I recently had time to sit down and check out the first two characters of the Granblue Fantasy: Versus Character Pass Season 2 DLC. First off we have Belial, we saw a bit of him in the RPG Mode story of the base game. He is a Fallen Angel that loves nothing more than to torment Gran and Djeeta. Belial is very arrogant, and he lives up to his namesake of being wicked and lustful. The other DLC fighter to enter the fray is the adorable alchemist, Cagliostro. She may look harmless and cute, but don’t let her appearance fool you. Cagliostro is one of the oldest and most powerful humans to sail the skies. She was the one responsible for sealing Beelzebub in Pandemonium, and he’s not forgotten this either!
Before we dig into how each of these great characters play, let’s talk a bit about how they look in 3D, in a word, fantastic. Just like all the previous fighters, each one is greatly detailed and their animations are smooth as silk. Cagliostro’s dragon intro looks amazing, and Belial’s win pose has all the arrogance you would expect. Each character has a total of eight color skins and some weapon skins to unlock as well. The weapon skins will be very familiar to players of the mobile game, and a nice treat for those that aren’t.
As usual, each of the new fighters come with their very own theme music. Belial’s song, “Parade’s Lust,” is a very unique vocal track. You may think at first, “this doesn’t really seem like a good track for a fighting game,” but it’s really fitting for him. Fans of the mobile game already know this is the perfect track for him. Cagliostro’s track is titled “The Prettiest Alchemist.” This one starts out all light and cutesy, but has nice metal rifts thrown in there. That’s pretty fitting for her since she’s very cute, but a little nuts at the same time. Both characters are fully voiced in both Japanese and English. I’ve always preferred the Japanese voice acting for this game, but the English cast does a great job here as well.
Each of these fighters plays very differently, and I personally enjoyed using both of them a great deal. Cagliostro feels like a much more technical fighter with her Mehen trap special move that will stop opponents dead in their tracks and teleport maneuver to get out of tight jams. She has some great auto combos, and a decent amount of speed as well. I loved her Skybound Arts. Both do tons of damage, and turning your foe into a statue of gold is just fitting for her!
Belial is more of that middle of the road fighter. He has nice ranged attacks, but is just as dangerous up close. He has a couple of different grapple type special moves and a very unique counter move. He will walk forward with outstretched arms and counter your foe’s attack with a well placed stomp. His two Skybound Arts are devastating and look amazing as well.
I really had a good time checking out both Belial and Cagliostro. Each fighter brings some fresh gameplay to the mix and the RPG story bits were quite interesting as well. If you are fan of Granblue Fantasy, I think the Season 2 Character Pass is a must at the $34.99 price tag. This is a bit steep, but there will be six new fighters in total. Yuel has already been announced as the third fighter, and she looks amazing. Fighters can be purchased separately at $6.99 each as well. I do think it’s a bit much to ask folks that buy the Character Pass to fork over some more cash for additional colors, but Arc System Works has always done this sorta thing. Still, even with that minor beef, I feel like there is a lot to love about Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and these additional fighters just make it even better!
DLC characters provided by the publisher for review.
