It’s 2010 and one of the most visually impressive and technical fighters from last year has finally made its portable debut on the PSP. It’s obvious that great care has gone into this port to maintain the look and feel of console counterparts. Important to any home version of a fighting game are the modes, and Blazblue Portable retains most of them from the console version. Gone is the online play and replay theater, instead we have the usual ad-hoc local multiplayer most PSP fighters have.
Blazblue Portable (BBP) still has all the standard modes like story, arcade, score attack, training and versus. What’s new to BBP are the legion and shop modes. Legion ends up feeling like a more strategic take on the classic team battle mode. You start out with your favorite character and then traverse a grid-like map of connected points taking on various teams of Blazblue characters. Each enemy you defeat is then added to a list of possible team additions. As you progress you will encounter characters of varied intelligence and strength. This mode is nothing more than a time waster and a vehicle for gaining more dp points, After you have unlocked everything the game has to offer from shop mode, legion quickly becomes obsolete.
Shop mode makes gaining the unlockable features in BBP smoother than its console counterparts. As you complete modes like arcade, story and participate in training you will earn pd points which can be used to purchase art, scenarios, enhanced versions of characters and finishing moves.
BBP is obviously not as pretty as the console versions with it’s lower resolution characters and small omissions of special effects but nothing that affects game play. Those who have played the original will also notice the mysterious omission of the Ao-iconoclast theme from the intro and game play. BBP is an excellent value. It looks, plays and feels very close to the original. All of the speed, character specific voice tracks and deep game mechanics that make the console version such an impressive package can be found in this port.
Anyone who enjoyed the console versions of Blazblue can now enjoy a complete experience on the go.