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Guardian.co.uk has a great -- and really long -- article about the resurrection of 2D fighting games and shmups over the past few years. It's got Arc System Works' Daisuke Ishiwatari discussing how BlazBlue came to be, what inspirations it draws from and a bunch more. Below is a taste of the article, and you can find the full thing over at this link.

" 'The main goal was to create a brand new fighting title that introduced systems and gameplay elements that people had never experienced before,' says Mori who counts sci-fi movies Bladerunner, Gattaca and Brazil as well as the manga series, Trigun, among his key influences. 'With this in place, I wanted to then create a 'universe' on top of it. We focused on creating very strange, very unusual characters with special attributes. These very 'different' characters meant inventing new gameplay mechanics by necessity – the 'Drives' are special abilities that can alter the direction of the wind, magnetise opponents, absorb health and so forth. With these kinds of mechanics in place, it was inevitable that BlazBlue ended up being such a unique and interesting experience.' "

[via Neo Empire]