Rishabh Borde
Iconic video game music composer Nobuo Uematsu and art director Hideo Minaba, who worked together on several ‘Final Fantasy‘ games throughout the 1990s, reunited in 2014 for the Final Fantasy inspired mobile and web browser RPG ‘Granblue Fantasy’.
Despite the odd choice of platform for what is essentially a sprawling JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game), the game was a roaring success, grossing nearly $500 million between 2017 and 2018 in Japan alone! Clearly, there is an appetite among players to further explore the world of ‘Granblue Fantasy’ and creator Cygames seems to have realized this, having tasked ‘Guilty Gear’ developer Arc System Works with creating a fully-featured fighting game based on the characters and world of ‘Granblue Fantasy’ titled. Read on to find out everything we know about the upcoming 2.5D brawler ‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’.
Granblue Fantasy: Versus Gameplay: What To Expect?
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is a fighting game with elements of RPG (Role Playing Game) gameplay presented from a 2.5D view, which entails dynamic 3D backgrounds with a fixed sideways 2D perspective. You can choose from a wide variety of familiar characters from the ‘Granblue Fantasy’ universe with the goal of beating your opponent in a one on one battle.
The game also features all the traditional fighting game staples such as combo attacks and special attacks. However, the gameplay of ‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is markedly different from Arc System Works’ previous games like ‘Guilty Gear’ and ‘Dragon Ball FighterZ’. Instead of flashy, swift combos with a steep learning curve, ‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ opts for a more patient and measured approach to combat and movement.
Movement is much more onerous, whereas the combos are much simpler, often utilizing a single button pressed over and over again. What this means is that ‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is a much more accessible game for newer players compared to some of the other fighting games out there.
This is also reflected in how the game handles its special skill attacks known as “Skybound Arts”. Inexperienced players can trigger these moves with the simple press of a button if they want but at the cost of higher cooldown time and a weaker attack.
However, more adept players can choose to perform the attacks using the traditional command system for even greater devastation and lower cooldown time. Essentially, ‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ has something for each type of player, whether you’re someone who likes to button mash or someone who studies each character in detail and practices endless combos in order to master the game’s combat mechanics.
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ also features a limited story mode that has you navigate numerous side-scrolling levels and confronting exclusive campaign-specific bosses and their minions. This mode boasts of several action RPG inspired mechanics including weapon unlocks, new abilities and even full co-op play throughout the entire story mode.
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is developed on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4.
Granblue Fantasy: Versus Character Roster:
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ features a roster of minimum 11 unique characters during launch including the titular Gran, an autodidact swordsman with a pure heart who is always accompanied by Lyria, a girl whose life is linked to his own, and the former knight of the Erste Empire and Gran and Lyria’s greatest champion, Katalina.
Among other characters are Harvin Knight and Captain of the Lumiel Order of Holy Knights, Charlotta, the Captain of the Order of White Dragons of Feendrache Kingdom and master swordsman Lancelot.
The spirit of a long-departed Erune girl, Ferry, the dashing adventurer, and dagger adept Lowain, and star duelist on the Jewel Resort Casino Liner, Ladiva are some other playable characters.
The blazing sword wielder Percival, high flying, bow-wielding Erune woman Metera, beast hunter Zeta and the pain immune scythe wielder Vaseraga round out the list of fighters you can choose.
The developers have also announced that at least four new characters including Chaos Bringer, Narmaya, Soriz, and Djeeta will be added to the roster in post-launch DLC (Downloadable Content).
Granblue Fantasy Versus Developers: Who Are the People Behind It?
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is being developed by Yokohama based Japanese video game development studio Arc System Works. The studio was founded in 1988 by Minoru Kidooka and has created critically acclaimed 2D fighting games such as the ‘Guilty Gear’ and ‘BlazBlue’ franchises and last year’s ‘Dragon Ball FighterZ’.
Arc System Work is quite possibly the ideal developer to bring this vision to life, having previously worked on beautifully realized 2D brawling games such as ‘Guilty Gear Xrd’ and ‘Dragon Ball FighterZ’.
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is being published by franchise creator Cygames in Japan and Xseed Games in North America.
Granblue Fantasy Versus Release Date: When and Where Can I Play It?
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ is set to release in Japan on February 26, 2020, with a worldwide release expected to follow sometime later in 2020.
‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ will be exclusive to the PlayStation 4 at launch.
Granblue Fantasy: Versus Trailer:
You can watch the trailer for ‘Granblue Fantasy Versus’ right here.
Read More: Upcoming Fighting Games
