BlazBlue: Continuum Shift is the second installment of the series (the first being BB: Calamity Trigger) by Arc Systems Works, the same developers of the famed Guilty Gear series. The game was released July 30, 2010 and since has earned many positive reviews. As with the previous game, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift first came to arcades before both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions as the game was first currently released in arcades, with a 16:9 ratio and 768p resolution. It was released in November 20, 2009 in Japan. A console version was released on July 1, 2010. In Australia, the game will be released on October 28th. There have been changes made to this new installment such as character balancing (nerfing, buffing to certain characters), 7 additional characters, 3 of which are DLC, new character select art as well as continues the main story line, if you haven’t played the first one you may not understand the story line.

Plot

The game is set after the events of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. A few days have passed since the reported raid by Ragna the Bloodedge, The 13th Hierarchical City “Kagutsuchi” forgets to celebrate New Year’s, as his alleged involvement in the “Mysterious Bombing” and “Huge Pentacle Sightings” becomes the talk of the town. With the Novus Orbis Librarium offering no official explanation, the citizens voice their own theories, exaggerating and spreading rumors like wildfire. The name “Ragna the Bloodedge” is engraved in the minds of the people. Completely indifferent to the state of the city, the silver-haired Grim Reaper grips his massive sword and quietly bides his time—waiting for the chance to achieve his true objective. And then, the enormous “power” that has ensnared the “Grim Reaper” begins to activate…

Characters

Ragna the Bloodedge

The main protagonist of BlazBlue, who has destroyed several branches of the Library for unknown reasons. Consequently, he now has the highest bounty in NOL history on his head and all characters of the story are tied to him in some way.

Jin Kisaragi

A hero of the NOL during the Ikaruga war and commanding officer to Noel. He suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned his post, running to Kagutsuchi in search of Ragna.

Noel Vermillion

A lieutenant in the NOL and a subordinate to Major Kisaragi, she has been sent to Kagutsuchi to retrieve him and use force if necessary. Throughout her adventure to seek him out she ends up in the most unexpected situations.

Iron Tager (TR-0009)

Commonly referred to as the ‘Red Devil’ he works for a group known only as Sector Seven. He is in Kagutsuchi seeking Noel Vermillion under the orders of Kokonoe.

Rachel Alucard

A mysterious vampire, she is the current head of the Alucard vampire family and is supposedly in Kagutsuchi only to relieve her boredom which isn’t entirely true as she becomes involved with many of the main characters and seems to know more about the events that are taking place.

Taokaka

A would-be ‘vigilante’, if she knew what that word meant, she has been sent by her village to capture ‘Rawrgna’ to get lots of money, but soon forgets why she left her village in the first place

Litchi Faye-Ling

The beautiful doctor of Orient Town and once-scientist is in search of a creature known only as Arakune, though her reasons and connections to the creature are unclear.

Arakune

A creature teeming with insects that lives within the lowest levels of Kagutsuchi, he is moving above ground, attracted to the presence of the Azure.

Bang Shishigami

Once a proud ninja of Ikaruga, he has become a vigilante, protecting a small group of survivors and hoping to gain enough money and fame to rebuild Ikaruga and avenge it by defeating Jin. Finding out that Ragna has been spotted in town, he won’t quit until he has brought the criminal to justice!

Carl Clover

A talented vigilante, he and his doll Nirvana, whom he refers to as Ada (the name of his sister), have come to Kagutsuchi in pursuit of Ragna, his Azure Grimoire, and the bounty on his head.

Hakumen

Known as the “White Knight”, he is one of the six heroes. He has come out of hiding seeking to put an end to Ragna, but soon is in debt to Rachel for releasing him from imprisonment, he soon begins pursuit of Terumi/Hazama.

Nu/ν-13 (Lambda’s unlimited form)

Nu’s soul has been placed inside Lambda 11

New Characters including DLC

Tsubaki Yayoi

Jin’s childhood friend/relative and Noel’s former roommate from the Military Academy and a member of the NOL’s 0 Division. She’s described as a straight A student, and has a rather no-nonsense personality. She’s very serious and reserved, and is a member of the dignified Yayoi family.

Makoto Nanaya (DLC)

Another Military Academy classmate and one of Noel’s best friends. She possesses some squirrel-like features, and is said to be quite hyperactive with a short attention span. This is a DLC character that was released on PSN and Xbox live marketplace on August 3rd, 2010.

Platinum the Trinity (DLC)

A young girl with three personalities named Luna, Sena, and Trinity. Luna is a rude, unkind girl; Sena is a polite, young boy; and Trinity is the spirit of the Sixth Hero, but cannot come out often and has to fade quickly.

Valkenhayn Hellsing (DLC)

One of the Six Heroes and Rachel’s elderly butler and trusted adviser who has served the Alucard family line for generations. He possesses a sharp wit and is concerned for Rachel’s well-being.

Hazama / Yuuki Terumi

The main villain of BlazBlue and one of the Six Heroes. Terumi is actually a ghost who taken alias as Hazama, a captain of the NOL’s Intelligence Division. At first, he appears to be supervising Noel’s actions to keep her in line, but he has a sinister hidden agenda.

Λ -No. 11- (Lambda)

An imitation Murakumo Unit created by Kokonoe by combining the body of the 11th experimental replica of Saya with the soul of ν-13, recovered after falling into the Gates of Sheol. Kokonoe completely erased her memory and as a result, Λ-11 is only interested in carrying out Kokonoe’s orders. Despite Kokonoe’s efforts, Λ-11 still possesses feelings for Ragna.

μ -No. 12- (Mu)

Noel, upon having her true powers awoken. She’s a perfect Murakumo Unit who possesses Kusanagi and has a goal Terumi wished for: Destruction of the Sankishin Unit: Amaterasu and the world.

Gameplay

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift retains the traditional 2D fighter gameplay of two characters fighting to the death on a 2D plane. A match can consist of one to five rounds referred to as “rebels” rather than rounds. To win a round, one player must either incapacitate the other by inflicting enough damage through various attacks or by having more remaining health after the round’s timer depletes.

During each rebel, players fill a Heat Gauge which can be used for advanced techniques such as Distortion Drives, Rapid Cancels, Counter Assaults, and certain characters’ attacks (Jin/Hakumen). The Heat Gauge can be filled via dealing damage, taking damage, and perfectly blocking attacks.

However, some mechanics from the previous installment have been changed or completely replaced in the transition:

The Guard Libra system which utilizes a tug-of-war gauge has been replaced with the new Guard Primer point system. Each character has a certain amount of points (e.g. Tager has a maximum of 10 primer points while characters like Carl or Ragna have 4 and 5 respectively). These points are depleted whenever moves with “Guard Break” properties (e.g. Jin’s “Gale” or Hakumen’s “Forward C”) are blocked. Upon depletion of all points, the character is immobilized for a certain period of time known as Guard Crush. Barrier blocking can be used at critical times to prevent a Guard Crush by consuming 50% of the Barrier gauge instead. Primer points regenerate over time or after all points are depleted.

Barrier Burst has been replaced with Break Burst, a similar ability but with different penalties. Break Burst can only be performed twice in a single match, and its second use can only become available if you lose a round. It no longer permanently drains your Barrier Gauge or gives you the “DANGER” penalty. A free unused burst is required for Astral Heats. Bursts have different properties depending on when they are used, as the offensive “Gold Burst” has high bounce and combo-ability and the combos initiated by it can kill while the defensive “Green Burst” will provide invincibility for the entire burst motion at the cost of permanently halving your maximum primer points. All lost primer points due to Green Bursts will never recover.

Astral Heat conditions have been changed. Instead of requiring it to be the final round and the opponent being within 20% health, it now only requires it to be your match point round and the opponent being within 35% health, in addition to the aforementioned requirement of one free.

Online

Online mode returns and I’m happy to say is just as great as it was in the first game. Here are the great features:

Quarter matches for up to 6 players
Quarter matches are already kind of a given, in this day and age for online fighting games but it’s definitely nice that it’s here. The only tricky thing is joining a room before a game starts since once a game is already in play, you can’t join and it basically means you have a 5 second window to join a room.

Disconnects listed on player profile
When they’re close to losing a match, they simply reset their console to avoid either getting a loss, or simply just to prevent you from getting a win. A later patch put the disconnect % in, but I’m glad that BlazBlue has it in from the start. Listing a player’s disconnects helps to dissuade players from disconnecting, since you don’t have to play people with high disconnect %’s.

No “ranking down” upon losing
In BlazBlue, you can never go down in ranking, so if you’re a high level player and lose to a level 1, you lose nothing. At the same time, the level 1 player that defeats the high level player gets a lot more points and moves closer to his true level. So in a sense, the ranking in BlazBlue is accurate because it takes into combination skill and experience and should be the way to go for all fighting games.

Hidden character selections
When you choose a character to play with online, it won’t show you who the opponent has picked until after you’ve both selected – then it displays the matchup. Genius and fair, that way no one can counter pick.

New modes

Challenge mode is the mode that allows you perfect complicated combos with your favorite character to become more skilled in playing.

Legion mode is a fun mode that pits you against an army of characters this ranges from 1-6 consecutive matches; with each victory you have the chance to recruit a character from the defeated army. If you happen to lose a character in the battle he/she will leave your team if you also happen to defeat some of the army characters but lose to them you will retreat and have to face the entire army all over. And if you happen to lose all characters you of course get game over.

Tutorial basically teaches/explains how to play the game… enlightening you to fighter lingo.

Verdict

To be perfectly honest BlazBlue is not an easily accessible game considering how steep the learning curve is it may intimidate new comers. The sequel does offer a challenge mode which teaches you how to pull of complicated combos if training isn’t your thing the “beginner” option allows you to pull off combos like a pro with the push of a single button. I personally love this series and I wasn’t disappointed with the sequel, I love a challenging game that rewards your dedication with satisfying and dazzling combos, however that doesn’t necessarily make this a perfect 2D fighter, that’s why I award BlazBlue: Continuum Shift a 4/5!

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For all you kids out there who threw their PS3s at the wall this morning because they couldnt log onto PSN, I am here to tell you that your efforts were in vein. PSN described this fiasco as…

“Maintenance is expected to start at just after midnight Pacific and will last for several hours, until approximately 12:30pm Pacific. During this time, users won’t be able to access the PlayStation Store or Account Management, and may encounter difficulty while signing in to PSN.

If you want to see when the PSN comes back, just stay tuned on their Twitter account

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No news as to if Brock will be in the anime, but Ash is for sure in. But…. something seems a little off…

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Castlevania: Lord of Shadow looks like a lot of Playstation greats rolled up into a single game. Shadow of the Colossus, Uncharted, God of War, Devil May Cry. Konami released screenshots of their upcoming 3D Castlevania epic, which is set to release this Fall.

Battle with the Titan:

Exploration:

Miscellaneous:

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At least, they do in this teaser trailer for the game, which owes as as much to something like Akira as it does the Blue Bomber. There is of course no gameplay footage to be seen, but if you’ve ever dreamt of an adult-oriented Mega Man animated feature, then you’d better watch the clip below:

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