BlazBlue: Ragna owns Jin HARD

When I first started playing BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, I did a run of the standard Arcade mode with Bang Shishigami and then tried out the acclaimed Story mode of the game with the same character to see what differences there would be. The Arcade mode had me go through ten fighters, with my character’s rival being the eighth match, Hakumen being the ninth, and v-13 being the final boss. There was some spoken character-specific dialogue before, during, and after the matches which I certainly thought was awesome and I found it to be a very enjoyable experience, especially since the fighter A.I. in the game is a little challenging. The story’s presentation was straight to the point and presented in a way that I had liked. Unfortunately, Story mode did not win me over at first.

Story mode goes in-depth with the back story of each character and where they stand in the BlazBlue world. Over time, you will see how they interact with other characters you can play as(and even some that are there solely to help define the story), and even make choices that affect the story and which fighters your character ends up battling along the way. From what I have discovered from playing, each character has about three different endings you can get based on the choices you make during their story mode and how you win fights. Some endings are reached if you beat all of your opponents with a distortion finish. The branching story system is pretty cool concept for the fighting game genre. My gripe with it is that there’s far more story than there is actually fighting.

A typical story mode tree in BlazBlue

Before you choose what character you want, you are introduced to the most boring opening for a fighting game story mode since that big block of text came up at the beginning of a Soul Calibur IV character introduction. I couldn’t even tell you what the hell actually happened in this opening and I don’t care to watch it a second time. I wonder if I play the game more, if the opening will even matter. But so far, it has not seemed to impact the story for either Bang Shishigami, Taokaka, or even the main character, Ragna the Bloodedge. When you pick a character, you are given about a ten minute introduction to the character’s origin story and how they got to where they are today. Their relationships to other characters will be revealed and you switch between reading narratives and hearing spoken dialogue. The voice acting for this game is great, but having to switch back and forth between reading and listening is a bit cumbersome. Why couldn’t the characters talk in a narrative tone, or have a narrator in general? I really don’t get it.

After you are introduced to your character, you begin their first fight. Before each fight, you have a few minutes of banter go back and forth between the two fighters to progress the story and set up the bout. The roster for this game is very small so the chances that the characters knew each other before your time with your character began are likely. Insults are exchanged, jokes are delivered, and general weirdness occurs! One time, I choose to have Taokaka chase around Rachel Alucard’s sidekick because he/she/it looked like a meat bun to her. It’s too bad you don’t see this because the visual presentation of the story is mostly the characters in a pose against a backdrop with their mouths flapping when they talk.

Each fight in story mode is one round and usually lasts about one or two minutes. Then after the fight, if you have won you have a few more minutes of banter with your defeated opponent, then your character wonders around for a bit until they find the next opponent to converse and fight with. This happens about a total of five or six times in the story mode. Occasionally, a box will come up during conversations that will present you with two or three choices to select before moving on. The choices you make will affect what happens next in the story and who you will fight. The paths are also set on specific endings so if you want to see a different ending, you start over and pick a different choice.

So you play for about ten to twelve minutes(or less if you are very good at this game) and spend at least half an hour keeping up with the story. On top of that, it still switches back and forth between reading narrative and listening to spoken dialogue. They also try to have conversations between the characters during your fights, but so much crap is going on in the fight that you probably won’t make anything out half of the time. It’s cool that there are choices that you can make for your character to determine what you will do next, but you still spend far more time reading the story than you do playing the game, which in unconventional for fighting games. Not only that, you only progress through the story if you win each fight, There is no story branch if you lose; instead, your character is mocked, humiliated, and possibly even killed and then you see the Game Over screen.

I don’t mind losing, but in a system where the story can branch based on choices you make, it would have been a nice touch if you went on a different path if you lost – at least in the situations where the consequence of losing wasn’t death. The reason I make this an issue is because if you lose and get Game Over, you can’t immediately retry the fight. Instead, you are sent back to the Story mode menu and you can either choose to start over or load from your last save point and scroll quickly through the dialogue leading up to the fight. It would have been more intuitive to be able to retry the fight instead of being sent back to the menu.

Despite the flaws of how the story is presented, I have found myself wanting to learn more about the characters and the hierarchical city of Kagutsuchi! I’ve played a few different ways with Ragna and Taokaka and have seen different endings with both of them. You learn even more about the characters this way and why they fight than if you just completed one of their paths. One of the greatest strengths of BlazBlue is its incredible cast of well-developed characters; not only in their moves and appearance, but also in their personality. Arc System Works really did an amazing job of making each character in the game lively, and to be honest, the Story mode does lend greatly to that.

I would like to see the story branching built upon in the future, but a little more straight to the point in the delivery of the story. I would like to see more animated and spoken scenes too. The older King of Fighters games used the fighting engine to delivery the story; maybe the next BlazBlue could do that? Most importantly, if you have to lose every fight on every story branch to get 100% story completetion for a character, then something should happen in the story besides reaching the Game Over screen. How about I fight a different opponent if I lose? There’s definitely more that can be added to the story mode for this game, but BlazBlue does set a new standard for how storylines in fighting games can be presented. I didn’t like it too much at first, but it is definitely starting to grow on me.