We Need To Talk About Granblue Fantasy Relink...

this game was initially announced in 2016 as a collaboration between Sai games and Platinum Games eventually Platinum dropped out and development of the game got severely delayed it wasn't until last year when we finally got a release date and Grand blue fantasy relink met the world on February 1 of 2024 this is my full review of it based on the PlayStation 5 version I will cover the positive the mixed and the negative about it [Music] first I'd like to thank sa games for providing me with a review code as this is an action RPG I have been anticipating since its announcement it's part of a media franchise actually with a mobile game an anime series and two modern releases it's not a followup to Grand blue Fantasy Versus which was a fighting game that also included a small Tod action RPG both this and versus merely continue The Many Adventures of the sky farers a group of warriors United by different causes led by a male or a female captain in Rel link you select between both but story-wise nothing really changes so it's just personal preference the party here however is reduced to only a few main characters while the rest of the cast are optional party members you get but we'll talk about that during the gameplay section so you play as the captain of the crew in a quest to reach the beautiful island of estal Lucia after meeting the enigmatic Rand though a character that seems to have a hidden agenda the crew gets dragged into a different conflict against a religious sect eventually lria who has the ability to summon the Primal Beast Bahamut gets kidnapped and we're off to save her I like how the story makes progress based on the conflict at hand the main plot meaning it focuses on it I mean to say that it never forces side quests on you giving you the freedom to pursue it as you see fit youve no idea how much I'd like other modern gpgs to be like this without throwing tons of sight content at you however as a result the main story can be completed in about 15 hours or so on normal difficulty obviously easy and hard will make your play time VAR I myself played on normal until the end the story continues after the credits in the form of a post game episode but it's mostly Quest driven now obviously it's quite challenging because of the variety of characters though the game has great replayability so let's talk about the gameplay now it's an action RPG with up to four characters in battle you can only control one though the rest will be handled by the AI there's no way to alter their behavior or strategy so you'll have to trust the computer to fight accordingly on normal mode most of the time I noticed its fighting and tactics were decent so I barely have any complaints about Its Behavior no you cannot switch between your allies during combat like in other gpgs and you can only change your playable character in towns or in the ship not not during the missions either every character controls very differently which is the highlight of the game seta here was my girl I play through most of the game with her combat is absolutely amazing with nearly every single one of them controls feel very responsive AI like I said is quite smart and the sound effects make you immerse in the fighting even more in other words the battle system is quite polished and it diversifies with a unique Ensemble of characters to deviate from the repetitive nature of action RPGs each character has a set of skills with cool downs and up to four can be equipped in the button pallette the point is to create combos between the regular attacks and the strong attacks triggers are used to either guard or evade but you can only evade three times in a row before the character stops for a short break attacking enemies earns you experience points yeah you don't have to wait till they're dead to level up you do so merely by fighting or completing missions and thankfully every single character levels up here even if they aren't in your active party again that's a feature I believe every single jpg in existence you'll have link attacks between characters are also possible you trigger them by either exploiting a weakness or merely by attacking simultaneously an enemy you can also break the enemies and beat the crap out of them for a short period of time everyone also has a burst bar once it fills up you can execute a special attack but it's always better to wait until your allies have it full or are getting close to feeling it so you can perform a chain attack if you do everyone will execute their special and a joint burst attack will trigger doing massive damage if you're wondering if Lia doeses anything that blue- haired girl as she said there to be a guest character well she does guest characters will act on their own without your control and lyria can be pretty useful with Buffs debuffs and healing spells they can't die unlike you and your playable allies but in this game if i c dies beat a party member or yours they'll have a cool down until another character revives them you can also revive by yourself by mashing any action button but you only have a limited amount of times to do so you can also revive a fallen Ally by approaching them and smashing the circle button like I said there's a hard mode here but I didn't try it on normal mode I never even once got a game over not until the post game of course the game's pretty damn challenging though especially the boss fights but on the other hand because of that feature it's almost impossible to get a game over I know that takes some of the true challenge away but I don't know I like that I'm not great at action RPG so I was grateful for a feature that prevented me from restoring the whole damn Mission if I died anyway items are automatically equipped to the d-pad and can be replenished in save points you only have a limited amount of each however you can't buy them in town that's right there are no stores that sell potions anywhere but their numbers can be increased by equipping some sigils we'll talk about those in a bit the last thing I want to say about the combat is that the main missions aren't that long and feel just right in terms of time spaning all of them leading to a boss or two the major boss fights are epic beyond belief dare I say exaggerated I did however find them as the best part of the game it's the true highlight of it every single boss has an overdrive bar and once it fills up their stats will increase considerably and will'll start spamming powerful skills it gets really dangerous but also rewardingly intense I had a lot of fun with most of these [Music] bosses remember the seil I mentioned this game has a weird equipment system quite minimalistic actually no armor exists no weapon shop no potion Shop nope instead you've got the regular items seller who sells only materials or seals both are acquired in missions side quests and chests but also with the seller they're used to complete other side quests which is typical but also as materials for the blacksmith every character has a unique weapon but a new one can be forged though they all vary in stats weapons can also be upgraded using those materials and money here pretty much leveling up seils are basically accessories that boost some stats like Health attack stamina Etc and can also be upgraded characters will have one slot to equip one at the beginning but by doing side quests they can unlock more one good way to gain such rewards is to watch the little CER episodes available they're all in the quest counter they're told in a visual novel style but each episode is extremely short lasting only for a few minutes and fully voiced the First episodes of every character serve as a background to understand who they are and how they ended up joining the crew and this believe it or not is the only character develop velopment you'll get for each in the entire game the character whose story you watch will also increase stats after every episode so yeah watching these little episodes is worth your time Graphics are remarkably good here especially on the PS5 version no frame rate issues very small resolution drops during combat but they're barely noticeable colors textures and character models look very detailed and beautiful for a game that's not even AAA music was handled by a few composers nosu Ong them the soundtrack though is all right barely any theme stand out but it surely didn't [Music] disappoint now at the beginning of this review I mentioned there will be a positive segment a mixed one and a negative one let me get to the mixed one I have a problem with this game it feels like a sequel a sequel to a game we never got the original Grand blue fantasy was a turn-based RPG released exclusive ively for freaking phones in 2014 only in Japan fortunately there exists an anime worldwide based on this game so it is highly recommended to watch it in order to understand who is everyone and where they come from I'm telling you this because relink is just like versus it acts as if you knew everybody already I'm not sure why some companies do this honestly leave the original games exclusive to Japan and then expect everyone to understand their sequels sure the anime and the character episodes in the game serve the purpose of explaining everything but it would have been nice to get the original game first ported to consoles or at least on PC and as I mentioned before the character episodes are your only character development protagonist is basically silent although she or he have reactions choices that don't really affect the story and also narrate some events the rest of the cast just share opinions on what's going on and react based on their personalities but that's it they don't grow and we never learn anything outside of the small visual novel episodes I mentioned the game also has extra characters who are part of the universe but never appear in any story Cuts scene or dialogue to recruit them you need crew member cards that you acquire by either progressing through the main story or as a reward for completing certain quests these characters do talk during battle but that's it the only development and actual dialogue they get is once again in the character episodes they recommended don't worry the reading is short and some episodes involve an actual quest with boss fights but it just didn't have any justifiable reason to be like this overall this circumstance fails in some areas but makes up in others which is why I said it was the mixed back for me let me get to the negatives now my first and major complaint is one I have with most modern action RPGs if not all of them it's a stupid stupid unnerving characteristic that's been implemented more and more since the PS3 era characters talk constantly during battle and in this damn game they never shut up seriously they talk throughout the entire boss battles and sometimes even entire missions how in blazes am I supposed to read what they say or hell even hear what they say when I'm trying to fight do developers really expect me to pay attention while trying to execute skills break enemies or avoid powerful spells there's also tutorials appearing right in your face in the middle of a battle something I also find infuriating nowadays bosses are extremely cheap here especially the major ones the more you advance the more epic the fights become but also the more exaggerated eventually each starts feeling as if they were the final boss with multiple forms and battles in a row so epic that when the fight ends you feel like you've beaten in the game but nope something else happens and The Story Goes On Their cheapness however is my negative highlight here most of their attacks in overdrive mode are stupidly hard to avoid and you end up taking damage no matter what and that little dodging mechanic I mentioned I said you can only evade three times in a row until the character stops for a few seconds to rest that leaves you vulnerable among all the damn chaos you face I understand they did it so players wouldn't abuse it but I just don't see what's wrong with abusing it most other action RPGs let you do that even the most experienced players will suck less if they could finally I need to share a thought about the story I watched part of the anime years ago and never finished it because I found the plot in the characters generic in this game the story isn't bad don't worry really it has its interesting moments and twists but it's kind of un original nearly every cliche in the book is here characters are stereotyped most plot twists are predictable and like I said the final chapters each feels like it's the end only for something else to happen right afterwards I don't think the writing is very creative here but at least it's entertaining in fact ironically the character episodes have a more endearing plot here since you get proper development and all than the main story let's just say you won't play this game for the plot it's all about the game play especially the action I really want to emphasize that because despite my negative rants the combat is makes up for every single flaw the game has after all it's a video game how many of those have we played that don't have a tell our story and yet we love them or we find them addicting well it's because they're very fun to play Grand blue fantasy relink is in the exception it's a master workor in terms of battle mechanics keeping the action intense all the time challenging and very rewarding it also features an online multiplayer mode but you have to pay the PlayStation service to play I didn't try it out but I've heard good things about it as of the making of this video this game is only available on PS4 PS5 and windows so that's my review of grand blue fantasy reling highly highly recommend it guys just don't expect too much out of the story thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe and share this video with your friends see you next time [Music] for

Channel: Erick Landon RPG

Views: 13,456

Keywords: granblue fantasy relink review, granblue fantasy relink ps5, erick landon granblue fantasy, granblue fantasy relink gameplay, granblue fantasy relink ps4, modern action jrpgs, short jrpgs

Id: W8d5FEhAlwE

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024