Granblue Fantasy: Relink tackles the modern action RPG format with extraordinary combat and jaw-dropping spectacle.
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.
Though the story lacks intrigue, it’s enough to make for some jaw-dropping, blockbuster thrills. Much of the quest has the crew hunting down “primal beasts,” enormous creatures hidden in the Sky Realms. The story’s best moments have players thwarting those monsters in spectacular battles — and no two of them are alike. The earliest set piece sees the crew fighting off an enormous dragon as it attacks their ship. A much larger battle in the desert pits the crew against a skyscraper-sized golem as they use fallen ship turrets to chip away at its weak points and eventually scale its massive body like a Shadow of the Colossus encounter. Each moment is every bit as surprising and exhilarating as an Eikon fight in Final Fantasy XVI.
It helps that Relink sports a slick and flexible presentation. In its quiet moments, the vibrant visuals give the Sky Realm a bright-eyed sense of wonder. It feels as breezy as the wind in my ship’s sails. When the action ratchets up, though, Cygames lets the deceptively simple look flex its kaiju-sized muscles. The most astonishing boss fights are a dazzling spectacle of light, triumphantly soundtracked by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu and Tsutomu Narita. When it needs to be grandiose, Relink goes for broke.
What’s most successful is how Relink builds the world of Granblue through side stories and extra lore. Each member of the crew gets their own 11-part backstory, and that helps fill in a lot of the empty canvas left by the paint-by-numbers story.
