Grim Grimoir--oh wait

[moonsheen]

So I finished BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger's story mode! In spite of being totally ass at fighting games! Now it's just the arcade mode and then actually learning how to play it proper (and find someone to play it AGAINST :()

The basics of this game are that it is NOT Guilty Gear. No, it's totally not Guilty Gear. It just uses the same battle system and character designs and most of the design team, but it is absolutely not Guilty Gear in any way shape or form. Really. We Swear. We'll even make the surly guy in red and the priss in blue brothers to prove it and make them less gay!.

Except what we got was a weird incestuous Guilty Gear AU with wizards. and catgirls. and VAMPIRES.

So now we shall call it...Smuilty Smear or something. I don't know. Whatever it was it was awesome.




Ragna Not Sol Badguy Fail Sibling #1 the BLOODEDGE: ...the interviews with the developers made him seem like Blandy McBland, and in his main storyline he's pretty largely generic. He's the surly, foul-mouthed, rough around the edges protagonist with a GRUDGE AGAINST THE WOOORLD. He plays easily, being the obvious starter character. Though he has an interesting quirk where his defense is absolute CRAP-- but he sucks HP from his enemies every blow, so that cancels it out. His main storyline is pretty cut and dry SRS BSNS. The only times I found him interesting being when his siblings were involved. Fail Sibling #2 is crazy. Fail Sibling #3 is even crazier. Pretty much nearly all incarnations he meets him the present game want to bang him. You sort of feel bad for the guy, but he still comes off as kind of bland. Sol Badguy was cooler. Can we get Sol back?

...is what I said until I played through Ragna's ridiculous B path.

Guys, Ragna's amazing when he's doing stupid shit. Oh my god, I want him to team up with Taokaka for crazy buddy adventures for always. In which they hit up cheap ramen joints and fail to pay the tab ALL AROUND THE WORLD.

Jin Kisaragi Not Ky Kiske Fail Sibling #2: ....plays exactly like Ky Kiske in that you just mash buttons and you will be CHEAP AS HELL. Besides that, the color scheme, and being a prominent employee of your typical totalitarian post-apocalyptic government... the similarities end, because unlike Ky Jin is just crazy. Like, out of his mind, off his meds crazy. Points to his VA because the way he switches from prim and proper Officer of the Law to RAVING LUNATIC is pretty damn spot on. He has black-outs. He wakes up with blood on his hands not knowing who it belongs to. He becomes a bloodthirsty slut when his brother is in the room-- you think I'm being figurative. But then the in-game omakes give him hearts every time he threatens to kill Ragna. This is actually a pretty good summary of their relationship. It's very much a BROTHER PAY ATTENTION TO ME BROTHER BROTHERRRR NO ONE CAN KILL YOU BUT MEEE COME BACK SO I CAN KILL YOU BROOOOTHER

Ragna's response is a pretty succinct "STOP CALLING ME."

That said Jin became my favorite, not so much because his madness actually as tragic as it is impressive (it is), but largely because in spite of it he gets what's probably the most coherent and remarkably solid character arc in the game. Which is sort of unheard of for fighting games, so yeah, I love Jin a lot.

Also I want his boots, but anyway.

Noel Vermillion Not Dizzy? THANKFULLY NOT DIZZY Fail Sibling #....?: ....I would actual argue Noel is the real main character of the game. The developers clearly put a lot into her to make you emotionally invested in her (it worked). A lot about her is spoilery. A lot about her is blatant moebait, but somehow I wound up stupidly charmed by her because her fighting style is gorgeous and she wears a backless dress which shows off her really buff shoulders. Also she is just sort of adorably pathetic. She is the three legged puppy of the game. She fails so hard at just about everything except for her sexy, sexy gun kata you just kind of wind up rooting for her. Well, arguably her and Jin together make up the full Not!Ky contingincy. Jin's got the character-design, Noel's the actual genderflipped Ky. Officer of the Law out to Do Good, very by the book, and gets really really anxious if you throw her out of her depth. A...and can i touch that panda? no? ohokaymm.

She also gets mistaken for a man. Which is sort of what happens when you wear a blue mini-skirt in a game made by the creators of Guilty Gear.

Rachel Alucard Not Slayer??? what's the cast of rozen maiden doing in this game???: This game makes me feel like a terrible person for selling me on the most moebait characters in it goddamn. The creators admit that they just felt a 'gothloli was required' when they created her. Thing is I didn't expect RACHEL TO BE MADE OF WIN. Mostly by virtue of the fact she's an elegant, cultured, high-class princess more than she ever is the loli. Rachel's awesome. I suck at playing her. She handles really, really weird. But she's still awesome and I kind of ship her with Ragna? Shit. Why, game, why.

Until I'm told different the father she keeps mentioning is Slayer. Just saying.

Taokaka: FUCK THIS GAME MADE ME LIKE THE CAT GIRL. WHY DID IT MAKE ME LIKE THE CAT GIRL? BUT CAN YOU BLAME ME? CAN YOU? TAOKAKA IS AWESOME. HER AND RAGNA WILL HAVE ADVENTURES.

THAT WILL BE AWESOME.

Tager Not Potemkin: Tager's chill. He's actually a little more fun to play as than Potemkin. The game gets points for actively ragging on his lack of speed and inability to dash. He's also probably the most sane character in this game. If you lose to him in story mode he usually takes your character to the local hospital. He's also a five-ton cyborg. Who takes orders from a catgirl. Not the same catgirl as above.

I like that catgirl too. why game why

Litchi: Occupies the same space as Velvet from Odin Sphere for me in that she's very clearly supposed to be the sex appeal character who you adore and yet I am sort of cool on her. I can appreciate the fact that she is supposed to be a very emotionally brittle character. I can even sympathize with her particular M.O. but at the same time she's so amazingly useless about it that you wind up rather exasperated on her behalf. She is at least a marginally better written scientist than the average FF7 compilation character. But she also plays like she's stuck in mud and her story mode COULD NOT HAVE BEEN OVER SOONER. And Tager's catgirl sort of beats her out in the scientist department. But I guess that was intentional on the games part.

Arakune: ....is a sin against God and playing his storymode made me queasy. Which means the game succeeded in exactly what it intended to do. I was with Noel in the one storybranch though EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUGH KILL IT KILL IT WITH FIRE AAAAAAAAAAGH.

Bang Shishigami NINJA FOR LOVE AND JUSTICE DEFENDER OF THE WEAK PASSION WITH LEGS!!: is my future husband.

Carl Clover: Escaped from a Black Butler spread. I enjoyed him as much as I was vaguely unsettled by the times he rather cheerfully decided to torture the people he defeated in battle. His game mechanics focus on flagstaff maneuvers in addition to operating his battle marionette, which isn't something I've seen before in a fighting game. I secretly hope he turns out to be a girl. Come on BlazBlue, you have to throw a gender curveball in here SOMEWHERE. (maybe it will be Litchi)

I probably should've paid more attention to his storyline. Which had a great deal of Bang and so was pretty awesome. But I was distracted mostly because I'd just unlocked...


v-13 Fail Sibling 3.0: She remembers fondly when Ragna stabbed her. Multiple times. Hard and fast. She would like him to do it again. I guess there's a Rei Ayanami joke somewhere in here but I really got nothing after that. I don't know, this whole family's just got issues. CAN WE STOP CLONING PEOPLE'S RELATIVES? THAT'D BE GREAT.


Hakumen is the goddamn Batman.