We Need To Talk About Granblue Fantasy Relink...

My full review of Granblue Fantasy Relink on PS5, a highly anticipated action RPG that was announced all the way back in 2016. A review copy was provided by Cygames.
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[@agentofchaos4728]

Seeing how you mention the original granblue as a mobile exclusive in japan implying that westerners cannot play it but i would like to state that it can be played on browser and it got the option to switch to english language so the story can be fully experienced

[@HotRefuse]

I would try the mobile one if they did a proper western launch. I don't want to play it on browser.

[@agentofchaos4728]

@HotRefuse tbh it wouldn't change anything. i tried the app version of it, and it looks worse than just playing it on the mobile browser. gotta take what is available sometimes

[@LaplaceBacklogs]

The fact that the browser is the ONLY way you can get it translated to English is exactly why I didn’t play it to begin with. I’d rather do my gacha on the fly, on my phone. But that’s just me.

[@agentofchaos4728]

People seem to forget smartphones have browsers too where do you think im playing it its either on safari for my ipad or chrome for my android for that same reason

[@CaptainGrapifier]

​@@LaplaceBacklogs You do realise your phone has a browser, right? And any online app is essentially a browser with an "app" face on it.

[@filbertpatricio1022]

Just to clarify, there is a sigil upgrade that can increase the amount of time you can Dodge before getting staggered.

[@nirifer7275]

Yup, I have it but never counted but I believe it's up to 7 or 8 times.

[@statesminds]

Also blocks better than dodges lol

[@Tpachal]

The only Granblue I have experienced was the anime. Having a blast with Relink though the camera/lock on needs a re work. I will be looking at an enemy directly in front of me and I will lock onto something across the room, behind me, or completely off screen.

[@emptyskies29]

This is the most annoying issue I've had with the game.

[@Tpachal]

@@emptyskies29 Right? It also will randomly switch targets for no reason.

[@emptyskies29]

@@Tpachal I've turned the auto-switch when initial locked-on target dies because enemies move around so much that having the game randomly choose is a pain. I hate how hard it is to hone in on a specific mob lol

[@enman009]

That's why I've learned to unlock enemies and just attack the one I actually want, so the lock on focus on that. That's annoying and needs to be patched for sure.

[@artofdan1840]

I can't stop playing this thing. Level 90 right now :\

[@Zzues]

So many of your combat issues can be solved through better end game sigils and skill. The game barely even starts after the credits roll, theres so much to do after that.

[@BlueLightningSky]

Being able to abuse dodging is the problem with most action RPGs as many many bosses do a poor job of putting pressure to kill you. Having a dodge limit in this game is fair since there is no attack in this game that you can't dodge out of and perfect dodge straight up grants invulnerability.

[@shutup1037]

Perfect dodge timing is quite strict too

[@unrealization3332]

The game isn't mobile only, it's also a browser game. It was only officially released in Japan, but it's always been accessable from abroad. The full official English language option released at the beginning of 2016, thats 8 years ago.

[@mathewhosier9739]

Like most gamers, he probably doesn't have a PC, for ppl like us the game might as well not exist, but I mean it's a mobile gacha "game", theres only been a few good ones

[@Darkrengi]

Made sigils sound less important than they actually are. Stamina is NOT what it sounds like, in this game its a damage boost thats based on how much health you have

[@citizengomez7214]

You complaining about how difficult games are is becoming a meme😂😂

[@Eurion_Sandborn]

I'm convinced he's just bad at playing video games in general. 😂

[@mathewhosier9739]

Which is weird for a guy who only plays RPGs, I mostly play RPGs too, but I also play a lot of difficult RPGs, and most of the games I play are western RPGs like dark souls trilogy, demons souls remake and elden ring so games like granblue fantasy relink just feel extremely easy, even of the pride difficulty, game can be easily broken with the right team comp and builds and I play solo with AI teammates, even got the last crew mate card without playing online, it took me awhile but it is possible

[@dragonwaz]

There's a sigil called improved dodge that adds more dodges. You can also increase the invincibility from dodging, and I think you can increase the dodge timing too with one of those.

[@Yarzu555]

Zeta mains rise up! Then combo 3 times followed by a finisher...

[@jonathansoko1085]

I pre-ordered this the deluxe version at GameStop 5 months ago. I didn't get it till yesterday because they just decided to not get what I paid for. Thankfully I complained enough and it came.

[@tufrabza]

There was some sorta delivery problem. My copy came in a few days later too.

[@jonathansoko1085]

@@tufrabza Possibly. But they didn't even try to explain it to me. I worked for GameStop for 8 years, I know how I would have handled that.

[@tufrabza]

@@jonathansoko1085 I can only tell you what happened to me / told. Went in Friday for p3r / relink, and was only told it hasn't arrived yet, called Saturday to check again, said it still wasn't in, and no store in the city had it... 5~ hours later, they called me saying its in. Now, did the deluxe have it worse? no idea, did your store fumble? quite possibly... either way, we NOW have it, and are enjoying it!

[@mathewhosier9739]

I haven't been to a gamestop in 7 years lol, when I used to buy physical games I would usually just order them off Amazon, usually at a discounted price for brand new copies, but that was PS3 games, all of my PS Vita, PS4 and PS5 games are 100% digital, you just can't beat the sales on older games and DLC

[@HacknslashARPG]

Infact this Is the most underestimated game and there Is so much to Say and to talk about it

[@deathgrasp7]

No judgement but why don't you ever use the revival potion when you got knocked out?

[@DavidWoodMusic]

Because he has no idea how to play it yet thinks he should put out a review

[@Flamelance_Accendo]

@8:59 While it is true that the Gacha is released in Japan, it is available outside of Japan too. You can see as such, immediately when you type in Granblue Fantasy and click on the first site link. Japanese is the default language but it has a language switch that you can change to English Localization, which is mostly good. Basically English Sub-JP Audio. Sad news is you can't understand what characters on the home menu. Because there is no subtitles there. But everything else is fine overall. In regards to the Anime, it was still warming up before it just went MIA for a couple of years 😅 If it still kept going, it would have several season because the Main Story chapter is currently on 177.

[@arumea5418]

My friend and I just finished ch.0 today and plan to duo binge all the maniac and proud content and come back for lucilius in march.

[@papervoxels]

Thank goodness that someone else has an issue with the combat dialogue! Every other review that I've seen hasn't bothered to mention it, so I started to think that I was mentally compromised and was the only person incapable of paying attention to seemingly important character banter going on in the middle of active combat 😆 I feel much better about myself now 😄

[@ltb1345]

At first I thought he meant characters just calling out their skills like in Xenoblade, but when it's actual important story dialogue happening during battle, I agree that's annoying.

[@KramerJones]

I like it

[@soulflare77]

I can see it both ways. I personally like it because it plays out like an anime with it all happening while you are fighting. I also personally switched to JP VA and I love recognizing the seiyus doing voices. Rie Tanaka doing Rosette? She does Himeko from Honkai 3rd/Star Rail. Hiroaki Hirata voicing Rackham? He’s the VA for Sanji in One Piece! I could keep going forever (Vyrn is Kiana Kaslana/Rie Kugamiya!)

[@arkeshn729]

Battle dialogue should be limited to banter. Kingdoms of Amulur last mission dumped major plot dialogue in the middle of a gauntlet to the final boss.

[@emptyskies29]

Characters blabbing out their moves while fighting is fine with me. It's those bits of dialogue and conversations they have while in the middle of the battle that baffles me. It'd work if this were a turn-based game, not a frickin' action game. But defo doesn't ruin my whole experience. It's just worth pointing out and maybe tweaking for their next game. Hopefully.

[@Brubarov]

In the beginning I was very excited because I though this game would be a Remake of the Mobile game, which is supposed to be excellent. I didn't watch the animation to not spoil me, and a few days ago found out it was some kind of sequel to the animation lol. I'm watching the animation now which is fun, the story and characters are cheesy, but well written. I hope it's the same in the game. So true about the character talks during fights lol. Thanks Erick!

[@alterego5550]

60$ game tag was a good idea for this title for sure

[@Aripuni1]

The true experience of this game is coop mode, and end game grinding (closer to monster hunter+FF14 raid boss experience), this game give you flexibility to how you want to build your character, and about the OG granblue fantasy you can play it on browser in you phone and no its not exclusive to japan

[@shadecluster8840]

so platinum games dropped this collab to make that babylon’s fall?

[@Castapher]

Hey Erick, what is your plan regarding celebrating your 100k subscribers? :P

[@Trigg_arte]

Man this game should have been 25 hours, I would have been good with that.

[@shutup1037]

You can get more than that

[@rjproduction486]

If you finish chapter 0, it easily reach 25 hours! And yeah chater 0 have 1 final Awesome set piece in the end!

[@ShockStormRPG]

If I like star ocean or tales of will I like Granblue Fantasy Relink?

[@x_data_x]

I think if you like the combat in those games you will feel pretty at home with this game. The rest of the gameplay around the combat is not a long format jrpg style like those games, but I like those games a lot as well and I’m loving GBF:R so far. It’s basically Tales of arise + monster hunter

[@sheldonfrey2956]

Yes, don't listen to people saying the story is garbage. It's actually great and I'm mostly a western RPG player.

[@rukicar2260]

Story is much much better in star ocean or tales and so is character development. I loved tales of arise combat but its much much better here and so i gearing characters. If u invest alot into character you can be so OP you break the game.

[@lucbauer]

Playing in 4K on PC with RTX 3080 TI. Getting 80fps during exploration, with peaks of 100fps! 😮 However, in cities, it drops to 40fps. 😢 Very weird optimization, indeed... I love the battles and the evolution system that ressembles a little bit FFX' sphere grid. Great appetizer before the main dish: FF7 Rebirth

[@cloudwalker9572]

Weird I have a 6750XT and in 4k I had 80 fps everything ultra (just bloom turned off) in overworld and 100 in cities and my graphic card is worse than yours. I ahve an i5 12600 but I guess you also have a better processor.

[@dragogosi]

the original game is a gatcha type game that is also available in english on browser, but good luck trying to navigate those menus

[@blackestyang7528]

Relink's story definitely reads like random episode 379 instead of What Makes The Sky Blue

[@ssaijas1201]

the skyfarers are everyone, not just the gran crew

[@katajiro8178]

I fell in love with the series after I introduced myself to Versus. This game is fun, even though somewhat grindy. And hey, this game even has the games journalist mode, haha. Regarding the hard mode - it's still pretty easy. I'm yet to receive a game over.

[@x_data_x]

I subbed because of your accent + the way you say character. KAKTER!

[@traytonvanderecken3311]

8 year wait was so worth it😊

[@rmusic08]

The game is fine, my targeted enemy switches a lot which is pretty annoying, and story wise it feels like the game starts in the middle of the story without any build up and feels really off. I'm still enjoying it, I'm post ch9, it's just a very weirdly paced game story wise

[@SanyaBane]

8:31 it was my thought during story "soundtrack is okay". Then I begin to actually listen to it, instead of focusing on battles. It's not just okay, it's great.

[@kevingraham4736]

just wait till proud. where your fighting 2-3 bosses at a time.

[@FinalFantayVersusXII]

Only in JAPAN! But fully translated to english ^^ I played the mobil ver. and the story is very good.

[@saviordream]

I was considering getting this, but the demo, while fun, didn't wow me. Also, from what I've heard, after the story (which, as you mentioned is short), it basically becomes like a Monster Hunter clone, which is a genre I have no interest in. So while I may pick this up on a deep sale, I can't see myself paying full price for it.

[@statesminds]

Great game and the endgame surprised me. Proud difficulty slapped me in the face lol. Love monster hunter so excited about this, hope it gets updates and an expansion like MH does

[@van_arkride]

How about the story overall?

[@franciscobutte]

Generic af

[@shutup1037]

Game isnt really bout the story

[@grandpowr]

You're close to 100K subs!

[@PrincessBeeRelink]

Actually the story is much better 2nd time around once you've gotten used to the characters

[@ArielCleirigh]

Graphically I still prefer the Platinum vision so this the final product is ok yet the Platinum first trailer still the best.

[@thisisnottaco]

Great review! Rolan looks like Thomas from romancing SaGa 3 So far, I'm enjoying this game it's hard to put down lol

[@suntzu4607]

The only problem I have with this game is the lock-on. The boss battles are topnotch.

[@mathewhosier9739]

Its more of an action RPG than a JRPG, we knew a year before the game released it was going to be a mission and stage based game and we knew we weren't going to get a whole world to explore, they said in 2023 we were going to have a hub with a quest counter like monster hunter, there are plenty of traditional JRPGs to play, let this great game exist the way it is, we dont have that many good AAA mission based action RPGs with an anime art style

[@rizqizen4528]

the game feels like designed for free to play model, with that character cards and weapons

[@shutup1037]

Yea right? Buy the character like gacha game right? Stupid

[@shutup1037]

Lol the game just following the gacha game stuff from its og with those. You can just level normally

[@shutup1037]

@@aoao3340 you wish

[@shutup1037]

​@@aoao3340you wish

[@elmaton04]

When did you get a PS5?

[@davidryan8547]

I mean you can change characters during story missions...

[@GeoGyf]

I have to say that my interest lessened when i found out details about Relink's systems. I had followed Relink news when it first got announced. It looks like the story is not the focus (15-20 hours story..), multiplayer is a big component & more importantly a lot of the game is the boss battles (to the detriment of other things). All these things make me put Relink on the discount category & i will play Dragon's Dogma 2 instead (which has very good exploration).

[@nahucirujano]

Rosetta

[@Dinkolish]

I like how you sound angry even if you aren't angry.

[@DavidWoodMusic]

It blows my mind that you didn't talk about the post game content AT ALL and then said you can't change your party mid mission, when you can. Glad to see you're off your shadow ban kick but it's obvious you spent very little time with this game dude.

[@littlelw319]

couple of thing - the original game isn't mobile game it's a browser game and it has an english translation(some tranlation/localization is a bit iffy but not that much) - this isn't a sequel, if anything this is a true spin-off. as this canonically is a different timeline from the main story. this is a bit iffy, as you have Lucilius raid and in the trailer Sandalphon specifically said that "a fight with that man" imply WMTSB trilogy event which is consider part of the main story timeline(browser game) happened, however[see spoiler section below]. so i can't really - as for 3 consecutive dodge attempt and can't listen to the dialogue mid fight, this is gonna sound so toxic, but uh....just GIT GUD bro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [spoiler section] . . . - however Katalina is dead unless KMR decide to revive and actually utilize her possible character arc

[@francocingolani4485]

Yeah, Zeta is cute and all, but have you seen Vaseraga? What a daddy.

[@Raximus3000]

30-40 is a fair price.

[@Felipe360-g3g]

Very good game. I usually dont like anime games but this one is very good.

[@Mclearmountain]

Great goddamn video!

[@Genethagenius]

I tried but just could not get into this game. (Played great on the Steam Deck though!). I might check out the Anime and if that gets me interested, try again. But it just drug so much in parts. The combat made me think of recent “Y’s” games.

[@atomic747]

To me the Y's game combat is a lot more smooth in my opinion.

[@MrValgard]

lol what is hard in hearing someone during fight, most simple multitask xd

[@stevenlisten]

Fun game

[@vuurwater6784]

One yhing I like to add is that the online multiplayer on ps5 is terrible. It is very hard to get into a game and when you do ther is a very high chance of bugging or lagging.

[@ShiPaTown188]

Unfortunately I bought this on steam and it felt slow and a lesser version of Tales Of Arise and I ended up getting it refunded

[@nirifer7275]

1. Of course it feels slow at early levels. 2. It's probably because of the character you were playing which I'm assuming is Gran/Djeeta which have a slow charge attack play style.

[@megakoni1]

Tales of Arise is slow in other ways though. Every enemy takes way too long. ALL of them are damage sponges

[@skeithaseoxd]

The problem isn't that the characters talk a lot, the problem is that it's not voiced, and they even talk about important stuff, and not only during boss fights, so you have to pay attention all the time, and the worse thing is, not being voiced means the localizers can do whatever they wan't and we won't notice. The english translation is awful, there's a scene early on with Io where she says えとそちのはなしまとまた？which i and any person with 2 working neurons would translate to "have you finished your conversation?" or something similar and the subs goes "Gosh, you guys are such dorks" wtf and this is only one example of all the mistranslations that change the personality of the characters

[@gargisamara]

「ええとそっちの話は纏まった？」 eeto socchi no hanashi ha matomatta? Note: the rename squad for this game (pretty sure it's the same people as the browser game) is quite... shitty. Which is why I can't play the gacha game with English text (I don't play in English anyways; they give me cancer) because they really mainly just do rename works.

[@ltb1345]

Is the localization political, or does it just have some mistakes here and there? If it's the latter, I can tolerate that.

[@BlurredVision18]

Translation is very good. @@ltb1345

[@Qrec12]

I'm having a great time with this game. It is addicting, especially when you get to the post game.

[@associativity]

I really enjoyed the game. It's more of a license game but it does a better job in every department than Final Fantasy 16 except maybe the graphics. It looks gooooood though! some bosses are pure bullet hell 😂

[@associativity]

FF16's sound design wasn't bad either..

[@franciscobutte]

Lol what?!

[@associativity]

@@franciscobutte I. like. turtles. 👍.

[@calvinmatthews1527]

Let's appreciate the fact that Cygames is pretty new at this and there's no gacha mechanics of the sort in this game. And getting free DLC updates is a very nice bonus. While not perfect, this is an amazing first attempt at bringing Granblue Fantasy to console. Let's hope that this game is successful enough for an even better sequel.

[@BlurredVision18]

There's multiple gacha mechanics in the game for the most important sigils... wut?

[@jessieolivarez7504]

I agree with how the game was more of a sequel. I get that the mobile game exists, but this is an epic console JRPG that's fantastic to play. But it would have been better to start from the beginning and get to know the characters better. I beat it, and moved on to Persona. Was really excited to play this but the Fate episodes brought the experience down for me

[@tufrabza]

I got to agree with your mixed tier opinion of being a sequel... I'm enjoying plaything through this anime version of ff14 or 16 (depending on your view), but felt like I skipped a chapter or three. That said, I tried the mobile game in English, through a browser for a little bit, and the fate stories lined up with the story there. It won't win game of the year, but I'm glad it finally graced us, and got to play it.

[@KiwiDimi]

The end game starts after the story, wich is a mix of monster hunter and genshin impact. Story mode is just a big tutorial

[@franciscobutte]

So the single player JRPG part is just a tutorial. And the base game is a MMO RPG? No thanks.

[@AnimaNovum]

Honestly as fun as it is more often than not this game rather feels like a high end mobile game than a full on console/PC game. I know thats not so surprising since cygames mainly Produces mobile game. But i always got the feeling while playing that this is kinda a hindrance for the game itself. The beautiful but 'emtpy' hub cities. The excessive Material Grind. The soulless side stories that only feed the mentioned Grind. And the Super simlistic and short Text based character stories. These are all typical mobile game elements. And there they make sense in order to Provide a Quick and simple but still satisfying experience to go. But in a full fledged jrpg you dont need to shorten or simplify anything. You can go all out and venture left and right. Make exploring possible and give the Player to experience this World on the big screen. And thats what i personaly always hoped this game would do in some way or another. Sadly it did neither of it. Not really at least. They nailed the combat (the reason i still enjoy the game) but everything Else Fell kinda flat. But maybe i just expected a bit too much. 😅

[@deatho0ne587]

Dodge mechanic should be INF, but with a small delay. The lock-on system annoys the piss out of me, most of the time it targets small fry when I want to target important targets. Also hard to move to the important target when not looking at them.

[@Hadeshi.]

The biggest sin in this game is casting Hiroshi Kamiya to voice a brand new character and NOT make him playable. Rolan looks like a male Katalina, would've loved to put both together in my party.

[@Slapssohard]

Geanblue dropped the ball on that one 😂😏

[@KingxRay]

you saying the game is easy and you not getting game over because you playing in normal difficulty... i play through hard mode at first playthrough i can tell you how many times can get gameover with just 2 mistake i guess you didn't even bother trying the ultimate difficulty mode. No, oirginal granblue fantasy is never exclusive to japan only, only their mobile app is locked to japan appstore but there so many workaround, but you can play it on any web browser (chrome, firefox, internet explorer, edge anything can play it) they have english option in the game settin, yes it is official english language in the game. I don't know why you complain story mode of having voice conversation during the battle, it is part of the STORY! even monster hunter world have it! jesus

[@trollingisasport]

LOL So glad I didn't by that. I can smell shit a mile away. People pay to work. So funny. Playing Persona 3 Reload and Like a Dragon and having the time of my life.

[@benderthefourth3445]

I'm a Big JRPG fan since decades and I was excited about this game for years. But I'm not buying it. I don't play RPGs to be there just pressing buttons... Damn! I thought I would never like a CRPG but BG3 changed my mind completely. At least it really has the RPG experience of exploration, discovery, NPC interaction, loads of equipment, Side stories, character development, real Quests, Secrets... It's not based of mashing buttons! But an experience. I hope modern JRPG developers wake up form this "nightmare" of combat oriented RPG games.

[@louvella-sama]

Thanks for your review! Was super excited for this game along with P3R, but I might have to skip this one. Too many deal-breakers for me...

[@franciscobutte]

So the single player JRPG part is just a tutorial. And the base game is a MMO RPG? No thanks.

[@HellPedre]

it seems yeah :/

[@OwtDaftUK]

This is so far the worst game I have played this year.

[@Mirouana]

Dude is playing Genshin Impact and has the audacity to criticise Granblue Fantasy Relink. Man you're dumb

[@arturboy777]

Every time a game has dialog during a battle, I have to come to KZbin afterwards to see a lets play to find out what the hell they were saying. Terrible trend. Also terrible is the trend of the protagonists looking like either gender, like in the upcoming Mana game. That's one way to make the protagonist mean nothing to me.

[@DaReapa]

This game would have a perfect score if it was open world and the character episodes were in the game.

[@BlueGate66]

Only 15 hours sucks

[@AkumaItachi]

If you ignore absolutely everything like Erick always does, sure story is like 20ish hrs But i have over 100 and still have things to do

[@SliderFury1]

Everyone keeps saying this and haven't played the game 🤦‍♂️

[@basedgod8636]

Story isn't the driving force here

[@Slapssohard]

Plays like monster hunter you'll have way more playtime after post game.

[@nirifer7275]

The devs themselves said the story is about 20 hours, but as others said you don't play this game for story. It's about what comes after.

[@orphenkirylancello6315]

granblue fantasy. it's a sad game. I'm not buying it after I seeing your review. Tales Series Far much better.even the lame ones yes. even palworld