Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s graphics look great. All the important characters’ designs look unique. I especially love the Captain’s Relink outfit, and the looks of Historiath, Zeta, and Narmaya. I was slightly disappointed that Zeta and Narmaya used the altered outfits from Granblue Fantasy: Versus, but it wasn’t a total dealbreaker. I do wish they added an option to toggle between their original outfits and altered ones, like in Granblue Fantasy: Versus. I also loved how your held weapon also changes based on the weapon equipped. Sometimes games just keep the default weapon design no matter what weapon is equipped, so this was a nice touch. The monster designs are great too, ranging from adorable slimes to terrifying dragons. I especially liked the designs of the Primal Beasts. When I looked at them I thought, “now these are bosses!” The game’s environments look wonderful too. I liked how the towns of Folca and Seedhollow each had their own unique architecture. Folca looked like a nice little village while Seedhollow is this big bustling metropolis. The Main Story areas also had their unique locales and climates, ranging from rolling fields to dry deserts to frozen tundras. I really appreciated how each Main Story area wasn’t the same and had their own unique feel. The visual effects were on point, and really helped to make attacks look that much more devastating. Cygames did a wonderful job with the game’s aesthetics.
Audio-wise, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is outstanding. The music has no flaws, each track fits the situation very well, especially the combat. The major boss fights have their own unique tracks, and those are earworms, they’re so good. The game’s main title theme, in contrast to the epic combat tracks, is much slower and simply beautiful. I should mention, you can also listen to some of the music tracks in Lyria’s Journal, which I find to be an awesome addition. Speaking of slow and beautiful, the game’s theme song, “Good Night, Good Morning,” is amazing too. I was impressed that Lyria’s Japanese VA, Nao Toyama, sang the song entirely in English. She did a great job too, considering English isn’t her first language. This song only played in the credits, but it was worth the wait. In fact, I enjoyed the music so much that I pre-ordered the soundtrack. When it comes to the voices, I think the actors did a great job. You can choose between English and Japanese audio, though I played through the entire game with the English voices, since I find it easier to focus on the action gameplay and listen to the character’s speak rather than trying to read the subtitles while trying to fight. The sound effects were done well too, from the weapon hits to simple footsteps to the sound of the wind, I have no complaints about them. All in all, an absolutely stellar job in the sound department.
It took me around 32 hours to complete the Main Story and Postgame Story in Relink. I found no glaring grammatical issues throughout my playthrough, which is a big plus. Afterwards, an even more difficult level (Maniac) for Counter Quests is unlocked, and completing those quests will unlock an even tougher difficulty level (Proud). Completing the Main Story also unlocks the Chapter Select, which allows you to replay past Story Chapters at different difficulty levels, and also lets you find collectibles you may have missed the first time around. The Chapter Select menu also tells you how many collectibles you found in each chapter, so you can be on the lookout for certain things as you replay the chapter. However, this only tells you overall the missing collectibles. This is an issue because when you choose to replay a Story Chapter, you can choose a specific part to start from. So if you choose to start a chapter from a specific point, you could possibly be skipping over a collectible and not even realize. You really have to go through each chapter from the beginning with a fine tooth comb if you’re looking to find all the collectibles. So, with the addition of new Counter Quests to tackle and the ability to replay Story Chapters, there’s plenty to do for the completionists out there. And even if you’re not a completionist, you can still tackle more difficult Counter Quests online with friends for fun.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink runs well on PC. For reference, my rig uses an RTX 3080. I was able to consistently run at around 60 fps at 4K resolution in most areas, the only places I saw dips in the framerate were in town, but that isn’t such a big deal since you’re not fighting there. My issues popped up when I was trying to take screenshots. There were times when I would try to take a screenshot during a cutscene and the scene would just freeze, but I could still hear the audio going on in the background. After waiting for a bit, the cutscene would skip ahead to catch up with the audio. This was a bummer cause it really took away from my experience, to the point where I would have to rewatch the cutscene afterwards in Lyria’s Journal to see what I missed. There are also barely any graphics options in the game. There are only toggles for Textures, Rendering, Lighting, Motion Blur, Frame Rate, Resolution and Screen Mode. So, there aren’t many options for you to fine tune to get it running smoothly on your rig. I do find it great that they have Colorblind Support in the game, since it’s always great to make things more accessible. Another issue I had with the PC port is there are no options to choose which controller buttons to display. I played the game entirely with a DualSense controller, so it was slightly annoying seeing Xbox controller inputs throughout the game.
I also had the chance to test the game on my Steam Deck. Despite the game saying it is unsupported, I was able to play through a Relink Counter Quest pretty smoothly on my Deck, though I had to lower the graphic settings to Standard, lower the resolution to 720p, and limit the frame rate to 30 fps. I should mention I never played through a Story Chapter on my Steam Deck, only a Counter Quest and some past story cutscenes in Lyria’s Journal. The Counter Quest and the story cutscenes had no issues on my Steam Deck, but there may be some unknown issues that pop up if you play through Story Chapters that I don’t know about. Remember, the game is officially marked as Unsupported by Steam, so you’re taking a risk if you want to play through the game entirely on Steam Deck.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a wonderfully made Action RPG with beautifully chaotic combat, outstanding music, and amazing character designs. It went through development hell and still ended up a very solid experience in the end. While not perfect, I immensely enjoyed my time playing Relink, and its positives most certainly outweigh the negatives. The game is something fans of Granblue Fantasy will most certainly enjoy, and one that is very welcoming to newcomers of the series. I highly recommend you pick up the game if you have the chance, I am sure you’ll enjoy your time with it like I did.
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Review copy provided by the publisher. A copy of the game retails for $59.99.
