Granblue Fantasy Relink: A Perfect Continuation
I usually have words. And for this game, I don’t. I am struggling to find words for this unbelievable game. There are only a few games, I think, that are perfect. And Granblue Fantasy: Relink is almost an inch from perfection. However, to me, it’s perfect. I have not had this much fun with a Cygames title yet. And after being in development for eight years, it's clear that they listen to themselves and their fans. They love this game as much as the fans. And it shows, very brightly:
The PlayStation 5 is the only console capable of pulling off these graphics. This world is beyond beautiful. Everything captures your attention. And I love it. Each of the Stages is gorgeous and has enough detail to keep your eyes on the fight, but glance at this world occasionally. And to me, that’s cool! The character designs, however, are where it’s at. Each character design is fantastic. It also shows that they paid close attention to each other. Even the different color schemes for each character are pretty detailed. And that’s fantastic. All of them play so distinctly as well. The combat is fluent and breathtaking. The first thought I got while seeing gameplay for the first time was, “Is this Final Fantasy 16?” It has a lot of the same mechanics. Combining combos with skills is an excellent idea if executed well. And they did just that—a fantastic combat system.
The story lost me for a moment. But I discovered that it is a continuation of the other games, even though Cygames says you don’t have to play the games or watch the anime to know what’s happening: Granblue Fantasy Beyond the Sky, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising, and Granblue Fantasy: The Animation, which is the show. Surprisingly, they all connect, even though it doesn’t tell you they do. Either way, the story is pretty dang good. And I enjoyed it.
Will you rage quit? This is quite a common question regarding JRPGs and the difficulty some of them bring. My answer? Sometimes, you might. The story is very straightforward. But once you get to the endgame content, things get rough. The bosses become more challenging the more you increase your level. Once you reach level 100 on your characters, you need to count on your power level, which isn’t easy to do in some cases. Raising your power level takes upgrading your weapons and sigils and even maxing out your mastery tree on all three categories: offense, defense, and weapons. And it’s a long and tiring grind. Now, why would you rage quit in this game? Once you hit Proud difficulty (where my troubles started), the boss battles become extra complicated. My highest power-level character was Narmaya. She was way above the 10,000 power level when I made it proud. The boss battles are so hard to fight here. But, exciting to look at. Still, be prepared to rage quit a few times. I did.
The music is something to behold. It’s wonderful. Tsutomu Narita has composed the music for Granblue Fantasy for quite some time. And he killed this soundtrack. The album on Spotify features 138 songs, covering the entire game, and spans over 7 hours of music. And every song has something to say. I really can’t express enough how crazy this soundtrack is. I have always said that creating game music is not easy. And I stand by that. It isn’t easy to create music for games of this scale. For me, making music takes knowledge from your last work. Mr. Narita took his past work and just increased the tone and scale of it. It’s pretty shocking how amazing this soundtrack is. Each of the main bosses has a theme. Like Furycane, one of the story’s first significant bosses, you face. Might Meets Finesse is the battle theme for Galanza and Magliette when fighting them separately. Managarmr, the big ice wolf we fight, has a crazy battle theme for his second phase. Vulkan Bolla, the lava creature, has an insane battle drum and horns for its first phase. Angra Mainyu has three phases and three different tracks, making all three incredibly insane. And many more tracks. This soundtrack is so crazy. And I wish I could write music like this. Unbelievable.
Granblue Fantasy is a staple in Japan. However, it has also grown in America. This game has sealed the deal with me. I love Cygames and what they've done with this game. It is perhaps one of the craziest JRPGs I have ever played, and well done to Cygames. And I can’t wait to see what they have in store.