BlazBlue Continuum Shift

In addition to first game (Callamity Trigger), this sequel offers a new story, a couple of new modes, some ballancing and only 3 new characters and one of them is a boss, and has to be unlocked.

Lets start with the good news.

If you are Familiar with the First BlazBlue, it had 12 unique characters to choose from and a story mode that required and recived much more attention than any other fighting game. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift has a new story mode, in adition to the practice mode it has a tuttorial mode where you'll learn step by step how to play 2D fighting games, a legion mode where you recruit fighters to your army and take territory from your opponent, and a chalenge mode were you must do certain moves and combos to win the match, and eventually learn every secret of your favorite character.
They are nice aditions for players who are going to play this game Singe player, but fighting games are more fun when you are playing with other people, and here it doesn't offer much localy. Thankfully, the almost perfect network battles of the first game have been twicked so, aside from the endless battles, replays and carefully racked matches, you'll be able to play arcade mode or train, while waiting for the match making system to find an oponent, and this is a big deal!

Now lets go to the bad news.

The Core of a Fighting game is it's characters, and in this case the product description here on Amazon is lieing in a clever way (it says "SEVEN NEW CHARACTERS" as this review is writen)!
There are only 2 new basic fighters and 1 boss that becomes playable after certaing conditions are met...
Lamda is not a new character as the description claims! She is simply a diferent color palete for Nu-13 of the first game!
The other 3 characters are downloadable content that you have to pay seperatelly and they are not part of the game you are about to buy. By the time of this review, 2 downloadable characters have been released and the third one is revealed, but none of them is yet aveliable in the European Playstation Store.

Aside from the above, there are some points where you feel the game is downgraded. The new Anime oppening is not nearly as impresive as the one of Calamity Triger, with lots of still and in-game futage, And the new artwork for the characters is a little worse and has a slightly lower resolution.
The character's graphics in battle are the same, and the main meny have been replaced with a more user friendly one, but less iconic one.

A new version of Continuum Shift called "BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2" is planed to be released in japan, that will include a new opening, all the Downloadable characters and the latest ballancing, but there are no news of a console port, let alone a release in the western world.

Long story short:

If you don't own the first game and you don't care about the surprisingly deep and complex story of BlazBlue, then this is THE game for you. It has a lower than normal price, a great Tutorial mode to show the ropes of 2D fighing games in general, and it is the latest update in the franchise.

If you don't own the first game but you are interest in the game's story, then you'll have a hard time folowing it. Simply buying Callamity Trigger wont help much, since the Canon Ending in that game does not get unlocked, unless you completed at least once the story of every other character. It's a lot of work...

If you own the first game, you won't find many core additions here. There are a lot of single player activities, but not much when it comes to local multyplayer. For better or worse (for the first game), most of the online community will now support the sequel, so if you are a fighting game fan and play mostly, you don't have much of an option... You might as well consider buying it to finaly avoid staring at the match making screen doing nothing, thanks to the ability to play while matchmaking, witch is a big deal.

Ending comments.
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift doesn't offer much deferences in the core gameplay or new fighters, and the extra fighters must be boght seperatelly. The tons of single player content and the tweeked network battle almost make up for these stuff.

I give it 4 stars instead of 5 for selling half of the new characters seperatelly as DLC.

Fantastic must have game. I would recommend anybody to buy it of this specific seller as the limitied edition version is much cheaper than the normal version is in the shops!

This game is a must have for all those people who love fighting games. this game is really good for the price the seller has put also this game will take time to get the controls memorised but they are easy just like other fighting games. the graphics in this game are out standing and the game justs get better itself.