Ragna’s a badass, but he can’t save this poor adaptation.

This impression is going to be relatively short and straightforward.  Now, I generally try not to be too negative with my impressions, as I am a bit more of an optimistic fellow, but this adaptation of BlazBlue is extremely lackluster.  Hoods Entertainment couldn’t have dropped the ball any faster or harder with this first episode.  Right off the bat, you can probably tell that this adaptation is pretty low-budget based on the visuals and the opening (which you will soon find is 99% made up of scenes from this first episode).  The pacing for the story is awful and you would likely have no idea what is going on, unless you have played the game’s story mode.  This episode essentially consists of them throwing half of the character cast at you and having you follow a few of them around.  No real explanation is given and no development occurs.  It’s simply following around Ragna the BloodEdge or Noel Vermillion and then jumping into random action fight scenes with no major context.  Speaking of the fight scenes, they themselves are terribly boring and unappealing, in my opinion.  I would say putting up a few clips of actual fighting gameplay would be more exciting, or at least amusing.

This fight was brief and disappointing.  I’d rather watch Ragna vs. Jin in the game.

The only passable element of this first episode is the music, but even that is lackluster.  The music in the game is far more enjoyable, so I would rather go pop this game into the 360/PS3 and go a few rounds instead of watching this adaptation.  There are two major goals for video game adaptations, which are to catch the interest of new potential fans and to please the long-time fans of the series. BlazBlue: Alter Memory fails to do either of these due to the poor pacing, lack of explanation, and unimpressive fighting.  With such a poor way of telling the story, you would expect the fighting to be great to compensate.  Unfortunately, you would be wrong in this case and you would be better off playing the game.  To end this brief impression, I personally hate this adaptation and recommend anyone interested to just play the game.  You’ll gain a better appreciation for the story, characters, fighting, and music there.

Go play the game…or Taokaka will attack you in a dark alley.