Written by FischerFitzroy and Yenalba
“A grand adventure in the skies awaits! Form a party of four from a diverse roster of skyfarers and slash—or shoot or hex—your way to victory against treacherous foes in this action RPG. Take on quests solo or with the help of others in up to 4-player co-op play!” – Steam Description
A Little About Base Game
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is an action rpg focusing on raid style boss fights. The narrative is a side story based on the main game in the franchise, Granblue Fantasy. While you do not need to have played the titular gacha game to understand the story, you are thrown into the middle of an ongoing story with the goal of saving the Skydom of Zegagrand. You start by selecting either Gran or Djeeta but are henceforth referred to as “Captain” by the rest of the cast. Both characters play the same so it really comes to aesthetic choice and you can change at any point during the story if you find yourself with player’s regret.
Once you have finished the campaign the game shifts its pace and tone quickly, turning into a mission-based boss fight gauntlet. The missions and difficulties unlock as you complete every mission at the Quest Counter. There are 7 difficulty tiers in the base game that you progress through, with Proud being the final difficulty in the base game. The majority of your time will be spent upgrading all the layers to your loadout (e.g. 1 weapon and 12 sigil slots.) The game utilizes a stacking passive system in the form of Traits. These Traits range from a plethora of stats like raw damage, increased dodge windows, auto-revive, or even holding more potions; giving a wide range of build diversity with options to match your playstyle or needs.
New Characters
There are 6 new characters added to Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarök. They are Beatrice, Eustace, Fraux, Fediel, Gallanza, and Maglielle.
Beatrix
A member of the Society, Beatrix is an indomitable swordsman armed with her Embrasque Sword. Beatrix performs various sword sweeps and lunge attacks to catch foes off-guard. Her special ability, Delta Clock, allows her to alternate between attacking, defending, and healing.
Eustace
Eustace joins the roster as the third marksman after Eugen and Rackam, and is yet another member of the Society. He moves swiftly on the battlefield, moving from one point to another while shooting targets with lightning-infused bullets that can shock multiple nearby foes.
Fraux
Fraux is a unique melee character who, like Ghandagoza, employs martial arts to deliver devastating attacks up close. She also adopts a stance system that lets her switch between fast- and slow-moving attacks. As a bonus, she can also summon the Devil to aid her in combat.
Fediel
A member of the Six Dragons, Fediel is a caster who excels at weaving in and out of an enemy’s proximity through teleportation. She employs a combination of close- and long-ranged attacks that take advantage of her mobility to evade and confront enemies in a short window of time.
Gallanza
A boss in the base game, Gallanza returns as a playable character with his signature attacks taken from his boss version’s moveset. Fitting for his large size, Gallanza moves fiercely and charges at opponents with wide swings and thrusts made even deadlier by his attack and defense buffs.
Maglielle
Alongside Gallanza, Maglielle makes her debut as a playable caster who unleashes her weapon arsenal in combat. Like her boss form, Maglielle sweeps the arena with an array of ranged weaponry that can overwhelm enemies with her barrage of swords and spears. She is also capable of supporting allies by healing them.
New Features
– New Difficulty Tier
Being that you do need to beat the base game it adds three new difficulties to the game: Chaos, Chaos+, and Chaos++. Once you complete the DLC’s three added difficulties, you have the opportunity to fight an even harder. Post DLC you have the opportunity to fight this games version of Ubers, called Defy Infinity, in the form of four static fights. These are, by nature, not something you have to do IN the DLC but serve as a challenge mode for the most diehard of fans.
– Conflux
The Conflux is a new mode added to the game that is unlocked during the base game, provided that you own the DLC. It’s a run based roguelite mode that allows players an alternative path to grinding out materials for upgrades to their gear. Prior to the DLC, there was a LOT of running the same boss fight/missions on repeat for a specific drop. Even if the Conflux is a little basic in its execution for players who play the litany of roguelite/likes on the market, it’s still an extremely welcome addition as it provides some level of shake up to the previous established grind.
There are five levels of difficulty to the Conflux, four of which are required to progress through the DLC. The 5th one is just for fun, but that challenge is exactly what long time fans of this game and this genre would be looking for. Typical runs vary in time based on their difficulty and your gear score but I would anticipate no more than 20 minutes per run. This allows players to treat them as break content something like “I only have half an hour to play, but don’t want to wait for matchmaking” or want guaranteed rewards for their time spent. The layout of each run is a little different but the core concept is you go room to room after clearing the objective you select a Gate to enter the next area.
The different types of Gates are
Strife’s Way (Red): a combat stage with various clear objectives, all built around defeating enemies. Clearing it earns you Auras.
Dexterity’s Way (Yellow): a non-combat stage of mini-games – spot the difference, chasing slimes, collecting Mirage Stones. The fastest way to move through a cycle when you’d rather skip the fighting.
Fortune’s Way (Gold): another non-combat stage, this one with treasure chests and a wheel of fortune that hands you a random buff or debuff.
Warlord’s Way (Purple): a timed boss fight with side goals, much like a quest. A cycle always ends on one, though you can run into more than one along the way.
Limbo’s Way (Green): a checkpoint where you can heal your team, buy Auras, and save your game.
Each room in the Conflux tasks players with some sort of goal, some being combat-based challenges, while others being more dexterity-based, like requiring platforming. There aren’t that many variations between rooms, so once you’ve done a few runs of Conflux, you’ve basically seen all it has to offer.
– Primal Burst and Summons
The DLC adds a new equippable summons. There are 50+ of them can be found via drops and quest rewards. The summons are former monsters or bosses that you take the form of. During this summoned form you have access to a few attacks that are specific to that form and you may use them on cooldown for the duration of the ability. Otherwise, if you don’t want to use the summons you should still keep up on your equipped summons as each one can give you a random sigil’s worth of stats.
– Master Traits and Weapon Transcendence
The DLC does not increase the level cap of the base game, but it does allow the player to improve their character in new ways. Master Traits are a form of overleveling, unlocked once a character reaches the max level of 100. The player will then have the opportunity to use their mastery points to gain Master Trait Levels which gives unique trait options to each character on top of raw stats to add to their armory. These Master Trait Levels are capped (10, 20, 30, 50) based on the progression through the DLC. These Master Trait Levels are not a finite system and can be changed at anytime for free, encouraging build experimentation among the community. For the Master Traits, your weapons have an additional tier of upgrades in the form of Transcendence. In order to transcend a weapon, the weapon must be at the max level of 150. Transcending gives a massive boost of stats along with extra traits to a weapon of their choice.
– Nintendo Switch Release
The Nintendo Switch 2 has seen a lot of ports lately, unfortunately we were playing this on PC so we can’t comment on how it performed. After doing some investigating I am finding most reports state it’s locked at 30fps which is fine, but it has noticeable drops even in docked mode. None of this should come as a surprise and I don’t expect anyone to be farming endgame raids on their switch. It does make me long for cross progression so I can do some Conflux runs on the go without needing a Steam Deck.
Final Thoughts
- Graphics– Granblue characters are brought to life with fully rendered anime models, staying true to the source content. Beautifully curated boss encounters with cinematic moments representing phase changes and flashy yet, most importantly, readable move effects. This is pushing the brink of overstimulating depending on the difficulty of the fight.
- Gameplay– The gameplay loop features raid style boss encounters with the occasional horde or ‘defend the location’ quest. It is a constant ‘nose to the grindstone’ as you push for upgrades and/or unlocking the next mission at the Quest Counter. With loads of build options and multiple avenues of grind options you’ll always have something to work towards even if you’ve unlocked every available mission if you wish to keep going.
- Sound– The games soundtrack is a treat in its own sense, composed by Tsutomu Narita. With song transitions being orchestrated with phase changes of the fight, helping to create a sense of epic grandeur to each influential boss. Even the most mundane of enemies’ arena will occasionally surprise you with a great song to fight to. A great mesh of fantasy vibes and epic battle music. On the other hand the characters tend to yell their ‘one liners’ for each skill they perform a bit too much, but that is what audio sliders are for.
- Controls– Controls take a little getting used to but if you take the time to learn the ins and outs of you can perfectly execute every fight. There advanced movements such as action cancelling, dodge cancelling. There isn’t animation lock when it comes to dodging so you can always be safe if you have the reflexes to execute the dodge on time.
- Story– The DLCs story is a bit thin compared to the base game. I would argue that the story isn’t particularly the point to a game like this, as it serves its purpose of getting me fight to fight and giving me a vague reason to care. The most memorable parts of the game are the fights and the mechanics in those fights. In a game like this, the endgame is the true game so the story being quick beats is not a problem.
Pros:
Cons:
- Extremely grind heavy (Read: Tedious)
- NPC mid fight voicelines can become repetitive especially in certain team compositions
- Extreme difficulty spikes
I highly recommend this game.
The game is extremely grindy but the loop that it presents gives you many options to interact with that grind. The characters are different and play very uniquely which is refreshing as a change of pace. The fights can be daunting at first glance but become very rewarding once you are more comfortable with the mechanics presented therein. One of the joys of a game like this is crafting that perfect build, seeing how all your stats can line up with your playstyle, and being able to take down a boss just that much faster. If you’re a fan of Monster Hunter or ARPGs, I think giving this action rpg a shot is definitely worth your time and the DLC adds enough systems to the game that it is a complete version over just buying the base game.
Platform: Steam
Price: $29.99
Publisher:
Cygames Inc.
Developer:
Cygames Inc.
If after reading all this you aren’t running to download your own copy of the Granblue Fantasy: Relink Endless Ragnarok DLC, I am sentencing you to three rounds in the ring with the Sumo Pincer.
Leave a Reply