Hey, lookit! Another fighting game!

I turned on Pandora Radio so I could listen to some music while typing this post, and it gave me a song I haven't heard in a while. I'll probably have it stuck in my head for a while, but I don't really mind.
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I came home on Friday and saw that the PS3 was updating something. This prompted me to look on the stack of games atop the cabinet with all the consoles in it for a new addition, because it seems the PS3 is bound and determined to slowly torment excited players by slapping them with long updates every time you put in a new game. This proved problematic when I was bouncing up and down waiting to play Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time. I wound up running back and forth between two rooms to pass time and put my energy to good use, but I digress. As it turns out, my brother picked up a copy of BlazBlue since the price dropped to $20.

I've seen BlazBlue before. It was one of those games that I looked at when I went into Gamestop, thought "I should look that up," and promptly forgot about by the time I left the store only to repeat the cycle the next time I happened upon the game during another Gamestop visit. As it turns out, BlazBlue is a fighting game that, according to me brother, was meant to be like the Guilty Gear series. That would probably mean so much more if I had ever played Guilty Gear. Still, my interest was piqued, and I casually watched my brother play while I looked up voice actors (it's a habit).

This morning I made my own first attempt at BlazBlue, and chose Carl-Clover as my first character. I've probably made smarter decisions in my life. Ideally, I should have picked a rather simple character who I could use as a entrance to BlazBlue gameplay, but hey Carl's a cute little kid. He's even got a cool hat! The thing that makes Carl a poor learning choice is that to make the most of playing with him you have to use the marionette thing he travels with. The doll, Nirvana, makes up a good chunk (like, half) of Carl's attacks, excluding basic combos, so you have to control her during battle as well as Carl. Given that I have a hard time effectively controlling Carl, this doesn't work out for me. The player has to hold down the X button in order to automate Nirvana, which causes Carl's special Nirvana gauge to drain. Once that's down Nirvana just slumps over broken for a while.

The special moves of the game use the Heat gauge at the bottom of the screen. Distortion moves use fifty percent Heat (with Carl at least), while Astral moves use all one-hundred percent. Carl starts off with three Distortion moves, two of which use Nirvana, and his Astral move can be unlocked later. This video shows all of Carl's special attacks. Using a Distortion or Astral move only requires the correct percentage of Heat along with using the correct stick rotation and button combination.

BlazBlue has a surprising amount of story for a fighting game as far as I know. The game's story mode allows the player to play as any character and follow their story mode path. There are a few different paths to take within each story mode, but some endings may or may not be the true ending. Each character's story mode reveals more about their own personality. Carl calls Nirvana his sister. I'm not quite sure if it's because he really thinks she's his sister, or if he just feels like calling her Sis. I hope to find out. Anyway, getting one-hundred percent on each character's story will probably keep one busy for a while.

I haven't played BlazBlue much yet. Hopefully, I'll remedy that this week so I can get talk more about it next week, but don't hold me to it. Until then, happy gaming. See you next time.

Next time on I've Been Playing for 40 Hours: BlazBlue Part 2 (hey that rhymed!)

4/19/10 Edit:
Thanks to a nice guide that told me which paths I had yet to take, I fully completed Carl's story mode. I've learned a few things from this. Carl's kind of creepy, Jin Kisaragi's a jerk, and Taokaka has at least two different names for Ragna. The first fact made itself known when Carl needed to obtain either Jin Kisaragi or Noel Vermillion's weapon, and then showed up to pretty much say, "Hey, long time no see. I need that weapon. Oh, you won't give it to me? Let's fight!" The second fact showed up when, if Carl loses the fight, Jin uses his ice powers to freeze Carl (partially at least) and decided to kill him. The final fact actually showed up earlier when I was watching my brother play (as well as some of the second fact). Taokaka's a cat who is looking for Ragna the Bloodedge in order to defeat him and get a lot of money for food. At one point she calls him Ragnya (made more hilarious by the fact that she was talking to Ragna but had no idea it was really him), which made me chuckle because "nya" is a cat sound in Japanese. The second name was Rawrgna. I'm kind of hoping she calls him Rawrgnya at some point or another.

I'm getting better at using Carl. A few times in Arcade mode I've managed to attack the enemy from both sides using Carl and Nirvana in tangent. Most of the time Nirvana gets left on the other side of the field until the enemy or myself heads back to the other side. The enemy does so on accident, but I try to get back to the other side so I can hide behind Nirvana.