The price might seem steep for a fighting game with only 11 characters and reduced production values on the single-player modes.
In the following lines I’ll try to support the claim that this is a game with much to offer to enthusiasts and casual players alike.
The first obvious strength is the aesthetic of the game.
In Arc System Works fashion, everything looks and sounds so beautiful and cool. The characters are full of exactly that… character. And their animations have so much diversity without ever losing chaining logic.
The arenas are a bit less detailed than the fighters, but the way they change throughout the rounds tell a story of their own. And pay attention to the background characters – they have some fun reactions 😉
The music also has a very interesting presence. It has the engaging rock/metal we’ve come to know of Arc-Sys games when the fights are occurring, and, at the same time, since this is a property with much more medieval fantasy than their previous works, they managed to introduce some ‘celtic’ melodies in the right moments.
Another component that I think is widely appealing is how the game controls and feels.
Usually, fighting games are more obtuse than other action genres. In order to see cool things on the screen you have to spend some time studying the particular way each franchise treats combos or specials. See, they even have this lingo.
Granblue Fantasy: Versus retains all that depth, but has some mechanics that are tailored made for novice players.
If you don’t want to worry about chains, cancelings, quarter circles, you can do fast and neat stuff by just mashing square, triangle or circle, in what the developers call auto-combo. Or you can just input one direction and R2 and you will pull-off 1 of 4 different special attacks (one for each direction you choose).
And that’s it, with just these two mechanics you can mix and match them to produce some really entertaining stuff.
Alternatively, if you do like to be more technical, all those moves can be performed with the traditional inputs, without having to switch any mode or option. Which is fascinating, as both approaches are baked in together in the design of the gameplay loop, with their own strengths and weaknesses.
In essence, this game is a bridge between the philosophies of Street Fighter and Smash Brothers. An all-in-one package that not only makes sense, but also lets the player make the traversal on the fly, thus teaching so much of fighting games.
To conclude, I should talk about the single-player modes, especially the campaign.
Yes, they are barren, and the campaign gameplay gets old very fast.
However, that story mode has some interesting choices in it. By combining a fighting game’s structure with the systems of side-scrolling beat ’em ups, it becomes clear that other story modes in this genre should follow this template.
In Granblue, it’s not deep enough to carry the 5 hours of narrative. Still, its RPG elements are enjoyable to tinker with, as they involve the different systems of the mode. Additionally, the mode lets you have another player by your side (on or offline), which makes the boss battles in raid format more engaging, since you can combine to chain super moves in true anime fashion.
Above all, the writing and the lore are really above average for a fighting game. The characters are properly fleshed-out, which, coupled with the accessibility of the controls and gameplay, makes you want to play with archetypes you would normally not even touch. And the raid nature of the boss battles elevates the impact of a super move you do in other modes, because those giants are part of the bombastic sequence.
All in all, this is a very complete package. It looks and sounds tremendously. The characters are really well-designed and have interesting back-stories. It has fewer modes, but the ones it has have some innovative ideas. And it plays very smoothly for pros and casuals alike.
Opinion Seed 