After 8 Years of Waiting Granblue Fantasy Relink is here
This game has been in my JRPG horizons for some time now ever since I saw the first trailers, which gave a bit more grandiose idea of how “BIG” this game would be, but I never expected this to be a ~10h story game to be honest, which honestly came out as a bit of a shock for a game that has that Triple-A pricetag. Also, another important thing to understand is that Relink is a side story that takes somewhere in the middle of the original Granblue Fantasy game.
You aren’t most likely going to play such an old game to recap what happened in the beginning so you might be slightly confused as you start relink – that being said you can also watch the Granblue Fantasy anime if you want to have a recap of the beginning events in the story which are crucial of understanding certain character development. There are some recap missions existing, which will give some audio lore to the background of the main cast, but that only gives a fractional view of reality.
At Least Combat is Delivering in a Massive Way
The most satisfying thing about Granblue Fantasy Relink is its combat system that offers over 20 characters with different styles of skills and weapons that differ slightly enough to give a new experience. Because the combat is so fun and well done it alone kinda warrants buying this game, despite it being short and having bit of a loopy dungeon/boss system.
Experience dynamic, real-time battles alongside a team of four in this character-driven action RPG. Explore a diverse selection of skyfarers, each equipped with unique weapons, skills, and combat styles. Harness the power of teamwork through party-based mechanics like Link Attacks and Chain Bursts to stylishly defeat your enemies. Whether embarking on solo quests or teaming up for 4-player co-op, face challenging foes to earn rare loot and upgrade your gear. Master the intricacies of enemy strengths and weaknesses, and strategize to achieve victory by understanding how each element fits into the larger picture.
I wish the Co-op system would’ve been there for main story missions, but it’s still better than nothing. Then again you could just pick Stranger in paradise or some other JRPG that actually offers a better Co-op experience from start to finish. There are a lot of characters obviously in the game, but sometimes I feel like if they had done less of them and focused on more dungeons and bosses, this package would have felt more wholesome.
Final Words & Thoughts
We are at an alarming stage in JRPG storytelling In recent years, it seems like the writers have no idea what they are doing and what are some pivotal ways to do worldbuilding or proper plots. This could be a wider effect of globalization and boring homogenous storytelling that has to appeal to everyone around the world. Granblue Fantasy Relink story isn’t cringe, it is just that it’s quite short and lacks any character development or proper events that take place in it.
While gameplay is almost perfect in many ways it does feel quite easy because it’s hard to die and mechanics like blocking can just remove damage to zero essentially. I was impressed how well it ran on 120 FPS without frame drops or any mega big glitches or bugs – yes on the launch patch i did crash on one cutscene but that was later fixed, so i did witness no issues on rest of my journey.
