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BlazBlue: Continuum Shift |  | From: Aksys
Category: Video Games
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $33.95
as of 9/6/2010 05:32 CDT details
You Save: $6.04 (15%)
New (15) Used (7) from $25.97
Seller: Worldwide Sales
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 1073
Format: CD
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: fighting_action_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: PlayStation 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 136
Model: PS3-03
UPC: 893610001365
EAN: 0893610001365
ASIN: B003EV6NEE
Publication Date: July 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Experience the beauty of high-resolution, hand-drawn sprites on 3D backgrounds, all in glorious high-definition. | | • | Get ready to take the action online and battle the best players from all over the world! | | • | BlazBlue features the following console-only modes: Arcade, Vs, Practice, and a completely fleshed-out Story Mode that tells the tales of each character. | | • | Choose a character that represents your own fighting style, like the lightning-fast Taokaka or the wickedly powerful Tager. | | • | Take advantage of Barriers, Counter Assaults, Rapid Cancels, and Distortion Drives to turn the tide of battle! |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift inherits all the key features of its predecessor while adding a few twists of its own. Tsubaki, -12 and Hazama will join the ranks of the veterans, who will be reborn with additional moves added to their arsenals. With new modes like Beginner Mode and Tutorial Mode, even fighting game beginners can pull off combos like the pros and dive right into the action.
Amazon.com Product Description
From the Manufacturer Synopsis: The blaze roars up again in Continuum Shift. The game is quite a storm in the arcades, now you don't have to worry about not having enough quarters or the arcades closing for the night, you can take the game home and fight the whole 24 hours. Enter the tournament and challenge all the people in the battle roster. All battle modes are re-adjusted, with the addition of the Legion mode and the tutorial mode. Everyone has new skills sets and powers. Besides upgrades, there are new characters and bosses. Throw your punches and pick a fight with the best from the net.  Beautiful Hand drawn Artwork  Unique attacks, specific
to each character Features: -
Experience the beauty of high-resolution, hand-drawn sprites on 3D backgrounds, all in glorious high-definition. Get ready to take the action online and battle the best players from all over the world! BlazBlue features the following console-only modes: Arcade, Vs, Practice, and a completely fleshed-out Story Mode that tells the tales of each character. Choose a character that represents your own fighting style, like the lightning-fast Taokaka or the wickedly powerful Tager. Use the unique “Drive Attacks” specific to each character to decimate your opponent. Depending on the character, control the elements like wind and ice, or even absorb the life force from your opponents. Take advantage of Barriers, Counter Assaults, Rapid Cancels, and Distortion Drives to turn the tide of battle! Players can battle others from around the world via Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network. Players can not only search for matches but also play games and observe matches online.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Outstanding update July 28, 2010
Benjamin J. Gillespie (Higganum, CT)
16 out of 20 found this review helpful
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift is the update and continuation of last years masterpiece, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, this little gem was crafted by the brilliant minds at Arc System Works. Fans of the original or fans of the Guilty Gear series will no doubt want to purchase this, if for nothing else at least for the story mode, you have never experienced a deeper or more complex story in a fighting game...the thing is, it's actually interesting...unlike Street Fighter(which I love, don't get me wrong).
You will get a lot for your $40, newly added Tutorial Mode, Challenge Mode and Legion Mode from the portable version are present. The tutorial is a great place to learn the basics if you are new to BlazBlue and it is the best way to learn the advanced techniques as well. The new challenge mode is pretty much like challenge mode in SFIV and SSFIV. There are 10 challenges per character, each challenge is comprised of several different tasks though, once you get to the advanced combos for a character of your liking it could take you a very long time to clear the challenges. These games are easy enough to play at a casual level but it will take a lot of patience and skill to hang with some of the people you will meet online.
There are 3 new characters right off the bat, Tsubaki is a Valkyrie of sorts, fights with sword and shield and has a drive attack that charges her moves for added strength, she is a very simple character to use and I would recommend her to newcomers. Hazama, better known to veterans as Terumi, is another story. Hazama is tricky but unbelievably good, his drive attack sends chains out at his opponent both for attacks and to rapidly close the distance between players. He is fast, dangerous and unpredictable...and also serves as the final boss of arcade and Story mode for most characters. Lambda replaces Nu as the Murakumo unit in this game, hardly any difference. The true form of Noel Vermillion is also a playable character but I have yet to unlock her. As of now there are at least 3 more characters planned as DLC. Makoto, a...foxie lady (excuse the pun if you get it) that uses tonfa, I have only seen clips of her and have no idea how she plays. Valkenhayn, Rachel's butler and one of the Six Heroes, will join and I can almost guarantee that he will play like Slayer from Guilty Gear. Platina (Sena and Luna) is another future character, due to her split personality I expect her to be like A.B.A. from Guilty Gear.
All characters have a robust, branching Story Mode that will take you many hours to complete. The story picks up right after Calamity Trigger's True End, there is a brief summary for those that didn't play the original. Japanese and English audio are present and accounted for, thank goodness. Online returns of course, you can once again save and upload replays of your best matches if you so choose. There are a few new stages, a few new songs and sadly, a new announcer...not nearly as funny when she says Rebel 1, Action! The character portraits have all been redrawn and they look AWESOME, more like Guilty Gear art and less like anime. The sprites seem improved too, at least Ragna and Hakumen seem to have a few more frames of animation and slight color differences, all welcome changes. The gameplay is top notch, if you like high flying, air dashing combo-laden madness then BlazBlue is 100% for you.
The most solid 2D fighting game OUT THERE!!!!!!!! September 1, 2010
Juan Carlos (Cartago, Costa Rica)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
At first I had a doubt on buying this game, I'm a Guilty Gear fan, and this game seemed just like a variant, even though I wished a product of this quality had been released for the GG series, it has a really good content.
Without a doubt this game can satisfy hardcore-expert fighting game players, and also beginners. The story mode have very nice drawings, and a good story, instead of the typical 6~10 fights in a row to see an ending that in most games are not coherent between characters, this game has a well told history, and is consistent between characters. There are 3 endings per character:
1. funny: this one is the fastest in most cases, because usually you choose a path to follow before/after a fight, some are cool.
2. bad ending: this is one will show an alternate ending, some will show really good drawings, and will deliver a different point of view of the character history.
3. good ending: well this is the way, things should have happened.
Challenge mode:
===============
This is particularly the best thing in this game, here you will really learn how to use every character. When you first play the game maybe you will say "this character is useless", wrong, terribly wrong. Challenge mode will change your mind.
For those who think they're expert players, you will have a really good time trying to complete the challenges, and a really good feature in challenge mode, is the demo of each challenge, by pressing the L2 button. Expert players will observe and realize how things have to be done and adjust the timing in the most difficult combos. After looking at some of those challenges (9th and 10th of each character), you'll realize that your "expertise" will be really tested, some of those challenges are really really serious.
Just take a look at 10th Hakumen challenge, or Rachel.
Well, beside this, the game have very nice stages and the best music for fighting games out there just like in GG series, most fighting games doesn't have good music that wanna make you fight, this one will.
I haven't played on-line yet, later I'll update the review.
As a final comment, well, I've been playing fighting games since SF2, and I have played almost everything in the genre, Samurai Shodown series, Art of Fighting series, KOF series, xxxx vs Capcom series, Dark Stalker series, Toshinden series, Killer Instinct, MK, Street Fighter series, Guilty Gear series, Tekken series (I love it :P), Soul Calibur series, you name it, I know what I'm talking about, and this game has exceeded my expectations.
Really Worth Buying.
Incredible value, Incredibly fun July 30, 2010
Benjamin S. Short
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
I'm fairly new to the fighting game genre. I am a mediocre Street Fighter player who was looking for another fighting game to play with my friends. Blazblue is awesome, the game has great music, art and gameplay. The game has so much style, if you like anime and cheesy (but cute) voice acting and 2d fighting games buy this now. I really like the tutorial mode because it does a fantastic job of teaching me how to play each character. You can even learn how to do advanced combination chains too. The story mode is also really cool, it is told with still pictures and is voice acted (kind of like persona 3 and 4). I love that style. The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense BUT as you play all the different characters you can learn more about it and piece it together like a mystery. That is giving me incentive to play every characters story mode and not just the ones I like.
This game offers a lot for your money, I recommend this to anyone considering it.
Perhaps not for everyone, but an awesome game nevertheless August 14, 2010
A thoughtful watcher
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Writing reviews (or at least something like reviews) is not really something that I'm in the habit of doing. One reason for this is that there are already plenty of professional reviewers that can do a much better job of it than I can. Nevertheless in the case of Blazblue I think I just might have something to contribute. Although I don't think I'm really all that good at writing reviews and such so I hope you'll keep that in mind and please try to bear with me.
First off I would like to address one of the issues surrounding Continuum Shift. I understand that there are those who have taken issue with Aksys Games for allegedly misusing the concept of DLC.
Now let me draw primarily upon my own personal opinion for a moment:
There currently seems to be an industry wide trend of companies using the concept of DLC in perhaps questionable ways. Some people even hate the very idea of DLC. But personally I don't think that it's that big a deal at all. And I also think that the issue of whether or not a piece of content should be included with the original release of the game is largely a moot point. The reason for this is that it always comes down to consumer choice. If one finds any given piece of DLC to not be worth it, then simply don't buy it. On the other hand if it is worth it then so be it. And besides it's always an option to simply try and wait for DLC to go on sale, however long a time that may be. I honestly don't know how these companies decide on their prices. But whatever the case I personally try not to sweat the small stuff. I try not to get all worked up over relatively small amounts of money. But of course that's just me.
Okay I'm done with that for now.
There seems to be a bit of a debate going on about whether or not Continuum Shift qualifies for the "sequel" label. I believe that it does. I think Continuum Shift has enough new content for that, most importantly the story aspect. I think it has way too much new story to not be called a sequel.
Some have claimed that Continuum Shift doesn't have a lot of new content but the fact of the matter is that Continuum Shift has a sizable amount of content that it's predecessor doesn't have, most notably it's new story, and there is A LOT of story and lore to go through. That's new content. Some people may not care for it but that doesn't change the fact that it's still there and the previous game doesn't have it. And whether or not all the content is worth the price you pay, or whether everything is overpriced or not, is entirely up to you. It's all subjective and depends on how much you care for and value what you're buying.
But in any case Continuum Shift does actually have a respectable amount of content that it's predecessor doesn't have including:
-New Game modes like the Tutorial mode, Challenge mode, Legion mode, and Beginner mode
-4 new playable characters, although one of them needs to be unlocked. There are also at least 3 more on the way via DLC
-15 new stages
-New Fighting Mechanics such as a new break burst system and new fatal counter system, among other stuff
-New moves for all characters
There are also a number of general changes. One of the most significant is the fact that the story is 1.5 or 2 times bigger than in the previous game: Calamity Trigger. All of the characters have been rebalanced but if you're not happy with the changes there is not necessarily any need to worry. Because this time around the game is patchable for character balance so, at least in theory, there could be future rebalancing if demand for it is great enough.
There is more that makes Continuum Shift different from Calamity Trigger but I really don't think it's necessary for me to give the full rundown because there are apparently other places on the internet that have already done that. And besides I think I've already gotten my point across. Although some people may not see it as a sequel in no small part because it doesn't fit their own personal definition of what a sequel is or what a sequel should be. But I would encourage anyone reading to take a look at the facts, specifically all of the stuff this game has that it's predecessor doesn't, and decide for themselves.
Continuum Shift is a great fighting game but if you want info that focuses more on the gameplay aspect of it I think that the professional reviewers can do a better job with that than myself so instead I'll just focus on what I consider to be the best part of Blazblue.
In my opinion the best part of Blazblue, what most effectively set's it apart from other fighting games, and what most effectively sets Continuum Shift apart from its predecessor is the story.
Now the story of Blazblue seems to be somewhat of a point of polarization. Some people love it while others hate it. This applies to both gamers and professional reviewers alike. Professional reviewers are by no means united against Blazblue's story and some have given it positive marks. But some people have made highly subjective claims such as Blazblue's story being weak, or poorly written, or throwaway with no real effort being put into it. I for one disagree strongly and completely.
There is a HUGE amount of story and lore in the Blazblue Universe, maybe even enough to rival at least some RPGs. What's equally impressive is the fact that it's all kept coherent with both Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift. It's obvious that a lot of careful thought went into everything and there is still the fact that Blazblue puts so much more emphasis on it's story than other fighting games. Blazblue may very well include a number of anime conventions and/or tropes but that by no means indicates or means that effort wasn't put into it. One can plausibly describe other fighting game stories as weak, poorly written, poorly conceived, and/or and having throwaway stories that don't have any real effort put into them but not Blazblue.
Let me say that I am actually not a fan of fighting games. I have dabbled in franchises like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Soul Calibur but I've never really been a fan. And part of the reason for that is that I generally like my video games stories. So when I heard about Blazblue, a fighting game that supposedly did story well, I was naturally curious. But when I got into Blazblue I was amazed at how well done the story was. It's not just that I liked the writing, or that the characters were interesting and/or likeable (in numerous cases I found them to be both), or the sheer scope and detail of the lore, or the interesting addition of the branching story paths. What really impressed me most of all was the coherence of it all. Usually in fighting games there are numerous character play-throughs' with there own simplistic storyline scenarios but they're generally independent of each other with maybe only one or two actually being canon, or part of the formal and official story, and the rest of them being simply "what if" stories. A good example of a franchise that works like this is Mortal Kombat.
But in Blazblue it's all canon. Each of the character stories are canon and they're all part of the same large and complex story. This is done largely through the use of what I would call a clever plot device, or at least a clever use of said plot device. And it's not even limited to the story mode either. The arcade stories, while much more simplistic, are also part of the overall whole.
Of course all of this also means that there is really nothing mindless about Blazblue's story. It actually requires, or at least strongly encourages, you to think. Some people claim that it's hard to understand. But I also strongly disagree, I would say that Blazblue's story is not hard to understand, at most it just requires at least a little patience. Although it may appear to be hard to understand because of the unusual way in which it's told. Overall the story mode of Blazblue is kind of like a puzzle. Each character play-through is simply one piece of a large and complex puzzle. It might seem at least a little hard to understand at first but with each play-through you receive another piece of the puzzle and you're gradually and steadily able to gain a greater and greater understanding of everything. So it's not that the story is hard to understand, it's just that the understanding tends to come gradually as opposed to quickly like other games.
To help this process along there are also the "Teach Me, Miss Litchi" segments. These are expository sketch comedy pieces. Unlike the arcade and story modes these are technically not part of the Blazblue canon but nevertheless they are definitely not to be taken for granted. They generally involve numerous characters (most prominently Litchi) of Blazblue teaching Taokaka about the world they live in (or at least trying to). And as Taokaka learns (or at least tries to) so does the player. As the introduction of the first episode of "Teach Me, Miss Litchi" points out the purpose of the segments is not to further the story, but to facilitate your understanding of Blazblue. Overall these segments are an excellent way for you to familiarize yourself with the Blazblue lore and gain a greater understanding of the Blazblue universe, and you might even have a few good laughs along the way.
And to top it all off when you've played through all of the character stories the true ending is unlocked. Essentially the other play-throughs and endings develop everything, and the true play-through and true ending moves it all forward. And it's all kept coherent on top of that. This is done in both Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift and it's a great accomplishment.
As for the actual story, I'm not going to spoil anything but it does have a lot of stuff that one might expect from a good story like action, drama, suspense, melodrama, a lot of quirky comedy, intrigue, tender and/or sentimental parts, and even a little romance (Litchi is on a quest to help someone she loves and Bang has unreciprocated feelings for Litchi). The story is full of meaningful and interesting dialogue, good characterization, and rich character interaction. And it also has a great deal of information and lore backing it all up. And let me emphasize again that it's kept coherent.
Overall Blazblue's story is great and this is also one of the main reasons why Continuum Shift is so important. A while ago I heard that a traditional story structure for Japanese manga is a four part formula. In the first part the story begins, in the second part the story expands, in the third part the story reaches a climax, and in the fourth part the story gets wrapped up. This is the formula that was used for the original four .hack (pronounced dot hack) video games for the PS2. I can't help but wonder if this is the formula that the creators have in mind for Blazblue. What I do know is that Calamity Trigger started everything and in Continuum Shift everything expands in a big way. The dialogue is even more interesting and meaningful, the character interactions are richer, and the characterization is just as good if not better. On top of that there's more story in general and Continuum Shift is generally much more informative than it's predecessor and that's not even taking into account the new episodes of "Teach Me, Miss Litchi", now called "Teach Me, Miss Litchi: Reloaded".
In my opinion, Blazblue is awesome. I love Continuum Shift just as I love Calamity Trigger. Even so I know that it's safe to say that, like many other games, Blazblue is not for everyone. Nevertheless I wholeheartedly recommend Continuum Shift to absolutely anyone who cares about the stories in their video games. Not just anime fans and not just Blazblue fans. Although it's also safe to say that both of the games are a must-have for anime fans. However for those who like their video game stories and are interested in Continuum Shift, I strongly recommend that you pick up and play through Calamity Trigger first if you haven't already. Yes, Continuum Shift's story mode does include a summary of the events of the first game and Continuum Shift also thoughtfully includes the first set of "Teach Me, Miss Litchi" episodes in addition to the new episodes. But nevertheless if you skipped over Calamity Trigger you would still be missing out on a lot of stuff in terms of dialogue, characterization, and character interaction and the like. I know from experience that hearing or reading about something can be a very different experience than actually experiencing it firsthand.
So I guess that's it. But before I finish up there are one or two more things I would like to say. Naturally anyone is free to comment on this review if they want but if you actually want to debate with me then I'm very sorry but I really can't accommodate you. You see my only goal here was to say my piece and now that I've done that I'm going to get on with my life. For those who have taken the time to read this I would like to say thank you very much for your time and I hope that you've found my words helpful.
Best 2D fighter ever!!!!!!!! August 22, 2010
Jaishiro
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a great game, probably the most complex fighting ever, once you learn there moves and combos, you can be great with anybody. This is the only fighting game where every character you have to play with a different style yet everybody is effective in there own way. Another thing is the game was only 30 some dollars and it has a new story and it is also the deepest fighting game story i have ever played, people need to really stop hating because it is not an update, this a new game with new moves, new fighters, new story, and new modes.
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