It seems like only a month ago we reviewedGranblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, the firstGranblue Fantasygame in three years. Hot off the heels of the franchise’s second fighting game,Granblue Fantasyis back with a completely new story withGranblue Fantasy: Relink.Granblue Fantasy: Relinksteps away from the tournament fighter format into an action RPG, a genre that seems like a more appropriate follow up to the 2014 mobile game. This has been an anticipated title for fans of the series and now the time has finally arrived to get into it.
Granblue Fantasy: Relinkis set in a world known as the Sky Realm, a place where society is built upon floating islands. The player is the captain of a skyfaring crew aboard an airship known as the Grandcypher. Joining the crew is a talking little dragon named Vyrn and a young woman with mysterious powers known as Lyria. Early on in the journey the crew is joined by a handyman known asMr. Fix It DudeRolan. Together they set off on an adventure, which from the get go emits vibes of the trope that the power of friendship will allow a party with humble beginnings to eventually be tasked with killing a god.
The player is given a choice to either play as Gran or Djeeta. This choice doesn’t seen to matter outside of character model and voice actor. The protagonist’s name is never spoken by other characters either, they’re simply addressed as captain. It’s expected that Gran is the intended protagonist, so to be contrarian we will refer to the protagonist as Djeeta as we love being contrarian. Djeeta is required to be in the party throughout the story campaign but can be swapped out with during Missions that can be taken on in town. There are a total of nineteen playable characters that can be unlocked, and even though Djeeta has to be in the party, the player can choose to control someone else. There’s a fair amount of variety within the cast, so it is recommended to switch things up throughout the campaign.
As is the case with most RPGs the game is primarily divided into sections that take place in town and the actual world. There aren’t too many surprises in town. This is where the player can talk to NPCs and pick up side quests which typically involve delivering a certain amount of materials of killing certain enemies. There’s a blacksmith for forging new weapons and improving currently-owned ones along with a trader where players can trade resources for new items. This is also where players can exchange Crewmember Cards to increase their party roster, but only a small portion of them are available during the story campaign. The last major point of interest is the establishment where players can take on Missions and watch Fate Episodes. Missions are where the player will teleport to an arena to battle a boss monster or take on waves of enemies for experience and resources. Fate Episodes are short narratives with the occasional battle that delve into the backstory of each character. This is also where players can replay chapters during the post game.
Action Packed But Accessible
The action portions ofGranblue Fantasy: Relinkinvolve the player controlling one character with a party of three computer-controlled companions. Each character has their own assortment of special moves where up to four of them can be equipped at a time. There are nineteen total characters that can be unlocked, but it’s advisable to unlock favorite characters first because it’s going to take a long time to get everyone. One of the nice features about the character roster is there their differences in play mechanics. Djeeta and Katalina are powerful swordswomen, while Rackam and Eugen are useful for taking out flying enemies with their guns. Ferry can stylishly dispatch foes with her whip, Rosetta discovered a way to weaponize flowers while Ghandagoza can simply pummel everyone with his massive fists. The action can get frantic with multiple party members using their various attacks, but the result is a fast-paced action game. There are a couple sequences that break up this formula where players might be in an unusual situation such as a using a gun turret, but these out-of-ordinary fights are among the highlights.
The game mechanics ofGranblue Fantasy: Relinkaren’t any more complex than most action games, but it does have an accessibility feature for those who want to simplify the gameplay for whatever reason. Assist Mode has two different settings: Assist and Full Assist. Activating Assist Mode allows the player to simply smash the square button to effortlessly pull off impressive combos and activate special attacks. Full Assist essentially puts battle on autopilot where the player is only responsible for moving the character while AI takes care of all the attacking. Activating this feature significantly lowers the challenge, but does have its purpose. For example, when replaying a mission for the thirteenth time for resources or experience grinding, the player may elect to activate Full Assist mode so they can catch up on the daily news on their phone while the game basically plays itself. As someone who plays action games regularly, this was a feature that didn’t have much personal appeal, especially if one tries to take control of a character during Full Assist mode as it becomes a game of tug of war against the computer. But anything that improves accessibility is generally a good thing.
Review: Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
Whether viewed as a full-fledged sequel or enhanced re-release, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is an improvement over its predecessor.
It took about nineteen hours of playtime to see the credits roll, which included viewing all Fate Episodes that were available at the time and completing all missions. The main campaign isn’t incredibly long, but the post game is designed to be a time sink. At the Mission counter in town there are eventually over 100 missions available, most of which cannot be unlocked until after the story is completed. Completion of these missions are required in order to unlock every crew member, and getting every crew member to level 60 is required to view every Fate Episode. Plus there is the matter of getting every weapon for every character, leveling up said weapon and increasing the skills of each character which requires several thousand MSP per character. The end game content has a lot of grinding, but this is intended to be done via online co-op which makes the grind a lot more enjoyable.
Get Ready For the Grind
The amount of grinding inGranblue Fantasy: Relink’spost game cannot be overstated. This becomes important in how the player chooses to power up their characters as it requires a considerable amount of resources to max out any aspect of a character. Even though there’s a healthy-sized roster, it’s best to focus on four primary characters to power up as otherwise the grind will be never ending. MSP is a communal resource, so even though it’s gained whenever a character levels up, that particular character might not ever see it. The distribution of power is also a factor. One approach is the player can neglect all other characters and power level Djeeta to essentially become a god. This approach can be fun because who doesn’t enjoy feeling powerful, but then there’s a high likelihood of failing the mission because all the non-developed characters will keep ending up in critical status. The post game is largely a series of missions that only increase in challenge, with the reward for completing milestones being more difficult missions. There simply aren’t enough resources to power level everyone without countless hours of grinding, so developing a plan for the post game is important.
Granblue Fantasy: Relinkis an enjoyable game but suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Its single player campaign checks the boxes of what one would expect from an action RPG, but playing through it one can be given the impression that the primary focus was intended to be the post game, which feels almost like a mission-driven MMO, which is much lighter on story. Taking a leisurely pace where all optional activities were done and all areas were thoroughly explored, the game was completed in under twenty hours and a comparable amount of time was spent after that on various missions. After all that time there were still new missions being unlocked, but there were also still more weapons to forge and improve. The post-game content consisted of completing missions in town, and the reward for completing a certain number of them was to provide some more story content along with unlocking more missions with higher difficulty levels. Depending on one’s patience for grinding, getting over 100 hours of playtime from this title is feasible. But doing missions for the sake of grinding on single player can only hold most people’s attention span for so long, and while multiplayer is a nice way to enhance this, it’s difficult to imagine most people keeping interest long enough to max out more than one character.
The graphics ofGranblue Fantasy: Relinkdo not disappoint. The anime-quality portraits have become standard in games, but seeing the 3D models over beautiful backgrounds is a pleasant sight to behold. The soundtrack is composed by multiple composers, one of which is Nobuo Uematsu, and they all deliver wonderful pieces of music throughout the game. Some criticisms are warranted, though. Between the dialogue on the transceivers during battles and all the particle effects, sometimes the screen can get too busy, whereas some more animation in cutscenes would have been an improvement. Localization dialogue is usually judged more leniently than native voice actors, but Vyrn’s English spoken dialogue can be grating with the constant commentary.
Closing Comments:
Granblue Fantasy: Relinkhas a short and sweet story campaign with the potential for endless grinding after the main credits roll. The story is an enjoyable ride from start to finish that blends a captivating story filled with interesting crew members and exhilarating action-packed gameplay. Most of the characters' backstories are revealed through Fate Episodes in town and watching these stories adds a great deal to how invested the player can get in their individual stories. The content after the main story promises countless hours of completing increasingly more difficult missions to extend the life of the game. These missions after the main campaign deliver story content at a much slower pace, however, and after a certain point these activities amount to little more than grinding for better resources. Multiplayer helps with these missions, but most players will likely move on before completing all the content the post game has to offer. But up until that point,Granblue Fantasy: Relinkis an incredibly fun adventure.
