To say that Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a extremely anticipated title is an understatement. Since its announcement within the distant reminiscence that’s 2016, the assumption by followers that Cygames would ship one thing particular stored its flame alive even amidst a number of delays.
For that, it’s exhausting to explain how excited I used to be to dive into the complete sport and see for myself the fruit of virtually a decade of labor by its growth group. However is Granblue Fantasy: Relink every little thing we hoped it could be, or did its tumultuous growing course of have an effect on the tip product?
Welcome to Zegagrande
Set within the Zegagrande Skydom, Granblue Fantasy: Relink follows the crew of the Grandcypher —composed of The Captain, Lyria, Vyrn, Katalina, Rosetta, Io, Eugen, and Rackam — as they develop into the Sky’s solely hope in opposition to the Church of Avia, a company whose roots appear to sprout all through the clouds.
Taking a look at it objectively, the sport’s plot is extraordinarily self-contained and feels just like that of semi-canon motion pictures featured throughout the universe of well-liked franchises. However that under no circumstances harms its high quality, as though predictable at sure occasions, the plot efficiently highlights the charisma and depth of each the identified and new faces of its solid whereas additionally delivering some emotional important hits. The story beats solely develop into extra poignant when paired with the sport’s wonderful soundtrack and delightful presentation, the latter of which managed to flawlessly deliver the franchises’ attribute type and impeccable character designs into the 3D realm.
In case you are unfamiliar with the primary solid of Granblue Fantasy, don’t fear, as Relink provides a short introduction to the crew’s fundamental objective and the way The Captain crossed paths with Lyria in its prologue. You may also watch Destiny Episodes for every playable character. Among the many Destiny Episodes, the primary ones will at all times characteristic an outline of their tales, in addition to what led them to affix the crew.
The sport additionally incorporates a pretty complete Glossary, which can be utilized throughout a number of cutscenes. If that’s not sufficient for you, it’s also doable to take a look at extra particulars concerning each the world and the entire characters featured within the sport — regardless of if they’re pals or foes — by heading to Subject Notes below Lyria’s Journal.
On the subject of exploration, Granblue Fantasy: Relink works equally to video games like Valkyrie Elysium by solely permitting you to completely discover areas exterior the sport’s fundamental hubs whereas in set story chapters. Nevertheless, you’ll solely be given the choice to replay chapters to both hunt for missed objects or full fight challenges after finishing the primary marketing campaign and reaching the post-game. Time-wise, I managed to finish the sport’s fundamental storyline and begin digging into the post-game content material in round 18 and a half hours whereas periodically doing quests, farming supplies, and upgrading my fundamental social gathering accordingly.
Other than the primary crew, the sport additionally permits you to take a big selection of non-main-story-related characters to the sphere, together with fan favorites like Ferry, Cagliostro, and Percival. So as to add to that, all of them have story-related strains whereas exploring and dealing with sure bosses. That helps in preserving the sensation of immersion alive and provides the primary story an additional replayability issue. I discovered myself replaying sure chapters a number of occasions simply to see what my favourite characters needed to say.
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If you happen to had been questioning, the entire sport’s cutscenes have variants for each the female and male variations of The Captain (Grand and Djeeta), so no favorites right here. You may also freely change between them throughout your marketing campaign, in addition to change their names.
Questing is the Identify of The Recreation
Other than its fundamental storyline, the primary focus of Relink lies undeniably in finishing quests, as they’re the primary manner through which you’ll earn EXP and get entry to improve supplies for each your weapons and sigils. The sport incorporates a large quantity of quests, that are divided into two varieties — the facet quests discovered throughout the hubs and the quests accessible on the Quest Counter. Whereas the facet quests will, most often, activity you with gathering set objects, the Counter Quests can range from survival-focused ones to boss battles in opposition to a few of the sport’s mightiest foes.
Though I’m a agency believer of the more-the-merrier philosophy with regards to facet quests, the big variety of them additionally ended up highlighting how they lack that non-public contact we’d anticipate of a sport as grand as Granblue Fantasy Relink’s scope. That, when paired with how all non-story-related or mechanic-oriented NPCs are unable to work together with the social gathering, provides as much as the facet quests feeling extra like a method to an finish than the rest.
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As marketed through the sport’s promotional marketing campaign, you may as well face the entire quests accessible on the quest counter with as much as three different gamers, every utilizing their character of selection. Truthfully, I had a blast, as being in excellent sync along with your social gathering does elevate the expertise, particularly in battles that require every participant to fill a selected position. The sport’s rating system, which grades your group’s efficiency after every quest, additionally pushes you to reattempt them for an opportunity to enhance your rating and get the entire accessible rewards.
If you happen to plan on enjoying principally solo, the AI for the companions in Granblue Fantasy Relink was an enormous shock to me and an absolute spotlight. Given their talents to spam excellent dodges and keep principally well-placed when in boss battles, they made me repeatedly really feel just like the worst member of my social gathering when the themes had been dealing with multi-hit assaults or AoE sure-to-kill strikes.
Let’s Discuss Fight and Development
In true Motion RPG vogue, Granblue Fantasy Relink incorporates a extremely responsive, enjoyable, and rewarding fight system rooted in staying fast in your ft and mastering your character of selection. In it, every of the members of your social gathering can carry out a number of character-exclusive combos, in addition to use as much as 4 unique Expertise and 4 completely different restoration objects whereas on the sphere. You’ll be able to unlock new abilities, improve every character’s stats, and add passives to them by unlocking Mastery nodes.
You may also add completely different passives to your characters by equipping them with set Sigils and Weapons, all of which may be enhanced for a better impact and add much more to the sport’s already nice vary of doable builds.
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All characters within the subject can even carry out devastating Skybound Arts throughout battles. After completely different characters carry out their Skybound Arts in sequence, they are going to then robotically carry out both a Chain or a Full Burst Assault, the latter of which offers devastating harm. Lastly, the power to stun enemies may be seen as the primary cornerstone of the Relink fight expertise, as doing so permits you and your companions to fill the social gathering’s Hyperlink Gauge by performing extremely damaging Hyperlink Assaults and finally set off Hyperlink Time for a chance to deal large harm.
Though I used to be upset to be taught that you simply can’t direct CPU social gathering members like you may in video games like Tales of Come up, you may set them to solely use Skybound Arts in opposition to sure targets, in addition to select to both allow them to use the assaults freely or solely after you carry out yours for a assured Full Burst.
Trying on the sport’s bosses, even when some might argue that they lack in selection (which they certainly do), lots of them shocked me by providing actually distinctive — and above all else thrilling — experiences the place altering your sport plan mid-battle is important to your success. On a bittersweet observe, I really feel that it was a missed alternative to not embrace a few of the franchises’ greatest foes as non-compulsory bosses at launch.
The Verdict
Though the dearth of an open world might disappoint those that had been hoping to discover the numerous islands a part of Zegagrande freely, Granblue Fantasy: Relink delivers a particularly polished expertise that includes stunning visuals, an exhilarating fight system, an intricate character development system, a stable single-player marketing campaign, an inviting multiplayer, and a big selection of each quests and completely different playable characters certain to maintain you round even after finishing its storyline.
This sport was reviewed utilizing a duplicate of the sport supplied by the sport’s writer,public relations firm, developer or different for the specific objective of a evaluate.
– This text was up to date on January thirty first, 2024