I love the Blazblue series, having played and loved Chrono Phantasma on the PlayStation 4 I was even more excited when I saw that a Blazblue was coming out for the Nintendo Switch. My Switch library is very small at the minute and now with the addition of Blazblue, I can say my game library is ten times better. Being a huge fan of the series visual style as well as being a lover of all types of fighting games, it was a no brainer for me to get my hands on the game and see what was in store from this installation of the series and whether it is what I’ve been waiting for. Personally, I believe that this is the best that Blazblue has ever been and loved the fact that the Special Edition on the Switch comes with all the DLC from the Steam/PS4 versions, which is perfect!
BlazBlue: Central Fiction is the fourth game in the series and takes place after the events in BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. For fans of the series, sadly it will be the last game to have Ragna as the main protagonist and the final C-series mainline game. With additional new features added to spice up gameplay. It sticks to the 2D fighting style that we love from the series and continues to pack a huge woaw factor while playing.
There have been some minor tweaks with the gameplay but nothing to major, however, the game has two new mechanics these being Exceed Accel and Active flow. Exceed is a special type of Distortion Drive which can be performed easily and dishes out large amounts of damage, then we have Active flow which acts as the opposite of negative penalty status. The more aggressive you fight the more damage you deal and the faster you increase your burst gauge. We also see new game modes called Speed Star, where you have to defeat all the enemies that appear and try to do it in the quickest time possible.
The thing that I love about Blazblue the most is how easy it can be for new players to pick up and get stuck into. With the tutorial and training modes, you can learn everything from the ground up and get into the game without any problems, though it does take some time to sit through all the tutorials so be warned there is a lot of information to take in. I love that you can train with each character as well, so once you have found your favourite fighter you can go to the practice area and learn that character until you have perfect them. This is very handy because you can learn characters before going online or fighting against your friends.
BlazBlue has two fighting styles, for those that feel confident that they can pull off huge combos by mastering the button sequences you have the Technical control type and for those that are just starting out or can’t hack the combos like me, can still feel epic by using the stylish control type. The only difference being that if you use Stylish you won’t deal as much damage with powerful attacks because of how easy it is to do them, so the game encourages you to practice and learn combos because using the Technical control type will deal a full amount of damage when the combos been pulled of correctly. Though 70% of the time I do find myself button mashing as being like oh my god that was amazing, now how do I do that again.
Its art style has already won top marks off me, I loved any game that has anime style characters in it and with full Japanese voice acting for all characters it can take the gold home now. Each character has their own unique look and with added colour variation it allows the player to select from a decent amount of styles which really spices up the visual side of things. My personal favourite characters being Noel Vermillion, Yuuki Terumi, and Mai Natsume. When in combat the visuals for the characters attacks are incredibly cool to watch and perform, using Overdrive and the many different combos really makes for some spectacular fight scenes and I have to say that it looks amazingly polished and perfectly animated. This without a doubt has to be up there with one of the best 2D fighting games ever.
BBCS comes with a whole load of replay value that makes it worth every penny. You have the main story mode, arcade mode as well as much more. The amount of characters as well provides a lot of diversity when playing which means more gameplay hours trying to master more characters. With the added addition of online multiplayer, it’ll just mean that you will have ultimate hours of fun because you’ll be playing until you have felt like you have gotten all you can out of the game which will take a while as it is so fantastic.
Docked Vs UnDocked
With Switch games, I always feel that it is important to see how it performs on the go and when played through the Dock and without a doubt the port for Blazblue Centralfiction is perfect. I enjoy playing it on my TV and love how smooth it runs while the game is undocked. It can get uncomfortable at times playing it undocked with the Joy-cons but it’s not the end of the world. I enjoy it on the big screen more though as it looks amazing and with the added luxury of having a Pro controller it makes pulling off the combos that bit easier and more comfortable for longer playing sessions.
Closing Statement
BlazBlue has been around for a while and personally if you haven’t played it a least once I believe you’re missing out on one hell of a series. Fighting games are perfect when they’re 2D and Blazblue has hit the nail on the head with all its previous games, then it released this one and hits the ball right out of the park. It works amazingly well on the Switch and being able to enjoy the game on my lunch breaks at work is truly something to look forward to while working. The character roster is full of epic fighters and you’ll find a fighter or two that fits your fighting style with no problem. With hours of gameplay and the epic competitive value behind it whether that be online or against your friends it without a doubt one of the best fighting games of all time. That’s why Blazblue Central Fiction is getting a score of 9 out of 10!
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