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Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is the newest fighting game from developer Arc System Works, joining a roster that not only includes its previous entry but also iconic fighting games like the Guilty Gear series. It aims to build off the story and characters from the first title, Granblue Fantasy Versus, while also further refining and experimenting with the streamlined gameplay mechanics introduced in its predecessor and in Guilty Gear Strive. While it succeeds in a number of ways, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising suffers from an unengaging story mode and struggles to provide a satisfying rhythm to its combat, resulting in a whelming release in a roster of strong titles.
After a long setup time that includes manually creating new data, numerous user agreements, creating a player profile, and a Ubisoft-style ad for their online services, players are finally introduced to the main menu. Here, players can choose to practice, play through the arcade mode, jump into competitive play, or start the story; standard stuff for the genre. This, in short, is a terrible on-boarding experience full of bloat and tedium; elements that unfortunately represent some of what’s to come.
A Tedious, Unengaging, & Safe Story Mode
In order to keep players engaged and contextualized, the story mode includes an abridged version of Granblue Fantasy Versus. These games put players into a world besieged by chaos that forces the protagonist, Gran, to fight allies and enemies alike as he searches for a way to fix everything. While the story is told well enough and is set in an interesting fantasy world, it’s ultimately one that’s safe; though many may be drawn to this given the complicated lore of franchises like Guilty Gear. What keeps players invested the most is Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising‘s cast of characters, most of which have plenty of charm and personality.
Where it feels like the story mode really stumbles is in its pacing. The story is told through a series of stages called “Battles,” with occasional side stages called “Quest Battles” that give additional context to the story and offer extra rewards. The first criticism of this structure is that Quest Battles don’t feel justified in needing their own side stage because the narrative content could easily fit within the main Battles, they aren’t any more difficult or challenging, and the rewards aren’t much different than what’s achieved in main Battles.
The second major criticism is that, unlike the majority of its competitors, the story isn’t told through character fights. Instead, the vast majority of Battles in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising are against fodder enemies that offer little to no threat or narrative progression. Instead, Battles are minutes-long, mindless filler that only provide XP for the RPG-lite mechanics and make the gameplay feel more limited and boring than it truly is. Eventually, players will gain access to a Boss Battle which finally pits them against another character and allows them to properly engage with the fighting mechanics.
Fun Combat That Needs Some Refining
Combat in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising feels, in many ways, like an extension of Guilty Gear Strive, which makes sense given their shared developer. The first thing the two share is the weight of combat, with each game opting for slower, more methodical inputs that make hits feel heavy and consistent. Guilty Gear Strive managed to find a good speed that kept fights engaging despite being slower, and its hit registration allowed for consistent combos and heavy hits. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising takes the same approach but doesn’t achieve the same results.
Combat here is slightly too slow and, more importantly, is less consistent in its hit registration. This is immediately clear during the player’s first fight, as they are asked to do a simple three hit combo using “Square” (or “X” on Xbox) and despite making contact each time, there’s a high chance the fighter will just repeat the first attack three times rather than begin the combo. It only becomes more inconsistent when throwing abilities into the mix, as one of Gran’s combos involves two melee attacks that send an enemy into the air, followed up by a projectile that deals two hits, but the latter won’t hit if the fight is too close to one of the corners. Thankfully, the unique control system at play does a lot of heavy lifting and keeps fights feeling fun.
Simple Controls Make Better Fights
Regarding controls, fighting games are built on a foundation of precise input control and combinations. These allow for everything from performing simple combos to stringing together melee attacks and special abilities in mind-bending ways. This design choice is arguably the largest factor for becoming skilled in any fighting game. To see this, players need look no further than competitive Street Fighter or Dragonball FighterZ matches. On the flip side, this creates a significant barrier for players that are unable to be that precise or reactive for whatever reason, thus creating a barrier for many players that want to join these communities.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising took what made its predecessor and Guilty Gear Strive so accessible and doubled down on it. Players can still opt to use the traditional D-pad inputs+button system to perform special attacks, but they are not limited to that. To perform an ability, all players need to do is press the right trigger and/or any directional input; and to use an ultimate ability, press both triggers simultaneously. These can be powered up further by adding “X” or “A” to the mix (PlayStation and Xbox controllers respectively). To prevent spamming of these abilities, players have an energy meter that is depleted with use and the abilities each have their own cool down. This is by far the most balanced, effective, and unique aspect of the game that will open the door to a lot of new players and give them everything they need to get started in this series and genre.
Final Thoughts And Review Score
This is a title that will ultimately come down to taste for most people. The story, for example, may be a hit for a lot of players, seeing as there is a large community that enjoyed the first game’s use of this game design and what it offered to the single-player experience. As far as multiplayer is concerned, there were limited opportunities to play online given the pre-release state of the game and those opportunities didn’t provide enough to confidently speak about this aspect of the game.
Overall, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is a title that is safe, accessible, but lacking in challenge. It provides a story-mode that players will likely love or hate, a narrative that is safe but predictable, combat that is impactful but inconsistent, and controls that are accessible and intuitive. For fans of the series or players that struggle with other fighting games, this is a fine title to jump into. However, for those more experienced in the genre and are looking for something new, this is not the one to pick up.
Screen Rant was provided with a PlayStation 5 digital download for the purpose of this review.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is a fighting game developed by Arc System Works and picks up after the original game’s events. Set in the Granblue Fantasy universe, players will play through a robust story mode or go head-to-head offline/online with other players in 1v1 2D combat, with several new characters added. Also new to this version of the game is the addition of rollback netcode – a majorly requested feature for online competitors.
- Franchise
- Granblue Fantasy
- Platform(s)
- PC , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5
- Developer(s)
- Arc System Works
- Publisher(s)
- Cygames
- Genre(s)
- Action , Fighting
- ESRB
- T
- Prequel(s)
- GranBlue Fantasy Versus
