Recent reviews by rober2

1st of all, The game is FAR from perfect, but it's still one of the few games I play over more popular ones like Apex Legends or Warzone; though it's probably mostly coz I'm a weeb.

What makes the game stand out are the mechs, each having unique designs and playing differently from each other.

No, you do not create your own mech; each mech is already designed, and has their own pilot, though you can choose any mech as any pilot and it won't have any bonus outside of the pilot's passive skills, which just so happen to fit their respective mech.

You start with choosing 1 of 2 starting pilots with each having 2 different passive skills. The 1st skill is locked onto your pilot-of-choice as it only affects the pilot, while the 2nd one affects only the mech and can be swapped with whichever pilot's 2nd skill, so you can mix n match. The skills themselves give only small bonuses, but is sometimes the difference maker in some fights, but otherwise, nothing game-breaking.

along with choosing your 1st pilot, you're also given a couple of mechs, Arthur and Firefox, and unless I'm mistaken, Skylark. Play for 1 week, and you'll also get Hotsteel. Now, don't let the fact that they're given to you for free make you think they're weak. In fact, they're just as useful as any mech in the game; it's just how the game is balanced. Arthur is a close-ranged mech that specializes in dishing out strong damage up close and is one of the few mechs that has stun, while Firefox is a simple mech that can dish out ridiculous damage per second at close to mid-range, and Skylark is very balanced mobile mech that can even heal itself (and her allies depending on your luck and choices) via her damaging secondary skill. My personal favorite, Hotsteel, is your heavy-armored missile-lobbing frontliner, similar to Arthur, who TECHNICALLY can deal crazy damage at any range, but shines by being at the front. 4 completely different from each other so you can find your desired playstyle

Is this game Pay-2-win? NO. It's all fair game. Some may argue that players who've played enough have an edge due to the pilot skills being leveled up, but it's honestly not that big of an advantage in my opinion.

What makes the game easier to access for F2P players is also the training ground. It gives you access to a literal shooting range so you can test out pilot weapons and items, as well as being able to use every mech in the game to take for a test drive so you can decide if you wanna buy the mech or not and/or to see if the mech matches your style. There's a limit of 30 minutes to use the training grounds, but since you'll be seeing other players in the training ground too, it's probably just to kick out anyone who may have left the game on AFK so that it won't flood the server. before the 30 minutes are up, you're probably already done anyway. And if you need more time, you can always go back in again after your 30 minutes are up.

Now, what can you spend on this game? Well, if you're lazy, you can always "buy" exp for your pilots and mechs to unlock or improve skills, But people will mainly buy stuff for the cosmetics. The game also has a battlepass to grind for. Sure, there are skins that you can flat-out buy, but what's REALLY expensive here is the gacha. Yes, a gacha. What you get in them vary from emotes, to skins of guns, but it's here where you get the REALLY good-looking skins. prepare your wallet though; if you think buying a PS5 from a scalper is expensive, you haven't seen what gacha gamers can do.

Now I DID say this game isn't perfect. Like most, if not ALL Battle royale games, you get your fair share of cheaters. HOW often? Well, count me lucky as I've yet to encounter one, but I'm not the best example given what time I play.

Another gripe is that if there are no players to play with, you're paired with bots. play REALLY late, and don't be surprised to find yourself in a room fill with nothing BUT bots.

But if you're fortunate enough to not encounter a cheater, and is playing when there are more people are awake, loves mechs and battle royale, this is a game I'd recommend you'd try.

I've started to love Tekken when I saw some gameplay in Tekken 5. And ever since, I've played T6 TTag2 and now, here we are. With some luck and good game-dev smarts, we have a game that's become one of the most, if not THE most popular 3D fighting game out there. Don't let my time spent on this game fool you; I got this game on PC after YEARS of having it on the PS4. Me n my friends would play HOURS of this game with only food and nature stopping us. We'd go to events with Tekken being the main highlight, and only stop watching to hit the toilet or restaurant. We'd talk about hows and whys of who's player doing what.

The game is well polished, visually wonderful, and the moves are bone-crunchingly satisfying. There are even options to help out newbies with built-in easy combos, that with enough practice, can be done manually themselves and even perform better ones.

Even after 3 years since it's release, there is still an abundance of players (at least near me [I'm in the Philippines BTW]) that I could even set in the options to be paired with players with 4-bar connection or higher, with waiting times going no longer than a couple of minutes. Heck, in some cases, they come out so fast, I could barely do combos during the waiting time. With patches and Season passes to keep the game fresh, the game is great even without the passes as it comes with an abundance of characters. THIS is how you do season passes. Even if you don't buy the season passes, you will still be paired with those that do, so you can still have fun with players who are using characters you can't use; this isn't a bad thing if the characters in their respective passes aren't your thing.

4 isn't a big number to people, but personally, if that's the number of guests characters in a fighting game, I'd say that's a lot. Including Street Fighter's own Akuma, King of Fighter's Geese, Final Fantast XV's Noctis, and even NEGAN from the Walking dead; you could tell Tekken wanted to ride on the hype of that series, though I think they were a bit late on that. Still a good addition regardless.

We are also expecting a Season 4 pass coming in pretty soon, so it will still mean this game will have a lot more life to live.

Story-wise, the game has features that'll help you catch up if that's your thing. Personally, it's not something I'd say is wonderful, though one could argue that it isn't "bad". Besides, you're here for the gameplay of beating your opponent to a pulp, not some grandfather-father-son feud that spurred the world into chaos.

Diversity of characters are PLENTY. while some may say that many characters are similar, they're very likely not. Nina and Anna are 2 different characters with unique moves. they may only have some similar moves, but their difference are like apples and oranges; they're both fruits but are 2 DIFFERENT fruits. The same can be said for Mishimas; They have the near-immaculate godfist and hellsweeps, Dragon Slayer, Flash punch combo and Dragon Uppercut. but those are merely a handful of similar moves in a pool of DOZENS more in their respective command list. the only one totally similar is Kuma n Panda. Yeah, that's weird even for me. probably there story-wise.

In terms of balance, it's been pretty solid so far, with little things keeping one from topping the other as each has their ups and downs. There WERE some words spreading that certain characters were too powerful; most noteworthy is Leroy, who had seen obnoxiously high pick ratings in pro play, which pretty much showed how broken he was. now, patches have come and nerfs hit him in a lot of areas, but that's not saying he's bad now; he's still strong, but not unbeatable. This at least shows that the peeps behind the game are listening and fixing problems here n there. Though if I were to guess, they just wanted to sell the character or the pass.

Overall, If you love fighting games, this is one I will DEFINITELY recommend.

Okay, first of all, I just wanna go over the fact that I bought this game for the following reasons:

1.) I LOVE fighting games, though not all of them need to catch my desire to play them.
2.) Ark System Works have been one of, if not THE most popular 2D Fighting game creator in existence, responsible for the works of the Blazblue series, Dragon Ball Fighter Z, both of which I've played and loved, and many more; Most notably, Guilty Gear. Being made by this company is not the main contributor, but is a BIG factor.
3.) I have been a fan of Granblue Fantasy for about 4 years now; the fact that it became a Fighting game was a fantasy-come-true.

Having these 3 factors made this game an INSTANT buy for me, popularity be darn.
I've played this game for bout 100 hours, and here's what I think; take it with a grain of (gacha) salt.

When compared to the other 2D fighting games in the same creator's list, it's pretty simple and nothing fancy like the others. It's a pretty footsies-based tread and combos mid-screen are not common (though still possible given the right situation). Don't let that fool you though; despite it's simplicity compared to other 2D games, it has it's own charm. The fancy stuff is when you (or preferably your opponent) is literally backed to a wall where the REAL damage is. Getting comboed with a wall behind you is the last thing you want, and is where the show starts. You'll see your healthbar drain a LOT more than it would in midscreen. That said, it's also a satisfying thing to A. get the opponent to the wall, B. get a string in, and C. actually pull off the combo. Sure, this is pretty much a given in most, if not ALL fighting games, but with the difference between mid-screen and wall gameplay, the game makes this VERY apparent.

Speaking if Combos, the game rewards those who can pull off more advanced techniques. Arc System Works has somehow been adapting to simplifying their games for even newbies to feel good in landing the simplest strings, but hasn't forgotten the more experienced players. In this game, there are easy inputs for each character's special abilities. moves like a "hadoken" which needs a quarter-circle input on the D-pad plus an attack button can be done in this game with just a mere press of a button. However, if you decide to forego the easy input and perform it the old fashioned way, you're rewarded with given practically no cooldown to use that ability again. Yes, using the easy input is offset by being given a cooldown of a few seconds before being allowed to use that move again. Don't worry about that cooldown so much though; given the right circumstances, if you land that hit, you'll likely find yourself in an offensive that you can use the other tools while waiting for that cooldown to finish, so it's not really discouraged even for experienced players.

For balance, I'd say it's in the right track, but it's probably because the game has only a handful of characters. it IS still a new IP of Arcsys, so the game needs time to grow.

Outside of the main fighting game aspect, there's also an "RPG Mode" that allows you to delve into the lore, though if I was to assume, it's not canon and is made purely for this game. Still, it helps other players who are not into Granblue fantasy get into the lore and understand who is who, what is what, why is why, and why Vyrn keeps claiming he's not a lizard. Unfortunately, I've actually yet delve into the RPG Mode myself since I DID buy this game for the fighting game aspect, so I can't really give much of a review there. what I DO know is that playing the mode also allows for unlocking and choosing the appearance of your character's weapon. It's purely aesthetic, unless you believe the change in weapon will distract the player.

Graphics? OK, I may be biased here, but it's just FANTASTIC for a 2D fighting game. The characters are 3D rendered so you can definitely enjoy every nook and cranny of their figure. And as someone who's played the game and seen the "Grancypher" only as a still image, seeing it in it's 3D glory COMING OUT WHILE YOU ARE FIGHTING WITH SOMEONE was a sight to behold; it was a miracle I wasn't completely distracted with the real-time beating I was giving while reveling at it's splendor.

Music? The game pretty much remixes the main game's music, and as expected of Arc System Works, they did a FANTASTIC job doing so. Legit looking for the soundtrack of this game and putting it on my phone.

Story-wise, I sadly can't review that. As I've said, I've only played the fighting game part, not the story. However though, I CAN say that the main Granblue Fantasy game has fantastic story; heck, it's one of the main reasons why I love that game. If we're getting the same story writers for this game, expect good stuff. again, take it with a grain of salt.

TL;DR, this is a great 2D fighting game to add to your collection. Even if you're not a fighting game fan, if you're a fan of the main granblue fantasy, this may tickle your curiosity.