Update: Blazblue will be released in the US midyear in arcades and for the Xbox 360 and PS3. 

You may have heard that 2D fighters aren't 'dead', what ever that means, it's one of the popular phrases to throw around when you're trying to improve your gamer cred. I wasn't aware game genre's actually died, that there was some mysterious never before seen graveyard that they lumbered of to where they could die in peace, their precious ivory protected for all eternity, that might be elephants too.

Anyway, if you like fighting games then the last two-dee fighting game your probably enjoyed was Guilty Gear X which appeared well over a year ago. The team behind that have been making a bit of a splash in Japan with their new, very gorgeous game Blazblue: Calamity Trigger which looks remarkably similar and plays very similar to Guilty Gear. Blazblue caught my eye for two reasons. 1. It is ridiculously gorgeous to watch in motion go watch this trailer here to see what I mean. It's like an anime you can control. Number 2. reason, apparently the single player game can take up to 30 hours to play through. You read correctly, 30 freaking hours. I can only assume this particular feature has been lost in the translation as I just don't know how that's possible with a 2D fighter. 

The game has some insane plot involving three mighty wars of technology and magic and maybe some bounty hunters and there's a creepy girl at a scary fairground with an umbrella and no I didn't make any of that up. There's even a character in it called Ragna the Blood Edge. take a gander at the screenshots to further wet the appetite for 2D mayhem, but remember, the game really needs to be seen moving to get the full appreciation of how cool it looks, so get clicking on that link above.