I just got my import copy of Blazblue in the post today (ps3) and my first impressions have been hugely mixed. I went through the arcade to begin with choosing V13 to begin with and finding her absolutely weird to control and pretty much lost my first match to the computer. "ok" i thought , I'll try someone else... I chose poorly!
Carl is just not the kind of character you want to pick when first starting this game. I won one matcha nd then got beated over and over in the next, so i decided on taokaka(?) the cat girl. I had seen a lot of matches online with her and knew she was a very jabby-quick character which is the kind I like.  My impression of the game changed drastically at that point as i start doing 20-30  hit combos with  a combination of tested fighting game mechanics and button mashing.
I got through to hakumen and started getting a little angry at his stupidly powerful ultra's or whatever theyre called but I finally overcame him (in hindsight I really should have trained a bit and looked in the manual to see how to do her moves and how to defend myself better.) but then came the absolute cheapness of V13 oh my god one of the most hideously turtley, defensive, spammy final bosses I have ever encountered but once again in hindsight she is waaaaaaaayyyyyyy more tolerable and beatable than seth in SFIV.

*sigh of relief*

and then I did the wrong thing, I know it was wrong. Even as I type this I know exactly the mistake i made....I turned to someone and said

"I'm gonna fight someone online"

My first fight....I chose tao....i knew her....they chose bang.

I destroyed them even though they were level 5..... OH YEAH I IS THE AWESOMESTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!

make mental note to self....premature celebration will bring disappointment!... the next few matches i found myself being destroyed by ragna's and noels spamming one of two moves at me...AWE to the SOME!... "choose similar skill" lvl 43, 46,35,25...etc OH MY GOD!... there is nothing  like terrible match-ups like this to make you never want to return to an online game of this nature, I am pretty tolerant and willing to go through the pain of trying to get better but many will be instantly turned off by a matching system that does that.

my first impression is that this game seems pretty unbalanced and I have absolutely no evidence to back that up and I'll only know for sure with time . The spamming and insults and my first psn messages  I have gained in XBL kind of way have been disgusting, Everyone likes to say taht ps3 owners are a more mature crowd.... evidence today suggests theyre just the same as the ones playing the 360.
ad my final and biggest complaint whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyy doooooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeesssssssssss iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttt taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkeeeeeeeeeeeeee sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo looooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg tooooooooooooooooo cooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeecccccccccccctttttttttttttt toooooooooooooooooo ttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeee sssssssssssseeeerrrrrrrrrvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssssss aaaaaaaaaaaffffffffteeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrr aaaaaaaaaaa maaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttttccccccccchhhhhhhh????????? (why does it take so long to connect to the servers after a match)

it has taken (and I have timed it) up to 4 minutes  before the game decides to save and let me search for a new fight with absolutely no way of skipping it, I have had about 50 matches and about 10 disconnects , huge lag which may be because its only out in the US and Japan.... so, yeah not the best of first impressions.
and I paid £50 for the damn thing and absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the art and the music and its general atmosphere (that english language dub is abysmal)  and all the game has really done is frustrate me, Im totally going to put the hours in over the next few weeks to see if I change my mind....I want this to be better than streetfighter so much ( I ADORE sfIV with all my heart), I kind of need it to replace  it for a while before fighting another member of my self-titled "trifecta of dumb" (ken-sagat-zangief) because I will probably go insane from that fucking cry of shofuckingryuken!

absolutely true.

I never do quick match in ranked, I always do custom and physically pick my opponent.  Also, it sounds you never played Guilty Gear which is why you're so dissatisfied so far, this game is the spiritual successor to GG and borrows a lot of mechanics from it and adds on them.  Also, its not like Street Fighter or any other fighting game you've ever played.  Im sorry to hear about your disconnects though.  Be sure to read the incomplete games in the profile and if someone does it too much their profile goes red.  I have only had 2 disconnects in my whole 200+ ranked career and 30+ player match career - if you do proper research prior to the fight you'll avoid the bad crowd.  Finally, apparently the PS3 has the laggier version of the two and you're waiting on a patch for the lag or something...so hopefully that comes for you soon.

Has the patch come out for the PS3 version of the game yet?  Anyways, you should try using Ragna.  He is very easy to pick up and play.

I have played guilty gear... but only really against the ai , so i guess that doesn't count, I always knew the game wasn't like streetfighter . I  just wasn't ready for such a high volume of people that could destroy me with one move regardless of whether i defended myself or not

" @marioncobretti: The people online are very good - I have been destroyed by every character online, even Carl.  Yes, Carl.  That's what makes this game so good because every character can destroy any other character.  My first few games I got destroyed too but you learn how to block and learn when to do your barrier bursts at the right time, how and when to rapid cancel.  A lot of times, depending on your oponent of course there's exceptions, if you flurry your opponent at the begining they will be on the defensive for the rest of the match not knowing what to do.  Then they'll negative warning themselves and you go in and finish them off for the double damage it provides. "

" @Ouroboros & JJOR64 . Thankyou for the advice, I was probably just a little too naive to think I could just  button mash a win here and there online, I'ts very easy to  come from being moderately good in something like sf and just assume youre going to do just as well in another game.. the same happened when I went from being incredibly good at cod4 only to be taught numerous lessons in rainbow 6. I really dont want to main ragna or jin though I think i have an irrational fear of the poster boy characters in fighting games regardless of them being the better characters... I guess im just a little masochistic and like to choose someone that seems to take more effort to win with (I main chun-li in sf and taht it always seems like i have to put a bunch more effort to win against certain characters)..and again thankyou.... i will take a deep breath and do some trainiing mode before idiotically venturing to ranked matches again "

I've never taken more than like 10 seconds, if that, to get to the next match.  But definitely never 4 minutes.  Maybe it's because you're not in North America or Japan? 

I find that the online component is really well done in this game.  It's a tie with the greatness that was Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.  Street Fighter IV's online component is shit, in contrast. 

And yes, the PS3 has been patched up to the X360's version... finally :) 

I'm disappointed in Blazblue as well, for a lot of reasons.  Overall it just doesn't grab me.  I should have known better, because I was wary but when lots of 90% or higher reviews came out and tons of people on forums were raving about it, I thought it'd be different.  It turned out just like I expected :/

yes, Noel is one of the easiest to get good at. What I can tell that her DOWN + D has a high, mid & low hit, the only thing is that you most hit the other guy or his get a free hit at you.
Also Bang Shishigami is the shit.

FU-RIN-KA-ZAN, if the best super move.

Dont go near tekken you wont like what you see

" @Diamond: What did you expect the game to be like? "

It turned-out to be exactly as I was expecting too... just a tad better than what I played in the arcade, and it was. 

What a great game!! :) 

I like this game, and I am NOT hating on you when I say this, I promise you- but maybe this just isn't your game, ya know? It's hugely different from most 2d fighters to the point that I can absolutely see a lot of fighter fans being completely dissatisfied with it.

I grew up on Street Fighter 2 on my genesis and I loved Samurai Showdown. Then I went on to Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom Vs. Snk, and then after that I thought I was done. Then last year I picked up Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core out of complete curiousity. It totally blew me away.

And now BlazBlue has completely stolen my heart.

This game is still has very good, balanced match-ups. Pretty much any character can beat any other character (unless its like Tager vs. V-13, good luck with that)

and i heard V-13 is gonna get a nerf.

The reason it may seem unbalanced to you is because of the fact that the characters are different from each other, whereas in Street Fighter alot of the Characters are generally the same.

Also you say  "Spamming is rewarded in this, unlike SF"
Aha, no, That's why after around 700 matches in SFIV I just stopped playing for a long time. All I ever fight are spamming shotos, who turtle in a corner, in this game, corners will destroy you.

Well then, sell it and move on.  It's just a video game.

"Well then, sell it and move on.  It's just a video game."

you can hammer your drives and beat a bunch of noobs but you're crazy if you think shit like that works against advanced players. They'll lay out a bunch of different combo combinations that'll keep you guessing and work mind-games like utilizing cross-overs. Spamming your D won't get you far when a competent player figures you out and starts finding openings to send you into some painful combos.

So if  you actually want this game to feel rewarding to you, you'll have to stop stupid tactics like spamming high priority attacks and learn how pull off actual combos that involve more combinations than a couple button presses. Only then will you see the greatness that is Blazblue.

@marioncobretti

Lag? wtf? This game by FAR has best netcode among fighting games I own (SCIV, SFIV, Tekken DR)

Even against Japanese players I had smooth matches and I live in NY, not Cali.

Where do you live to have such terrible connection?

I can understand the part about not fitting your taste or whatever, but complaining about connection for me it's really hard to believe. I main Litchi as well and I can pull of her combos without any problems. None what so ever (well not now because I just bought arcade stick)

apparently this game is being over-hyped!

@marioncobretti

Well that's too bad. I'm guessing living in Europe is probably the problem since the game is not released there. I'm sure it won't be easy to find players live around you.

As for gameplay goes, I love this game. Is there lots of spammers in this game? yes that's true. Is it effective? Yes it's effective.

But like all other fighting game, there will always be spammers and it will have some degree of success. BlazBlue is no different. With little experiance and you can start dominating most spammers out there.

Also the balance is pretty good in this game. Aside from Nu, no one really sticks out. It's not perfect or near perfect like Virtua Fighter, but certainly not bad. The balance is much better than SFIV at the very least.

" @Althalus said:

"Well then, sell it and move on.  It's just a video game."

Yeah, if you don't like it you don't need to force yourself to like it or to get others to convince you to like it. "

" @FluxWaveZ said:

" @Althalus said:

"Well then, sell it and move on.  It's just a video game."

Yeah, if you don't like it you don't need to force yourself to like it or to get others to convince you to like it. "

You guys are doing the same to us SFIV players, so it's kinda fair. As long as everyone keeps slamming the other game, it's a nice stalemate. "

I just picked up a copy of the game today. I had mixed reactions on this game before I even purchased it but I figured I would give it a shot. I have not played it too much but I will say that I am not that impressed so far. Its okay but thats about it. Its just okay, definitely not worthy of all the praise that people have been giving it. Maybe I haven't found the hidden depth or whatever that a bunch of people seem to be experiencing but all I can say is that this is a rental at most. Glad I bought it used cause I definitely plan on returning it

" @Napalm: No, you misunderstood me.  It'll never become 30-40 dollars unless you want it beat up and used because this game is so niche.  It's a game that after a run and a half they wont make anymore.  I'm not saying it's not 30-40 dollars now, it could be.  But what I'm saying is that if you're using a tactic to wait until the price drops to get it, it might be too late. "