BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is the first game of the BlazBlue series, created by Arc System Works, later followed by BlazBlue: Continuum Shift.

Long ago, a terrible monster called "The Black Beast" appeared and began destroying everything in its path, spreading a toxic substance called "seithr" across the planet and threatening to cause The End of the World as We Know It. Humanity was on the verge of extinction when a group known as the Six Heroes arose and developed weapons to fight the Black Beast: the "Armagus", an artificial form of magic powered by seithr that anyone could use. With humanity empowered by the Armagus, the Black Beast was defeated and the Six Heroes disappeared into history. This event became known as the "First War of Magic".

Humanity began reconstruction in low-seithr areas and formed the Novus Orbis Librarium [1] (otherwise known as the N.O.L. or "The Library") to govern the world and the grimoires that controlled the Armagus. However, the N.O.L. quickly grew into The Empire and began to abuse their power, aiming to create a hostile monopoly on the Armagus grimoires. A resistance movement attempted to rebel against the N.O.L's growing power in an event known as the Ikaruga Civil War, but were defeated. As a result, the N.O.L. imposed even harsher restrictions on the Armagus, making Armagus possession (outside of the N.O.L.'s own members) punishable by execution without trial.

In the year 2199, several branches of the N.O.L. are suddenly destroyed by a One-Man Army known only as "Ragna the Bloodedge". Wielding a powerful Armagus called the Azure Grimoire, he leads a new resistance to end the government's rule over the world. In retaliation, the N.O.L. imposes the largest bounty in history to anyone who kills him.

As news spreads that Ragna has arrived at the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi, a ragtag bunch of N.O.L. operatives, bounty hunters and vigilantes straight from the Dysfunction Junction descend upon the city, each one seeking out Ragna for their own purpose. Meanwhile, Ragna heads for the dark secret lurking at the heart of Kagutsuchi, a single purpose resting in his heart.

The game uses a 4 button system: Weak Attack (A), Medium Attack (B), Strong Attack (C), and a unique Drive Attack (D) for each character.

The Arcade version of Calamity Trigger was released on November 20, 2008, and console ports for the Play Station 3 and Xbox 360 were released on June 30, 2009. The console version included online play, a new Story Mode that is set up somewhat like a Visual Novel, a new anime opening by J-Pop artist Kotoko as well as several new anime cutscenes, English voice acting, and much, much more. Console releases are sold in retail and premium editions which include a combo DVD, an artbook (several of these are now backordered, unfortunately), and a limited edition soundtrack, which includes every song in the game except for the main theme and the two extra songs for certain characters, and instead replaces them with remixes by rap artist Oh No. The European version was released much, much later. April 2 2010, to be specific. As compensation, it has all the DLC included for free.

There's a PSP port, entitled BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Portable, and a Windows PC version of Calamity Trigger, released for the Games for Windows platform on September 2, 2010. The latter is available for $35 and, much like the PAL release, for the fans who waited so long, includes all of the console DLC for free.

Rebel 2! ACTION!
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: The European cover shows Noel doing a pretty badass Pistol Pose with a dark brown background contrasting other covers' use of blue. The result makes it look more like a shooting game.
  • Anger Born of Worry: During the True Ending sequence, after Noel saves Ragna from falling into the cauldron.
  • Anyone Can Die: They can and often do in the story mode. Including Especially the main character, Ragna, who often dies in his own path. The Groundhog Day Loop makes it so that all of the endings are canon, while ensuring that no one is Killed Off for Real (except v-13). Or...?
  • Book Ends: The Ragna ending of Rachel's story mode ends with the same tea in the courtyard that it began with.
  • Cover Drop: The seal depicted behind the BlazBlue logo (and on the game over screen) finally shows up in the story in the True Ending, when Ragna activates his Azure Grimoire.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Hakumen says a variant of this in his Calamity Trigger Arcade mode when Nu-13 is the ninth fight, rather than the last one.
  • Glamour Failure: In the True Ending of Calamity Trigger, Hazama reveals that he is actually Yuuki Terumi. Interesting because his glamor failed more or less out of sheer enthusiasm.
  • Groundhog Day Loop: All of the paths of the story mode in Calamity Trigger actually occur. It is implied that these events have been looping for some time, and that Rachel is the only one of the main cast who is aware of it. The True End finally breaks the loop.
  • Groundhog Peggy Sue: Rachel.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: Ragna vs. Jin. And you love them for it.
  • Kick the Dog: Jin kills Noel in his story mode. He's in crazy mode, so it's probably this trope. If he kills her while being sane or not under the influence of Yukianesa...
  • Ludonarrative Dissonance:
    • No matter how many times you activate Ragna's Blood Kain in gameplay, it doesn't count in the story until a certain cutscene in the True Ending.
    • Also, no matter how hard you lay the curb-stomping on Hazama/Terumi in Arcade Mode, he is still just warming up.
  • PC vs. Console: Thanks to the announcement of the Windows PC version.
  • Poor Communication Kills: All of the people in the story who know ANYTHING about what's really going on are either the villains (Terumi, Takagamahara), enormous assholes who can't be bothered to explain anything even to their own allies (Kokonoe) or people who can't tell what's happening because of being Observers. (Rachel) Jubei, Hakumen and Kokonoe know a lot more about the Azure Grimoire than they're telling Ragna, Jin or Tager.
    • At one point, Rachel even outright mocks Noel for all of the things Rachel knows that she doesn't know about herself, and then refuses to tell her anything.
  • Power-Up Motif: Bang Shishigami's Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan is a Super Mode that works like this: when you activate it, his power-up music begins to play loudly over the stage BGM, until the next round begins.
  • Rank Inflation: In Online mode, players are awarded ranks that change depending on the user's player level. Ranks change every 5 levels of inflation up to 50, then every 10 levels up to 90, and the last rank is reserved for level 95.
    • Independent fighters (Ragna, Rachel, and Arakune) start off as "Dine n' Dashers", then get "Risk Ratings" of "F7" to "F0", then progress from "E" to "A", then into "S" and finally "SS".
    • Vigilantes (Tao, Carl and Bang) are given different colors for their titles. Starting with "Novice" and ending at "Purple".
    • Sector Seven (Tager, Litchi and Hakumen) are given various animals. Starting with "Errand Boy", then going from actual animals like "Wolf" and "Lion" to mythical creatures like "Leviathan" and "Phoenix".
    • The NOL (Noel, Jin and Nu) are given military ranks. From "Private" to "Commander", then to elite royal ranks such as "Centuriones" and "Praefectus".
      • Lampshade Hanging: Due to lack of coding, once you reach level 100, every character's rank becomes "(null)". Yes, (null). Arcsys basically tells you you've wasted your time.
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Averted. Noel's definitely the most feminine character in BlazBlue, and nobody seems to complain much about it.
  • Regional Bonus: The European version includes all of the DLC, free of charge.
  • Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The European box art for Calamity Trigger of Noel Vermilion. Also fulfills the Pistol Pose trope.
  • Wasted Song: "Love So Blue" (the vocal version of "Bullet Dance", Noel's theme) only plays for the Noel vs. Nu battle in the true ending. Noel has an infinite heat gauge for this battle, so it will be over in 10 seconds. Fortunately, it can be selected in VS mode.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Nu is, at heart, a sad, lonely and somewhat deranged girl who just wants Ragna to be with her. Pity that also manifests in them becoming the Black Beast together and destroying much of the world.
    • At least, that's for starters. When her soul gets put into Lambda and you find out why she's like this, you can't help but feel for the poor girl... robot... thing.
    • If you take what she says literally and then remember the fact that she shares a life-link with Ragna then the fridge horror of whats happened to her is actually pretty shocking. Ragna has actually killed a semi completed Nu-13 twice before Calamity Trigger even begun, which in turn forced her to regenerate from scratch in the boundary... which is basically a place composed of 100% mind-rape. He did this without ever even thinking about her having emotions or a mind of her own since her previous forms weren't completed, and she couldn't talk yet. After Calamity Trigger, she's left at the bottom of the now destroyed cauldron to rot and attempt to regenerate until Tager came and took her half dead body back to sector-7 so that Kokonoe could rip the soul out of her and stuff it into Lambda-11's body which was in only... slightly better shape after having been left to rot on a pile of trash for several years at the ruins of the Ibukido site.

DISTORTION FINISH!

  1. ↑ "New World Void Space Cue Administration Bureau"
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