5 articlesGranblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is a great game for a fighting game beginner to pick up. After all, it’s based on a popular gacha game, so it tries to be welcoming to newbies!
That doesn’t mean it’s easy or lacking in depth, however. You’ll still need to have some patience and learn the intricacies of the game if you wish to play against other players.
In this guide, we’ll go over some key things that every beginner should know if they want to brawl it out in Granblue’s world!
Beginner’s Guide for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
Know Your Buttons
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is a 4-button fighter when it comes to your basic attacks.
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On top of that, you have the Unique (U) attack which varies for every character.
Besides the standing basic attack, you can also do crouching attacks by pressing Down and any of the attack buttons.
Generally speaking, crouching L, M, and U hit low. That means that they can only be blocked while crouching, and you’ll be using them in combination with overhead attacks to perform mixups.
If you find the terminology confusing, overhead attacks are attacks that hit high and can’t be blocked when crouching.
Mixups are just when you string together high and low attacks to break up your opponent’s blocks.
As for the crouching H attacks, they are the universal anti-air attack in this game. You can rely on them to hit enemies who try to jump towards you!
Speaking of jumps, you can also attack in the air by pressing any of the basic attack buttons. The properties of the moves vary a lot, but a lot of aerial attacks hit high and can’t be blocked when crouching.
Lastly, note that your basic attacks change when you’re close to your opponent, turning into faster but shorter attacks instead.
In closing: You’ll primarily be using L attacks for quick pokes, M attacks for mid-ranged pokes, and H attacks to punish your opponents when they whiff attacks. H attacks are the best combo starters!
You Have More Tools Than Just Basic Attacks!
Besides your 4 basic attacks, you also have other important offensive and defensive tools. The most basic of them are your throws and blocking.
Throws can be done anytime by pressing L + U, and they are unblockable. You can use them to throw off blocking enemies, so consider it an extra tool for mixups.
However, throws can be easily escaped in this game by pressing any button. Though you do get an advantage if you input L + U to escape throws, but the timing can be very tricky!
By default, Throws are also bound to their own button, which is LB with Xbox controllers and L1 on PlayStation.
You’ll want to mix throws into your attacks when your opponents are blocking, as it can create openings if they don’t see it coming.
As for defending, you can block by just holding Back, based on which direction your character is facing. If they’re facing right, you’ll just need to hold left to block.
You can also hold down and back to crouch while blocking, which prevents you from being hit by low attacks. However, you can still be hit by overhead attacks!
Mix standing and crouching blocks to defend, based on what your opponent does. Easier said than done, though, that’s for sure!
Also, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising has a Guard button. You can press this button to block without needing to hold the Back direction which can be pretty useful against cross-ups.
Terminology check again! Cross-ups are a type of mixup where a player changes which side of the screen they are on the screen. This changes which direction the blocking player needs to hold, which opens them up.
Lastly, pressing Back while pressing Guard will allow you to do a dodge in place, which allows you to punish.
Similarly, pressing Forward and Guard allows you to do a dodge while moving forward. It doesn’t protect you from low attacks or throws, though, so keep that in mind!
Meet The Auto Combos
With all the basics out of the way, once you land a hit you can go straight into an autocombo. They are the bread and butter of combos in this game, so you’ll probably use them a lot!
Every basic attack can be turned into an autocombo by just repeatedly pressing the attack button two more times. You can then follow up by using Skills, creating a basic combo.
More advanced combos will require you to use specific Skills that juggle your opponents and allow you to land even more hits, but you’ll have to practice those based on which character you play.
Additionally, you can change the last hit into a high attack by pressing Forward + H or a low by pressing Forward + M. It’s a basic mixup, but it’s pretty useful when you’re starting out.
Use The Skill Button
If you aren’t comfortable doing traditional fighting game inputs like Quarter Circle Forward, you can use the Skill button anytime to perform your character’s abilities.
The only difference is that performing the traditional input will give you a 10% damage bonus. Though, honestly, this is very negligible unless you’re already advanced and want to maximize your combo’s damage.
Other than that, it’s best to just use the Skill button every time for easier and more reliable inputs. Just press a direction and the Skill button and you’ll do different abilities!
You can also do different variations of any Skill by pressing M or H at the same time as the Skill button.
Additionally, you can do Ultimate Skills by pressing U at the same time as the Skill button. That said, you’ll need to have at least 50% Skybound Gauge, which is the blue bar under your character’s health.
Lastly, you can use up 100% of the Skybound Gauge to do a brutal Skybound Art. Just press Throw + Skill, or press Throw + Skill + U to do an alternate Skybound Art when you have under 30% HP.
Bravery Points
Last but not least is the Bravery Point (BP) mechanic. Every player gets three BP per round, represented by three diamonds above each character’s health bar.
You can consume 1 BP by pressing M + H at the same time, which will allow you to do Raging Strikes or Brave Counters.
Raging Strikes are offensive actions that can break your opponent’s guard and even lead to highly damaging combos. If this crushes your opponent’s guard, they will also lose one BP.
You can spend 25% Skybound Gauge to do a combo starter by pressing M + H again after Raging Strike.
Brave Counters, however, allow you to retaliate against Raging Strikes by spending one BP of your own. They can only be done if you get hit by Raging Strikes while blocking, though!
Raging Strikes can also be avoided by doing in-place dodges, which we previously mentioned are done by pressing Back and Guard.
Having no BP when you get hit by a Raging Strike will put you into a long stun, which your opponent can use to deal devastating damage.
Additionally, the only way to recover BP during a round is to use Ultimate Skills!
You’ll need to carefully manage your BP if you wish to win in this game. Learn to recognize Raging Strikes when your opponents do them so that you can dodge them, making your opponent waste BP!
But now that you know the basics, all we can recommend is for you to try out the game’s training mode. Spend time getting to know the many characters and picking out your favorite, then try to learn their moves.
And always remember to be patient when learning. Fighting games are hard to master, but they’re great fun once you manage to get through the initial hurdles!
