Even though he wasn't helming Blazblue directly, he was still in charge of the soundtrack, relieving the doubts of many who loved Guilty Gear's heavy metal feel.

 

Instead of an overarching genre to define the game, every song is intended to give you a feeling for the character though their own reflective genre. Regardless of what you think of the overall story of Blazblue, each character has a personality and specific relationship to every other character, no matter how important or superfluous it is.

 

For example, Taokaka's song, Catus Carnival, sounds like it belongs in the background of a slice of life, children's cartoon. The kind of song you'd expect to hear in the opening credits as the main character skips his way merrily to school, meeting the whole cast of characters. And that's precisely the kind of character Taokaka is, bumbling through her everyday life, just looking for the next big meal and a nice nap afterward, even if it means fighting some characters along the way to get off her favorite spot or buy her lunch.

 

In contrast, Ragna's song, Rebellion, has flying electric guitar riffs and a distinct drum beating in the background. Ragna's whole concept is that he's rebelling against the Librarium, the oppressive government in the Blazblue world. The shredding guitar clearly plays for the mood that this character is rash and won't stand to be apart of the status quo.

 

Normally, the challenging character's song plays in the background of each match and to compliment it, characters may have unique dialogue for specific match ups. If Ragna fights against Iron Tager for example, he'll refer to him as the Red Devil, Tager's nickname from the previous war. Likewise, Tager's song, Motor Head, plays while he ponderously lumbers towards his opponent matching the slow pace of his song perfectly.

 

But the defining songs are the character unique match up songs.

 

I've mentioned before that each character has a relationship with every character in some way in the overall story, but certain characters have much more significant bonds that call for a special song to play when they fight against each other.

 

Take for example Nightmare Fiction, my personal favorite. This song plays when Ragna fights against Hazama, the main villain. First, let's go over Hazama's theme, Gluttony Fang.

 

Gluttony Fang opens up with a sort of elegant piano that leads you to believe Hazama is a well-mannered man. Then a sort of distorted guitar riff plays, interrupting the mood the piano set. The rest of the song is like this, with a harsh electric guitar playing over the soothing piano set, giving the impression that this man is a two face, putting up this facade of a harmless man but deep down is some sort of violent, twisted, nefarious villain.

See? Nefarious!

 

Now move onto Nightmare Fiction and you can understand how the two characters clash even before the announcer formally begins the match.

 

Parts reminiscent of each character's style are represented but mash together to form a new idea. This isn't about the character by himself anymore but the history between them. In the case of Nightmare Fiction, there is definitely some bad blood between these two.

 

In fact, Hazama's earlier piano set never plays in Nightmare Fiction, which is accurate as Hazama's normal dialogue audio is replaced by an entirely different set. Instead of talking like Hazama, the smooth criminal, he speaks without his facade as Terumi Yuuki, a cruel and heartless killer who's responsible for most of the cast's problems in some way or another.

 

Ragna's representation of his bold electric guitar style and drums struggle against the distorted sound of Hazama's guitar and the almost cartoony amount of evil being exuded from his part in the song. It's seriously like Gluttony Fang's old timey villain with a handlebar mustache has been upgraded to a guitar shredding devil.

 

These versus themes are definitely the best songs in Blazblue: Continuum Shift's soundtrack and are used to not only represent the most important values of each character but also flesh out the important back stories at work in the game.

 

Ragna and Jin have a destructive relationship but a mysteriously peaceful past. Litchi wants to save Arakune even though nobody wants her to, including Arakune. And Tsubaki and Noel's friendship is put to the test as Tsubaki struggles with her orders to kill her best friend.

 

These songs, which define the most important moments in Blazblue's story, are what makes this game's soundtrack truly unique, not only from competitors (like Super Street Fighter IV) but also a lot of games in general.