Only the best fighting game analysis here, after all, I main Kirby in "Super Smash Bros.."
"BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger," with blaz pronounced as blaze, is a 2008 arcade fighting game that was ported to consoles and released internationally in 2009. The "BlazBlue" series is developed by Arc System Works, who has worked on other fighting games, such as "Guilty Gear," "Dragon Ball FighterZ," and more.
The game has undergone multiple publishers, Arc System Works published "Calamity Trigger" in Japan, Aksys Games in North America, and pQube & Zen United in Europe. The Steam version was published by H2 Interactive Co., Ltd, an indie Korean publisher that, according to their website, has published/distributed multiple triple AAA titles.
I've always wanted to try a "BlazBlue" game, I mean, it has blue in the title and it's my favourite colour, how could I resist? For this review, I played the Steam version and... I'm sorry, I didn't realize the sins of my actions by getting the Steam version.
What is a BlazBlue?
Story
The story of "Calamity Trigger" is hard to summarize, especially without spoilers. We can go with the long explanation...
Concise explanation then! The story of "Calamity Trigger" takes place in a city named Kagutsuchi. The twelve playable characters are in Kagutsuchi for their own reasons. Some are vigilantes trying to catch a bounty, others work for organizations like the Library or Sector Seven, while others are just mysterious.
Most characters have one thing connecting them though, they're after the protagonist, Ranga the Bloodedge. Ragna the Bloodedge has the largest bounty and is in possession of a powerful weapon that some want their hands on. Poor Ragna won't be catching a break anytime soon.
How will Ragna survive and how will the other characters fight Ragna? Well, with violence of course!
Wait that might be going too far-
Gameplay
"BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger" is a fighting game where the player uses light & heavy attacks, special attacks, throws, recovery, ultimate attacks, taunt to assert dominance, and more.
Special attacks can be activated like in "Street Fighter." Ultimate attacks, called Astral Heats and Distortion Drives, can be used when the bottom meter is at 50 to 100.
Blocking is done by holding the opposite direction your character is facing. There is a meter for how long a character can block, if it runs out, the character will have no way to defend themselves against attacks.
The combat is simple for newcomers but still rewarding to learn and master for veterans. The fighting mechanics are satisfying and solid, which is helped by the sound design making every hit impactful, literally for the characters.
Newcomers might struggle at first, given there's no tutorial, only a Training Mode to figure out the mechanics on your own. In my case, while I've played multiple fighting games, it took me a good while to realize how to do ultimate attacks. An in-game tutorial would've been handy to have.
Each character offers their own strategies. For example, Tager is slow but deals massive damage with his punches and grapples. Carl Clover on his own isn't too strong, but by using his doll sister, he can deal bigger combos.
Not every character will be for everyone, for me personally I struggle to play as Carl and Noel Vermillion. However, that doesn't mean they're bad. I'm sure if I invested more time into them, I'd be able to use them decently.
I found Tager, V-13, and Jin Kisaragi to be the most fun to play. Tager hits hard while having insanely fun grapples, V-13 has a lot of powerful moves, and Jin is versatile with both mobility & power.
Although, I did notice some of the balancing was off. Characters like Hakumen and V-13 are incredibly strong, making them a power trip to play as, but annoying to fight against.
There are multiple modes to find out which characters will be your mains or will be the end of you. These include Versus Mode, Score Attack, Arcade Mode, and Story Mode.
Versus Mode has the player fight whoever they want, or even play against another person on the couch. Arcade Mode is ten matches where your chosen character fights the other characters. Score Attack is about racking up the highest score possible. Story Mode lets you experience each character's story during the events of "Calamity Trigger."
There's incentive to play each mode, by completing certain requirements, the player can unlock pictures and videos in the gallery. Some of them are just cinematic graphics from Story Mode, others are original artwork from guest illustrators that all look pretty, making them rewarding to unlock.
Completing Arcade Mode unlocks a character's Astral Heat and their Unlimited form, the latter being a more powerful version of said character. Completing a character's Story Mode unlocks an interview with their Japanese voice actor (VA), which aren't subtitled... So, I can't understand what the VA is saying... I'm more of an under-sight fan personally.
However, "Calamity Trigger" is barebones as a single player experience with little replay value once you play everything. While the content is lengthy, once you're done, there's no reason to revisit any of it.
A Story Mode that can't Story
It's not a good sign when the biggest part of "Calamity Trigger" is one of the weakest aspects of the game. I mean no exaggeration when I say the Story Mode is dreadful with little enjoyment to be had.
What are the problems? Let me list six:
Hard to follow
When I say hard to follow, I don't mean it's complicated but still understandable when everything is pieced together. I mean hard to follow as in "wow, I still have no idea what's going on, and I've beaten the game!"
The plot is fragmented with unique information presented in each character's story. While there are things the player can piece together, other elements feel like a 1oo-piece jigsaw puzzle where you're only given three pieces, four if you're lucky.
I understand liberties need to be taken for the sake of pacing, but it harms the story when grand moments happen without proper context. Some concepts feel like wasted potential, making the story feel weightless at times. Instead of intrigue, I felt annoyed. Instead of awe, I was slamming my head into my keyboard in confusion.
Okay, not literally slamming my head into my keyboard, but the point is, it's frustrating. Worldbuilding also suffers because it's mostly done in "Teach Me, Ms. Litchi" episodes, which are non-canon situations with Chibi versions of the character. However, these are boring. They try to be cute, but past the cuteness, it's just stale exposition.
Many things are left in the dark, such as how and why the Library and Sector Seven were formed. The canon true ending ends on a cliff-hanger that leaves so many things unanswered that it's just anticlimactic and frustrating.
2. The Cast
Out of the 12 characters, I only ended up liking two of them. The rest are boring, uninteresting, or annoying.
This is unfortunately due to both how things are hard to follow, but also pacing problems. The characters have cool concepts, such as Jin Kisaragi's obsession with killing his brother. Well, cool writing-wise, murder bad. Unfortunately, it's never explored enough to be interesting and the background on it feels... Too quick, like it was rushed.
The same thing applies to most of the characters where there are cool ideas, but underwhelming execution. Sometimes the execution was bad, so I ended up getting annoyed by a few characters, such as the arrogant Rachel Alucard, loud & repetitive Bang Shishigami, and annoying Taokaka.
I don't think a character being arrogant/loud/repetitive makes them bad by default, it all depends on execution. With the right execution these sorts of flaws can make a character compelling, this isn't the case with "BlazBlue" though.
In the end, I only like Tager and Carl Clover, Tager is a genuinely cool guy while Carl Clover is a polite kid but also understandably desperate hence why he does morally wrong things. Also yes, I am offended that Tager doesn't have a Steam background.
3. No music during cutscenes
Excluding animated cutscenes, the visual novel cutscenes don't have any music, killing a lot of moments. Although, this isn't intentional, it's a bug with the Steam port. Which... How do you mess up so badly that you forget to put in the cutscene music?
Music is extremely important for setting the mood for any game, in a way it's part of the storytelling. Without music, something like Ragna's backstory has no emotional weight.
4. Alternate Truths
Each character has at least two routes/endings to reach. There are true endings and normal endings, although the game never properly defines which is which.
Normal endings give a message about there being an alternate truth, but that made me think these were true endings that had to be unlocked. As in, the conclusion would be revealed after meeting every requirement. Especially since most normal endings end on cliff-hangers just as the route gets interesting.
Unfortunately, it seems those cliff-hangers will forever remain unanswered. Some true endings even have a character dying and don't feel satisfying at all. The endings don't have to be satisfying, sometimes a story wants to end on a sad/depressing note, I get that, but it played into me mixing true endings and normal endings up.
Additionally, true endings don't tend to give satisfying answers. Noel's true ending doesn't answer much when, in comparison, losing to V-13 as Noel answers the major reveal with Noel.
5. Forced to Lose Fights
This one... This one, just... Why? So, to get some true/normal endings, the player must purposefully lose a fight. If you want to get every true ending or every normal ending, this is necessary.
For example, Carl's and Hakumen's true endings require losing a specific fight. Problem is, it's never clear which fights you're supposed to lose. I only found out this was even a thing by pure accident in Carl's Story Mode because I'm not good with Carl. This is pure trial-and-error.
Even then, losing fights on purpose is boring and can even take a while depending on the CPU. I never thought I'd unironically get frustrated at a fighting game CPU not kicking my butt fast enough.
6. Ultimate Attacks
Here's something else the game's Story Mode doesn't convey. To get some true endings, the player must use an Astral Heat/Distortion Drive on their opponent to get some true endings. Again, there's no conveyance you're supposed to do this, how would anyone know to do that?
Sometimes it's just ridiculous, like having to finish three specific opponents with Astral Heats/Distortion Drives in Noel's story. For Ragna, if he beats certain opponents with ultimate attacks, it leads to a game over because that’s fair...
Also, I couldn't fit this anywhere else, but Litchi's true ending requires playing Arakune's story up to a point, and then getting Litchi's second normal ending. There's no conveyance when the player gets the first or second normal ending, they're just shown they got a normal ending. Just... Why...?
All Together
The Story Mode "BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger" is genuine pain. It's not interesting, it's frustrating to play, the cast is mediocre, and too much is left unexplained or is just confusing. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece or anything, but I at least expected something... Tolerable.
There are a few redeeming qualities though. The mix of visual novel elements is a unique combination, the descriptive story elements are great & add depth to arenas, and what is explained about the world is neat.
There is a part of me that wants to learn more about the world of "BlazBlue," but I'm so exhausted from beating this Story Mode, that I just can't bring myself to try. I've never been so exhausted from playing a fighting game because of the story before. I couldn't even get all the endings; I just can't take this story nor most of the characters anymore.
Feel the Blaze
However, do you want to know what "Calamity Trigger" does well with almost no faults? The presentation. Ignoring the cutscene music bug, the presentation is outstanding. From the get-go the player is introduced with a beautiful opening.
There's also an amazing mix of 2D pixel art, clean 2D art, and 3D models in the backgrounds. However, it all manages to mix well together without looking jarring. Then again, while playing, the animations and looks of the sprites are so good that they make me forget they're made up of pixels.
Character portraits, character designs, and CGs look excellent too. The art style of "BlazBlue" is amazing, making for pure eye candy.
I played with the English dub which... Isn't great. Voice acting isn't my area of expertise of critique, but something feels off with the voice acting. Most of them have fitting voices, Rachel even has a British accent, but most of the voice actors are distractingly unconvincing.
However, during combat this isn't a big deal. If anything, there are unique voice lines during battle for specific actions like if an attack misses or if a character is hit by an opponent they know (ex. Jin attacking Noel). Those details make the fights feel more alive.
The absolute best part is, without a doubt, the music. Each character has their own theme, with some tracks for special versus matches. The versus theme for Noel and Jin is my favourite track in the game, when the guitar hits, it hits hard.
Unfortunately, there's no rehab centre for Imperial Code addiction.
The tracks are long while fitting the vibe of each character and fight. Seriously, it's God-like. Motor Head, Gale, Awakening the Chaos, and Rebellion are only a few examples from this incredible score. Every track is worth listening to.
The best part is that the Steam release gives the soundtrack for free, when it'd usually cost $10CDN to own it. It's extremely satisfying to have this soundtrack in my digital collection, although some tracks have bits of static, which can be distracting.
Unfortunately, the songs don't loop in-game, they fade out. This is odd given every song CAN be looped naturally.
Steam Port Bad
Unfortunately, in my excitement to get free music, I neglected to realize the bugs in the Steam port before buying "Calamity Trigger." The Steam version of "Calamity Trigger" on Steam is a calamity itself.
I already brought up the lack of music in cutscenes, but there's more. The frame rate is locked at 30 frames per second (FPS). While I don't mind this personally, my eyes don't have that gamer juice, it does bother multiple people who do notice the difference.
One of the biggest problems that kills the game's replay value is the lack of online play. Online play is important for fighting games as it gives incentive to keep coming back and to get better or break their computer/television in rage, but both are a win in my book.
The original console release for "Calamity Trigger" had online play. The best explanation I can find is from Wikipedia with the Steam version being a port of the Windows Live version without the Windows Live Features, which included multiplayer. However, take that with a grain of salt.
This is also among other reported problems such as the game being double the size because the files are copied so it's 12GB instead of 6GB, characters becoming invisible when alt tabbing/minimizing the game sometimes, and more. I'll be honest, a few of these are honestly baffling to me.
I can understand a port not being perfect. However, I feel the Steam port misses what could make people play and come back to "Calamity Trigger" in the first place while offering an inferior experience.
Overall (D)
I believe "Calamity Trigger" is a good game deep down with too many layers of bad to truly show how good it really is. The sad part is that some of that bad isn't even the fault of "Calamity Trigger," but the Steam port.
The gameplay is fun, great for newcomers and veterans alike, good variety with its characters & styles, and a stellar presentation. Unfortunately, it's barebones with little replay value, suffers from balancing problems, exhausting story, has no online play, and music doesn't play during most cutscenes. I regret buying "Calamity Trigger."
Well, I should clarify, I don't regret buying "Calamity Trigger" as a soundtrack. For under $2CDN on sale, the soundtrack is well worth the price. That's the only reason you should buy the Steam version, for the music, not to play this underwhelming port of a barebones fighting game mode-wise that makes me want to never touch the "BlazBlue" Series again.
...With that said, I'll still get "BlazBlue: Continuum Shift" one day, solely for the music. I curse my easily swayed nature to buy something solely because it has fantastic music.
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