| paleface [sys=PS4; cat=Fighting; reg=NA] |
| | | | Oh this game kind of rules. |
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| | | The base version is on sale through tomorrow (6/8/22) on PSN at $14, so finally trying Granblue Fantasy: Versus (on PS4) for the first time: bouncing hard off RPG mode, figuring out how to do endless random battles in VERSUS mode, which rules but was maybe a little too easy even on Nightmare difficulty--although I didn't try the Handicap option, then playing (mostly) Nightmare difficulty through Arcade mode (still not as hard as I'd maybe want, but I didn't 1cc it or anything so I guess it's okay for now...) as Ladiva ("Fastiva" per the optional Japanese announcer), now my new fave character ever!
... And yes I did end up buying all the DLC. ]_] It was really expensive but Ladiva was so fun and I looked up all the DLC characters and almost all of THEM looked fun so it'll be worth it, right??? Riiigghhttt???
I'd avoided DBVS up to this point because what I'd read about the controls talked about special moves using a "Skill" button--a single button plus single orthogonal inputs--and cooldown timers.
But you can use regular buttons (Light, Medium, Heavy) and motions for the special moves, mostly ignore shortcut buttons like "Guard" (just do b on the stick as normal), "Overhead" (can do with M+H), "Taunt" (H+U) and "Throw" (L+M or L+U), and the cooldown timers seem to be so fast they don't particularly matter. (Hm now I read that Heavy specials are more like six-second cooldowns... Anyway I didn't look at the cooldown timers at all and the game seemed to play like normal so apparently I'm oblivious; maybe I was just thinking I was whiffing, like normal. ; )
OH hey d+U is a sweep, okay that's good to know. ^ _^ https://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php?title=GBVS/Offense#Sweep_.26_Overheads
OH evades use the Guard button (with f or b), as does Overdrive (M+H+G). I'm awful with Evades but maybe I'll put G somewhere for Overdrive. Probably
L U H
M X G
where "X" is a blank button. It's modified from my Guilty Gear X layout
P X S
K X HS
& 2 other mechanics just added in the latest update along with Overdrive: Rush--partially invulnerable forward dash f+M+H and Backshift, invulnerable backdash b+M+H; both use 50% meter, can't be done in Overdrive.
Those and evades (I wondered how the AI was evading...) complicate the situation slightly, but the actual fighting is pretty simple! It's mostly three attack buttons and standard motions, and supers seem to be the same for most (qcfx2 + H or U). Everyone seems to have the usual L-M-H chain combo thing.
Ladiva was maybe a slightly simpler case because at higher difficulties her U special throw wasn't landing, so I stopped worrying about that button except for the super-duper. She does have 360s & 720 supers though. ; )
Having a character--Lunalu--act as the way to have endless random fights in VERSUS (COM) mode was confusing--picking a random char with [?] on the other hand acts like you picked them manually, so if you Rematch, you fight them again, instead of a new random opponent--but it works and means the game has endless random opponents, which EVERY FIGHTING GAME SHOULD HAVE for 1P, so this is great. I think I'll use this for warming up before ARCADE mode.
Arcade is interesting in that you pick from several next opponents, but sometimes at different difficulty levels. Doesn't overall seem harder than VERSUS, except the boss--but once I found his pattern he was easily predictable. Hm.
Welp, I'm invested now and I'll be trying more; Ladiva is probably the best character ever but many others look fun too.
The VFX are flashier than GGX or CvSPro but don't immediately kill my eyes so hopefully will be okay if I turn my monitor brightness down a bit. Characters flash red on counter hit for instance but it lasts multiple frames and fades over multiple frames.
(OH, start of RPG mode felt like a really dull beat-em up. Also apparently has crafting?? for unlocking weapon skins, and cash grinding for other unlocks. I know there are boss fights (I don't actually like boss fights though) and you play different characters for different "missions," but this just didn't feel like my thing.) |
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| | | Trying out Charlotta Fenia at Nightmare difficulty in Granblue Fantasy: Versus on PS4: warming up in Versus (CPU) mode, then playing through Arcade mode:
My GBVS sophomore session here turned out feeling like a bit of a downer! She's cute as a button and seemed like an offensive dynamo, but it turns out Charlotta is a charge/parry character with short range normals, and I had trouble keeping her offense going.
I also had my dim head muddled by trying to incorporate another button and six new-to-me mechanics: forward and backward evade and the Overdrive power-up, which use the otherwise superfluous Block button (Overdrive is M+H+B), Overhead (M+H), and forward and backward power dashes (also with M+H).
The evade moves (I mostly ended up using the forward-dodging f+B; didn't see as much reason to hang back with b+B, I'm more offensively inclined!) seem quite effective--at least vs predictable AI. The others seem a bit unnecessary against the AI, distracting from poking the heck out of them, which is often way too effective--for instance, you can mash Charlotta's jab to KO two of the DLCs--Zooey and Vira, I think it was.
Forgot I disabled Emote because I kept getting owned while taunting accidentally vs the AI last session--when enabled, it's H+U.
Vira's weapon skins aren't included in the existing weapon skin packs! She and "Avatar Belial" are in their own DLC character set, so I guess they were outside the two "seasons" of characters.
Oh the release notes per https://finalweapon.net/2021/12/14/granblue-fantasy-versus-update-2-70-dlc-characters-vira-avatar-belial-are-out-now/ from December say "Vira’s color variants 1-19 are available with purchase of the 'Legendary Edition' or 'GBVS Additional Character Set (Vira & Avatar Belial).' Unlike the other Color Pack sets for other characters, these color variants will not be sold separately. Avatar Belial shares color variants with Belial, so the unlock requirements are the same. All of Belial’s available color variants prior to installing the update will be unlocked for Avatar Belial with installation."
So maybe AvB's weapon skins are the same as Belial's, leaving Vira as the odd-girl-out, weapon-skin-wise.
I think I'm off Charlotta; I'm not mentally equipped for her. And thinking about it, I'm not sure about the character I'd wanted to try next, Soriz: his U power is an armor/counter, probably too subtle for me, and his super-duper is a power-up mode, which seems cool--except those only become available when you're at 30% or less health, so....will it be like Overdrive, where I just get hit out of it?
(In depressed after-recording twiddling I tried two other characters who seemed--without looking at their move lists, which may be where my downfall comes--quite fluid offensively: the boss, Beelzebub, and Yuel, the girl with the big bushy tail and two swords.)
(Also afterwards, I realized--having dimmed my display in advance of this session--that what was continuing to stress my eyes was squinting to read the tiny fonts from my rather distant seat. Durn modern HD games and tiny fonts! I want a big blocky font I can read from across the room! ; D)
I'm stressed about having spent money getting all the DLC now... BUT I definitely love all the colors, and it's neat that the endless random VERSUS you get through Lunalu randomizes both colors and weapon skins--ARCADE stays at defaults)--so you get a great deal of variety--plus the additional variety of all the DLC characters, whom you can't fight in VERSUS without buying them (they do face you in ARCADE even if you don't own them). And a lot of them seem cool! The three DLC stages are maybe bland, but that's kinda how all the stages are, in their subdued watercolory way; I do like how a giant sorceress shows up in the forest in round 3. : D Ah it's just it was expensive, darn it, and I'm not sure the AI is going to hold up to continual play; then again, there are probably enough characters I'm BAD with that I could continue to struggle against the AI with them for the foreseeable future! |
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Spamming an attack button vs Nightmare difficulty AI can beat a few of them reliably--I got really worried because it happened that these were the ones I faced on the latter part of Arcade mode, when I started trying the button spam! It can reliably beat Ladiva, Soriz, Lancelot, and Yuel--and probably also Narmaya and Vira, but I'd have to try vs them some more to be sure. I didn't try vs everyone so there may be a few others in there, but it's definitely not most of the cast, so I guess the game isn't TOO broken. I do wish the AI was better though. : P |
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Vira's tough to play! She powers herself up, either with her Unique command throw, or by activating her regular Super; this gives her fancier-looking armor, green sparkles, more hits on some of her special moves, beefier super moves, and the ability to user her plant summon as a floating platform.
The trick is, if you don't get that power-up early in a round, you're having to fight it out non-powered-up, which kind of leaves you at a disadvantage; also, whiff that command throw trying to power-up, and you may eat a huge counter-attack; also, if you have to resort to the Super to power-up, that's a Super you don't get to use for instant damage on the enemy.
And, I am too dumb to use her plant summon moves, really.
But I like the rest of her moves, and the power-up thing adds another challenge to playing her--and it's cool how her armor and supers change!
Also, she's pretty weird and slightly creepy. ; )
So at first I was getting real frustrated trying to do the whole power-up thing, but eventually I learned to roll with it and kind of got into the additional challenge and layer to her gameplay.
I managed to end with her ultimate match-up: her crush obsession, Katalina! : D
I have her 19th color! I don't think I have this for any of the other characters; my dim understanding is that the 19th colors were only available for a limited time, so you can't buy them if you're buying the game and DLC now. But Vira--and Avatar Belial--came along separate from the other DLC character "seasons," and Avatar Belial shares DLC with regular Belial, who was part of a season, so Vira is kind of the odd-character-out: you have to buy her stuff separately, and I guess for whatever reason they threw her 19th color in there, too! It makes her look shiny silver, like a robot. : D
I had to fight Djeeta twice in Arcade?!? She's one of the ones I had the most trouble against, argh! Just all her moves are like a tiny bit faster. |
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Lancelot's fast! : ) I like how he's got dash inputs instead of charge inputs. Had to remember to use his regular super rather than his super duper when in the corner, 'cause the way he jumps, his super duper will miss a close-range opponent when his back is to the wall! |
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Percival is maybe slightly short-changed on cinematics--no cinematic shot for his regular super, and a kind of hard to see one for his super super--and initially felt sluggish, but once you get the timings down and don't forget to use his dash, he can certainly dish out a lot of damage in a hurry. I think this is the first time I beat Arcade boss Beelzebub on the first try with any character!
And I can't remember for sure if I've hit this before with another character, but when he beat Katalina with his super duper in the penultimate Arcade match, (47:43) it--okay this maybe goes against me saying he got cinematically short-changed--extends his super cinematic into a cool walk-off victory cinematic!
Oh hm and there IS a momentary little camera thing if he connects with his heavy dash into heavy attack. = P |
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I didn't really manage to sync with Ferry's move set, so I just klunked along with her; felt sluggish trying to move her around and couldn't seem to find many chain combos, or hit the ones I thought I'd found consistently. Her qcf+H is quite long range but gets out-poked by those darned spear-chuckers (argh--and I had to vs Zeta TWICE IN A ROW in arcade mode because she came right back as Lunalu's drawing, what are the odds ;_;), and her qcb gets out-jabbed by everything. Um and I think while trying her medium uppercut to bail myself out of trouble I was mostly hitting the Unique Move button instead, which definitely didn't help. : P
On the plus side her jabs are actually pretty fast and can out-range a lot of other jabs, her jumping H has good downward diagonal range, and her jumping Unique dive kick doesn't have a re-use timer (man I hate those) so you can just spam it, which helped me finally get past Anre. Oh and her uh jump and whip swing off the ceiling moves were really fun in training, too bad I then forgot all about them argh.
So with that kind of thing and oh her down, down to summon slow jello pet jump-in attacks, I suppose she's kind of a gadget / trickster sort? I'm not very good with those, I'm dumb and just want to bash things. Hum but then again her H attack has good range hit the boss like 5 consecutive times for the win when I mashed it in desperation so maybe I should've just been doing that more. |
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Anre / Uno is not really my thing, and I'm too stupid to play the patient long-range poking game, and I'm clumsy, so I had kind of a hard time, especially against the boss (and that FIRST time against Zooey--this time in Arcade I had to fight both Fastiva AND Zooey twice each! : PPP) where my general inability to hit Uno's chain combos kept my damage too low, until I finally accidentally did his back,back super, which then added additional hits to my flailing for a while. But I'm bad with parries and counters and too dumb usually to block and when I'd get backed into a corner I'd usually just eat hits trying to fight my way out. : PP Also, while his down+Unique is decent, it can be anti-aired pretty regularly, and his other jump-ins mostly stink. And he's slow.
Plus he seems like kind of a boring jerk; but admittedly, I was aggravated most of the time and so annoyed I couldn't even read his whole subtitles. 'p'
I do really like his air tatsu though--wish I'd found it before the boss fight! |
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So, in the original mobile RPG, Djeeta is the female avatar of the player, or something, just as Gran is the male: https://relink.granbluefantasy.jp/en/characters/detail/?chara=main_character&part=djeeta
Which explains how they're both wandering around individually with Lydia and Vyrn as their companions.
Her moves are basic qc stuff, the uppercut seems quite good, heavy fireball maybe a bit long on the darn cooldown timer, oh and the heavy 5x slashing combo on qcb is pretty decent. Her regular super just does a weak single hit unless you follow the usual input with a ten or eleven button press combo which eh I'm not going to remember, so I just stuck to her super-duper, where Bahamut or whoever pops up, gives her a ride, and incinerates her opponent. That's pretty nice. Aside from that she seems fine if a little boring with irritatingly cute friends. |
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Lowain teases Zeta about her super-move wardrobe malfunction. ; P 24:47 I would be a lot more okay with this whole thing if say half of Lowain's codpiece blew off when he did HIS super-duper move. : PPP
Cried when I got shut down by characters with fast moves like Belial and Eustace @ 33:33. Zeta's specials aside from her Unique move and maybe like light fireball have significant start-up delay! Soo mostly it was using Unique on ground and jump-in, fireball when at significant range, and the heavy dash-in with follow-up attacks when I had a bit of separation.
Beelzebub was NOT prepared for follow-up attacks, that made me feel a bit better because she always nails me with them too. = P |
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I find her really smooth to play and her supers rule. I also like how she doesn't take any jive from anyone. But I gotta remember to do her heavy dragon summon after knocking down the opponent, and to use her heavy uppercut at range--and that I can't uppercut my way out of the corner! |
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Trying out Vaseraga at Nightmare difficulty in Granblue Fantasy: Versus on PS4: going over moves in Training, warming up in Versus (CPU) mode, then playing through Arcade mode!
Most of his moves are a bit on the technical side for me, so I played him brain-dead with just his Unique aura, and his heavy charge attack: the aura gives his charge attack armor, so if a fast rushdown puts him in the corner, he maybe has a way out; and if it scores a knockdown, gotta remember to armor back up while they're getting up!
Kept thinking heavy jump attack would chain into standing heavy, but it doesn't. ; ) Still, that was pretty much all it took on the boss--might've been the best I've done against the boss with anyone! = o |
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Not being too good with Lowain's normals, and being impatient, I'd just fire off his three main offensive special moves, heavy style :p--qcb slashes, qcf bro-ball, and down,down Kat-droid--and hope they hit, or at least forced the opponent to block, because then they'd just about be occupied until qcb slash was recharged; if they DIDN'T hit, then I was in deep trouble and would usually die in the corner unless maybe I remembered to use jabs and unique sweep (which in a panic I always confused with light or medium sweep or something, which never worked; argh); but if they did hit, then repeat, and then usually have a super ready to go, and just mash buttons on that until they're dead (Unique for regular super; Medium tracking ball, then Unique & Heavy for super-duper).
So, SOMEtimes the quasi-bro dialogue was kind of funny (oh! Mad Libs, that's what the pre-match bro dialogue is like ;), but I managed to make him boring to play. : P
Kind of wish I'd triggered his super-duper vs the boss--instead of accidentally pressing the regular super button instead, argh--although I suppose it probably would'a just been the boss teleporting around anyway.
Anti-bro Eustace killed me so hard. Still haven't as played him, that'll be interesting; Lowain pointed out that Eustace is based around electricity, which I hadn't quite put together.
Oh I was wrong, "Yggdrasil" is the giant tree holding the Nine Worlds in Norse mythology, not a snake on it. : P (I was probably thinking of what Thor comics called "The Midgard Serpent," or "Jormungand," who in the comics is depicted as a giant creature who gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil, "The World Tree"; the comics may have conflated the giant Norse sea serpent Jörmungandr with the dragon Níðhöggr.) |
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Katalina plays something like a typical shoto, pretty much. I'm not so smart with her unique semi-parry/counter move, but it does seem handy for when you need a last hit, for instance; I wonder if it could get me out of corners? Her uppercut sure doesn't--it says it's invincible or whatever but it definitely isn't on start-up. : P That seems to be typical of uppercuts in GBVS.
She's got some interesting-sounding sides to her character--her attraction to Lyria, her hatred of cooking (?), her predilection for putting bows in odd places on her armor--but they remain only hints at best; mostly her serious-determined-and-responsible persona is pretty boring.
I got a bit bored of running through her moves, too. She's pretty strong though--one of my few 1cc runs so far. Would do better if I could resist my urge to use the Strong version of the moves with its long recycle times. The Nightmare-level AI frequently runs into her light fireballs and her standing heavy slash, which both deal significant damage.
At the end I was thinking maybe I'd play through RPG mode some day--even though I've strongly disliked that mode's gameplay--just to pick up bits of her story and of others, but having skimmed through an RPG mode cinematic compilation on YouTube, it looks like a) Gran is in most of it, and I'm not a big Gran fan (nor Vyrn ; P) and b) a lot of the story is uh not that compelling. So I think I'll just stick to not knowing and letting my own imagination fill in the gaps. |
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