Vira's abilities revealed for Granblue Fantasy Versus
If you're wondering why she seems so crazy, you may want to look up the term 'yandere'
Update: This story has been updated with several screenshots of Vira's moves and cinematics in action.
Today saw the GBVS Cygames Cup 2021 Winter taking place with lots of hype matches for the event's title game.
This wasn't all, though, as right before Grand Finals the assistsant director for the game took the stage to show off detailed footage and explanations of the upcoming character Vira's abilities and her general playstyle.
The concept for Vira was described as her being a fairly basic and straightforward character, something which shows in her basic moveset. She has a forward-moving special which can be spaced for further safety, a reversal move which sends her upwards and a slashing move with a followup you can input manually when the situation calls for it.
Her general normals seem reminiscent of Katalina and focused around good space control and zoning with carefully placed normals. However, as had been teased at her initial reveal, there is more to Vira than meets the eye.
The first special aspect to Vira is that she can summon a helper who will lock the opponent down for a short time. The distance at which this summon appears depends on which version of the move is used, with the EX version tracking the opponent's current position and therefore being optimal for setups.
The next aspect is that she has an install which puts her into Primal Beast mode. This install can be activated two ways, either by landing her Unique Attack which is a forward-advancing command grab (and can therefore be jumped), or by her burning meter and using her Skybound Art which doesn't need to hit the opponent, but is simply an activation in and of itself at the cost of using your gauge.
Once Vira enters her install, she gets access to moves which are much more flashy than her normal iteration. She gets new followups to her reversal special, her summon locks opponents down in a much more oppressive manner and she also gets a new Unique Attack in the form of a flip which elevates Vira and lets her stand in the air.
Once Vira is standing in the air, she can cancel this to an airdash-like movement, jumps from mid-air or air attacks which function as overheads, meaning that she's an extremely mobile character not just on the ground but also above it. Vira's install also grants her a completely new Skybound Art and Super Skybound Art, meaning that landing the command grab to activate it is extremely important since it allows you to preserve your meter for huge damage later on.
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While it remains to be seen exactly how Vira's frame data and damage shake out, right now she's looking like a character with near limitless possibilities and it'll be an amazing treat to see what she brings to the game in December. Expect more news to drop regarding Vira as well as future updates during the Granblue Fantasy Festival taking place on December 11th and 12th, two weeks from now.
The presentation can be found at roughly the 2 hour and 23 minutes mark of the embed below.
