Granblue Fantasy: Relink Review

After being announced way back in 2016, Cygames’ Granblue Fantasy: Relink finally sees the light of day. Was the long dev cycle worth it?

Granblue Fantasy: Relink Review

Granblue Fantasy: Relink follows an airship captain (your character) and their crew as they search for the Promised Land. There’s just one thing: The skies on the way to the island they are searching for aren’t safe. Your tutorial fight is with some Wyverns, and eventually a Bahamut summoned by your ally Lyria. For some reason, this summon briefly turns on the team, but Lyria eventually gets him back under control. With the ship in rough condition, Lyria slips and falls overboard, with your character trying to catch her. You both fall to the land below and somehow manage to survive. You find Lyria, save her from monsters, and reunite with your crew.

Your ship in shambles, players will then head to a local village to find some new transportation. A captain named Rolan agrees to take you all on his ship if you help him out. Naturally, the first island you go to is under attack by goblins, putting you to work. As it turns out, it is also being affected by strong, unnatural winds that make it hard for ships to leave. The goblins aren’t a big threat, but the Primal Beast rampaging concerns your character. You set out to calm the beast, and hopefully secure the island. The story is very quick, clocking in at about 15 hours for me. That being said, the story is a tiny portion of Relink.

During the game, you can take on quests at a quest board. Think of it like Monster Hunter World. You pick a quest, and you can set out with your party to do the objective. If you play online, you can have three other allies or do them offline with your NPC party. After you beat the game, these quests open up a lot more. You get the more difficult missions, bosses, and other modes you didn’t have during the main story. I might have beef with the boss fights in the main story, but online quests immediately put players in action. And with Quick Quest, you can join a team in seconds. The main story is a slow burn, but the post-game is quick and snappy.

Relink is a character-action RPG, and the combat is excellent. First, there are over a dozen characters, and they all play differently. As overwhelming as that sounds, it also helps ensure you find a character you like. Everyone has the same button layout with basic attacks and strong attacks, but some have stances or other mechanics that help power them up. Where things get tricky is your special skills. You can only bring four of them with you, meaning you need to be picky. Do you want more damage, an AoE spell, heals, buffs? Whatever you choose, choose wisely; you can’t change mid-fight, and only having three good moves really hurts your chances of being the highest scorer online.

The other way you power up your characters is by weapons and sigils. You can craft new weapons with various elements and upgrade them for more damage and effects. I play Yodarha, a fisherman who uses katanas as his weapon. I stacked my blades with crit chance and ripped enemies up with him. My Percival, on the other hand, hits like a truck, so I just stacked damage on him. Sigils are similar to accessories, buffing you in various ways. The most common sigils will give you more damage, more HP, and things like that. Other, more rare sigils might give you a skill buff, earn you more cash, or provide you with life steal. My point is that you can make the type of character you want if you are willing to put in the effort.

During your downtime, you can visit the towns and do side quests or trade with Siero, a traveling merchant who likes to trade in treasure and sigils. The side quests always involve killing or retrieving something, but the rewards are worth it. You can go to him for crafting parts and new characters. The prices can be a bit steep on certain materials, so be sure to save your coins. As for the characters, the game isn’t a Gacha, so you can pick who you want and spend a voucher to hire them. You can only test them after you get them, which is a bummer. You can recruit them all eventually, so you don’t need to worry about missing anyone.

Just be warned: Granblue Fantasy: Relink was in development for a long time, and it shows. The areas and zones are very small, but there is no map. It isn’t needed online because most of the fights are arenas, but the towns should have them present. The boss fights during the main story can also be annoying; players can have a boss on the ropes, only for them to suddenly stop losing HP. When this happens, you’ll have to sit there for a move or cutscene to go off. These story boss fights disrupt the rhythm of a game with such quick-paced combat. You have to wait to leave lobbies between online matches until everyone agrees, or the timer runs out. I hope they can at least fix the online issue.

While it takes a while to get going, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is well worth the wait. Fans of quick-paced co-op action RPGs shouldn’t hesitate to check it out.

This review of Like Granblue Fantasy: Relink was done on the PlayStation 5. A digital code was provided by the publisher.