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The fighting game genre has a very high entry bar. Dominated by Capcom and Bandai Namco, its gatekeepers are fearsome names. It’s hard enough to make a fighting game, let alone a good fighting game. Yet somehow, out of nowhere, pops out Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.
An enhanced and upgraded version (some might even call it a sequel) of sleeper hit Granblue Fantasy Versus, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising features everything one might want in a 2D fighting game – gorgeous visuals, great character designs, awesome backgrounds, deep gameplay mechanics and a solid single player experience.
Yet somehow, the game still doesn’t seem to have found an audience! Well, not one as big as Tekken or Street Fighter has anyways. EVO (the premiere fighting game tournament in the world) has shown the game lots of love by featuring it multiple times over the years, but weirdly it’s never really caught on.
Why is that really? Is the game not as fun as the Big Two?
What is Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising?
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is a 2D fighting game developed by Arc System Works and published by Cygames Inc. It is available right now on the PC and PlayStation consoles.
Our review copy was kindly provided by the awesome people over at Cygames Inc. Thank you so much!
Our desktop rig is sporting an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24G and 64GB DDR4 RAM.
As mentioned, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is an updated version of Granblue Fantasy Versus. Think of it as the Street Fighter II Super version of the game. Nearly everything from the original makes it over, alongside former DLC characters (who are now included with the game) and updated mechanics.
Set in the Granblue universe (which Granblue Fantasy: Relink is also a part of), Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is an alternate take on the series. Like Granblue Fantasy: Relink, this game seems to take place in alternate timeline/universe of the main storyline.
Familiar characters, familiar locations but different enough to feel new.
If you’ve never played a Granblue Fantasy game, you’ll be hard-pressed to know who’s who.
Thankfully, the game features a wonderfully in-depth glossary that details the history of the world and its characters. The game works really hard to push these characters, especially in the story mode. It constantly references events, people, and lore that aren’t part of the game, so it’s great that the glossary offers a decent bit of backstory so that you at least have an inkling of what’s going on.
The story mode is a rather basic affair of 2D brawling stages (think Super Smash Bros) sprinkled with boss fights. While the plot is rather fun, the fighting itself isn’t as tight as the main game. Like Guilty Gear Isuka, the game’s control gets really messy when there are more than 1 other opponent on-screen.
You can equip skills and there’s an attempt to give the mode some depth, but it’s readily apparent the mode isn’t meant for primetime yet. It’s simply not fun, at least when you compare it to the other parts of the game.
Like the Arcade Mode for example. It’s simple, offering a traditional one on one match with an ending scene at the end. The exceptional part here is that the game gives you a choice of opponent after every match, with varying degrees of difficulty. It keeps the run fresh and allows you to try for tougher (or easier) fights as you progress.
I’d like to highlight that even on the hardest difficulty, the AI isn’t really that great. I’m average at fighting games, but I didn’t have much problem just steamrolling opponents on maximum difficulty. Not with complex combos or anything, just by playing smart and utilizing basic combos. Arcade mode also fails to deliver with its endings.
You just get a single screen illustration and that’s it. After that you’re whisked off to a hidden fight. If you win (and you’ve fulfilled certain conditions), you’ll get another illustration for the ‘True’ ending.
It’s the lamest ending for fighting games in recent history. Only Marvel vs Capcom 2’s is lamer because its arcade mode didn’t even have individual character endings. Thankfully, the game isn’t just the Arcade and Story modes.
By that, I mean of course the fighting game proper. This is a 2D one-on-one fighter through and through. No tagging in and out, no character assists. It’s just pure fighting that purists of the genre will totally appreciate.
Playing like a cross between Guilty Gear and Street Fighter, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising has really fluid and fun gameplay. The mechanics are solid, and even newbies will get the hang of the it after just a bit of playing. Moves are easy to pull off, there’s a solid array of flashy finishers and characters animate well…in battles.
In fact, I’d like to single out the game’s finishers. The SSBA (Super Skybound Art) can be overkill at times, but I just love them. Not only is the animation fantastic, the moves look really great too! Super flashy, super cool!
I just wish the game incorporated multi-staged arenas like Guilty Gear Strive or the Dead or Alive games. I would’ve loved for the fighting to affect the arenas themselves, with the destruction revealing new locations.
Part of the reason the game’s SSBA look great is mainly due to the cast. There are a ton of playable characters (Cygames have kindly given us both Character Pass 1 and 2 as well) and I’m honestly hard-pressed to pick a favorite.
The ladies are sexy, the guys are cool looking…there’s not one DEI character in the lot. You can tell the game’s not developed in the US just by that alone. There are LGBT characters in the game (LaDiva reminds me so much of Puri-Puri Prisoner from One Punch Man) but none of them are obnoxious or make their sexual orientation their whole identity.
You know what else is awesome? The music.
Seriously, the score for the game is honestly one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard for a fighting game. I’d even go as far as to say that it rivals Soul Edge’s, Soul Calibur’s and Guilty Gear XX’s soundtracks. That’s mighty high praise, considering I think those games have near perfect music!
The music in the game’s a mix of orchestral and vocal. They range from slow melodic tunes to rocking tracks that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Guilty Gear game. Pretty much all of them are great!
Weirdly, the game’s animation can be really bad outside of the fights.
Intros for the characters can sometimes be really choppy (I honestly wonder why more frames aren’t added), which really kills the vibe. It’s super smooth in the fights, it’s just the intros that are choppy and some specials. I don’t think it’s a frame rate issue, more like an animation issue. It’s like the characters are not animated properly, missing some frames that should be there to make them look smoother.
I tried running the game on 1080p, 1440p and 4K to see if there was any difference. Not one thing changed. It’s not the resolution, not my hardware…so the only thing left is that it’s the game.
The good news is that since this is based off an older game, even a potato can run it reasonably well at lower resolutions. That of course, includes the ROG Ally X. I played the game on both 720p and 1080p and had zero issues, even with everything on highest.
There’s really no reason to play it lower than 1080p due to that, as that means the game still looks great and runs sublime during fights.
The Bottom Line.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is simply one of the best fighters on the market right now. It looks incredible in action, is really fun to play and has insanely good music. There’s a solid roster of character with diverse playstyles and the game doles out customization rewards handily.
It’s only the Story mode that’s a stumble. While the plot is interesting, the game isn’t. I applaud the design to try for a beat-’em up style (though I think Bandai Namco did it better with their Tekken Force modes found in Tekken 3 and 4) but overly complicated controls make the fights more frustrating than fun.
Arcade mode is fun but the rewards are severely lacking. Just an illustration. Not even text to describe what’s happening in the scene! Somebody really dropped the ball here because it really feels like the character endings were left til the very last minute.
Despite that, the game is well worth a play simply because the gameplay is just that good. I know for sure that it’ll be a regular in my ROG Ally X (alongside the Capcom fighters) to play when I travel.
TLDR:
Great fighter that’s let down by its Arcade mode endings. Everything else is just sublime.
The Good:
- Character, environmental and general designs are great.
- Fluid gameplay.
- Dramatic special moves.
- Lots of characters
- Fun Arcade mode.
- Incredible music.
- Glossary helps with the lore.
The Bad:
- Arcade mode endings suck.
- Story mode is frustrating and not fun to play.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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