To absolutely no one’s surprise, Sandalphon swept the majority of the votes up in a landslide
Earlier this weekend, we saw the GBVS CyGames Cup 2022 Special happen with great fanfare, and although the focus of course was on all the hype matches between top Japanese Granblue Fantasy Versus players, these sponsored events often bring with them a bit. also new information for the game.
GBVS CyGames Cup 2022 Special was no different, and brought the goodies that the upcoming new system mechanics for the game will be released in June, and that there will be three new mechanics in total, and that there is another CyGames Cup about to happen in July. The part that kept everyone’s attention focused, however, was the talk of the polls for which characters you will see added to the Granblue Fantasy Versus, which opened back in December – or more precisely, the focus was on the results of these surveys.
Although there have been similar polls for Granblue Fantasy Versus in the past, the interesting thing about it was that it was not only exclusive to Japan, which is the key market for the game as well as the mobile title it is based on, but that it was actually also open to the rest of the world, thereby bringing in voices that may not have been heard before.
With this in mind, the results were presented by region – Japan, Asia and Oceania, North and South America and Europe – and although they were quite similar in many respects, there were also some important differences.
Before you dive into the poll results at all, however, it should be emphasized that popularity, that is, strong rankings in the surveys, will not guarantee that a character will be added to the Granblue Fantasy Versus list. CyGames highlighted this by first presenting a graphic thanking players for voting, explaining that there are many other factors that are also taken into account when making new additions to the game list (such as potential playing style, weapon representation and more ).
This should hardly come as a surprise as we saw very precisely this take place in the game’s second season, where Belial, Cagliostro and Seox were all extremely popular characters who had placed high in the polls, whereas Yuel, Eustace and in particular Anre were more oddballs choices that players might not be as likely to expect.
With that out of the way, let’s look at the polls themselves. You can see the images below to see what the top 10 looked like for each region, including a list showing the results for each region side by side, making it easier to compare rankings.
Click on the images for larger versions
The first point of interest, of course, is that Sandalphon has completely swept the polls in every region, but for people familiar with the source game, this is hardly surprising. Sandalphon’s popularity has been huge ever since he was introduced to the game’s history, and he actually also won the previous poll 2 years ago.
With Sandalphon, it’s more a matter of “when” rather than “if” for his inclusion on the list, to the point where most people are surprised he’s not part of it yet. The interesting thing is to look at some of the other results, perhaps most notably Siegfried, a fellow Dragon Knight for the currently playable characters Lancelot and Percival and Beatrix, a member of the Society along with the current selectable fighters Zeta, Vaseraga and Eustace.
It was noticed by the developers that many voices seemed based on wanting to see familiar characters interact with each other, which partly explains their voices, of course combined with the fact that they are both very popular. Given that Beatrix managed to hit the top 3 in all regions, and Siegfried almost achieved the same feat (finishing in 6th place in Asia / Oceania), they seem like very real candidates to be included based on popularity.
The only other character to place in all regions is Seofon, the co-leader of Eternals along with the currently playable Anre, a group of which season 2’s latest addition Seox is also a member. Ilsa, another member of the community, and Vikala, the zodiac representative for the zodiac signs, appear in the top 10 of 3 different regions, which clearly shows a large fan base for both of these.
Other candidates who could have good chances based on the voting results available to us are Aliza and Silva, who placed high in regions that previously would not have been able to vote, and who also both have it. ” interesting gameplay options “, which CyGames highlighted as another. factor for inclusion.
Silva is a weapon-based character who is a downright sniper, which definitely sets her apart from Eustace, the other gunman available in the game right now, who would probably be heavily focused on long-range zoning if she was added. Aliza, on the other hand, is a hand-to-hand warrior princess and would probably fill the archetype of a close-up Kung Fu-like fighter, like Jam from the Guilty Gear series.
Although the implication of new characters being added was very clear (why else even hold a poll, much less publish the results?), There was still no clear statement as to whether this would be a sequel to the DLC for Granblue Fantasy Versus or a switch to a new project such as a Granblue Fantasy Versus 2.
The lack of a sequel announcement, despite talking about characters that fans want to add to the game, would point quite clearly towards the former, but with the next generation of consoles slowly moving into the market area, one has to wonder where feasible it is. is to continue to support the game in its current state, especially after the developers themselves admit that they believe rollback network code should be the standard for fighting games – a feature that the current Granblue Fantasy Versus lacks.
Whatever the case, this year will bring a lot of excitement and new content to Granblue Fantasy Versus in the form of updates, events and most importantly a place on the main stage at EVO 2022. More information and announcements will no doubt be available to us in the near future.