BlazBlue: Continuum Shift!

With the JP version already released and the English console release on the way (7/27!) I thought it was time to revive this topic! So! LETS GO OVER THE NEW STUFF!

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~NEW ARCADE CHARACTERS~

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Tsubaki Yayoi:
Devoted to training from an early age, she possesses tremendous combat ability despite being a woman. After graduating from the Military Academy, she took an active role as the Lieutenant of the organization known as the 0th Division. Following the events of the previous game, she travels to the story's stage, the city of "Kagutsuchi", to assassinate Jin and her former classmate Noel for deserting the organization.

Drive:
Tsubaki’s drive is Install, basically any press of a D normal will cause her to “charge” her install meter. For simplicity’s sake, we will call this the charge gauge, and it will use respective “charge stock” or level of charge for all her D-specials and supers.

Vids:
Theme (Condemnation Wings)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnzYHqGwHV0
VS Noel Theme (Memory of Tears)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vu7_v8bjUs
Combo Vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W9tlLH9S2g
Moar Combos - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dxl1LhL388

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Hazama:
An officer attached to the NOL's intelligence department. His rank is captain, and the name "Hazama" is an alias. When Jin Kisaragi set out for "Kagatsuchi" alone, he was put in charge of the case and worked with Noel, but on the eve of Ragna the Bloodedge's terrorist bombing, began acting towards a different goal. Because of his constantly smiling expression and carefree demeanor, it's impossible to get a read on him. He's very talkative, though he has humble manners. He dislikes hassles and combat, and the completion of the mission is always his top priority.

Drive:
Hazama's drive, Ouroboros, is a two part technique. With the first press of D, he will launch out Ouroboros. After either extending to its max range, clashing with a projectile, hitting the opponent, or being followed up, it will stop. Follow-ups are available at any time during the Ouroboros' travel. These have differing effects, depending on the button pushed. Ouroboros stock is slowly regained to a maximum of two stocks.

Vids:
Theme (Gluttony Fang)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0r2T3Kvqc8
VS Ragna Theme (Nightmare Fiction)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Ph1T7n6vM
Unlimited Theme (Endless Despair)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuAu-iyeo94
Basic Guide - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Z4S5r_fdk
Combo Vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgT2Vz4dx14
Smooth Criminal Hazama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df-iETND5FQ

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~NEW CONSOLE CHARACTER~

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Mu-12: **MAJOR SPOILERS**




This is the true form of Noel Vermillion after fusing with the True Azure Grimoire through Terumi's ambitions to destroy the Master Unit "Amaterasu", using the sword Kusanagi to erase the world from it's existence. Due to his influence, she believes that the world is filled with nothing but lies.

Drive:
Mu's drive, Steingunner, allows her to set up balls of energy that float stationary around the screen and can be used to fire off lazers, ricochet projectiles, or cause explosions. Think of a mix between Bang's bumpers and Venom's billiard balls.

Vids:
Theme (Sword of Destruction)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4qr1vKTIvs&feature=related
Gameplay - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXat1FbakV4&feature=related

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~NEW DLC CHARACTERS~

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Makoto:
A lively and energetic squirrel-tailed girl. She went to the Military Academy alongside her friends Noel and Tsubaki. She is generally very naive and tends to think of things simplistically. However, whatever she lacks in brains she makes up for with pure brawn. Her talents in the martial arts got her into the Academy despite her low standing, though she is constantly berated and made fun of by her peers in the academy because of both her low upbringing and her race as a animal-human hybrid. Little else is known about her yet.

Drive:
Makoto's drive, Impact, allows her to charge up a devastating punch that deals additional damage depending on both the length of the button press as well as the number of hits in the combo before the punch is unleashed.

Release Date: August 5th

Vids:
Theme (Alexandrite)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TLli2Zqxyk
Gameplay - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EO7cEnqGzA

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Valkenhayne:
Rachel's butler and loyal servant to the Alucard family. He retains a calm and composed demeanor regardless of the circumstances and appears to have nothing but the utmost respect for his master, Rachel. Towards everyone else, however, it is not beyond him to be quite commanding and intimidating. In Calamity Trigger he remains mostly an enigma, though it is clear that he has a sordid past through his "behind the scenes" interactions with Terumi, Nirvana and Hakumen. He also seems to be somewhat aware of the Time Loop.


**SPOILER WARNING**




For those who haven't figured this out yet, Valkenhayne is one of the 6 Heroes. He is also, apparently, a Werewolf, as implied by both the CS story (which I haven't had a chance to play yet) and his theme song: Howling Moon.

Drive:
Unknown, though speculated (by a relatively unreliable source, however) to be called Lycanthrope. It sounds a bit plain IMO so I'm not sure about this one.

Release Date: Unknown

Vids:
Theme (Howling Moon)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y6SkBbT140

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Platinum The Trinity:
A new character added in Continuum Shift. Apparently she holds the spirit of Trinity, the last of the 6 heroes, inside of her body. This seems to give her a split-personality complex. That's about all I know...except that she's such a Loli that she makes Rachel look her actual age (at least a couple thousand years, not counting the repeating years she experienced during the time loops).

Drive:
Unknown, though, again, an unreliable source claims it is called Angelica and has to deal with her split-personality. We'll have to see on this one.

Release Date: Unknown

Vids:
Theme (Active Angel)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTSg4uxZGuA

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NEW MODES

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Beginner Mode:
Simplifies controls into single button presses, which allows new players to stand a chance against more experience players. Beginner mode comes with a few drawbacks though; Since there are only so many buttons on the controller your options are much more limited than they would be if you were playing normally. Also you can't barrier burst and all of your blocks will be barrier blocks. To use a Distortion Drive you just have to hold down one button and wait for the meter to charge up (which you can do while you're executing other attacks). Warning: The beginner mode for certain characters is much better for some characters than it is for others. Example: Beginner Mode Ragna sticks to very simple, low damage, combows while Beginner Litchi can pull of some pretty impressive moves and has much more options in general.

Tutorial Mode:
Helps teach beginners the basics of the game as well as some character specific tidbits that will help newcomers

Challenge Mode:
A series of SF4-esque challenges mostly involving learning how to execute certain moves as well as pulling off some basic to advanced combos. Unlike SF4, though, most of the combos in BB's challenge mode are actually useful in a real match. Helps newcomers learn basic BnBs and gives advanced players a good execution challenge to pull off some of the more flashy + damaging combos for each character.

Legion Mode:
Previously added to the PSP version. You select your character and are placed in a (mostly) randomly generated board where you proceed to move to "take over" areas adjacent to you by beating all the enemies placed there. Its kind of like survival mode where you can "recruit" new characters upon winning and gain various benefits depending on which area you decide to take on first. Its pretty basic but can be a decent distraction when you can't get online.

New Story Mode:
Continues the story where CT left off in pretty much the same style. You pick your character and play through a branching story line.

Update to Online Play:
YOU CAN NOW SEARCH FOR A MATCH WHILE IN TRAINING/ARCADE MODE! Apparently the net code is MUCH better too. D-Cards have also received a re haul too. You now have seperate stats for each character and apparently EXP points function differently. MAJOR PLUS: You no longer recieve an incomplete/loss when someone Rage Quits or DCs on you.

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Additional Vids:
Tsubaki Theme w/ Vocals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEUluROsnwY
Rachel Theme w/ Vocals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biTX5vUOi8Y
Litchi Theme w/ Vocals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6z8qv7yqQ
Bang Theme w/ Vocals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9E3DZaoeus
Noel Vocal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21WJveCJWKQ
Trailer Theme - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8UkNelmIxs
New KOTOKO Theme! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ1dEU0IRO0
DLC Colours - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9IKzuKQimo

(Almost embarrassed to post these but...Just don't listen to the A versions. Trust me. They have Engrish fail abound)

Jin as Announcer >_> - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m14sLbz_ss
Tao as Announcer...lol - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBOKrjFBdmU&feature=related


PLAY LIST OF THE MOST EPIC FAN MADE ALBUM EVER: Seriously. This guy is INCREDIBLE. He's made a set of 15 theoretical songs for "BlazBlue: Crisis Reversed". They rival the actual OST in EPICNESS so I strongly encourage everyone to take a listen! I made a play list of them in order. Linky:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXeTGuAjmQk&feature=PlayList&p=8C298EB723776920&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

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Anyways! What do you guys think? I'm PUMPED for the new characters, especially considering what they did to poor Noel. Hopefully the Beginner, Turorial and Challenge mode will draw more fresh faces into the game and the fact I can mess around in training mode while waiting for a match is just great. In CT the wait between matches could get rather long and having the whole process so streamlined sounds awesome.

AND DLC CHARACTERS! Holy ***I didn't think I'd see the day. Finally, we don't have to wait for the next installment in the series to come out before we can play with the new characters. And they're being released at regular intervals during the gap between the games release and (presumably) the time they'll be announcing the next installment in the series. Judging by ArcSys's track record we should expect to hear about the new BB title mid fall and expect to see it in arcades by the winter, then, of course, having to wait until mid Summer for the console version.

The whole system sounds so...revolutionary to me. When has a fighting game ever done that? Yeah, they're going to be charging a couple bucks for the new characters but we're getting Continuum Shift for 40 bucks anyways. Eat it, SF fans who complained that BB was only adding "2 characters". With the 3 DLC chars and Mu that brings the roster up to 18!

In terms of new characters Mu is kind of like Nu if Nu were obsessed with LAZORZ rather than SWORDZ. Her lazers do seem to have quite a lot of depth available beyond the surface but for now I'm predicting they'll just be used to fire off RANDOM LAZER HELL. Still, there's a lot of potential there.

Makoto is the only DLC character to be "officially" released, both Valkenhayne and Platinum have been hinted at but not officially announced. However there are data placeholders for both of them on the disc (which people have already hacked into lawl). All three of them have portraits, themes, and emblems so they might as well have been officially announced.

Makoto herself seems to be a combination of Noel and Tao (who are already my main and sub respectively) and seems to be a pure rushdown character. She sounds like exactly my kind of character! And her combos (well at least the ones that weren't dropped by that person in the first gameplay vid...) looked quite sexy. I especially like her 5-hit charging punch and her drive uppercuts.

What do people think Valkenhayne and Platinum will play like :o? Any thoughts on the other new characters? Any general gameplay questions? Post em all here!

THE WHEEL OF FATE IS TURNING!
REBEL ONE!
ACTION!

calamity trigger is one of my favorite games of all time, so Im pretty pumped, Ill be grabbing this the same time as StarCraft 2

Platinum doesnt look too interesting but I look forward to trying out makoto and Valken, though Ill probably keep Noel as my main

PSN:ShadowSoldier89 if you wanna hit up some online

Very great game, I love Blazblue

I'm quite excited about this. I just KNEW Makoto was going to eventually get added.


All we're missing now is Jubei and his daughter.

If Valk plays anything like Slayer, one of my current characters will have to sit in the backseat for a while (Jin(Main), Bang(sub), Hazama(sub))

tbh not too excited about this DLC character concept, sure extra colors and EX versions of the characters are nice DLC but characters? No matter how you look at it BB:CS is a small upgrade from CT, the core mechanics are still the same but knowing the changes were small, knowing there's DLC of this scale before the release of the game is kinda discouraging especially with a game cast that's even smaller than Garou MOW.

I direct you to Guilty Gear.


Do you really wanna have to buy the game over and over every month just for slight additions? Ill take DLC over that ***anyday.

Wat
GG & BB are going the on the same trend.
With BB squeezing more cash than GG D:
Also, don't compare GG with it's lowly sister :D

GG had a bad case of SFII syndrome, I'm just glad that AC+ can be bought as mini add-on If you had the original AC disc, DLC for the PS2 sound inconvenient for most cases and wish they took the append disc route starting from #Reload.

But what I'm referring to in BB:CS is the game scene changing DLC announced before game release mindset. Question is why? Just add the characters from start and bump up the game's price a bit or am I missing something?

Just hope this whole "They aren't available to everybody." issue doesn't make the DLC charas banned in tournies.

Be nice Sekunders >,>! BB's anime designs and simplified GG mechanics got more people on the scene than GG's bizzare designs and overly complex hairpulling mechanics really. Got a couple of people addicted to GG because they liked the pace of BB.

btw, Toshimichi Mori BBs director voices A.B.A's key Paracelsus in GG and his avatar on BlazBlue radio is Paracelsus with sunglasses, hoping for a cameo by Paracelsus as a joke DLC character for BB XD

What?
I'm just stating facts :S

Lol BB and GG can go burn in hell, I'm happy with my SSF4.

@Sekundes : I know, I prefer GG too. But I'm worried Daisuke's next GG will be a first person shooter >.> Dynasty Gears (GG2) still makes me cringe when I think about it, wth were they thinking? BB's online functions are very welcome as it's hard to play GG with an offline only community(my closest competition lives 2 hours away), at least ur in Kuwait, white-tower is still there ;_; /jealousy.

Regardless I think BB is a wonderful game, and will be enjoying till KOF13 hits consoles as I'm bored of "Super Turtle Fighter 4".

Who's up for online matches when this is released globally wanna show off my scurbby Hazama D: /hype ! My copy's still held by Parcel force though :/ <3 UK post.

I only know 2 guys that play GG in Kuwait.
Everyone else plays super Turtle Fighter IV and they FAIL at it.
And how the hell do you know about White-Tower? >:O

I want to play BB as well but Kuwait's fighting community is HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE =/

If the netcode is that much better and I don't have to see bad connections and one ok connection and great connection but is actually bad I'll trade/sell CT for CS.

Yeah Platinum seems a bit...out of place and I'm expecting a zone heavy character. I'm not sure why they made her a loli though...I mean doesn't Rachel pretty much have a monopoly on BB when it comes to "the loli" char? Ahh well. I'm really excited to finally be able to play Tsubaki, Hazama and Mu and I expect Makoto to be exactly the kind of character I like. Valk looks pretty cool too. All things considered, 5/6 on awesome characters I plan on playing is good enough for me. Platinum's theme song is ROCKIN though so at least she has that going for her.

I play on PSN too :D I'll add you later. I haven't been playing CT lately. Kinda burned out and don't want to get myself too attached to Noel's old moves and combos. I can't wait to try out her new drive combos. Jump cancels and untechable Jump Drive make her combos look so much sweeter.




Well in terms of core gameplay you're right. Just tweaked a few of the old characters and gave em some new toys and added a rather meager sum of characters. But you have to keep in mind that BB:CS is hitting shelves @ 40 bucks. And we're still getting a full new story mode, new voices, new artwork, new modes and, of course, online. Judging by the predicted price of each DLC character I'm pretty sure they realized a few of their characters weren't quite ready and rather than keeping Makoto, Valkenhayne and Platinum on hold until the next iteration of BB they decided to try out a concept I don't think ANY other fighter has before: offering the new characters as DLC over the course of time presumably (if they continue their pattern of new BB revealed early fall, @ arcades mid fall, then on consoles mid summer) these DLC characters will carry us over until the new BB hits the arcades. Though the arcade scene in America is pretty much dead :(...





Mori said it himself, characters take a really, really long time to design. Especially in a game like BB where every character is expected to be unique and introduce a new playstyle. If I remember correctly he said it was in the range of 5-6 months to make just ONE character. For just that one character they have to define its playstyle, give it a goodie bag of tools and moves to help it achieve that playstyle, craft 150+ individual sprites, find a voice actor, figure out how they fit into the game's universe and, last but not least, be play tested play tested and further play tested. With arcade CS they accomplished this through those Loke Tests that were held all around Japan. Since Makoto is going to be released as a character (presumably) balanced enough to be used on ranked mode and in tournaments they must have had some way to play test Makoto while keeping her on the hush-hush.

I agree it was kinda stupid to reveal 3 DLC characters prior to the games release. I guess they were trying to convince people that there would be more than 3 new characters. Especially since BB's biggest criticism is that "the roster is too small". Honestly I'd take the 12 original unique BB characters over the 30+ characters in SF4 who seem to have about 4 different playstyles allocated through the whole lot of them.




Enjoy turtlan as an overly muscular racial stereotype while you get killed by fireball spam by another overly muscular, oiled up racial stereotype. I won't judge you if watchin two muscular, oiled up dudes dukeing it out is your thing. Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

very thorough.
i am impressed.

edit:
I still haven't played BlazBlue but I want to.

That indeed makes a lot of sense, especially the part about people's complaints lol



I'm originally from Saudia, between the Halley arcade in alkhobar and the white-tower in kuwait(Mostly through discussions) I learned about KOF and the fighting game mentality in general. Still remember it was something outstanding at the time, no internet no match videos and the saudi/kuwaiti player level was very high. Really respected those guys, Maan/Winstar/Maxato/Busterwolf/Shuri/Alkaser to name a few from the top of my head.

Just got my JP copy for PS3, will be getting the xbox360 release when it's out for PAL consoles (supporting Zen united our local publisher + for the story mode).

my gamertag for xbox and PSN ID are both "lonewolfterry". Let's have some games when the US ver is out next week '-'b

Anyone got this yet >,>? Wish we had as much activity as the Smash thread, those guys seem to be having fun D:

HANDS OFF THE PANDA

Haven't heard noel say that in a while D:

Can't play US players till patch next Thursday /wrist :/

This. Not much into either, they both seem overly simplistic.

It's pretty obvious you don't know what you're talking out. Blazblue and Guilty Gear are both much more complex than Street Fighter.

Not hating on SF4 as it's pretty enjoyable, but it's not as complex as either BB or GG by a long shot.

I was quite surprised by the comment tbh, and couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or serious Kaijdourde lol

BB uses a simplified GG engine, which is still more complex than other fighters out in the market for next gen consoles. The mashing friendly nature of the game doesn't warrant mashers a win here, I've seen a good share of "Turbo Button Shoryuken" Kens playing online, so there's button mashers everywhere no escape of it.

Thing is, usually people would be too intimated by how complex ArcSystemWorks fighters are to actually get into the game. Example of basic defensive systems in GG vs SSFIV

SSFIV
-Blocking
-Focus/Saving Attack
-Back Dash
-Focus baiting

I'm sure I forgot some, but these are the most common modes of defense in SSFIV, and are pretty self explanatory.

Guilty Gear XX AC :

-Blocking

-Aerial Blocking

-Back Dash (Invincibility and duration differs between characters)

-Faultless Defense (while depleting the tension(super) gauge, you get 0 damage from special moves, and push your opponent further back, disadvantage is that your guard stun becomes higher so its harder to punish after it)

-Instant Blocking/Just Defend (Blocking as late as possible will give you frame advantage and make moves that couldn't be punished before punishable, also works as a magnet as it sucks your opponent to you for easier throwing)

-Slash Back (A harder version of instant blocking where u have to tap Slash and High-slash with the guard, missing the timing makes you unable to block for a few frames but it has tension gain properties and I forgot if it gives more frame advantage or not)

-Blue Burst (BURST gauge is a separate mechanic gauge, and can be used WHILE being hit to get out of trouble)

-Dead Angle Attack (Depelting 50% Tension(Super) You hit the opponent out of your block stun with a physical attack and push them away)

-Parry (Character Specific)

-Guard Gauge (The more hits you block, the more it will build resulting in the next hits doing more damage, the more you get hit the more depleted it becomes and the less damage you take)

-Negative Penalty (Escaping your opponent for prolonged periods of time makes you lose your Tension(Super gauge) and makes it harder to regain Tension for a while)

-Burst Baits (Anticipating the burst defensive mechanic is a form of defense, bursts render a character in aerial state, reading the burst correctly you can jump and throw instantly during one of your jump canceled normals)

Haven't played GG in a year maybe, this is from the top of my head, keeping mind that you have all these defensive options while worrying about the onslaught of offensive options the opponent has + Knowing the match up is just too much at times.



thus Arc made a smart move and made system mechanics more user friendly to pull people in the game in BlazBlue.

There's no denial, SFIVs release was the steroid that the dying in popularity fighting game genre needed to be cool with kids again, but it's always nice to try new things and go beyond that if you're new to fighting games and find a game that fits your niches.