Granblue Fantasy Versus is a game based on the currently Japan-exclusive mobile phone game, Granblue Fantasy. The game is published by Xseed and developed by Cygames and Arc System Works. This is a one-on-one fighting game with an anime-styled graphics and pretty simplistic gameplay. As with most anime fighters, you can expect plenty of flashy movies. And if you’ve played any of Arc System Work’s previous games like Guilty Gear or Blazblue, you’ll have an idea of how the fighting mechanics work. The game has four main modes RPG Mode, Arcade, Online, and Training. As of now, you can find this game physically for the Playstation 4 and digitally on the Playstation Network and PC.
RPG Mode
First, we’ll talk about RPG mode. This for the most part the story mode of the game. If you’ve ever played games like Battle Princess Arcadias (a PS3 digital game) or side scroller beat ’em up games, the format will be familiar here. In it’s entirety, the quests span 50 episodes and a total of 7 chapters. There are also option free quests that can be done that open up as you progress. Upon completion, chapter 0 and hard mode become available. Hard mode is exactly what you’d expect; tougher difficulty and greater reward loot upon completion.
One of the cooler features of RPG mode is that you can have a CPU player come along for the ride along with you. As you progress through the story of the game you’ll earn more CPU characters to aid you. Even better is that you can have a second player join you instead of the CPU with a second controller (now your friend doesn’t have to sit next to you and just spectate. Or as we do it in this modern era, you can have someone online fight alongside you instead, more on that later.
After each episode, you earn loot such as skill jewels, weapons, and premium tickets. To understand how these things are used, you have to understand the grid. The grid is where you create builds for your character. The weapons you earn after episode completion are what you use to power up your character. By attaching the weapons to the grid, you get a boost in HP, Attack power, in some cases skills depending on the attribute of the weapon. (Yeah, I thought I could use the weapons for my character so you can imagine my disappointment). The skill jewels are used to power up any individual weapon of your choosing that you put in your grid. Lastly, the premium tickets are just used to randomly draw more weapons for your grid. So basically, premium tickets are just your run-of-the-mill raffle.
Once you complete episode 8 in chapter 2, you’ll be able to both have people join you in RPG mode or join others online in their game. The good thing about this is that they can join you in any episode of the game. If you need me to paint a picture for you, think of Street Fighter Alpha 1 from back on the original Sony Playstation or Sega Saturn. There was a secret mode you could unlock where you were basically allowed to re-enact the Street Fighter 2 movie. Specifically when Ryu and Ken fought M. Bison 2 against 1. Now imagine that for almost the entire game, that’s what you’re getting here. Except unlike the secret mode in SF Alpha, you don’t share health and special bars.
After you get past episode 8, Siero’s Shop becomes available. Here you can buy all of the game’s basic items. You have four options here; buy weapons, buy support skills, forge weapons, and buy color variants. Buying weapons here saves you from having to earn them from fighting. But it probably goes without saying the better ones you’ll only get from completing episodes. The support skills you can buy here are pretty helpful and basically serves as tweaks in battle. Forging weapons is just using items you earn to create weapons instead of earning them through battle. Lastly, buying color variants is just buying different color palettes for your characters.
One final part worth noting about RPG Mode is the bonus dungeon, Tower of Babyl. This mode is only available after you’ve completed episode 26 of RPG Mode. The best way to describe this is a tower in which you have to win fights one floor at a time to reach the end. The higher up you get, the better the rewards you receive. If you need a picture for this one, think of Mortal Kombat’s classic towers. There are 100 floors in total.
The only thing that I see as a negative for RPG mode is the fact that they expect you to know the story of this game immediately. It pretty much shows that this game was really made for people that already have knowledge of the world and lore from the mobile game. To be honest, it does a disservice to people in the west because as far as I know, the mobile game never left Japan as of now.
Arcade Mode
This is the standard player fighting against cpu opponents that you find in most games. This is pretty much familiar to anyone that played fighting games even in their infancy. There are 12 characters ( 25 if you add in the dlc characters), each with their own self-contained story. To complete it, you have to fight through seven matches. So for the most part, it’s pretty short even by today’s standards. Not to mention it can be made even shorter due to the options that you can tweak. If those two things don’t compound how easy it is to complete enough as it is, you can change the level of the CPU enemy after each match. It really brings to light how user-friendly this game is.
Free Training
This mode is basically exactly what you’d expect. You pick both a character for yourself and the CPU and that’s pretty much it. This is a place where you can practice your moves and combos to your heart’s content if you’re trying to actually master the game. You can view your damage, combo damage, and max combo damage from here. Which for the most part is good for seeing what combos and moves connect the best and do the most damage.
Mission Training
This is where you’ll get first-hand training on how to play. The training is broken up into four sections and the glossary. Basic Mission, Skill Practice, Combo Practice, and Match-Ups are sections for training. Basic missions is literally just basic techniques that are used by all the characters of the game. Skill practice is where you learn how to use each individual character’s fundamental and unique abilities. Combos practice is exactly as it sounds, which is learning how to chain combinations together. And Match-Ups are learning what to do in situational combat. All of these things combined are great prep for anyone that wants to get serious about mastering the game.
Online
The online mode is where most players will probably get the most out of the game. There isn’t anything groundbreaking or new here. Everything you’d expect from a modern fighting game is what you’ll find here. In the Online lobby you choose which region you want to play in and Go on from there. Ranked matches are just you playing other players online with pre-set conditions. Room Matches are matching you can customize and play free of ranking. No real bells and whistles here. Just plain basic connect and play.
Outside of the normal ranking mode, there is also a limited-time event called GBVS: Blitz that you can take advantage of. This is where you can get rewards for how well you play. The rewards are things like card designs and card characters to customize your online ID card. You can also gain weapon tickets and renown pendants for your hard work here.
Overall, the game is a worthwhile buy with nice graphics, good music, and high replayability. With a newer version (GranBlue Fantasy Versus Rising) coming out, both the normal and collector edition GranBlue Fantasy Versus can be found pretty cheap. If you’re a collector, now would be a good time to grab the collector edition before it either goes away or goes up in price as most collector editions do.
But for clarity, the legendary edition goes on sale on psn from time to time. The legendary edition comes with 11 extra characters. So if you’re interested in the game and don’t care about having a collector or physical edition, get the legendary edition on sale. Not to mention the extra characters are extremely expensive if you buy them individually.
You can see our playthroughs of the game here
Granblue Fantasy: Versus – Premium Edition
Granblue Fantasy: Versus – Standard Edition
