I freely admit that when I first played Gigantic I instantly gravitated towards Voden. His appearance, agility and bow based gameplay is something that suits classes I typically play. Besides the fact he looks absolutely incredible, I love the prospect of cleverly picking my positioning in a hit and run style of gameplay, using poisons and decoys to stall or confuse my opponents. Although I wasn’t in any disapointed with my experience on Voden, I actually ended up loving Griselma over all other Heroes. She isn’t agile and she isn’t ranged (something I’ve also always favoured) and yet I can’t help but love this little granny and her poking stick.

In previous MMO’s or in games such as SMITE, I’ve regularly had alternative characters that are typically focused on area denial. In Guild Wars 2 for example, I have a Ranger (main) and an Engineer (alt). The same occurred in Warhammer Online where I had a Shadow Warrior (main) and an Engineer (alt). I’d say I’m fairly used to both playstyles and yet Griselma’s combination of aesthetics and skill-set make her not only unique, but from what I’ve seen and played, incredibly useful.

I’m not in any way suggesting Voden isn’t fun, because he’s absolutely amazing, but there’s something about Griselma that I’ve found irresistible. Her playstyle reminds me heavily of a turret engineer in Guild Wars 2, but one that’s much more thought out. If you’ve been fortunate enough to play her at one of several conventions Motiga have shown Gigantic, or if you’ve poured over her skill sets and upgrades over on GGUnleashed, you’ll see she has two methods of play: aggressive and defensive. Combined with her use of Portals, she offers a unique playstyle no other Hero in Gigantic fulfils. In a Capture Point game mode, her Portal Beasts are incredibly useful as area denial is just as important as pushing or killing opponents.

I’ve played a lot of Capture Point game modes before in other games and the importance of being able to hold a specific area is incredibly important to any team. That isn’t to say that other Heroes aren’t able to do it (HK and Margrave seem to do an awesome job) but when a Hero is purposefully built around point denial, there’s the hope that they’ll be good at doing it.

I think if anything, the thing that might put players off Griselma is that she isn’t glamorous (although her glasses are fabulous) and she has quite a slow playstyle. That’s fine for me as I don’t always want break-neck speed. I know that Griselma’s value to the team is going to be high irrespective of how little mobility she has or how she lacks fancy looking skills. Do I think she’ll be popular when the game launches? Not really. Some of the other Heroes are instantly more attractive (Aisling and Wu look fantastic) while the likes of Tripp and Tyto will also corner a large section of the playerbase (stealth and speed). Fortunately for me and as someone who likes the unpopular choice, I might be one of the few who actually want to play her.

Having said all that, I’m keen to know which Hero appeals to you? With 16 in total (that we know of!) there’s enough playstyles in Gigantic to seemingly cover all tastes, but have any taken you by surprise? Have you changed your mind multiple times? Let me know!