GranBlue FanTasy Versus : A heartfelt thread about an impressive momentum :

In this thread I want to spend some time writing a short chronicle of what the game has done in these very unique quaratine times.

First of all let's start by thanking a few people.

Thanks a lot to @ChayBenji @GibzFGC @010Moss @JusteMetaTv @Tyrant_UK (through redbull) @SundayFaceOff @Legend_Pfumpfen @BCNFighters @Evans_SF @Er_Commander and all of the other TOs involved that are organizing stuff and all of them which i'll inevitably miss (sorry)

The need for this thread is exactly there, the titanic amounts of events in Europe that even I can't keep up with. And i'm sure there's tons i still don't know about that may be one offs, and this is ONLY in Europe with @GeoffLife and @Bunch_GG running events in NA too.

The game has had incredible momentum since it's release on PC and it seems to be bringing a lot of people together with a lot of them wanting to put their time on the line for everyone's enjoyment. The clearest example of "community" I have seen in a while in the FGC

But WHAT is making this game so successful? Of course the quarantine and the amount of time available to everyone is unprecedented and that is obvious, but imho there's a lot more and I'd like to try and answer part of this. Let's start with the art direction:

A game heavily referencing RPGs and JRPGs in their art has a pretty big appeal, especially if tied to a popular franchise (at least in Asia) of gacha games. But aside this, let's explore a little bit more the FG part of it. It is a pretty uncommon (although not unique) example...

of FG with cooldowns and easy inputs together (on the same direction of fantasy strike, the upcoming metal revolution, rising thunder etc.) however what I think this game does way better regarding to this is to give BOTH control possibilities AND balancing them

For both playerbases (beginners and more advanced/expert players) and providing values to BOTH control scheme to BOTH players bases. An easy example would be using easy easy inputs for reversals 720 grabs even at high level to more easily blow up gaps

And it rewards even the most basic beginners with OBVIOUS differences (for most stuff, not all) between easy inputs and normal inputs for things such as damage (for example doing the same super will generally do less damage with easy input and more damage with normal ones)

This gives INSTANT value to both playerbases and philosophy and largely removes the complains and conversations around "the problem" of having easy inputs and gives more people more time to enjoy the game and start learning in leves of approach that are gradual.

But what else does the game do well and what could do better? taking the obvious "it could have had rollback" out of the conversation, as this would be pretty agreeable and obvious imho, there's a few other things. Let's start with character archetypes or "functions" (lol).

We got your SF2 classic archetypes all there: Your overall well rounded "shoto like" character (Gran and Djeeta), your easy approach honda / blanka character (Charlotta), your full grappler (Ladiva <3) your Limb based zoner (Ferry) and your fireball zoner (Metera).

You basic world warrior roster is already covered, so then you'd have Lancelot being somehow your claw (trickster super fast char) Soriz being your balrog (horizontally moving specials and safe pokes) with the other 2s being a bit of a reach (gat / bub) and (dicta / percy)

With the latter being ur neutral heavy control safe poke character with annoying safe-ish pressure up close (SF4 dicta rather than sf2 dicta). Now let's face it, SF2 is the starting point of a large portion of the FGC whether we like it or not, with SF4 being the "new gen start"

For many other players. You can already see that the approachability factor is pretty big and we can say that a lot of the gameplay will have strong resemblances to this type of gameplay too (largely space control - ground based, generally slow less anime like)

yet it retains some unique aspects, aside the already mentioned cooldowns, evade and rolls easily come to mind, it has a large unique single player rpg mode that may attract the casuals (haven't played any myself) and an acceptable (yet not perfect) lobby system.

A pretty damn good training mode (with multi slot record functions) and all sorts of settings, as well as the chance to hide the menu to see the game in a frozen frame state (thank god). Replays being decently functional to analyze (and a 300 slot to keep w lockable ones).

A rewind and fast forward function on replays could help but it's really nitpicking, especially compared to many other contemporary FGs. hell, the game got a frame by frame mode (although not rewindable) so it's really super super good.

Most important of all, people PLAY IT. Not a day I have had a problem (aside at SS rank lol) to play the game and people will be super excited and availble to play (once again yeah, we're all in quarantine, lots of time, yada yada yada) but in many other games...

Players will sit in lobbies and discords and still not play.

In conclusion: I want to say that this game is doing amazing thins right now, and although of course helped in its momentum by the unique time we're in, there's a lot of value that is directly offered by the game.

I have been super excited and super committed at being part of this community and extremely impressed by the possibility of playing even more than 1 tourney a day, pretty sure we won't be able to have enough time in the week to enter tourneys and play GranBlue.

Thanks @ArcSystemWorksU thanks @Cygames_PR and of course thanks to EVERYONE playing and being involved in this game. I'm helplessly in love with fighting games and the FGC again.

Lots more to come and lots of work being done for the future behind the scenes so stay tuned!