Review: Granblue Fantasy: Relink -

Cygames is no stranger to the JRPG genre. Since the original Granblue Fantasy launched on mobile devices in 2014, the franchise has built a massive following thanks to its memorable characters, rich fantasy world, and cinematic storytelling. While the series has made appearances on consoles and PC before with titles like Granblue Fantasy: Versus and the original re-release, Granblue Fantasy: Relink marks its first full-fledged action RPG built specifically for modern platforms. It is an ambitious step for the franchise, bringing the world of Granblue to life with expansive environments, fast-paced combat, and blockbuster presentation. This is our review of Granblue Fantasy: Relink on PC via Steam, in which we explore the gorgeous Sky Realm and battle colossal primal beasts.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is set in the Sky Realm, which is filled with large, myriad islands floating around in the air. These islands are inhabited by humans and other creatures in cities and small towns all over them. Each island has its own unique setting and customs. You step into the shoes of the main character, who is known as the captain, and you are the leader of a small skyfarer crew, with their huge flying ship called the Grandcypher. When you are not exploring an island, you will spend your time exploring the realm aboard the Grandcypher, so it acts like your home and transport.

When the game begins, you are given a choice between two characters, Gran and Djeeta. Your choice becomes the captain’s visual appearance and voice. Fans of the franchise will instantly recognize both characters. Despite your selection, the game follows the same path. What I like about the main character of Granblue Fantasy: Relink is that the captain has its own unique voice lines as well. In most RPGs or JRPGS, where the game gives you a selection between multiple characters or custom character creators, the character is almost completely silent and just acts like a placeholder in cutscenes and other scenarios. In Granblue Fantasy: Relink, the captain will speak on certain occasions and interact naturally with other team members, giving the character a personality and voice, not just a visual appearance.

The main gameplay of the game revolves around you and your party visiting multiple islands in the sky and completing the main missions on them. The mission structure is fairly straightforward, with you arriving with a specific task on the island, clearing multiple areas of enemies, moving on to the final boss, defeating it, and then moving to the next island. You might say that it feels like a mobile game, and I will agree with you on some parts because that is true. After all, you may find some gameplay elements familiar to mobile RPGs in Granblue Fantasy: Relink since Cygames was mostly working on mobile platforms before moving to consoles and PC. Each mission has a good amount of dialogue and cutscenes as well that break the monotonous enemy battles, and you have the opportunity to explore the areas to find some hidden chests and resources in between the fights.

At any time, you must have four party members with you, but during the cutscenes, you will see the entire party participating in battles or other activities. This is because the game has a default list of characters that are part of the main story. Along the way, you can hire new crew members, and while they may be better than your default ones, these will never appear in the cutscenes because they are not the main characters of the story. Your party is to accompany a girl named Lyria who has strange powers and a little flying dragon called Vyrn. Your goal is to find a place called Estalucia, a fabled island where dreams can come true. On your path, you come across a secretive organization called the Church of Avia, and after a clash with them, your goals become intertwined.

Each moment in Granblue Fantasy: Relink is filled with cool and over-the-top action sequences. The scenery changes in the game pretty fast; one moment you may be sailing through the skies without any issues, but suddenly you may become ambushed by the enemy fleet. In these sequences, you can witness the true power of the game’s engine as there are explosions, chaos, and everything just explodes around you. The game features real-time battles with each character offering unique powers and skills. You play as the Captain who has a long list of skill upgrades along with abilities and weapons to choose from. You can upgrade all party members to make everyone powerful enough to handle the enemies, but since the resources and skill points are shared across the party, it is always a bargain to figure out which character to level up first and which one to delay.

During combat, you can block or dodge incoming attacks, which, when timed right, can grant you multiple bonuses depending on your build. As you level up, you can unlock and equip multiple offensive and defensive skills. The main weapon allows you to land powerful combos with light and heavy attacks. Landing combos increases your fight style meter called the Arts Meter, which in return grants different buffs in both offensive and defensive abilities. As you fight and land combos, you build up your meter, and once it is full, you can unleash a powerful attack called Skybound Art on the enemy. Land this attack at the same time as your entire team, and you will end up with a powerful burst attack called Full Burst, dealing massive damage to your enemies. When near a party member, you can also land powerful link attacks, which are smaller but deal increased damage.

The combat is satisfying, especially with the tougher difficulties. You will also need to rely on items to restore your health during battles. Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s combat shines when it comes to its boss battles. These are massive battles where the entire battle arena gets shaken to its core. These battles require patience, careful battle tactics, and teamwork. While this may not be possible in single-player, if you jump into the game with your friends online, where each player gets to select a different character, you will find out that each character has its own unique playstyle and abilities in the game. You can pick from characters who prefer swords, daggers, or even magic.

Apart from normal combat scenarios, you will also get to experience combat in different special scenarios. For example, during aerial battles, you can control your ship’s cannons, which are fired in first-person mode. You can aim around with them and fire projectiles at incoming enemy ships to damage them. These moments allow you to take a break from the normal hack-and-slash gameplay of Granblue Fantasy: Relink. Alongside the main missions, you can also accept side quests from different NPCs, which reward you with items and resources that can be spent at different vendors to upgrade your gear, skills, and even Sigils. Sigils are powerful orbs that can be equipped to all characters in your party for a random buff.

These range from health boosts to damage boosts and can be upgraded further to make them even more effective for the toughest of battles in the game. Every upgrade feels meaningful because new Sigils and weapon improvements noticeably change a character’s effectiveness. Even after unlocking stronger abilities, the game continues introducing worthwhile equipment that encourages experimentation rather than simply chasing bigger numbers.

While the mission-based structure works well for quick progression, it can occasionally make the game feel formulaic. Most chapters follow a familiar rhythm of exploring an area, defeating waves of enemies, facing a boss, and moving on to the next objective. The excellent combat keeps these encounters entertaining, but the overall structure rarely surprises you after the opening hours. Exploration is rewarding without becoming overwhelming. Hidden chests, crafting materials, and optional paths encourage you to look around each environment, although the semi-open structure means discovery never reaches the freedom of larger open-world RPGs.

If you want figures for its length, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is not a huge game when it comes to its main story. You can spend over 1000 hours in the post-game, but for the main story, you will need around 25 to 30 hours for completion even at a comfortable speed. The story spans over 10 chapters, and each chapter is of fairly decent length. You can easily play through the main story first and then jump into the side and post-game content at your own will, making it a pretty straightforward JRPG. If you are used to spending hundreds of hours on JRPG stories like that of the Persona series, you may be a little disappointed here, but there is enough side content to satisfy your JRPG thirst, nonetheless.

My favourite aspect of Granblue Fantasy: Relink is probably its visuals. The game features a unique art style similar to that of most JRPGs, which looks like it is made of watercolors. The character portraits are in 2D, but the models are 3D, and the animations are crisp. The environments are exceptionally well designed, especially when you are in settlements. The enemy design is pretty cool as well. The amazing visual design is accompanied by an equally good sound design where the music plays a vital part in creating the overall atmosphere of the game. The dialogue delivery is flawless with excellent attention to detail.

Coming to the technical aspect of the game, I reviewed this game on PC via Steam and spent around 80 hours in the base game for this review. During this time, I did not encounter even a single crash, so the game’s optimization is excellent. The loading times are next to none, and the full game is playable with a controller. The framerates remain steady even during resource-draining battles with tons of explosions on the screen and a giant boss jumping around the arena. The game is also easily playable with a keyboard and mouse, but I suggest that you pick a controller and lie back for this adventure to enjoy its cinematics and satisfying combat.

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Final Verdict:

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a spectacular debut for the franchise on consoles and PC. It successfully transforms the series’ mobile roots into a full-fledged action RPG, delivering stunning visuals, satisfying combat, and a memorable adventure through its beautifully crafted semi-open world. The game rarely feels constrained by its origins, instead embracing the scale and presentation expected from a modern JRPG while retaining the charm that made the franchise so popular in the first place. Although a few rough edges prevent it from reaching perfection, they do little to overshadow what is otherwise an excellent experience. Whether you are a longtime Granblue fan or completely new to the series, Granblue Fantasy: Relink is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys action-packed JRPGs with rewarding combat and a vibrant fantasy world.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Disclaimer: A PC Steam review code for Granblue Fantasy: Relink was provided by One PR Studio on behalf of Cygames for this review. For a detailed breakdown of our scoring and review process, please refer to our Review Policy.