Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising Review – A Second Chance

It’s hard to imagine a worse time to launch a fighting game than March, 2020. A genre whose biggest strength is competitive multiplayer, at its best when it can be played face-to-face in person, needs the ability for players to get together in order to build a strong community. Releasing at the start of a historic pandemic cut the legs out from under Granblue Fantasy Versus almost from the start. While it reviewed relatively well, it felt like it came and went in no time at all. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising gives the game another chance. While it falls somewhat in a grey area between a full sequel and a major update, it will definitely be the best value for players who missed the original game on release.

All The Content You’d Expect

Most of the content from the original game is back, though with some significant changes and additions. Some of those changes will be better received than others. While Granblue Fantasy Versus launched with a relatively small roster, for example, after a lot of DLC, the number of characters more than doubled. Everyone from the original release is back, and there’s a handful of new characters coming as well, meaning new players may now actually feel a bit overwhelmed with the amount of choice. That’s before even more characters are set to be released in the future. While there are a fair few characters who perhaps resemble each other a bit more than is strictly necessary, there’s enough variety here in combat style for everyone to find their next main.

Players will also get to check out all the basic modes they expect—everything from arcade mode to an extremely robust training mode that will please hardcore fighting game fans. Local multiplayer is, of course, here as well. Perhaps the most significant improvement of all, however, comes in the revamped online options.

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising now features rollback netcode, which has become an absolute must in modern fighting games. It makes a huge difference, especially when compared to the rather weak netcode of the original release, which further doomed it in a world where local play simply wasn’t an option for so many. My time playing online felt great. There’s even a fun new series of mini-games that players can compete in, clearly inspired by Fall Guys. It may not be quite as full-featured as other mini-game battling games, but considering this is simply a mode in a much larger game, it’s impressive.

An RPG No More

What’s less impressive is the reworked story mode. Granblue Fantasy Versus featured a robust RPG mode, which allowed you to do all kinds of fighting, both in standard battles and others designed to feel more like a beat ‘em up, while leveling up weapons and doing a great deal of customization. For some reason, this deep mode has been replaced with a far simpler story mode. This mode largely features an identical story to the original release, with a little bit of new content tacked on to the end. It also, however, features far fewer battles and far less reason to keep playing it. It’s still a rather large chunk of content, and if the story grabs you, then you could definitely lose a lot of hours in it, but it’s like the mode’s soul has been ripped out for no reason, I can see.

It doesn’t help that the story is hard to understand if you’re unfamiliar with the larger lore of Granblue Fantasy. If you’re already a fan of the massively popular mobile game, then this won’t be an issue, but if you’re not, it feels like the story drops you into the deep end. While this feels like a fairly standalone adventure, it would have been nice to see a bit more work put into introducing these characters and setting up their relationships with each other.

Putting It All Together

The core fighting at the center of Granblue Fantasy Versus still feels excellent. It isn’t the most mechanically deep fighting game on the market but the team at Arc System Works crafted a roster that’s full of options that feel distinct from each other and which has a slightly different feel from their other games. It isn’t quite as fast as something like Guilty Gear but it has a fairly methodical pace, and spacing and timing are everything.

I love the inclusion of simple input options, which can make a fighting game like this feel a bit less intimidating for new players. While being able to use shoulder buttons and directional inputs to hit combos won’t be for everyone, I think players who don’t play a lot of fighting games will feel a lot more able to jump in and compete, which can only help build a community this game will desperately need. Meanwhile, experienced players will still have a massive advantage through their understanding of the game’s pace and movement.

Conclusion

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising ends up feeling a bit more like a large update than a true sequel, despite what some of those involved in its development would insist, but at the end of the day, I’m not sure I care. At its core, this is still a fantastic fighting game filled with content. Some of that content may not exactly be new, but when almost everyone missed it the first time around, I’m glad that it will get another chance to build a community. Outside of the strange changes to the story mode, this is a better game than the original in every way and well worth the time of fighting game fans.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: PS5 (Reviewed), PS4, PC; Publisher: Cygames; Developer: Arc System Works, Cygames; Players: 2; Released: December 14th, 2023; ESRB: T for Teen; MSRP: $49.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising provided by the publisher.