Granblue Fantasy: Relink Review
“A Grand, New Adventure in the Skies!”
Written by: Kyle (@RunicBlade98)
Image Credit: Cygames
Granblue Fantasy has always been an interesting series to me. What originally started out ten years ago as a mobile, gacha game has evolved into a multimedia project, including a two season anime, a couple of movies, and even a short manga series.
I never tried playing the mobile game, because I feel like it’s too late for me to get into it now. My exposure to Granblue came from the fighting game: Granblue Fantasy Versus. It was through seeing the characters in that game that really peaked my interest in the series. Everyone in that game just looked so cool and unique. And the medieval fantasy with a bit of steampunk world that the game is set in seemed really interesting.
So that brings us to Granblue Fantasy: Relink, an action RPG from the series creators over at Cygames. Does this game live up to the expectations I had in my head, and could we see the rise of a new RPG juggernaut? Let’s sail the skies and find out!
Image Credit: Cygames
The story of Relink focuses on your player character (either Gran or Djeeta) and their crew sailing the skies of Zegagrande. During their travels, they are attacked by monsters. When your crewmate Lyria tries to summon the Primal Dragon Bahamut to fight them off, Bahamut suddenly disobeys and starts going berserk, causing the ship to crash land in a forest.
After that, the crew eventually learns that another Primal Beast (the Wind Spirit: Furycane) is also going into a frenzy. After subduing Furycane, the crew is ambushed by a group called the Church of Avia, led by a woman named Lillith and her bodyguard, Id. Your crew is no match for Id’s strength, and after putting everyone out of commission, Lyria is taken away by the Church of Avia.
Overall, Relink’s story is a very simple setup, but it’s effective at getting the player involved. And I think that the best part is that the game doesn’t expect you to have done your homework on Granblue before you start this game. Even though these are established characters, in an established world, the game does a great job onboarding anyone who is new to the world of Granblue.
And if you are curious to learn more about these characters, everyone has their own little side stories that you can view. They give you the backstory about the characters first, then dive into their new mini stories. These are presented as little slideshows that are narrated by the character, and are effective ways of delivering exposition.
In addition to the main story, after the credits roll there is a bonus story that opens up to you. Neither story is particularly long either. The main game is probably close to 15 hours, and the post credits story is even shorter, so the game never feels like it overstays its time.
Image Credit: Cygames
The gameplay is where I feel like this game really shines, and sets itself apart from other action RPGs. The best way that I can describe Granblue Relink’s combat is that it’s pretty much what you’d get if you mixed Xenoblade 3 with Monster Hunter.
Every character has a basic combo that is done by using Square to attack. The characters are varied in their Special Moves, and the Skills that they can equip. Everyone has a different unique move that they can use on Triangle. For example, Zeta has a counterattack that sets up her win condition, while Gran and Djeeta have a charge to give their normal attacks a bit more kick.
Each character can also equip four skills at a time. These skills usually feed into what the character wants to be doing. Zeta’s Spear of Arvess skill has her lunging at the enemy, which then puts her into her spear dive loops. Katalina on the other hand is more support oriented, so she has skills that revolve around healing and buffing the party.
Now how do you unlock these characters? Simply by playing the game and doing missions. Certain missions will reward you with a character ticket, which you can trade to unlock a new character. My advice is to just pick whoever you think looks the coolest first, then pick up the rest of them. I personally chose Zeta because she’s my main character in the fighting game, and I am loyal to my characters. Also, I learned that Katalina is support focused, and that’s just not my playstyle.
The game is set up in a sort of mission structure, where you’ll be given a place to go, and that place acts as its own, disconnected level. You aren’t navigating an open world to progress the story; rather you’re selecting the next option from a menu. The levels are still expansive and have a lot to offer the player if they want to explore.
Another cool thing about this game is that your team comp really doesn’t make a difference. Your characters all have elements associated with them, but ultimately, it never felt like it made a difference in combat. Bosses do have elemental weaknesses, but the damage bonus feels so insignificant.
One thing that I need to praise this game for is how its bosses are handled. A lot of the bosses in this game are giant beasts that tower over your party members. Yet it never feels like anything gets lost in the mix of attacks from the boss, or you and your three party members. The designers didn’t trade function for style, and I have to respect that. Especially after the visual noise in games like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth or Final Fantasy 16.
So often with action RPGs these days, developers will go for style over gameplay; having the bosses throw out these massive attacks that are damn near impossible to follow on a first attempt. But here, it feels like the game gives you ample time to assess the attack, and how you want to respond to it. Even the “Shadow of the Colossus” boss about halfway into the game never became too hard to follow. Even though your characters are miniscule, and that boss doesn’t even fit on screen, there’s always a clear telegraph to its moves.
Finally, this game has multiplayer. You and three other players can hop online to work together to take down a huge raid boss. Stuff like this is pretty much exclusively reserved for post-game, and nearly requires that you max out one of your characters before attempting these. Couple that with needing good gear and Sigils (basically Gems from Xenoblade 1), and it’s not something that I ever wanted to bother with.
Look, even my Final Fantasy 14 corrupted brain couldn’t care to try and beat these. If I had a group of friends to play it with, then maybe I would’ve given it a go. The endgame superboss grind is just so slow, and so tedious, that I really didn’t want my experience getting soured by it. I learned my lesson from going for the Scarlet Nexus Platinum Trophy. I’m not making that mistake again.
Summary
Image Credit: Cygames
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Granblue Fantasy: Relink. If you’re afraid of fighting games, or ten year old gacha games, but still think that this looks interesting, it’s a perfect place to jump in. The balance of the game feels completely fair, and even if you’re not good at action games, it’s something that anyone can pick up and understand.
And if nothing else, this game is proof that a game can overcome being stuck in development hell. This game was first announced back in 2016 and had Platinum Games as the developers. However, the development ended up taking so long that Platinum’s contract with Cygames ended. After that, Cygames decided to finish the project internally, which ultimately lead to the game that we have now.
If you’re looking for a special game that got buried underneath two bigger JRPG releases this year, give it a try. I’d say that it’s very worthy of your time.