The first game of the Granblue Fantasy franchise was released for smartphones in 2014 and became a very successful game on smartphones and attracted many fans, five years later in December 2019 the first game of this franchise on consoles and PC was released under the name Granblue Fantasy versus, which was not in the RPG genre like the first game, but in the fighting genre, and four years later, in December 2023, the second game in the fighting genre was released for PS5, PS4 and PC under the name Granblue Fantasy versus: rising And with an interval of almost two months, on February 1, 2024, the first Granblue Fantasy with RPG genre was released for consoles and PC, returning to the genre of the first game in the franchise.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink in Action RPG genre was released in February after more than seven years in development.
The RPG genre is one of the most popular genres in the video game industry and has many fans, but many games are released in this genre every year, which has created a lot of competition for these games, so Granblue Fantasy: Relink must have high quality to be successful in this competition. Has it been able to achieve the required quality? In the following, you will get the answer to this question.
STORY
The story is good and not bad by any means but not a great story, the story starts and the prologue is on the grandcypher flying ship where you meet your crew who are supposed to be with you throughout the game, at the beginning you are in a storm And after some time passes and the storm ends, you reach Zegagrande Skydom, the members of this crew are Lyria, Vyrn, Katalina, Io, Rackam, Eugen, and Rosetta, and you are the captain of this crew, and your goal is to go to Estalucia, which is a mythical astral realm, after some time has passed since reaching Zegagrande Skydom, monsters will attack your ship and give you the basic combat training of the game, and then strange things will happen to Lyria, who has a life link with the captain (if something happens to one of them Both of them feel that and their life and death are tied together) and causes the crew members to worry, but they get over it soon.
Lyria can command primal beasts and summon them, and katalina is her guardian.
After reaching the city of folca, you meet rolan and the news comes that the village of tempeal is in danger and you go there to help and notice the presence of a primal beast and you have to catch it with the help of lyria so that it does not harm people. In the third chapter, you meet the main villain of the game, Lilith and understand that she needs Lyria for her powers and wants to kidnap her, your story and main goal begins here.
The general story is very ordinary, but it works well in details and plot twists, especially at the ending parts of the story. The length of the main story is almost ten hours and it is short, and it would be better if it was least fifteen hours, but fortunately, other contents of the game is very large and vast.
The game has twelve chapters, one of which is the prologue and one is chapter 0 which is the epilogue and starts after the completion of the main story.
By going to the quest counter section in the cities, you can access the fate episodes, which are actually the backstories of the characters in your crew. and for each episode you need to complete the unlock requirements of that episode.
CHARACTER DESIGN
The design of the characters is wonderful, each of them has their own unique morals that you will get to know during the story, the design of the characters is so good that you become attached to them in the first few minutes.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very diverse, deep, smooth and enjoyable, at the beginning of the game you have two skills and the square button is for attack and the triangle button is for unique attack, by pressing R2 you can dodge and with L1 you can guard, each character has a combo list. and using it you can perform different combos and hit the enemies, for example three times a square and once a triangle, two squares and two triangles, etc, the skills are different for each character and the arrangement of different skills It is completely in the hands of the player. For example, I will explain some skills: reginleiv: fires a projectile attack, decimate: a multi-hit slash attack with a wide attack radius, casts a circle that restores allies’ HP, enchanted lands: a fast, piercing lunge attack and many other skills that by unlocking them in the masteries section or the skill tree, you can get different and diverse skills for each character, four skills can be equipped at the same time, and by holding R1 and pressing one of the buttons (X, square, triangle, or circle) to use your skills that you have already arranged, there are several types of skills in the game: wind, plain, water, fire, dark, and earth. by hitting the enemies more often your art level will increase and your skills will cause more damage to the enemy.
Normal attacks are not limited to melee either and you can choose characters with ranged attack.
You have to choose four crewmates as your party members for the battles, at the beginning of the game you can select your party members only from the main characters of the game story that I mentioned earlier and then you can get the crewmate cards from knickknack shack and add new members to the party, the crewmates you buy have no role in the story and cutscenes, and only the main characters are present in the cutscenes.
During the battles, there is a blue line next to your enemies, when that line is filled, you can press the circle button in a limited time to execute the link attack, and all of the party members that are in the selected range of that enemy will perform a powerful attach against that enemy, and this link attack is one of the best gameplay features of this game, when the orange line is filled or almost filled under the health bar of you and the rest of the party members, you can press L3 and R3 to execute skybound art and deliver a very powerful blow to the enemies, if one or two or three or all four of the members of the party are almost full of orange line and are present in the designated area, a final hit will be done, and all the people present in that link will attck together with a powerful attack.
There is a potion wheel in the game, one of which restores a part of your health, one restores your entire health, one restores a part of your health and all party members, and the other restores you quickly and efficiently when you are in critical condition and waiting to be revived. If your health reaches zero during the fight, you will enter a critical condition and you will not be able to fight until the circle that shows on the screen is full, if the party members come to your aid, the circle will be full faster and if more party members help reviving you, it will get faster.
The boss fights of the game are very diverse and are not repetitive, each of them has their own moves and after being damaged a lot, they go into overdrive mode and deliver faster and stronger attacks to you and your party members, boss fights are very enjoyable and epic. and they are all well designed.
The way of moving the camera and locking on the enemies can sometimes be annoying and a bit difficult, but it is not a significant problem.
Loadings are annoying during the transition from gameplay to cutscene and from cutscene to gameplay, and this problem could easily be solved with the power of PS5’s SSD and would not be annoying.
Animations and various effects are excellent and smooth and have helped to make the gameplay more enjoyable.
Weapons can be upgraded by collecting materials from the main and side quests of the game, after the weapons level is maxed, you need a special material to uncap level and upgrade your weapons more and you can collect those special materials by doing side quests.
At the beginning of the game, the gameplay may be a little confusing, but after the first few hours and learning it, you will experience a wonderful gameplay.
The variety of enemies is large and you will encounter different types of enemies in each region.
LEVEL DESIGN
The amazing level design is one of the things that you quickly notice, the quests are never repetitive and monotonous and you don’t just go to a point to fight, the way of fighting and the events that happen during the quests are very diverse and even once you wont feel that the quests are repetitive and monotonous.
VISUALS
Visually, this game looks like a very beautiful painting, the world is very colorful and eye-catching, and each environment is visually very different from the other, and each one is like a very beautiful painting.
But visually it is not heavy for PS5 and it can run 4k60fps but unfortunately you have to choose between 4k and 60fps.
SOUND DESIGN
The sound design is also well done, the soundtracks are fantastic and match the gameplay very well, each soundtrack is better than the previous one and always amazes you and is very pleasant to the ears.
CONCLUSION
The story is ordinary and acceptable and strong in some final parts. The gameplay is extremely smooth, varied and fun, the camera movement is a bit difficult and the loadings are annoying. Great level design makes the game never repetitive. The visuals are beautiful and the art is charming, but it doesn’t run at 4k60fps. The soundtracks are very catchy.
