the net raiders

A little over a month ago a game called BlazBlue came out for the 360 and PS3. It was developed by Arc System Works and published by Aksys, the same company who released Guilty Gear and Battle Fantasia. Knowing this, and Guilty Gear being the one of my favorite fighting games, you’d think I’d be all over this. One of my room mates pre-ordered it and made sure to show it to me when he finally got it. It looked like fun at first, but the more I saw of it the less  I wanted to play.

Guilty Gear is a fun fighting game to me, because while I don’t know the combos by heart, they aren’t impossible to pull off and I can beat people fairly often. What can I say? It’s not fun to lose all the time! BlazBlue however, doesn’t really have that luxury. The combos are complicated and best played with an arcade controller rather than a console controller.

What bothers me more about this game is that Battle Fantasia didn’t come out that long ago in America. It seems like this company is just taking Guilty Gear and replacing it’s characters with something more magical and bizzare than adolescent transvestite nuns that fight with yo-yos. Needless to say, this game is not meant for someone who plays fighting games casually.

Can someone make a fighting game where the more you button mash, or hit insane combinations of buttons unlock over the top, epic moves? I don’t mean with quarter circles and half circles and L and R trigger buttons nonsense. Just hit X and O twenty times in a row and summon a giant fire demon to smite your enemies. Sure it only takes away a quarter of their life, but it looked awesome. Fighting games are supposed to be fun, not cause you to lose feeling in your thumbs for the next few days! I play fighting games because I want to beat the crap out of a personified computer program. How can I do this with dignity when my avatar is a seven foot tall doctor with a bag over his head?