Is Blazblue a good fighter

Current Fighting Games BlazBlue
81

BB is technically solid, it’s programmed well and nothing is really broken, it’s just boring as fuck:

  • stupidly long BnBs for relatively little damage
  • no momentum (reaction rolls negate any kind of interesting oki e.g. going for a late airdash mixup or a crossup? WHOOPS roll)
  • movesets are so poorly designed there’s one BEST combo that everyone does and is always the same no matter what starter you use (even gold burst)
  • no need for creative setups because you can get adequate damage with the most basic standing high/low shit
  • most characters are locked into a particular strategy, telling players apart is difficult
  • hard limit on damage, the opponent could whiff a huge DP in your face and the best possible punish is the same 40~60% BnB you always do

etc etc… yawn

Character balance is the LEAST of this game’s problems (or any game’s for that matter) yet that seems to be all people talk about concerning BB - why is that? Does no one know what makes a good fighting game anymore?

Don’t be stupid, quality doesn’t have anything to do with console game sales. BB was marketed heavily outside of Japan, while GG got literally none whatsoever. Obviously BB will sell more. Do you think SF4 sold millions because it was BETTER than everything that came before it? Use your damn brain.

82

I don’t see the point to arguing about this, when we both have different opinions on what is actually true.
I could say that what you’re saying isn’t really true and list a bunch of reasons for it, but it wouldn’t lead anywhere sice you would still disagree (and frankly I don’t care enough about BB anymore to discuss it indepth). For example, I don’t agree at all with you when you say that Lambda vs Hazama is as bad as Lambda vs Arakune and that it affects one of the characters to such a degree that they can’t play the way they’re supposed to.

There’s also a reason why I dropped BB with CS2:EX, because I didn’t think the changes really fixed any of the issues I have with the series. In fact, they threw in a few new ones.

The other stuff is pretty obvious. I mean who doesn’t think that, for example, many combos are too long? There’s not really much to say about that other than it doesn’t make the game any better and more fun.

83

i agree with everything you say except hard limit on damage. if your opponent whiff a dp in your face you’re losing 60-70% because of fatal counters.

84

i love BB, but i know that this statement its wrong

all of this mechanics make sense based on the context on how the game is played

dunno what game have you been playing, but lambda has not being a problem since cs, at least not like you describe
as for tager, everything indicates that he could have be a solid character this time on csex

every game has loops

85

Reddies’ post isn’t a troll attempt, Hecatom. Some of it is actually legitimate, though CS2 took a lot of steps to address the points he raised.

A lot of it was issues with hitstop/hitlag being very high and the overall strength of air and neutral tech. BBCS’ addition of fatal counters and of moves with massive P1 helped the max damage issue, though some characters still have terrible max (Tager, in particular). Playstyles and combo routes have also been fleshed out in a lot of ways, except for corner combos - it’s more of an issue with there being only so many good combo enders available to people: Jin, for example, has either 236B for ground oki or 623C DP loop in the corner. Going back, that’s an issue with resets not being all that strong - moves that are good for resetting tend to just not be used that much.

Throwing it out there, the characters I know the most about are Lambda, Ragna, Valkenhayn, and Tager. Lambda and Ragna have strong guaranteed oki with 3C or 236C => 236D and 22A~C option select Madao respectively. Valkenhayn and Tager have falling j.C and Gadget Finger, which helps their oki as well (well, GF kind of sucks in CS2, but its goal is to help oki). This may be the exception rather than the rule, but a couple of chars with terrible oki (Tao, in particular) can play the neutral game very well, and get good damage off most hits as a tradeoff.

86

BB is really a solid fighter game. It rewards good playing consistently, has a good learning curve and can be spectacular to watch.
The netcode is really good and input method is online friendly.

It is also regularly updated, with system modification and deep char moveset modifications, not just some frame modifications thrown here and there.
Though that can put off some people: players of my offline group do not want to bother relearning their char every 6 months. The console releases timeline has a 90’s feeling to it. (EU player venting here).

About Reddies’ post, I totally agree with too long combos. The rest, not so much.
BB has strong oki chars (at least Rachel, Valk, Lambda come to mind) and weak oki chars. Choice is yours.
I always found combos varied a lot, yet their length guarantees the inclusion of standard BnBs…
Damage does vary. Openings with 5A or 6C move types, normal, CH or fatal, have completely different rewards.

87

I don’t see the reason in isolating one aspect of what I said and being so hostile about it. If a game is ass, I don’t think it would sell very well regardless of the marketing. BB is more accessible than GG, I played both starting with GG btw. Like I said in the rest of my quote, it wouldn’t be on its fourth sequel if it was ass.

88

Who gives a shit about gameplay, the music alone makes it better than most every fighter out there.

89

It’s a good game… if it were made back in the 90s.

90

I’m not talking about being broken and dumb á la Nu.

I think you missed the word " abundance" in my previous statement. Many characters have legit loops in the game, a bunch even have several. I’ve never liked loops like the Tau taunt loops either. Plus the loops in this game drags out the combos by a good bit, which is another con with this game (overly long combos).

I also think you need to tone down the fanboyism a notch, since as Andarel said, Hecatom isn’t trolling. Or are you saying that say 10-15 second long combos is something good?

91

I don’t see the issue, that’s what the game was built for, it’s not like it’s an unintentional consequence. They want long, flashy combos. If they do less damage, you get to do more of them during a match. I love SF4 but I certainly prefer being able to do more than a few strings per match over SF4 where most characters are two combos or one combo and an ultra from dead.

I agree with the ‘no momentum’ thing fully as well, but again I don’t see why that’s such a bad thing, it allows for more back-and-forth matches that can swing wildly. I’d certainly say I’m a fanboy for the series and am biased, but as far as saying it’s ‘boring’ I think that’s a very unfair assessment, especially for high-level play. Anyone who watched Evo can say that the BB finals were just as great as any of the other major games.

92

Well, other than this video showing how easy it is to botch the Arakune vs Lambda matchup (and it’s better in CS2/EX than it was in CS1! Hurrah?), it does point out that momentum is fully possible to maintain unless you drop stuff. Bursts and Counter Assaults, if they are successful, kill momentum on purpose. But characters who can guarantee mixup on knockdown (Mu’s Steiner setups, Lambda’s 236D, Ragna’s safejump j.C and 22A~C, Valk falling j.C, Carl 3]D[, Tager Gadget Finger, Arakune bugs, Makoto 236D) can maintain momentum just as well, especially because some of them lead to legit 50-50s or better (0:31 - j.B into j.C overhead, j.2C whiff 2B low, or j.2C whiff throw).

[media=youtube]AQXESOkdG6A[/media]

Not going to deny that Lambda’s 2D and 6D are stupid against Arakune, but if he gets 50 meter it’s very possible to punish them on reaction with instant curse off FoG into comeback. Shit happens, though.

Mostly I just pulled it up since I had the 'kune video thread open and wanted to find an example of 236D oki.

93

Illustrates my point even further. A bottom B tier won EVO, even against a few japanese players, simply through solid play and experience.

94

its not fanboyism lol, but yeah, when people defend a game against missinformation and stupid shit its fanboyism, lololol (and for the record, i foun funny how people say that its fanboyism hen its BB (and some when its an new school FG), but dont have problems when are other games)
its only about how people complaint about stuff that was delieberately done there, the game is designed for people that like that kind of game, you find boring the “15 seconds long” combos, while other people actually like it, guess what, if by the 4th iteration they have not taken them out, it would never happen, the game was designed with “long” combos in mind
and if you belive that bb combos are long go play FUC to learn what its a long combo
many of the complaints usually are only a matter of preferences, that doesnt hold anything about if the game its good or not at the end, not real problems with the game
character desing being boring, character gameplay being uninspired (wich btw its totally wrong, the chars are way more creative than many other games), game being boring as fuck.
for example his comment
"combos being the same", bnbs are that, your optimal combo for getting damage, or are we gonna start complaining about them, if that so, then complaint about all the other games that are in the same situation wich its basically all of the games in the market, its like complaining that magneto goes for the rom on mvc2 when he gets the oportunity
"no need for creative setups because you can get adequate damage with the most basic standing high/low shit"
shows how he doesnt play the game if he really believes that or
"most characters are locked into a particular strategy, telling players apart is difficult"
wich its trully loltastic, oh no, the zoner character is zoning…

yeah his post was so valuable, rolleyes

95

At this point you’re both just being inflammatory.

Some of his points were valid, even if you don’t seem to think so, since ArcSys has been directly responding to them. Long combos were a complaint, that’s why they undid the hitstop change from CT > CS1 > CS2, which brought combos back to 6 - 10 sec from 12 - 15 sec. They cut combos like Tao’s taunt loop and Litchi’s repeated 5D pickup off spinning staff in the corner or BCB loop, sped up long-hitstop moves like Act Parser: Cavalier, Belial Edge, and Makoto’s drives, and generally streamlined the combo system. Arcsys has definitely been making combos shorter. Which is part of why Tager’s new combos with 3C~623[C] j.2D and meaty 236A~236A in the corner are so strange looking.

Blazblue is very restrictive when it comes to creative ‘style combos’. Some characters have them, but there are usually 2 or 3 optimal BnB combos per character. Personally, I don’t mind - they’ve got some play to them, and there are chances to go nuts and do stuff like midcombo supers but this isn’t Marvel or a game where you combo however you want and it magically works. This also leads to the comment of “most characters are locked into a particular strategy, telling players apart is difficult” which I personally think is both flat-out wrong and not specific to this game. Watch Ragna players, or Carl players, or Valkenhayn players and watch people using the character’s tools in completely different ways. Even (CS:EX) Tagers vary between the grab-happy defensive ones and more aggressive ones who use his great 5A and 5C. On the other hand, CS1 had some issues with this because there were many characters with very limited toolsets. With few good moves or one completely dominant move, those characters were pretty much forced to crutch on them. See, Ragna 5B and 6A into double BE loop, which was pretty much all he did and was why he plummeted in tiers as the game went on.

Max damage is pretty much a non-issue. Whiff a DP, get hit by Zantetsu or Ragna FC 2C or Hazama CH 6C or any other move with godlike P1 and your health bar will not be happy with you. Same with creative setups, watch a Rachel, Mu, or Carl player, or the several types of oki Ragna can get (214A~214D, DID heel, 3C > safejump ,or Madao) and what can be done afterwards, or Lambda’s newer oki tech (214D~C into meaty 2B, meaty 4B, or reversal bait). The tech is definitely there, not our fault if you’re not looking for it.

Also, please stop relying on ‘a Hakumen won EVO’ as some sort of validation of BB’s supremacy. I mean sure, he’s not top tier. But he’s a good character, and it’s no secret that pretty much everyone is viable in CS2. If anything, the EVO top 8 having 7 different characters (2 Noels, 1 Makoto, 1 Lambda, 1 Litchi, 1 Hakumen, 1 Hazama, 1 Carl) is a more useful number. Which, for the record, is pretty much the same distribution as SSF4 2010 top 8 having 1 Ryu, 1 Adon, 1 Zangeif, 2 Chun, 1 Rufus, 1 Akuma, 2 E.Honda, 1 Dhalsim counting people playing multiple characters/counterpicking.

96

Self contradictory list for the win? “BnBs do relatively little damage” but you don’t need to try for different starters because you can get “adequate damage with the most basic standing/low”.

I play Tsubaki, and the difference between what I can get under circumstance X vs Y is a factor of about 300%. That’s “tiny, sad little combo” from certain starters vs “roughly 60% of an opponent’s life bar.” And I kinda suck (And Tsubaki has a relatively low max damage compared to some of the cast.) So… uh. Yeah. Your information seems outdated or just plain wrong. Have you played this game since CT? Certainly, the combo variety is no more limited than, say, SF4.

Also…characters locked into a specific strategy? That must be why the “zoning” characters can all play mean rushdown?

Additionally, no momentum? Spoken, again, like someone who doesn’t play the game. It’s bloody EASY for most characters to pin someone in the corner and essentially FORCE them to neutral tech. All you need is a tiny ounce of spacing and reactions. Midscreen? Again it’s EASY to prevent an opponent from forward rolling, so they essentially have the choice of putting up with your oki, or surrendering distance and putting themselves closer to the corner, and corners are a very bad place in BB.

You’re really just making yourself look ignorant with comments like this. It’s fine to dislike the game. Just don’t make up nonsense about it in an effort to validate your opinion.

97

Could you rewrite that? I’m kinda lost at what you’re trying to say.

98

O. Hawk qualified for SBO. Its 90% player 10% Character

Your point doesn’t mean shit yo

99

Under what basis can you say that, since mine doesn’t mean shit. Is there statistics to that, if you look at my post, I never said sf4 is a tier whoring game like mvc3 is. I’m just saying that a bottom b tier winning EVO illustrates my point about BB. That’s all.

100

Alright it’s kinda becoming one of those “my subjective opinion is right and everyone is wrong” kind of threads in here.

Is Blazblue a good fighter? Some love it, some hate it, some don’t care about it either way. The best answer you can get is: you should play it make a decision for yourself.

night night