How do you review a game that is essentially one giant ad for another game entirely? That’s kind of what Granblue Fantasy: Relink feels like to me, the first fully-fledged, 3D, RPG take on Cygames‘ long-running mobile gacha game. It’s a difficult question to answer, especially when – spoiler alert – Relink is actually pretty good! And it’s even harder to answer when the ad kind-of works.
A quick disclaimer: I’ve never played the original Granblue Fantasy mobile game. I’ve appreciated its character designs from afar, I’ve heard from friends that there are several LGBTQ characters that are well-written, and I even tried to set up an account once, but never followed through. I wanted to review this game because I wanted to see what if it felt like an approachable entry point for a newcomer to the series. So, is it? Yes and no.
Relink’s particular adventure starts at some point during the skyfarers’ adventure, though from just the main story I couldn’t tell you where. The whole crew is there (I think, anyway), with the player-named Captain, Milhouse-sounding-sidekick-dragon Vyrn, mysterious blue-haired Lyria, and several other characters, too. It quickly establishes that we’re off to visit Estalucia, a fabled land that is also supposedly where the player character’s father is. Sounds like the usual kind of thing you’d expect from an RPG, but that’s not what the story is about at all – this is where it feels like an ad for the mobile game in places, because you don’t actually find Estalucia in Relink.
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