being rewarded with these lavish visual effects.
Regular attacks look like a highly polished sequence of sprites giving you just as much information that you need, and way more detail than you can ever see in real-time. Find some fancier attacks, though, and you'll be pulling off some proper anime nonsense.
Numbers and status alerts fill up the screen, I don't know what any of them mean. So long as the opponents' health bar goes down after I do something, I'm good.
Do I know what's going on at the bottom of the screen? Not a clue. Do I know what a barrier is? Hey, I don't even know how to block. I'm amazed that after an abysmal showing in the story mode, I'm churning through this arcade mode like it's no big deal.
My brother, the Grim Reaper, goes down like a chump, becoming my 9th victim of the 10-challenger arcade mode. Who or what is the big bad thing that awaits us? The characters have all been different, but none of them are what I'd call memorable. I've not seen any designs that I want to see more of, but I am interested to see who dares stand against me next.
Some kind of portal opens up, whatever those scientists were working on way back in the story mode intro, and out pops a mechawoman or something.
Anyone know how to block a machine gun?
Final Word
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger didn't get off to a good start, and the first few fights didn't help its cause either. But these graphics are crisp and then some. Perhaps a little too fancy in places, but this is a world where magic and science are fused and it kinda sorta comes across in the graphic design? Ish?
As time went on and I was more successful at actually managing to do something that looked nice - always through dumb luck rather than skilful inputs - Calamity Trigger was growing on me. Not overwhelmingly so, like Yakuza or something, but it wasn't the kind of nonsense that results in a turd to be avoided.
If you don't like the characters, you won't find a reason to stay. If you prefer 2D fighting to 3D fighting, you might have a reason to stay. If you want to see some flashy fighting, you can certainly check it out and hopefully find what you're looking for. But BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger needs you to be a fan of what it offers, and ultimately, I'm not.
It's not that weird Japanese game that weirdos enjoy that I said earlier. It's weird, but let's be honest, it could be a whole lot worse. However, you're probably only going to enjoy it a lot if you're that kind of person to begin with, and you know who you are.
There's nothing wrong with who you are, and there's nothing wrong with liking BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. It looks excellent in a lot of places. It plays worse. It reads worse. It's worth a look at least.
Fun Facts
To get an idea of the kind of passionate fan you are if you like BlazBlue, check out this line from Wikipedia: "This patch is stated to correct several bugs, such as the odd volume glitches regarding Rachel's lightning attacks and "Omae no Tettsui ni Kugi wo Ute!" (the former being occasionally too loud, and the latter suddenly becoming very quiet when Bang is hit during the Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan)."
Never change, nerds. Never change.
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, developed by Arc System Works, first released in 2008.
Version played: PC, 2010.