BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a two dimensional fighting game from Arc System Works, whose previous games include the similar Guilty Gear series. Resisting the recent trend for 3D fighters, BlazBlue sticks with 2D sprites fighting on a fixed 2D plane over a mix of 3D and 2D animated background art. The results are quite spectacular and make great use of modern graphical technology and HD resolutions. The game is pretty and the use of 2D certainly suits the games quirky sci-fi anime setting.

Speaking of quirky sci-fi anime, I would love to tell you about the story of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger but I could not follow it at all. I like my fair share of weird anime but BlazBlue turns the weirdness up to 11 right from the opening cinematic. The game is by no means light on story; in fact it probably has more dialog than any other fighting game I've ever played, however, the story is so complicated and unusual that I found it almost completely incomprehensible.

Each of the 12 unique characters has their own story mode to play through so chances are if you invest enough time into the game and complete each individual story arc you may come to grips with what the hell is going on. The use of silly made up names for everything doesn't help matters at all but that's anime for you and if that's your bag, you will love BlazBlue. I still don't know why the bouts have ‘Rebels' instead of ‘Rounds' and quite seriously I would need a whole page to list all of the WTF moments in this game.

The Story mode of BlazBlue is really quite involved. Each character has a long branching storyline with pages and pages of dialog and decent voice acting. A little more animation during conversations would have been nice with actual fights serving to break up the lengthy sessions of attempted elucidation. Even the Arcade mode has sections with dialog that flesh out the ludicrous story arc of each character. Player choices and branching storylines add an element of replayability so if you so desire you can always replay a characters story out of idle curiosity or in an attempt to get that last unlockable.

As with most fighting games, the control system is simple yet deep at the same time. Players of fighting games reside in two distinct camps, Button Mashers (of which I am the Grand Poobah Button Masher) and Virgins. What the Virgins lack in contact with the opposite sex they make up for in amazing skills. These players learn all the moves, perfect offensive and defensive timing and the Jedi Virgins take things a step further by being able to predict your next move by the pre-jiggle of your characters pixels.

The basic controls of BlazBlue consist of the face buttons being mapped to weak, medium and strong attack as well as a powerful character-specific Drive attack. Barriers or blocks and recovery moves are performed with trigger pulls and special attacks called Distortion Drives can be simply executed with flicks of the Right Thumbstick. Mapping special moves to the Right Thumbstick is great for beginners as it allows you to pull off powerful attacks without complex combinations of movement and button inputs. Even a Button Masher like me could beat all of the 12 characters in Arcade mode with very few defeats.

Each player has a standard Health gauge, a super or Heat gauge used for special techniques and Drive attacks and a Defensive gauge that allows you to use barriers but punishes you if you defend too much. As you fight, different moves will fill up your gauges and allow you to complete different offensive and defensive actions.

A Training mode is offered, however, I found this to be more tailored to Virgins looking to perfect their mad skills rather than beginners. It is simply an opportunity to practice moves with an opponent that does not fight back. A list of move combos can be accessed via a menu and characters can be swapped with any of the 12 available. If you want to practice defensive moves you can switch to your opponent and record a series of strikes before switching back to practice defending against them as they are replayed. I did not find this to be an easy system to learn from but I can see how hardcore players could get a lot out of it.

One great feature is the ability to remap all of the controller inputs. This was particularly handy when trying to learn a characters specific moves and combos. In the Training mode move lists red, yellow, green and blue icons are used to represent weak, medium, strong and drive attacks, however, they are not mapped to the red, yellow, green and blue buttons on the controller by default. This was the first thing that I changed and made understanding the move combos much easier and straightforward.

Online multiplayer is split into Ranked and Unranked matches but I found the match making to be hit and miss. I suffered a lot of dropped connections prior to starting a match and when I finally did find a match I learnt a new term...'Drive Spammer'. Apparently Button Mashers are frowned upon by the BlazBlue online community and I can only assume that it is jealousy because I have had sex before and my naysayers had not. That said, other than a jittery opening camera pan the fights were lag free.

The overall presentation and style of BlazBlue is fantastic and very true to the anime sub culture. Character and set designs, music, menus, voice acting and the incomprehensible story are all uniquely anime and very well done. If you are an anime fan you will enjoy this game and if you are also a fighting game fan then you probably already own it.