BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II (3DS) Review

The 3DS has been such a haven for fans of fighters lately. It launched with Street Fighter IV, got iterations of Dead or Alive as well as Tekken later on in its life and now we have BlazBlue for the system too. With so many “firsts” for a Nintendo portable, it’s an exciting time for fighting game fans, though besides the launch title Street Fighter IV and to a lesser extent Dead or Alive, certain titles have had a little bit of trouble at actually bringing over a pure and true experience. BlazBlue : Continuum Shift II is the first ‘proper’ BlazBlue game for Nintendo’s portable and it sounds amazing on paper – a two dimensional fighter with high definition drawn sprites? Hook me up! But, unfortunately, the biggest problem with BlazBlue is that it just doesn’t feel like an authentic BlazBlue experience and little effort has gone into moving the title over to the console and properly utilising its power.

I won’t get too much into BlazBlue ’s story for one sole reason – it’s beyond convoluted and I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the franchise anymore. That being said, it is a well written story that has quite a bit of length, carrying on immediately after the previous game (Continuum Shift) . As I said, it has a bit of a convoluted nature but it is something that once you get your head around and keep up with, can be very satisfying. The story is augmented by the game’s soundtrack is an epic and amazingly orchestrated one that really adds to the intensity of the battles. The game does a great job at using full voiceover at almost every aspect of the battles – fighting a character who rivals your own unlocks additional dialogue during the battle which gives it a great almost anime-like quality. The sound quality has unfortunately been lowered presumably due to compression issues.

Easily the biggest disappointment with regards to BlazBlue : Continuum Shift II is the game’s visuals. With that being said, the game’s backgrounds and character animations are drawn beautifully and really give character to everything that appears on screen but that’s probably where the praise ends. BlazBlue as a franchise has always been about flawlessly crisp visuals and while the display on the 3DS isn’t high definition, the console itself can still do much better than what’s on offer here. The game’s graphics are a really obvious downgrade from the high definition consoles and even the PSP version – the frame rate is easily the biggest offender with the game not even running at a full 60fps, which makes the gameplay feel slow and clunky.

The game itself does feature some rather vibrant graphics, but for some reason they appear rather blurry and lack the sharpness that makes them truly great. This gives the game a very cheap comic-book like appearance and while it may sound like a good thing it just looks awful. The 3D effect is underwhelmingly lacklustre too, with backgrounds popping out but it feels more like a pop-up book rather than the developers actually making each individual layer stand out at varying depths. Of course, the biggest offender is one that has plagued quite a few 3DS games since the beginning – increasing the 3D effect even further reduces the frame rate to the point where the game becomes near unplayable. It’s an incredibly lazy and disappointing port and it fails to take full advantage of neither the 3DS’s power nor its 3D capabilities.

For the uninitiated, BlazBlue : Continuum Shift II includes all the downloadable content and balance tweaks that have been added to the game since Continuum Shift released in 2010. Unfortunately, this already makes the game out of date as another expansion, Continuum Shift Extend has since been released which is a bit disappointing. The game does have 18 characters selectable and they all provide unique play styles which is nice. In addition to this, the game also features a brand new “Abyss 1.5” mode which was exclusive to the 3DS version when it released in the US but now it’s been included in other versions. I’m sure you can see what I’m getting at – this edition has been released way too late and is already out of date, besides the portability there’s really nothing you couldn’t already get elsewhere (and maybe at an even cheaper price too).

The gameplay mechanics themselves are sound. Being a four button fighter, the game seems to be the perfect fit for the 3DS’s four face buttons, unlike previous fighters released on the system. While this is a perfect match, for some bizarre reason, the developers won’t let players use the Circle Pad Pro to move. Considering how fast paced this game is, the rather small D-Pad is quite possibly the worst method to use to control this game. It’s even more baffling when you can assign commands to directions of the Circle Pad but not actual movement. It’s such a weird decision that really becomes detrimental to the overview gameplay and it comes off as an oversight. For newbies, there’s a “stylish” control option that allows you to do cool and flashy things with minimal effort – but more experienced player will resent the amount of true control taken away from them. Your standard touch-to-perform combos appear on the touchscreen too.

The greatest thing I love about BlazBlue is that every move feels unique to every character – not only does every character have unique normal attacks (not just your standard kicks and punches) but also a unique “Drive” move. These drive moves basically accentuate the talents that each character has to turn it into something combat appropriate – some characters can imbue their attacks with ice to freeze enemies, while others can summon zephyrs to position their enemies. It’s a great little system that gives each character an extra level of uniqueness. Finally, of course, players can build up their heat gauge to unleash “Distortion Drive” attacks (which are similar to ultra combos in other games) and eventually Astral Heats. Astral Heats are basically flashy finishing moves but the special conditions required for them to be performed means that they’re harder to come across.

The fighting system in BlazBlue is quite in-depth, encouraging the player to really learn the intricacies in order to properly compete with enemies. This is BlazBlue ’s biggest blessing and curse, as more casual players may be put off by the dedication required (though the tutorial mode is surprisingly comprehensive). Ultimately though, the game itself is just too fast to be playable on the rather awkwardly implemented D-Pad and many fighting game fans will find it painful to play the game for extended periods of times. I’ll be honest here – at its core, BlazBlue is an solid and well built and excellent fighter but it has just not been properly optimised for the 3DS. As such, it feels like a lazy effort that’s been ported across quickly with little consideration.

BlazBlue : Continuum Shift II is a substantially well rounded package and is packed to the brim with content and different modes though your mileage will vary. A full story is included for each character and there’s at least twenty hours of gameplay being included at base. On top of this, there are arcade and score attack modes included for those who want to perfect their scores, as well as a Challenge mode that makes the player carry out certain moves or combos with each character. Legion mode turns the game into a kind of strategy game, requiring players to battle it out to conquer grids, with the conquered characters joining your team. Abyss mode, the unique mode, is essentially an endless stream of enemies and bosses and amounts to nothing more than a glorified survival mode that won’t hold your attention. Finally, there are unlockable “Unlimited” versions of characters (essentially overpowered) as well as hundreds of pieces of art and colour customisations. It’s a full package that’s easily worth at least forty hours but it really depends how much you want to get out of it. A very perplexing and potential deal breaker is the fact that the game features no online play at all – local muiltiplayer is supported but this really isn’t enough and is a big disappointment considering just how great BlazBlue ’s online modes are on consoles.

BlazBlue : Continuum Shift II paints a really depressing picture of what could’ve been and how to port over a franchise that was great and make it terrible. Sure, there’s a lot of content here and the gameplay is largely intact but some poor design choices and oversight stop it from being truly great. Two of the traditionally greatest things about BlazBlue : the graphics and the online functionality are perplexingly absent from this instalment and there’s potential for players to find the more updated version of BlazBlue elsewhere for cheaper on other consoles. If you’ve got only a 3DS and no other way to play BlazBlue , you could safely increase this score by one. However, as it stands, the package, while substantial, doesn’t properly utilise the pros of the console and comes off as an incredibly lazy PSP downport. Disappointing.