Granblue Fantasy: Relink
MSRP $60.00
“Granblue Fantasy: Relink has all the thrills of Final Fantasy XVI, but in a much tighter package.”
Pros
- Detailed anime visuals
- Fantastic combat
- Unique character playstyles
- Deceptively deep customization
Cons
- Weak main story
- Odd endgame
If any modern RPG is going to captain us into an uncharted future for the genre, I trust Granblue Fantasy: Relink to steer the ship.
It’s a thought I can’t help but have as I blaze through the riveting — and mercifully compact — adventure. There’s been a lot of talk about where the genre is headed in the past few years as studios like Square Enix look to reinvent its most iconic series to match a quickly changing landscape. What does an RPG even look like in 2024? Cygames’ console follow-up to its 2014 mobile hit Granblue Fantasy is the best answer I’ve seen to that question yet. It accomplishes that by taking cues from a wide range of its contemporaries, assembling gameplay systems like a ship captain assembling the perfect crew.
Whether you love the high-octane spectacle of Final Fantasy XVI or the character collection of Genshin Impact, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has a little something for you. It’s a smart blend of ideas, even if it’s a bit torn between console and mobile gaming philosophies. More importantly, though, it does all that without sacrificing the playful energy the RPG genre was built on.
Join the crew
While Granblue Fantasy Relink is a follow-up to a lucrative mobile game that’s been around for a decade, it’s an entirely different beast. It acts as a confident reinvention of the series built with a global audience in mind. Rather than giving players a turn-based riff on Final Fantasy, it’s a modern action RPG with flashy hack-and-slash combat. It introduces new players to the world of Granblue in a concise 15-hour main story where not an hour feels wasted.
As a newcomer, I was skeptical at first glance. The RPG’s weakest link is its core narrative, which follows a ragtag crew of skyfarers as they protect the Sky Realm from the nefarious Church of Avia. It’s a serviceable, but tired story of some do-gooders protecting the world from an evil cult hell-bent on summoning a god. Don’t expect thematic heft; it deals in more foundational RPG storytelling that, while a bit dated, is also admittedly charming in its commitment to the genre.
When it needs to be grandiose, Relink goes for broke.
