Granblue Fantasy: Relink came up as a intriguing title to look into after I was disappointed by the rather horrid PC launch of Dragon’s Dogma 2. Aside from my very scarce knowledge that the original Granblue Fantasy was a mobile “gacha” JRPG (“gacha” referring to a lottery-type mechanic where valuable gear/characters are obtained via luck of the draw), I had no actual prior experience with the franchise/universe. That being said, I was intrigued by two things that were supposedly going for this game: a gameplay loop with online co-op that is reminiscent of the Monster Hunter games and the fact that Relink specifically does not require any paid investment into the game apart from the initial purchase (which may or may not have been the case for the original mobile game). After about 120 hours or so, including beating the main story and getting into the post-game grind, I was overall pleased with Relink, and pretty excited to experience the upcoming title updates that have yet to release as of the time of publishing this review.
The main premise of the story follows a protagonist “self-insert” character and his/her band of crewmates attempting to reach a far-away land known as Estalucia, encountering different enemies to defeat and characters to befriend. The game does not really require one to have familiarity with the Granblue universe prior to playing the story as I was able to more or less get the gist of what was going on despite having no previous experience myself, but I will be frank, the gameplay loop carries 99% of the game’s value. For those who like a typical JRPG story, I’m sure there is enjoyment to be gained from the narrative, but Relink’s story to me was just like the story of Monster Hunter World: completely forgettable (with literally every common JRPG/anime trope possible) and more a vehicle to get players to fight monsters. The fact managed to put over 100 hours into the game without giving a single care about the story does speak quite a bit on how good the core gameplay loop is.
Gameplay:
The gameplay loop of Granblue Fantasy: Relink is certainly its biggest selling point, and it is absolutely addicting. For those familiar with the Monster Hunter franchise, it is basically a Monster Hunter game in a JRPG format; defeat enemies, acquire powerful gear from them, than challenge even more powerful foes. The combat is excellent, with the movement feeling crisp and responsive, which is absolutely vital to a game where 99% of the gameplay loop is designed around fighting. A lot of the bosses are well-designed with interesting move-sets and mechanics, albeit the enemy variety does get a tad stale towards the later parts of the game (quite a few monsters are re-skins), but for a mobile game developer’s first attempt it is quite respectable. What is even more impressive is the variety of gameplay that comes from the different characters available. The player can choose from a large and diverse roster of characters to play as, with the story/campaign introducing a base cast of six, with additional characters becoming available through progression, with a total of over 20 possible choices. What is remarkable about this roster is that every character is uniquely designed, each with their own distinct play-style and set of mechanics. Enjoy slow, but hard-hitting attacks? Consider Vaseraga with his sweeping scythe attacks. Like the idea of attacking enemies from the air? Zeta has very airborne-focused gameplay reminiscent of a Dragoon from the Final Fantasy games. Prefer ranged combat? Eugen and Rackam both have firearms-focused play-styles, while Tweyen uses a bow for those who want something with a bit more grace. The general gameplay loop of picking up a character, learning how to effectively play them, and then grinding out the materials required to fully craft a powerful build for that character is very satisfying, and leads to a lot of replay value. If I find myself getting bored with one particular character, I can always try to learn a new one, just like picking up a new weapon in the Monster Hunter games.
I do not have much criticism of Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s gameplay, but I do have a few nitpicks. One, I think the inventory management UI can definitely use some work. Managing different Wrightstones and Sigils (both are pieces of gear used to upgrade characters) becomes a chore late-game when they start to accumulate, as there aren’t too many effective ways to sort them out or to get rid of excess materials. Not being able to sort/filter sigils by specific skills is a huge pain especially (can only filter by category). Another critique I have is of the general build diversity for most characters at end-game, which is rather non-existent; an end-game build generally consists of the same selection of skills being used. Now granted, build diversity for any game will naturally shrink because if there is a way to min-max, players will absolutely go for it. However, due to the way the game’s combat mechanics generally work, there are a few skills that are head-and-shoulders above the others so every optimized build will contain the same set of those skills (e.g. Damage Cap, Tyranny, Stamina, War Elemental are sigils that EVERY single character will all use).
Writing:
I do not have much to say about the story of Granblue Fantasy: Relink, except that it is really a vehicle to drive the player towards the gameplay loop and find excuses to fight the enemy roster. I do not think it is anything to write home about, filled with the standard JRPG tropes, and with rather minimal narratively compelling characters. That being said, there were a couple of moments throughout the story that were quite epic from a gameplay perspective, with large-scale clashes that reminded me of the Ikon fights in Final Fantasy XVI. Could the writing be better? Absolutely. However considering the game’s main scope, a relatively weak story is not a deal-breaker for me.
Ending/Misc. Thoughts:
There were a couple of other things that I felt like Granblue Fantasy: Relink did very well that deserve some shout-outs. The soundtrack is quite good, and I enjoyed a lot of the themes for most of the different boss encounters, though at this point I have yet to actually play a JRPG that has a weak soundtrack. The performance and polish is also quite fantastic; I was able to run the game consistently at the 120 FPS cap with very few if any frame drops at the highest graphics settings. Considering most of the unoptimized garbage that releases for a lot of PC games now these days, that is high praise (albeit it shouldn’t be as good optimization should be a standard, not exceptions to be commended).
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised with Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and enjoyed the game a lot. Hopefully with the success of this game we will see more video game releases for mainline gaming systems from Cygames, because they did a great job with this one.
Rating: Highly recommended for people who enjoy JRPG’s or games with gameplay systems similar to Capcom’s Monster Hunter franchise. I personally had no issues with paying retail price for this title.
