How Granblue Fantasy: Relink's Gameplay Improved (2016 - 2023)

over the years the gameplay systems in relink have evolved and we've been showing various gameplay demonstrations across his seven years of development the grand blue Fest 2022-2023 event took place a few weeks ago and during the show we were shown new gameplay based on the current state of grambly fantasy relink so in this video I'll be going through all of the various gameplay changes and improvements that re-link has had since 2016 all the way up to what the game currently is today I'll also share some information about what else we can expect to see before re-link releases and some of cygame's plans for it after release grambly fantasy relink was first revealed back in 2016 with a trailer that showcased PSY games original vision for what they wanted reeling to be they revealed that relink would be developed by Platinum Games who at the time were a developer known to be one of the best at making action games the initial announcement video didn't showcase much gameplay but it was enough to let people know that the next game in the grambly series was going to be an action Focus game rather than a turn-based RPG like the original is but the first actual gameplay demonstration took place at gramblue Fest 2017. this demonstration starts off with a Showcase of the environmental detail and non-player characters as it follows Catalina as she takes a tour of one of the towns this is Then followed up by some actual Combat gameplay where the party of crew members are up against a few small goblins and a goblin Knight boss that appears at the end of the quest during this time the combat system in relink was still in its foundational State and it contained Platinum game's traditional combat Style with a few of grambly fantasy's core systems like character skills and charge attacks at this point in development the gameplay was heavily focused on using normal and special attack combos to generate a resource that would allow a character to use their skills but a few mechanics like link attacks and even blocking were not implemented at this point the next demonstration took place at gramblue Fest 2018 and during the live presentation at the event Platinum Games was still shown to be real links developers in this demonstration we were shown gameplay that seemed to be from the third chapter of the game where the crew were investigating a rampaging Primal beast in the mining town of tempeal the user interface was updated in this version of the game removing the minimap that displayed the party members locations and the combo hit counter but they introduced a system that assigned a score and a multiplier based on party members actions during battle and after the battle was over the total score seemed to be collected as some kind of currency which leads me to believe that there was going to be a renowned pending system similar to the original game that would allow you to purchase certain things based on the Renown collected after battles at this point the combo system between normal and special attacks was still in its early stages and before skills could be used they still needed to be charged up by performing attacks but what was different about it compared to when it was shown back in 2017 was skills no longer sharing the same resource instead each skill could be charged up while attacking and then they could be used individually when necessary the first version of Link attacks was also shown in this demonstration the stun gauge above enemies wasn't present at this point but the party members were still able to LEAP towards enemies and use Link attacks if they were stunned the following year in February 2019 it was announced that Platinum Games would no longer be the developer of relink and instead Cy games will be taking it in-house and continuing development themselves cygames mentioned in an interview later in the year that the bulk of what Platinum built up till that point still remained like the level layouts the character animations and fighting systems so from this point onwards cygames were the ones continuing to build upon and sometimes even recreate certain aspects of the foundation that Platinum laid the next gameplay demonstration took place at grambly Fest in December 2019. this demonstration focused on relink's multiplayer gameplay systems and mechanics the game's user interface was also updated and redesigned into a visual style that closely matches what we've been shown in the most recent gameplay demonstrations but the renowned pendant system that was shown back in 2018 was no longer there this UI also showed that it was now possible to block enemy attacks and a stun gauge for link attacks was also displayed over enemies heads when they took damage a link level system for link attacks was also introduced which increased the party's attack depending on how high the level was and character's skills were switched to a time-based cooldown system with color coding similar to the style that was used in the original Grand blue fantasy the combo system also seemed to have more depth than before and each character's identity was starting to become more fleshed out the next demonstration took place at granblue Fest 2020 during this demonstration it was mentioned that they previously remade the game's engine from scratch in order to improve the visual style of the game and that the current version of relink was still in its Alpha stages mean meaning that the various features and resources were either unfinished or using temporary assets but the game in its entirety was generally in a playable state in this demonstration the grambly series director broke down various aspects of gameplay followed by a walkthrough of a main story Quest that apparently takes place a bit further into the story there wasn't much that changed about the game compared to its previous showing apart from enemy names and levels being displayed above their health bars but the director went into an in-depth explanation about character mechanics combat abilities and certain aspects of character customization so that people would have a better understanding of the direction the game was taking during Grand blue Fest 2021 there was no gameplay demonstration instead there was a new trailer showcasing the improved visual style of the game this trailer was fairly short but it did reveal new gameplay systems like characters now having the ability to perfectly Dodge enemies attacks in 2022 relink and grambly Fest were delayed so there were no new gameplay demonstrations instead we were given a short teaser of the English voice acting in the game but in January 2023 during the Grambling Fest event we were treated to a brand new trailer featuring new characters and a faster paced combat system at the events there was also a live gameplay demonstration that showcased new features and the newly revealed characters the demonstration began with the grambly series director standing in one of the game's towns while in this town we can see that at the top of the screen there is a compass style navigation bar that shows the general direction of nearby points of interest one of these points of interest seems to be Sierra's shop Sierra is a character in the original Grand blue fantasy that sells all sorts of items and she's generally who will go to if you want to buy craft or trade-in items her purpose in relink hasn't been revealed yet but I assume we'll be able to buy equipment and items from her shop and they could also also be possible that the renowned pending system that seemed to be removed from the earlier versions of the game could be making a return since in the original game players had to visit Sierra's shop in order to trade them in for items another point of interest is what seems to be a blacksmith or some sort of location that could be used for crafting and upgrading it seems like the weapons in relink will require some kind of resource in order to increase their levels up to a certain point based on how things were in the original game I assume each star on a weapon indicates how many level caps need to be unlocked before a weapon can be fully upgraded in the 2020 gameplay demonstration it will show that the amount of stars on a weapon was five but in the latest demonstration the weapons shown now seem to have an additional level cap star another point of interest on the map was the quest counter the quest of the counter contained various optional objectives for people to complete and from what's been revealed players will be able to level characters and find new items in quest mode while playing in single player or multiplayer this is in addition to the content that we'll have while playing through the main story the last time we were shown the quest counter was during the live multiplayer demonstration back in 2019 since then it's had a few more options added to it such as the area select screen in the demonstration this screen only seems to have one Island available since the rest of the map is concealed by clouds after selecting an area of difficulty a list of quests are displayed which show some additional information detaining the purpose of the quest like quests that specifically focus on boss battles for example before entering a quest characters are also required to meet the quest combat value requirement which I assume is a type of gear score that gives a rough estimate of a character's power based on what they currently have equipped this is displayed for each individual character in the party menu and in the top right hand corner of the quest selection screen which also displays the currently selected character's element they haven't gone into much detail about the element system yet in the previous overview video that I made I mentioned that elements were present in skybound arts which seems to be the official English name for charge attacks now and elements are also present in chain bursts but not much else about them was shown so elements been clearly attached to characters is a new addition enemies are also marked with elements that they're weak against so as of right now we know that elements will play a prominent role in re-link but we just haven't been shown its full purpose yet the quest screen also shows information like the quest's objective in Failure conditions the time limit and additional submissions within their quest after accepting a quest You'll have some time to prepare before it begins once you're ready to go there's a new confirmation screen that shows your equipment and your skills and the characters elements and combat values of your other party members so you'll have a chance to double check and make any changes that you may have missed before setting out on the quest the last point of Interest shown on the map was the Grand Cypher the grand Cypher is your air shipping grembly fantasy and is what you'll be using to travel to the different locations in the world they haven't revealed what features will be available in the grand Cypher Airship so far but during the demonstration a trial battle training dummy could be used in order to practice a character's combos this gameplay demonstration showcased how much cygames are able to build upon the foundation that was created for them many years ago the combating grambly fantasy relink uses a combination of normal attacks special attacks link attacks skills and various character specific abilities to form combos that can be done on the ground or in mid-air depending on the inputs used one of the examples shown in the most recent gameplay demonstration was the Grambling series director showcasing a few combos using Gran the speed of the animations and a few of the gameplay systems were updated compared to what was shown in the 2020 gameplay demonstration showcasing Jita the first combo starts with four normal attacks that raise Grant's class level on the fourth hit followed by a combo finisher that increases its class level again directly after finishing this part of the combo he begins charging his special attack which now has an increased charging speed because it was used directly after a combo finisher after using the fully charged special attack he uses the skill Reagan lathe which has had its power boosted by the class levels gained earlier in the combo then the combo is ended with a link attack this combo is then repeated again but instead of using Reagan lathe armor break is used to decrease the defense of the enemy which is followed up by another link attack finisher after filling the enemy's stun gauge depending on the button combination and character used these combos can do more than just deal damage for some characters it may charge a special resource that can enhance a character in various ways once it's filled like Catalina's combos charging her Aries gauge so she can summon Ares once it's full and depending on the character it's possible to have guard frames on certain hits of a combo so if you get your timing right you can block enemy attacks while in the middle of a combo each character can also use a variety of skills that can be changed in the games menu some skills are offensive and can be used in combos some are defensive and protect the party some can be used to buff characters and others can be used to debuff enemies previously performing link attacks would increase the link level of the party providing them with an attack buff that increased depending on how high the link level reached link attacks would allow party members to LEAP towards the Target and hit them within a type that dealt critical damage but due to the animation this attack seem to end any combo that the character was previously performing in the current version of the link attack system link attacks can now be weaved into combos without ending the combo you're trying to do giving players more freedom to use Link attacks without interrupting the flow of battle instead of raising a link level like the previous system party actions like link attacks and skybound arts will increase the party's link percentage once it reaches a hundred percent a notification will appear letting party members know that if they perform another link attack on the same enemy again the party will enter link time during link time time is slowed down for enemies and the party can go all out of their attacks giving them a chance to deal a large amount of damage in a short period of time while in link time the party members gain additional Buffs that seem to be based on the members of the party during the demonstration the party members had to attack up critical rate up skill cooldown reduction and health recovery while in link time it also looks like it's possible to continuously increase the link time duration bar by being aggressive and continuously attacking the enemy just like what was previously shown it's also possible to evade and guard against enemies attacks and if these are performed with perfect timing then they'll gain additional effects based on what's been said a perfect God can nullify an enemy's attack and knock them off balance and a perfect evade will avoid all damage and it seems to give characters a small window of in sensibility so they can perform a counter-attack assist mode and full assist mode is a new option for people that are not familiar with action games or for people that usually can't play action games due to a lack of accessibility options in assist mode you can perform easy combos by pressing a single button in this mode your character will automatically heal guard Dash new skills perform link attacks and activate Sky bound Arts when the conditions for them are met full assist mode will let you fight automatically all you'll have to do to control the character is move this stick towards the enemies everything else will be taken care of but you'll still be able to use skills manually when necessary anyone is able to use these modes and there's no penalty for doing so but both assist modes will be restricted to the story difficulty setting and it seems like it can only be used while playing through the single player main story and low level quests over the next few months cygames has said that they plan to share more details on upcoming characters that they still haven't announced yet they also plan to talk more about gameplay systems and they want to go into more detail about the story they also mentioned in a past interview that after release they'd like to extend the main story add new subquests and add new characters they also mentioned that they wouldn't be able to update the game at the same frequency as their mobile Grand blue fantasy which can receive multiple updates each month or even week and they also mentioned that limited time events work well on mobile but doing them too much on Console may feel unfair to some players it does seem like they have plans to keep reeling going after release and it doesn't look like they're approaching the additional content in a way that takes the preferences of console plays into consideration but what we don't currently know is how this content will be implemented so we'll have to wait until they share more details before we'll know for sure there's still a lot more to dive into from this event so in the next video I'll be breaking down each character that was shown and taking a deeper look at their gameplay mechanics so we'll have a better idea of what to expect from them so subscribe if you want to be the first to know when that video is available I'll be making some new videos very soon but until then here's another that you might find interesting

Channel: Havian

Views: 170,196

Keywords: havian, havian granblue, granblue fantasy, granblue relink, granblue fantasy re link, granblue fantasy mmo, granblue fantasy relink, grand blue fantasy, what is granblue fantasy

Id: PtftGmo1v4s

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023