This is my sample entry for Fog of War, Bitmob's Community Writing Prompt for the month of May. Want to take part in the fight to improve readability across the Internet? Check out the original post for rules and guidelines. Entries are due May 31st.

Original Version

Let’s face it: The economy is in a bad way, and the fighting game genre isn’t as prominent it used to be. When you take both of those factors into account, it’s no wonder that more people haven’t heard of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, the latest fighting game from Arc System Works. That’s a shame, really, because despite its relative obscurity in the eyes of the most gamers, BlazBlue’s design and execution are worthy of notice. If you’re on the fence, I have three reasons why you should give exactly one (1) Flying Fuck:

1) Easy Inputs

BlazBlue, like its predecessor Guilty Gear, is a complex beast with many subtleties. Make no mistake: you’ll need to put in some serious time with any one of the game’s 12 pugilists to be successful in online matches. However, Arc made some interesting design choices in regards to input methods that make the process a little easier.

Each character in BlazBlue has a weak, medium and strong attack, which you can combine with various directional inputs to perform special moves. This is all fairly standard; what’s interesting is the Drive button. The Drive button performs a unique action for each character that is integral to medium-to-high level gameplay. Drive attacks range from combo extending attacks to counter stances to the ability to control gusts of wind that drastically change the game flow. Having access to such potent moves with a single button press means even beginners can perform a cool and effective technique without derailing their training by resorting to macro and shortcut commands.

And when you’re ready to start learning combinations and special moves, BlazBlue has you covered there, too. Unlike most fighting games – most notably Street Fighter IV – that require machine-like timing to pull off, BlazBlue’s engine will repeat your button inputs for 5 frames. For the fighting game layman, this means that if your timing is a little off on a fireball technique, chances are you’ll still land the move you intended to use. There’s still timing involved, and button mashers will still lose to experienced players, but now, mere mortals have a chance at greatness formerly reserved for only the truly Godlike players.

By streamlining command input while retaining complexity, Arc has created a situation where players can spend less time learning techniques and commands and more time figuring out how to effectively use them. The result is a quicker path to high-level strategic play and a much more rewarding experience overall. Many developers could stand to learn from Arc’s example.

2) Online Functionality

I’m going to be blunt, here: Street Fighter IV is one of the worst examples of online functionality I’ve ever seen. Consistent lag, poor matchmaking and a two-player lobby limit top my personal list of complaints. With arcades become scarcer by the day, online play is the only way most people will ever get to fight other players. It’s a critical feature in today’s marketplace, and thankfully, Arc didn’t mess around with BlazBlue’s online experience.

BlazBlue features a six-player online lobby with full spectator support, a great range of search filters, the ability to save fight replays, and best of all, negligible lag. Delayed input is the death of a high-level fighting game, but through some kind of network necromancy that borders on sublime, Arc managed to come up with a way to synchronize players before each fight so that “I lost because of lag” is no longer a valid complaint in most cases.

Recent botched releases like Battlefield 1943 prove that a simple, versatile and reliable online experience is key to any product that has “Multiplayer Gameplay” as one of its bullet points. Fighting game developers, and all developers in general, should pay attention to what Arc has accomplished here in the online realm.

3) Underdog Success

Chances are, if you don’t play fighting games, you didn’t know BlazBlue was even coming to North America. Though there’s been a recent resurgence in the popularity of fighting games, the former glory of the genre is gone forever. BlazBlue is the epitome of the specialized niche game. It was a risky move publishing the game at all, considering the relative lack of mainstream appeal. Looking at all of the localization work that went into the game, one wonders why the game wasn’t published solely in Japan on a region-free disc to satisfy the North American fanbase in a much cheaper way.

Regardless, BlazBlue made it over, and so far, it’s making reasonably sized waves. For two weeks, the BlazBlue Xbox 360 board was at the top of GameFAQs’ Top 10 Boards list. As of the time of this writing, both the 360 and PS3 versions of the game are on GameStop’s Best Sellers list. In Canada, Gamestop only received 500 copies of the game nationwide initially – not enough to satisfy the 742 preorders that had been placed for the game as of my last inquiry.

Simply put, people are buying this highly specialized niche game, and I don’t think anybody could have expected the level of success BlazBlue has seen. Whether the game’s sales will justify its development, publishing and localization costs remains to be seen, but it’s mere existence is a notice to all developers. You can be different. You can develop for specific segments of the audience. You can take a risk and people just might buy your game. If the product is solid, people will buy it.

So, that's why you should care about BlazBlue.

Flesch Reading Ease: 53.9

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 10.8

Gunning Fog Index: 13.61

[Continue to Page 2 for the revised version]