BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend

[Insanecyclone]

One of the few fightin game stories I care about.

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/07/01...blazblue-saga/


We’re About Halfway Through The BlazBlue Saga

While BlazBlue is a fighting game, Arc System Works created an elaborate world and story for the series. The plot begins with humanity on the brink of extinction at the hands of the "Black Beast" who is defeated by the newfound power of Ars Magus. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger follows Ragna the Bloodedge, a rebel who has a large bounty on his head.



Toshimichi Mori, Producer on BlazBlue, has an idea about how the story in BlazBlue will unfold. "Now, we’re a little bit over halfway through," Mori said to me while we were talking about the BlazBlue series. Earlier, we were discussing the complexity of BlazBlue and I made a joke about how Arc System Works games should have many "systems" in them. I’m glad he got it. Mori was in a cheerful mood even though I asked about the lack of a sleep feature in the Nintendo 3DS version of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II.



"The plan was to finish the series with the next title, but at the moment it’s getting pretty hard to wrap everything up," Mori continued.



We’ll have more about the BlazBlue series next week when our interview with Toshimichi Mori goes live.

[Callisto]

I gotta wonder if I'd have ever started caring about the story if it wasn't for Tao gag reels.

[Kaisha]

I don't know if I can be arsed to buy into a third release after the $24 I tossed at BBCS in DLC characters/Unlimited Unlocks.

For me, I'd rather they just continue the story as an anime series. I mainly thumbed through CS1's story because I just got tired of the low-budget presentation of it all, and just wanted to get through it to unlock Mu.

[Callisto]

The unlimited unlocks are the only DLC I regret getting just because I never use them, but I guess in fairness it's not like I'd be able to unlock them normally, I still can't get past Hakumen in Score Attack with the one character I'm actually decent with

[Kaisha]

Requiring score attack completion for unlimited unlock for just THAT character is beyond mean, and was just a way of essentially forcing players to fork the money over for those of us that actually like toying with them online.

I had to cheap-ass it using Tager's grab-loop on the AI and 2nd-controller to save me when things fucked up. Farthest I got legit was Hazama on Tao, and that just wasn't happening with him mind-reading 80% of my attacks.

I grabbed the DLC and Jin announcer when they had that 50% sale on them on PSN a long while back. Wanted the colours also, but fuck paying for palette swaps, seriously. No excuse for BB3 to not have a colour editor.

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/07/04...plus-for-vita/


BlazBlue Producer Toshimichi Mori Talks About Continuum Shift II Plus For Vita

Aksys brought an early build of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II Plus (temporary title) to E3. I played it and the one fight with Ragna and Jin was just like BlazBlue on consoles. When I met with Toshimichi Mori, Producer, I asked him to tell us more about the title, which is still in development at

Let’s talk about the PlayStation Vita version of BlazBlue. I heard it will have new story modes and you’re thinking about 3G online?


Toshimichi Mori, Producer: Yeah, we have plans to add more scenarios to the story mode. It will have the two scenarios from the PSP/3DS releases and three to four more stories will be added. We’re also looking at network functions for 3G functions, but that is to be determined. We’re also adding team matches for network play, so we will have many more modes.



Will BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II Plus (temporary title) do anything with the touch panels?



We plan to add a new control scheme using the touch panels. We’re still experimenting and working on it to see how it feels.



This is a question I think some of my readers are wondering about. You can’t put the 3DS version of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II in sleep mode. Why?



Why? [Laughs.] Sleep mode is not required by Nintendo. There is an option to not put it in. For this title, it’s just part of the design. [Laughs.] That’s all I can say.



Recently there has been a resurgence of fighting games on the market. How do you feel about this trend?



Thanks to Street Fighter IV, people are playing fighting games a lot more than the past. We have been making fighting games for a long time and we’re always going to compete with Capcom to make better games. We hope the players will enjoy the all of these games.



Games trends are cyclic. RPGs, for example, can be really popular at one time and then come back later on. Action games, shooting games are like this too. Now is the time for fighting games.



We’ll have more from Mori-san later this week where we discuss action games and the possibility of Guilty Gear X BlazBlue.]

[Kaisha]

I can't see 3G being used for anything more than downloading replays, and spectating matches. It's just too slow for realtime fights that require as low a ping as this genre does.

Not surprised at their 3DS answer at any rate given how atrocious their port job to it was according to most sources I've read. I'm surprised Nintendo didn't mandate sleep mode given how atrocious its battery life is.

[Callisto]

All for the best, less temptation for me to dump money on a handheld, lol. Still trying to plug away at learning my new stick this week, if anyone wants to do a few rounds in BB, or I also just picked up SSF4AE and MvC3, but I'm not remotely as good as either of those, it's amazing how much trouble I have moving to different engines.

[Isiolia]

All for the best, less temptation for me to dump money on a handheld, lol.

The PSP version is supposed to be solid though. Still not as good as home console versions, but better than the 3DS.

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/07/06...d-dark-heroes/


BlazBlue Producer Chats About Crossovers, Action Game Design, And Dark Heroes

The first part of our interview focused entirely on BlazBlue and the upcoming PlayStation Vita title. We shifted topics and discussed Toshimichi Mori’s ideas for an action game and the possibility of series crossovers in the BlazBlue universe.



Arc System Works is known for making fighting games, but your company has branched out with the Family titles Aksys published for WiiWare and Hard Corps Uprising. If you weren’t working on BlazBlue what kind of genre would you like to work on?



Toshimichi Mori, Producer: Action games. I’ve been thinking about making an action game like Devil May Cry for a long time.


Can you tell us more about your idea? You have someone with a sword who is quite popular in the BlazBlue universe who could star in his own action game.


More questions? [Laughs] I always wanted to make an action game that didn’t have difficult controls and was still enjoyable. I want players to get better and learn how to play a game simply by playing it and going through the levels.



Games like FPS (first person shooters), the controls are not that difficult. You don’t have to memorize all of these inputs, compared to fighting games. Even so, these games have the same depth as a fighting game. This is the kind of direction I’m thinking especially because with Arc System Works fighting games there are so many details you have to study and learn.



That’s interesting. I agree there is a lot players need to master and understand to be a mid-tier player for an Arc System Works fighting game. How do you feel you can make the games, even the ones you’re developing now, more accessible?



One idea is there is the possibility to get rid of all the complicated stuff and start over all over again with a brand new game without all of the extra systems.



Is that something you would really do?



To be honest, we have the feeling that we want to do that to reset the game. [Laughs and pauses to think.]



Well, it is pretty hard because many players like different elements from the games. It’s difficult to cutout some pieces. If we have less systems some players might not like that. That is a dilemma.

Plus you’re Arc System Works so you must have lots of systems.



[Laughs] Nice joke!



Crossovers are popular with fighting games and we’ve seen some BlazBlue characters pop up in other titles like Lord of Vermillion II from Square Enix and Queen’s Gate from Bandai Namco. We haven’t seen any characters crossover into the BlazBlue series, which series would you like to work with?



Honestly, until the BlazBlue story comes to an end we don’t want to add something outside from the story into the game. If we must choose, one series we’d like to work with is Trigun.



That suggests you already have an idea how BlazBlue will end, right?



Yeah, I had an idea from the start.



How far along are we in your plan?



Now, we’re a little bit over halfway through. The plan was to finish the series with the next title, but at the moment it’s getting pretty hard to wrap everything up. [Laughs]

I guess you’ll disappoint fans hoping for Guilty Gear X BlazBlue.



Until BlazBlue is finished we don’t have any plans for that.



[Spencer's note: Earlier I asked about Guilty Gear, which Mr. Mori is not involved with, he told me that's something I would have to ask Daisuke Ishiwatari about.]



You brought BlazBlue to the 3DS near launch and BlazBlue is already in development for Vita. Since you’re on the cutting edge, what do you think of Wii U?



At this point, we do not have enough information on Wii U.



How about a fighting game where you knock someone out of the TV and onto the controller?



[Laughs] We still don’t have enough information. We’d have to look into it and the specs of the console.

You mentioned Trigun as a series you’d like to work with. Not necessarily tied to BlazBlue, but what other series would you be interested to develop into a game, perhaps similar to how Arc System Works worked with Fist of the North Star?



In addition to Trigun, maybe Gatchaman for an action game. This is just in my mind, but if I had a chance I would like to do Gatchaman from a different perspective as a dark hero, like Batman.



What makes dark heroes so fascinating? That seems like a growing trend in Japanese games.



Because I like Batman! [Laughs] I really enjoyed the new Batman movies like The Dark Knight. In these uncertain days, people are not sure what is good and what is bad. Dark heroes kind of represent that feeling for players.

[Xno Kappa]

What the fuck is up with Arc System Works and this new trend of wanting to water down fighting games and make crappy action games instead?

[Kaisha]

Being a one-trick pony in game development is boring as fuck and not good for your resume, especially in this era of publishers outsourcing jobs to other studios left/right.

[Callisto]

Besides, Hard Corps: Uprising is fucking awesome

[Insanecyclone]

CS2+ for arcades & Vita port adds him. No word on DLC for current CS.

[Callisto]

Guessing they'll handle it the same as they did the CS2 patch...while I'm glad to see him in there in terms of story I hope he's going to be substantially different from Carl, part of what I like about BB is the uniqueness of each character compared to the rest of the cast. Wish they'd stop patching CS and just come out with the third game though, so they can wrap up the story and get cracking on the new GG.

[Callisto]

Does anyone know how to get an account on dustloop? Every time I try it says registration has been disabled, but I see people on there that have made accounts just yesterday.

[Caiyuo]

have to show proof you know how to counter assault

[Callisto]

Going to be trying to get some practice in for Chicago Heart coming up this weekend, will be on this tonight, Wednesday, and Friday if anyone wants to get some rounds in on XBL.

[Xerlic]

If you run into a player from GA who goes by Deadguy, tell him Xerlic says hey.

[Callisto]

I might have found the saltiest XBL BB player ever last night lol, keep in mind that he won the fucking fight and I still get salty-ass excuses and him trying to tell me that using basic BnBs online is cheap:



http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ce80/salt1.png

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ce80/salt2.png