BlazBlue

[Mori]

So for those of you who don't have it or haven't heard of it, here we go:

Coming from a guy who hates 90% of all fighting games, I think BlazBlue is incredible. It's quite possibly one of the best fighting games I've played in a long, long time.  There's one thing that almost no fighting games have anymore, and that's balance.  Sure it can be fun, but take the game seriously and most fighting games only have a few good characters.  Here's a few examples. 

Soul Calibur = Any character with a large sword, Talim, and maybe Taki.  Nothing else survives in a serious tournament. 

Marvel vs Capcom 2 = Awesome, awesome game, but Sentinel is by far the most practical character.  Counters for absolutely any situation plus infinite combos. 

In BlazBlue, there are only 12 characters.  Each of them are highly individualized, each with their own abilities known as Drives.  For example, one character has power over the wind.  She can move the wind in any of the 8 cardinal directions, and it's physics-based, which means it affects all characters and projectiles on screen at once.  Another character can magnetically charge his opponents.  Another controls a small arsenal of floating swords.  One character is very literally a swarm of insects. 

No two characters are remotely similar, and at the same time, the game is absurdly easy to pick up and play.  And if that somehow doesn't sell you, here's what this beautiful game looks like:

[Tournament Play (Featuring Arakune vs Rachel, which is probably the coolest matchup of the three)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7pucYGzT4)
[Tournament Play 2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkOTCa-1YoI)
[Moar Tournament Play](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBTpdR2AiWw)

And some tutorials to see how easy this game is to learn:

[Noel Vermillion Tutorial](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pig7bwAwG4Q)

So…Go buy this game nowz.  It's worth every penny.

[xeross]

The voices are highly annoying. other then that it looks pretty cool to me, just dont dig the anime style really.

Regards, Xeross

[Mori]

Admittedly I kind of agree with you.  I tend to blast the music to max volume over the battle and voice-overs, so I don't really notice the voices unless I'm at a tournament or something like that.  I personally love the art style though.

[xeross]

I normally love anime style but it makes a fighting game feel kiddy.

Regards, Xeross

[Mori]

Hmm…I don't usually associate "anime style" with kiddy connotations, so I'm not sure what to say, really.  It's hard to pin down anime to any one genre since it's like trying to typecast a media form.  For example, "Elfen Lied" and "5 Centimeters Per Second" are both anime, but are vastly different. 

But maybe you're just talking about it in the context of fighting games only?