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Granblue Fantasy Relink Hands-On Preview: Skybound For Success?
In 2016, the mobile games space was dominated by Japanese mobile role-playing game Granblue Fantasy. It featured kick-ass music from guest JRPG legends like Nobuo Uematsu, a by-the-books-but-hero-swamped fantasy world with colourful characters both heroes and villains, and was run by a company not afraid to create spin-offs of its main mobile title. If you’re going to get more people on-board your brand through console and PC gaming, more power to you especially when it comes to selling more merchandise on the side, right?
Fast forward to 2023 and soon-to-be-2024, we already have one 2D fighting game that’s using the Granblue Fantasy name very well. The next logical step? Why, a group-based action RPG title using a third-person camera and the instance-based quest structure where you send one leader and three followers to form an action RPG party to curbstomp whatever bad guys are in your path, big and small. This spin-off is called Granblue Fantasy Relink, and we’ve had the chance to play through a recent build of the game.
The game’s main story takes place in the Sky Realm and recaps the whole plot where main character Gran gets a dragon tagalong named Vyrn and magic lady Lyria and meet up with friends and potential party members on his quest to the fabled island of Estalucia. The latter lady has the ability to communicate and command Primal Beasts, the big creatures and mythical badass-level monsters that guard and/rampage throughout the Sky Realm. These Primal Beasts will be your main bosses to fight against, when you’re not dealing with giant skeletons and giant golems. Whether they’ll be added as extra attacks or as “summons” when defeated, we’ll never know. Just know that you’re in for a tough fight when confronting Primal Beasts.
Luckily, you’re not left unprepared and overwhelmed. As mentioned, you can have up to four characters in a party. You can tackle the game solo with three AI-controlled party members, or team up with three other online players for co-op Primal Beasts-fighting ala your Monster Hunters-type action titles. The game has a helluva roster to pick from, ranging from all-rounders like Gran and Djeeta to specialists like Ferry and Rosetta, from heavy-hitters like Percival and Siegfried, to long-ranged powerhouses like Rackam and Eugen. The game’s controls are pretty good and smooth for action RPG standards: you have your regular attacks, your special attacks (hold the PS5 controller’s R1 + corresponding face button to pull them off), your dodge moves (limited amount depending on character), and a Super Skybound Art to pull off when your resources are full. Each character has their own unique skill mapped onto the Triangle button, be it a stance with follow-up moves, a chargeable magic spell, or a parry of sorts.
For our playthrough, we first tried out Charlotta the diminutive knight with fast sword attacks and a pretty cool “Noble Tactics” leap with great follow-up downward-thrust attacks, dealing with a few undead mobs before confronting a giant skeleton boss followed by a giant golem boss. These creatures hit hard and can overwhelm players who aren’t patient enough to figure out their tactics and movesets, with their Overdrive states making them unleash faster attacks and wakeup area-of-effect moves that can take out half your life (or wipe your entire party) if you don’t evade properly. But luckily Charlotta and my party consisting of Lancelot, Katalina, and Rackam are up to the task of staying alive while dealing enough damage for the team-up blow.
You can chain up attacks using Link Attack, where time slows down and I followed up with some moves here and there provided I’m close to where my initiating party member is. If you time it right and knock down an enemy, you can unleash a row of Super Skybound Arts one after another, where a Final Burst finishing attack will trigger if all four party members unleash their Arts consecutively. Long story short, a typical boss fight involves stunning the big bad, then dogpiling attacks onto them until they come back up again in Overdrive mode or they die.
I also tried out a ranged character, the dainty and smile-bringing mage Io. Here’s when things got cheap, at least for my end. With three melee-focused characters in my party in tow, I basically just stayed away from harm’s range dealing with the giant skeleton and giant golem, pelting elemental attacks and magic bolts until they’re both dead. When my party were at half health, I just jumped into the fray and summoned a healing sigil onto the floor, then bolted out and continued the long-ranged assault.
True, the demo had a timer for the golem portion, but if it were the full game, we would have scored the win by just patience and cheese tactics alone. I’m very sure the game’s tougher challenges will take such tactics into account and deal with long-ranged spammers like Io, but for now, we consider this a viable tactic if you plan to get far in the game’s story campaign. And based on what we’ve seen from the other story bosses and villains like Id, Gallanza, and Maglielle, we’ll need all the help we can get.
Speaking of which, we were told that the story mode will take about 20+ hours to complete, with an endgame that will throw tough bosses for single-player-focused adventurers and multiplayer fans to take on. The latter has no set time, but we’re guessing it’s going to be Granblue Fantasy Relink’s never-ending content plan to keep people playing the game post-launch. That’s not a bad strategy, as Granblue Fantasy’s mobile mode has online play involving players teaming up; it’s sure to work in an action RPG setting they’re carving up for console and PC players. This is especially with the game’s progression featuring rich character customization, side quests galore, and collectibles.
The game’s base roster is 19 characters, with the alchemist Cagliostro being the latest addition to the motley crew. If she’s anything like Io, she’ll most likely be a ranged spellcaster with traps galore:
The game will get post-launch content too: Cygames has announced two new characters joining the roster as a free update in April 2024 -the Star-Sword Sovereign Seofon and world-class bow master Tweyen.
Granblue Fantasy Relink will be out on 1st February 2024 for PC, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4. But you don’t have to wait too long to get your hands on the game; the game will have a playable demo out on January 2024 for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 users. The demo will have the following:
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