I’ll be the first one to say this: I am a TRUE fighting game freak! Everything from Street Fighter to Smash Brothers is in my Library. It’s looking like 2009 is the year of the fighter with titles like Street Fighter IV already here and King of Fighters and Tekken just around the corner. One fighter that should be on your radar or in your library is BlazBlue. This is a fighter geared towards the quick combo fans “a la” Guilty Gear and Marvel Vs Capcom.

BlazBlue is brought to us by the same crew that gave us Guilty Gear, they show us that the 2D fighting genre is alive and strong.

Visually this game amazing!! The BlazBlue style is all about the “over the top.” Picture a Dragon Ball Z fight but with more awesomeness. High Rez sprites fight in front of vibrant and alive backgrounds while the animations are fluid and nailed down to the teeth; when it comes to anything involving anime that’s saying a lot (bring on the hate mail). There’s enough flash and pizazz in this game to cause an epileptic seizure with special moves ranging from electrical sparks to awesome fire and particle effects.

Player 1 Pwned

The Soundtrack in this game, for lack of a better word is SICK!!!! We’re talking about heavy speed metal (dare I say it? Dragon force style). The game sports a Dual Language track which is good if you are one of those people who just has to watch anime in Japanese. Me? I could give a crap. Surprisingly the English track is really well done. If you don’t believe me just turn on the DOA English track and compare. No, seriously, go ahead and do it! Basically what I’m trying to say is that this game has some of the best ear candy out there.

Maybe they'll just talk it out...?

Enough about the graphics and sound. Lets talk about the real reason you be playing this game. The game play. BlazBlue is your basic 4 button fighter. (light, Medium, Heavey, Special) That doesnt mean it’s to simple for the hardcore player and it’s not too hard for the beginner. Pretty much if you’ve played Guilty Gear you’ll feel right at home with BlazBlue. The game has a variety of modes to choose from: Arcade, Story, Multiplayer. Since this a relatively new Franchise, Story mode offers a great way to get know these characters from the ground up. Arcade mode is where you can just blast through the game and get some decent unlockables while you’re at it.

Characters are well balanced ranging from the quick and flashy characters to the characters that are slow but will rape face if they have an opening to do so. Multiplayer has your basic 1 on 1 fights but online play is where it’s at. Players can connect via Playstaion Network or Xbox Live. Lag is has not been an issue so far (I’m running it on the Playstaion Network). Battles start slow but when it finally catches up get ready for some epic ass kicking.  My personal fav character is Noel Vermillion. Two words: Big Guns (not boobs you sad pervs).

All in all if you’re a fighting game fan BlazBlue is a must buy. If you don’t pick this game up God will kill a cute little kitten. C’mon people! $59.99 for a special edition?! That price takes me back to the days of the PS2 and Xbox days where we didn’t have to get a second job just to buy games and where we didn’t need to borrow off of our houses to buy special editions.

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