Rising Review: A Powerful Upgrade for Granblue Fantasy Versus

When I reviewed Granblue Fantasy Versus back in February of 2020, I said it stood out as a great fundamentals-driven and uniquely approachable anime fighter that was held back by just a few key issues: An overly convoluted and dull RPG mode, only 11 playable characters, and dated delay-based netcode. I don’t know if the developers used that as a checklist for things to improve in Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising, but they may as well have because I’m thrilled to see that they’ve corrected all of those issues, and then some. Let’s run down the new stuff and improvements: The newly renamed Story Mode is now a much brisker version of the base game’s campaign that trims all of the fat and while also adding a new chapter; the fighting system has been completely overhauled for the better, adding several exciting new mechanics; there’s better learning tools; rollback netcode; and even a Granblue-themed Fall Guys-esque mode included in the online lobby. It all amounts to one of the most feature-packed “definitive edition”-style updates to a fighting game I’ve ever seen, and is a fantastic re-entry point into the grand world of Granblue Fantasy Versus.

New Mechanics and Improvements

I’m not going to go in depth on every single mechanical change made to the core fighting of Rising – because there are quite a lot – but the biggest ones are the removal of universal techniques added after launch like Overdrive and Tactical Move, a brand-new variation of special moves called Ultimate Skills, a resource called Bravery Points, and then a handful of powerful abilities that use those Bravery Points. Ultimate Skills add a ton of utility to every character, which stacks another layer onto the meter management game.

Bravery Points, meanwhile, are a resource that’s tied specifically to two new abilities: Raging Strikes and Brave Counters. Brave Counters are simple: You press two buttons simultaneously while blocking to push an opponent off of you at the cost of one BP. Raging Strikes, however, are massively powerful attacks that can be used during a blockstring to crush an opponent’s guard if they just sit there blocking. That allows you to follow up with a Raging Chain attack, which in turn enables you to convert that hit into a full combo, even though the opponent blocked the attack.

New Characters and Story Mode Updates

Pretty much everything else is what I remember from playing Granblue back in 2020. Which is to say, it’s a uniquely beginner-friendly fighting game thanks to features like auto combos, easy one-button special move inputs, and a very measured pace to the action that’s far more akin to Street Fighter than most other ArcSys anime games. What is new for me, as someone who only played Granblue at launch, is the vast majority of the roster: it’s shot up from a paltry 11 to a very respectable cast of 28 thanks to Rising including all of the DLC over the last three years, plus four entirely new characters.

The new characters are at the forefront of Rising’s new Story Mode chapter, which thankfully removes all of the extraneous RPG systems, weapon collecting, and so on. Instead, now you just earn skills that you can equip to your character for some sort of temporary boost or buff. Not that I ever really needed it – it’s still ridiculously easy.