Review of Granblue Fantasy: Relink – a cooperative JRPG

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is one of those games that has been through a long development hell – its complex development began eight years ago, and was originally involved with respected development studio Platinum Games, but three years later it went out of business, and development still led Cygames. However, I believe that the mark of Platinum Games, masters of excellent real-time combat systems, is still visible in the game today. In addition to these fundamentals, Cygames could also 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 its endgame cannot match the fun of 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: 01/02/2024
• Manufacturer: Saigames (Japan)
• Genre: JRPG/ARPG
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: yes (up to 4 players together)
• Download data: 52 GB
• Game time: From 15 hours (campaign) to 100 hours (final)
• Price: CZK 1,499 (Alsa)

Narrative Campaign

While the campaign’s plot isn’t original and is full of traditional JRPG clichés, you’ll find some pretty shocking twists, an absolutely monumental ending, and most importantly, you’ll probably really 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 yours) of a flying ship and its crew, who, traveling through the heavenly kingdom, engage in battle with monsters and call on the dragon Bahamut for help. But he suddenly rebels and nearly destroys your ship and group. As you investigate the entire event, you will discover that similar unexpected turns have begun to happen to almost all the powerful beings who were originally supposed to protect the kingdom. It turns out that behind it all is a mysterious religious sect (and its rapidly growing army) led by the devilish and seemingly invincible Lilith.

There are only 20 playable characters in the base version of the game, but during the story campaign it is advisable to focus only on the core group of four and mainly on the main character, since the trees for your character development and weapon upgrades are extremely deep and unless you want to directly farm (which is all it’s more profitable in the endgame), you don’t have enough resources for everyone. Therefore, you will have to be careful about 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 the story of this character 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 really fall in love with some of the characters in this colorful group.

While the story campaign will gradually reveal the entire game world to you, including additional missions and co-op content (the story campaign cannot be played in multiplayer mode), it is better not to get too distracted and finish the campaign first so that you can deal with everything else with the unlocked game mechanics without having to worry 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. However, the story campaign is not long, it lasts about fifteen hours and actually continues afterwards (including major events or films) through end-game content. What really struck me were some of the final battles in the campaign, which bear almost no resemblance to the bosses from Final Fantasy 16.

Great endgame

Once you’ve completed the story campaign, you’ll not only be able to replay any of its chapters, but mainly a wide range of side missions, some of which are “hunts” for dangerous monsters or bosses, and others of which are relatively traditional walkthroughs. some kind of dungeon full of monsters. 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/assist controls), the AI ​​controlling the other three members of your active party is extremely good. However, experienced players who also bring their fully equipped characters into your party will be an even better choice.

In addition to unlocking and gradually upgrading all twenty playable characters, you also gradually unlock higher and higher available difficulties, which work similarly to World Tier in Diablo or “Pro Rank” in the Monster Hunter series. Once you’re fully immersed in the flow of this action, you’ll easily find yourself caught up in an exciting 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 it’s one of those games that doesn’t try to find balance at any cost – so at some point your characters will become absurdly powerful and the way you kill bosses will be indescribable. By then, they will also kill you in a few hits, but you will become so trained in them that you will be able to masterfully dodge them. It’s a really fun balance where ferocity and maximum power result in some truly great battles that will make you feel great.

The way you deal with the bosses will be simply indescribable.

One of the things that attracted me to the game even before its release was its setting. As with some parts of the story, some locations are a bit generic, but every now and then you come to a place where the beauty of the game’s graphics really surprises you. Some movie sequences are also exceptional and unforgettable. On PS5, of course, you have the option to play in Performance mode or Quality mode, with the former definitely better suited for the wild end-game battles. Despite the scale and plot of the game, it works almost without problems. Its biggest weakness remains a certain simplicity and predictability of the story or an overabundance of rather trite clichés, however from a gameplay perspective it is extremely fun and if you have online teammates it can be a lot of fun for a long time – well into the future. The additions, of course, promise new bosses, new missions and new characters.