That's right folks! In a shocking twist, Makoto was released today for BlazBlue: Continuum Shift! FUCK YEAH!

We fucking NEEDED this character! No, seriously. How many high-res 2D fighters are there? Not many. What's the first thing we'd really like to see in high-res 2D? How about some fanservice? However, BlazBlue skimps on this in the weirdest way. Oh sure we have Litchi "Boobie Lady" Faye-Ling, but...that's IT! Tao is pantyshots and nothing else while Noel and Rachel are...well...yeah! We NEEDED a spunky innocent fanservice character and while I think the skirt is damn absurd (shoulda been short shorts), Makoto fills the role VERY WELL!

And before any ladies complain, keep in mind we have TONS of Ragna X Jin innuendo AND Bang's new super leaves him in his underwear! ...okay so almost naked Bang isn't as much of a selling point to the ladies as it SHOULD be but...umm...SO HEY THERE'S CARL!

Look I just miss the good old days when anime chicks had big breasts. Nowadays they all look disturbingly underaged. Shit, you see the BlazBlue WEBSITE?! It's ALL Noel and Rachel! We have a catgirl who shoves her face into people's breasts and shouts "BOING! BOING! BOING!" and yet we have NOTHING for her OR "Boobie Lady" on the website! It's all Noel and Litchi nearly making out while covered in sticky white substances (usually icecream)! GAH! ALL I'M SAYING IS THAT I BETTER SEE SOME HOT SQUIRREL ON KITTY ACTION POST HASTE!

...*ahem*

As mentioned before, I approve of this style of release. It's an 87MB download and you can get the "v1.01" update for free, but you pay for Makoto. On the plus side, you get all her colors AND her Unlimited version. On the down side, she can only be used in VS mode, Online (including Ranked matches), Training, Trial (learning moves and combos for characters), and Score Attack. No Story, Arcade, or Legion mode.

Makoto herself is a VERY finished character. This isn't like Mature in KOFXII. She animated just as well as the primary cast and has just as many...if not MORE moves!

Makoto herself plays like Taokaka Advanced. They're both high speed poke and mindgame heavy characters. The thing is, Taokaka is REALLY basic! Her drives are super useful and get her in close with ease, her normals are super useful, and she has 3 different flavors of spammable close-range specials...but she doesn't really have much else other than throwing random projectiles!

Makoto is QUITE the opposite, having MORE specials than probably any other character in the game ON TOP OF a great array of normals!

Now the weird thing is her Drive. You hold Drive and a meter appears at the bottom of the screen that quickly fills and depletes. Your goal is to stop that meter as high as you can. The higher it is, the more powerful and longer range the Drive attack has. While the standard drive is just a normal lunge, with the crouching one being an MK Toasty-style uppercut, the twist is that her drives can be slapped on to FUCKING EVERYTHING! It's like every special has a drive move you can do at the end!

For example, do her uppercut then hit Drive to punch the opponent into the ground afterwards.

She can also create a ball of electricity. You can either sit it there and let the opponent eat damage from it when they slam into it, freezing them just long enough for you to plot a combo off of it (it works just like Saki's electro ball shot in TvC). OR! You can hit Drive to punch the ball across the stage, travelling farther and faster depending on the charge.

Her big one though is Asteroid Vision, which splits her into three but only one is real! Which one it is depends on which button you press, of course. Now there's a huge array of follow ups to this move, ESPECIALLY on the ground. You can dash at your foe and just start spamming weak, you can slide behind them Taokaka-style, you can do TWO lunging Drive attacks into one another, OR you can do a rapid slidey combo! NICE!

Also, her weak attack works like Arina's weak punch. In Waku Waku 7, if you spammed Weak Punch with Arina, she'd do alternating right and left punches that flowed into one another. I loved this. Makoto does the same thing with left and right Tonfa swipes.

Now there IS a downside: Makoto's damage output is SHIT! As such you NEED to do big crazy combos and setups to do any kind of damage, but the sheer number of sweet options available to Makoto makes this QUITE doable.

Why yes, Makoto DID just do the Shining Finger...and a HYPER Seichusen Godanzuki THAT BLOWS UP THE MOON *WITH* AN XD FACE! ...and THEN she went all Fist of the Northstar with her TAIL and, if I'm not mistaken, shouted SPOON!

Also, she strikes the same intro pose as Bang sometimes and even has a similar quote to him:
"The Heavens, The Earth, AND A MILLION SQUIRRELS CALL TO ME!!! ...what? They don't?!"

This is the best $7 I ever spent.

EDIT: GOT IT!

Not a special intro, just an awesome coincidence! XD Makoto Bang and Tao ninja team anyone? :D