Design Blog

Monday, June 8, 2009

Blazblue: Pushing Design Limitations Part 4

And now today we continue with the long delayed Blazblue posts! If you remember we are discussion the individual character drives and why each is a radical departure from traditional fighting game mechanics.

-----

Rachel Alucard - Sylpheed

Rachel has my favorite drive, because it's one of the most unique ones I've seen yet. Her drive ability is to create wind on the battlefield. She can create wind in any of the 8 cardinal directions on the joystick by pressing the drive button in conjunction with that direction. The wind lasts for several seconds and affects the movement of both her and her opponent. Rachel uses a special wind gauge to determine how many times she can use this drive before it runs out. The bar stocks 4 uses of wind, and actively recharges as long as Rachel is standing on the ground and not defending.

Now this drive would be interesting on it's own since it affects the movement of both characters when its used. For example a player can use wind to blow himself at the enemy or use wind to blow the enemy away. While the wind affects both characters, it affects them more strongly when jumping, so it's possible to use it to mess up an opponent's jump in attack as well. In fact some of Rachel's moves and combos require wind to get the maximum effect.

I said it would be interesting on it's own, but in fact there is also more to it. Rachel has a set of projectile moves which are also affected by the wind. One of them shoots a projectile in an arc which has three variations on the ground and in the air. The wind affects these projectiles so the player can determine where they land. In some instances it's actually advantageous to blow a projectile back towards you to hit an enemy. The second projectile actually does nothing on its own. It just sits there and slowly floats upwards. However when the player uses wind, it becomes an active projectile, which can hit the opponent or cancel other projectiles. This creates a dynamic multi-directional projectile that can even come from behind the enemy.

The originality of this drive as well as the fact that Rachel's movelist builds upon the mechanic is what makes it my favorite.

-----
Arakune - Crimson

Moving on to the next drive reveals not only an interesting mechanic but also a very oddly designed character as well. Arakune has the appearance of an amorphous blob and as a result many of this attacks change his shape in addition to his size on the screen. This has interesting effects on the gameplay since he even dissapears completely when performing a forward dash.

His drive ability is a set of moves which "curse" the opponent when they hit. (One variation curses even on block.) Once cursed, a small meter appears that represents how long the opponent is cursed for. After this point pressing any of the attack buttons (including drive again) causes a small bug to fly on screen from a preset location to attack the enemy. This action also causes the meter to deplete slightly although it can be renewed by connecting with another drive attack.

Outside of this very different drive attack comes a very different style of play. While most characters focus on combos (and Arakune does have combos) his drive mechanic and moveset seem to support a style of play which involves tricking the player into blocking incorrectly. Since the bugs can attack from multiple angles, this allows Arakune to switch sides with the enemy several times using his unique array of teleport and short movement skills. The bugs enhance this ability to do strange and different combos when the opponent blocks incorrectly.

-----

Bang Shishigami - Burning Heart

Bang has a more natural feeling drive attack, but this is offset by several other game mechanics that he has and how they factor into his overall playstyle. His drive attack causes him to do a slow and telegraphed powerful attack. However the start of the attack guards against incoming attacks. Some version guard against more types of attacks than others, but all of them guard against something.

This "guard point" style is actually present in other games so it might seem strange that I still call it very unique. The reason for this is the other systems linked into this guard point system. First, when Bang successfully guards an attack with his drive he has the ability to instantly teleport before finishing the attack. This allows for movement options if the guarded attack has more hits coming and allows Bang to even appear behind his enemy while completing the attack. Second is that the attack itself is linked to one of Bang's supers commonly refered to as "Bang Install" which completely changes his base mechanics. Activating the move requires the player to land 4 hits with his drive and changes his movement options to allow dashes in 8 different directions as well as allowing him to move through opponents. This causes him to become even more mobile than Taokaka, however it also strips his ability to block attacks, making the guard points more important. Bang becomes a unique character because of how his drive mechanic factors into his other moves.

If that wasn't enough Bang also utilizes a supply system of "nails" which limit the amount of certain attacks he can do. He starts with 12 nails and uses them up as he performs certain moves. These moves consist of different styles of projectiles which give him strong options for attacks and a move which creates a "bumper" in the air which persists for the entire round. The presence of the bumpers is yet another unique thing about Bang as he is allowed to dash in any direction as soon as he touches one. This allows him to control his movement with a high degree of precision, but only in locations where the bumpers are.

-----

Litchi Faye Ling - Mantenbou

The last character is Litchi, who's drive allows her to control a special staff weapon that floats alongside her as she fights. Pressing the drive button sets the staff on the ground (or throws it to the ground in some cases). Pressing the drive button again calls the staff back to her, hitting anything in its way. Certain special moves also plant the staff to be called back later. Litchi's drive can be used in a variety of ways to create unique custom combos. Traditional combos with the staff involve knocking the enemy to the ground with the staff, only to relaunch them when the staff is recalled.

This mechanic is similar to a character in Guilty Gear (not surprising since its the same company) though Mantenbou adds onto the previous ideas. First is that Litchi's attacks change depending on whether or not she is in possession of the staff. She basically has two sets of moves with differing properties depending on if she is holding the staff or not. Additionally besides the special moves she can only do with the staff, certain special moves require her NOT to have the staff in her possession. Things get even more interesting because some normal moves with the staff cause her to lose possession of the staff for parts of the moves. This means that the available move list can change in the middle of combos which creates not only an intesting gameplay element, but likely a challenging aspect of this character for balancing.

-----

That's it for this week, one more post of characters, as I push to the end of the list of characters.

Labels: blazblue, game mechanics

posted by Saikyo at 7:21 PM