Granblue Fantasy: Relink Review – Co-op JRPG

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is one of those games that has been through a long development hell – its difficult development began eight years ago, and was initially carried out by the respected development studio Platinum Games, but three years later it ceased work and development continued to be led by Cygames. However, I believe that the mark of Platinum Games, the masters of excellent real-time combat systems, is still visible in the game today. In addition to these foundations, Cygames was also able to draw on the deep lore or army of characters from its original Granblue game for mobile platforms. The result of all this is ultimately a wonderful JRPG whose combat system and especially the depth of the endgame cannot compare in terms of excitement to the Diablo or Monster Hunter series from which it draws some of its inspiration. You can play alone or online with friends or random players.

• Platform: PS5 (review), PS4, PC
• Publication date: 02.01.2024
• Manufacturer: Saigames (Japan)
• Genre: JRPG/ARPG
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: yes (up to 4 players together)
• Data for download: 52 GB
• Play time: From 15 hours (campaign) to 100 hours (final)
• Price: 1,499 CZK (Alsa)

Narrative Campaign

While the story campaign’s plot is not original and is full of traditional JRPG cliches, you will find some pretty shocking twists, an absolutely monumental ending, and most importantly: you will definitely fall in love with some of the characters from the colorful party. . You are the captain (or captain, the choice of the main character is up to you) of a flying ship and its crew, who, traveling through the heavenly kingdom, enter into battle with monsters and call upon the dragon Bahamut for help. But he suddenly rises up and almost destroys your ship and the group. During the investigation of the whole event, you will discover that similar unexpected turns have begun to happen to almost all the powerful beings that were originally supposed to protect the kingdom. It turns out that a mysterious religious sect (and its rapidly growing army) led by the devilish and seemingly invincible Lilith is behind all this.

There are only 20 playable characters in the base game, but during the story campaign it is advisable to focus only on a core party of four people and mainly on the main character, since your character development and weapon upgrade trees are extremely deep and unless you want to directly farm (which is still more profitable in the endgame), you will not have enough resources for everyone. Therefore, you will have to carefully choose who you choose for your main active party, so that both fighters and mages with offensive or healing spells are represented. Your captain is a natural choice for the main character, and this character’s story is also one of the most interesting, because in her introduction, circumstances force you to connect your life with a mysterious blue-haired woman who turns out to be extremely important.

You’ll probably actually fall in love with some of the characters in this colorful group.

While the story campaign will gradually open up the entire game world to you, including side missions and co-op content (the story campaign cannot be played in multiplayer mode), it is best not to get too distracted and finish the campaign first so that you can tackle everything else with the unlocked gameplay mechanics without worrying about spoilers and of course with the possible support of online teammates, which will really come in handy in the more difficult missions and dungeons. That being said, the story campaign is not long, lasting about fifteen hours and actually continues afterwards (including major events or movies) through the endgame content. What really struck me were some of the final battles in the campaign, which are almost nothing like the bosses from Final Fantasy 16.

Great endgame

Once you complete the story campaign, you’ll unlock not only the ability to replay any of its chapters, but also, most importantly, a varied offering of side missions, some of which involve “hunting” a dangerous monster or boss, while others are a relatively traditional quest through some kind of monster-filled dungeon. All of these non-story activities can be played by one to four players. While you only control one of your characters during real-time battles (where you can set up significant automation/assistance), the AI ​​that controls the other three members of your active party is extremely good. However, experienced players who also bring their own fully equipped characters to your party will be an even better choice.

In addition to unlocking and gradually upgrading all twenty playable characters, you also gradually unlock a higher and higher difficulty level, which functions similarly to Diablo’s World Tier or the Monster Hunter series’ “Pro Rank.” Once you’re fully immersed in the flow of this action, you’ll easily find yourself in a thrilling loop of fast-paced battles and missions that always keep you coming back for more loot and bonuses. It’s really a lot of fun, and thankfully, this is one of those games that doesn’t try to find balance at all costs – so at some point, your characters will become absurdly powerful, and the way you kill bosses will be simply indescribable. By then, they’ll kill you in a few hits, too, but you’ll have become so skilled at them that you’ll be able to dodge them expertly. It’s a fun balance, where ferocity and maximum power lead to truly great battles that will make you feel great.

The way you deal with bosses will be simply indescribable.

One of the things that attracted me to the game even before its release was its setting. As in some parts of the story, some locations are a bit generic, but every now and then you get to a place where the beauty of the game’s graphics really surprises you. Some of the movie sequences are also exceptional and unforgettable. On PS5, of course, you have the option to play in performance or quality mode, with the former certainly more suitable for the wild battles in the finale. Despite the scale and story of the game, it runs almost without problems. So its biggest weakness remains a certain simplicity and predictability of the plot or an excess of rather trite cliches, but in terms of gameplay it is extremely fun, and if you have online teammates, it can be a great entertainment for a long time – Future additions, of course, promise new bosses, new missions and new characters.