Design Blog

Friday, April 17, 2009

BlazBlue: Pushing Design Limitations Part 2

The job hunt is going about as well as can be expected and I've got my first design test to work on now. In the meantime I thought I'd continue my discussion of BlazBlue and the original game mechanics it introduces to the fighting game genre. Today is a discussion of the "Drive" system and the start of the individual character analysis.

-----
The Drive System

The button scheme for this game consists of 3 attack buttons of varying strength plus a 4th button called the Drive button. Now the first part isn't very unusual. Many fighting games have 3 or more attack buttons, but 3 is about the bare minimum that most games get away with currently (although Virtua Fighter only has punch and kick). Of course the problem with having less buttons is that you have to use additional button combinations and direction/button combinations to get more moves. So based on the ratio of actions the character can perform the amount of complex interactions can change.

I'm getting a little off topic here, so getting back to the drive system, the 4th button in BlazBlue is used for character specific actions. I believe in an interview someone related to the game mentioned that it is the button "that makes your character do something cool". It's an interesting button because the effect of it varies wildly percharacter. For some characters it is a separate attack, but for others it is an entirely separate mode or action that interacts with attacks. The result of this drive system is that every character has one ability that wildly differentiates them from the other characters beyond the simple special move properties common to most games.

Additionally behind each of the drive systems is a completely unique mechanic that none of the other characters really have. Some drives can be used an unlimited amount of times while others have special meters. Additionally the applications of each one are different, some have multiple moves associated with them while others only have a few.

The drive system is the crux of why I'm really attracted to this game. It screams original design and feels like a huge stretch beyond just simply giving each character a different theme. It sets them apart on an entire game mechanic level and I imagine it was incredibly difficult to balance as a result of that.

I seem to have written a lot there so I'll just do a few characters this time

----

Ragna the Bloodedge
Drive - Soul Eater
Ragna is the main character and his drive allows him to steal health from the enemy. For him the drive button acts as a separate attack button. Each attack that hits using this button drains a small portion of health fromm the enemy. I found this to be a really crazy idea for a fighting game when I first heard about it. Generally ways to heal are rare in fighting games since the matches are decided based on who loses all their health first. Any way to heal is generally very difficult to pull off or has very small rewards. (In awkward contrast suicide style moves which drain the player's health tend to be much more common.) The fact that only Ragna has these types of attacks is a pretty bold move on the designer's part, since this kind of ability is one that can easily be either too powerful or too weak to be useful. So far tournament play from arcades seem to suggest that it was balanced fairly well. The drive attacks steal life and Ragna was created with lower than average health and an offensive oriented playstyle to compensate.

As a final twist Ragna also has a special mode called Blood Kain that causes him to actively lose health gradually while increasting the amount of health that his lifestealing takes. It's an interesting tradeoff though from what I've seen most players find it to be too risky to bother using.

-----

Jin Kisaragi
Drivce - Frostbite
Jin's drive as the name implies freezes the enemy. It's similar to Ragna in that it is done in the form of an attack and can be used indefinitely without penalty. Freezing in fact has been done before in some other fighting games and I think it's tends to fill the role of stuns in other games. Jin's is no exception, but the number of freezing attacks he has in comparison to other games seems to be much higher, but is balanced by the fact that two freezing attacks in a row will not freeze in succession.

Now as I said the actual freeze mechanic has been done before, but where it gets interesting is how its combined with another mechanic common to games. I guess I'll call it the EX mechanic. Certain special attacks, when performed with the drive button drain 25% of the player's super gauge in order to launch a more powerful or upgraded version of the attack. In addition to the freezing mechanic, this gives players a many more moves to work with when playing Jin and allow them to plan effective strategies through the use of their super bar (since the bar is also used for the roman cancel and super move).

-----

That's all for now, I've gotta get back to design tests and applications. I will eventually finish this segment though so stay tuned.

Labels: arcade games, blazblue, design philosophy, game mechanics, job

posted by Saikyo at 12:01 PM