BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend - Review

"This is a total rip-off - but it's still damn well worth it!"

BlazBlue first appeared as an arcade title in japan in July 2005, with unexpectedly high success, so a home port soon followed. This marked the return of 2D fighters on home consoles - although not without some fierce competition from Capcom.

But this happened quite a while ago, so let's just time jump to the present.

In February 2012, Arc System Works released the fourth entry of the BlazBlue series - but technically speaking, it was only the third update of the second game, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. Why they did that? Shits 'n giggles might not be too far away, but it was mainly due to the constant work they continued to put into Continuum Shift. But where most dev teams simply drown you in

updates and DLC, ASW decides to "disc" you to death AFTER some expensive DLC. In short: after Continuum Shift was released, three additional characters were thrown out as 8$ DLC, then they released Continuum Shift 2 for portable consoles (with all DLC included),

and THEN they decided to release Continuum Shift "Extend" for PS3, XBox360 and PSVita - all DLC included, of course. But there's more to it than it seems at first. And this is where this wall of text might start to become actually informative.

So, enough useless stuff, let me introduce you to BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND!

-GAMEPLAY-

The control basics are easy enough to understand: move forward/backward and jump with the Analog Stick, attack with the four buttons on the left of your controller (just in case you didn't know). So far, so useless - this won't help as much as you might hope, so let's go into more detail:

Each character has Weak(A), Normal(B) and a Heavy(C) attacks, but there's also a Drive(D) move whose effects are different for each character: some have more attacks, others have special skills for several strategies, and so on... the differences between

the characters are so high that none of them play equally, but require different approaches towards victory. Mastering these ways is only one of many means to win a fight, but the special mechanics complicate this task even further by allowing you to

cancel your attacks, smash the opponent away via Burst, or breakhis defense and leave him helpless for some seconds.All of this comes packed in a high-speed fighting system with near endless possibilities and 19 playable characters. Add 10 different

modes to it and you might get an idea of just how BIG this game is.

Gameplay-wise, BlazBlue takes the cake in the fighter department. Perfect balancing, various action possibilities and a fleshed-out combo-driven fighting system give this game enough depth to keep (especially competitive) gamers busy for hundreds of hours. But the

controls are considerably difficult compared to many other fighters. The inputs for special moves are sometimes very complex which can be rather intimidating against beginners. The high learning curve and difficulty spikes easily frustrate button-smashers and

first-timers alike, but once the basics are mastered, it becomes much easier to learn new stuff. It's the players patience for the most part that decides wether to keep the game or to toss it in the corner.

Rating: 87/100%

-STORY-

The story of Continuum Shift Extend slightly "extends" (hahaha...) the one of Continuum Shift, but is still the same around. For those who missed Calamity Trigger (shame on you!), there's a quick reprise of the plot leading into Continuum Shift. It's still not the same

as playing through the long version yourself, but it'll have to do. Basically, you play every characters story separately, so it's really hard to say where to start... I'll just have you experience it yourselves, period.

The plot of Continuum Shift itself is still full of mind-cracking twists, weird open endings and even more unanswered questions. Every characters' story has a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a Gag Ending. None of them are either the "right" or the "wrong" ending - instead,

the story modes are like a collection of two possible outcomes and one hilariously off end in which the game itself becomes a joke. This makes it hard to keep track of what is important and what isn't, but eventually you MIGHT get it sorted out.

A complex plot isn't automatically a good one, of course... but in this case, it is. In fact, the sotry is very good - if you're into animé or japanese stories in general. The plot mostly plays off like an interactive animé with battles, including all the goods, but also

quite some bads. Though it's very fleshed-out, parts of the plot are just plain bad cliché of the animé world - especially on the personality plane, where from the dumb hero over the dead-serious rival and the naive (dumb) blonde with key importance to sadistic kids,

everything is in here, making the characters' personalities seem very unoriginal, yet it isn't annoying sice it still fits them well and is also explained by their backstories.

To cut it, the story is awesome, but requires a lot of time from you to get a grasp of it. It's animé-styled plot devices make it a little

hard for some to get interested in the story, but once you're into it, you're receiving one of the best stories in fighter history.

Rating: 89/100%

-GRAPHICS-

Arc System Works has been famous for it's awesome hand-drawn 2D sprite animations as well as unique character designs (Guilty Gear fans

know what I'm talking about). And BlazBlue doesn't slack of at all, it takes it even further with HD sprites! During the story mode, you also have various character portraits accompanying their text boxes which have only eye blinking and mouth movement, but lively facial expressions. But the battles are a different book... Every character has more than 2000 (read: two freaking thousand!) frames completely hand-drawn, giving them all a load of different animations for just about everything. The backgrounds are a beautiful mix of 3D animations and even more animated 2D sprites (some stages even have weather effects or similar stuff). When actively fighting, every attack is joined by flashing effects and the especially cool Distortion Drives and Astral Heats launch a firework off effects all over the screen, but without overlaying the fight itself. All of this adds up to a party for the eyes.

Rating: 91/100%

-SOUND-

When it comes to sound, everything Arc System Works does is simply EPIC! Even in their early years, their games stood out for their great voice actings and spectacular music. And again, BlazBlue doesn't disappoint you even in the slightest. The voice actors of the BlazBlue characters are outstanding. They manage to express the characters emotion in a way that makes you feel

with the character, whether it's anger, joy or sadness, as if they were real. The variety of comments during fights between certain characters also deliver a lot of emotion between them, making the experience even more intense. But fans of the BlazBlue games were more

than just disappointed for a valid reason: unlike before, Arc System Works didn't leave the english voice acting to the US publisher AKSYS Games, but decided to do it themselves - with only few of the original voice actors. This results in different voices for the same characters

in one game (the existing dialogues weren't rerecorded). Those who never played BlazBlue before won't be bothered much by that. But the fanbase had to endure the alternate voices during every new story chapter, which can be really annoying. But voices ain't it all... the best about the BlazBlue series (audio-wise) is the music.

The soundtrack is full of energetic heavy rock tracks (some even with vocals) with each character having at least one own track. The composer of the soundtrack, Daisuke Ishiwatari, blends modern electronic sounds and heavy guitar riffs with different music styles like jazz, classic

or pop by adding a wide range of different instruments. This results in a collection of awesomeness with something fitting everyones tastes. Additionally, there are a lot of orchestral tracks for the story mode building up the tension of the situation.

Rating: 94/100%

-SUMMARY-

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend is a great follow-up for the franchise. The new stories solve a lot of questions while adding even more new to it, the voice cast, though inconsistent, is great, and the soundtrack is just as epic as ever. The fighting system itself retained its depth

and high difficulty, and the new modes add even more challenge to the already challenging game in general. Beginners might have a hard time, but patience and hard work will pay off with one of the greatest 2D fighters to have ever been created.

Total Rating: 90/100%

by Kaze