This or FFXII Zodiac Age?

[Flan]

Hello!
I'm wanting to buy a new game, and were looking for both some months ago, for RPG players, which one you find more fun and have better story?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I had been invested in GBF's visual novel gacha story for 8 years prior to playing Relink, so I enjoyed Relink's story more than the average player, but honestly it's just a serviceable vehicle to get you from setpiece to setpiece, not a story I still think about sometimes afterwards like certain parts of FF12. The story of Relink can be exciting at times but the main thing you are here for are the aesthetics and the gameplay. Relink looks great, has a good soundtrack, and the battles are fun.

FF12 is a little difficult because while it has the best cutscene direction in the franchise, it is a 60 hour long game (if you just do the story and not the optional hunt bosses) and there are a few long stretches that were pretty boring where the cutscenes are few and far between and you have to put up with the less than engaging gameplay, like the journey to Raithwall's Tomb, or the journey to Mount Bur Omisce, or the journey to Archades. Just a lot of boring RTWP battles watching three characters do boring MMO autoattacks, none of the fancy presentation like in classic FF games of the camera framing and characters posed dramatically and using cool abilities. FF12 is one of those games where I feel you can make an argument that it is more fun to watch the cutscenes on youtube than to play. That being said, I didn't think the game was irredeemably fun, otherwise I wouldn't have done two playthroughs of it on the PS2 while struggling with failing controller cords.

[Flan]

Yeah, I'm very interested at this title mainly because of the combat, I watched some boss battles at some reviews and it reminded sorta of some FFXIV mechanics, just looks exciting to play!

About FFXII, I really wanna play it someday in my life, and also the battle mechanics which idk the name looks interesting to me, but like you said, the game is too long which looks like some time it'll get kinda boring by how it works...

My biggest worry with GBF's story is: If I never played the mobile games or haven't watched the anime, will I be super outside of the plot? And anytime the story hitted your hard? HAHAHAHA

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Relink is like a Pokemon anime movie in that it is a selfcontained story featuring the main characters of the source property has nothing to do with the current ongoing storyline of the source (the Pokemon anime TV show/GBF gacha visual novel). In Relink, Gran and friends go to a new Relink original Skydom called Zegagrande and get entangled in stuff going on there. It is hard to place when Relink's story would take place in the gacha storyline, and there are several lore/canon violations in Relink that makes it hard to reconcile anyway. Relink does not bother to get you invested in the main cast of Gran and his GBF gacha main story crew. Some side characters from the gacha like Percival and Narmaya are also playable but do not appear in Relink's storyline but you can still unlock and play as them with no explanation. The new original Relink characters are pretty likeable. Relink's plot would be overall understandable to a newcomer. There is a backstory reveal about a character towards the end that causes a flash of animosity from other characters that might be a little difficult to grasp if you are not familiar with the gacha visual novel's lore, but it is not important. No, the story is not very impactful.

[Flan]

From what I understand, Relink has original characters for the game, interesting for those who aren't familiar with any of the characters or the plot.

Well, I'm going to work and think about whether I want a game with more action, or if I want to play something with a more impactful storyline, as I said, what enchanted me about relink was the aspect of the battles looking like an mmo boss battle, or maybe the mmo battles that look like monster hunter, only with hitmarks and hp bars. LMAO

I thank you, my dear Val the Moofia Boss, you've helped me a lot to get an overview of what to expect from Granblue Fantasy Relink!

[Varley]

Story wise Relink is... fine I guess?
Gameplay wise, it's quite good.
It has some bumps... some really really harsh bumps... but I do love it.
Endgame takes around 100ish hours to get to, so take that as you will.

For me, that's a good thing since it means lots of playtime value and all.
Issue is the actual endgame is good, but not like amazing since it's mostly only 3ish bosses you'll want to be farming.
But with 22 characters there's lots of ways to fight those 3 bosses, so it won't feel too repetitive unless you only main like one or two characters.

While building characters does take a lot of time and work it also is rewarding since the AI is not totally braindead, so building a character just to have on your team for the AI to play and support you is actually rewarding.

[Hanzo]

Story wise FF12 is much better. But it's politics themed so it depends how do you like having several factions in head and their relationships. So it's could be a lot of info and you could look at character sometime and think who they are.

Relink is classic anime experience. Some of things doesn't make much sense. Some decisions are made just because even if character didn't show that side before.

Gameplay wise they are different.
FF12 which looks like online experience with monsters, tons of hidden stuff like bazaar and specific hunts. You pick jobs for your party members and try to mix them for a fun experience. Gambit system is one of the best AI controlling approach today in my eyes. Still have limits, but pretty neat. Battles have stop function, so are more tactic/buff/debuff focused. So you can plan your actions and can think during fights. There is no rush usually and you can easily use gambits on entire party to just relax while your party kills everyone. So most of fights except of some bosses are chill. Bosses usually require some preparation. You can also switch between entire party characters during fights, which is also fun. You can switch both controlled character or switch active party member to someone in off-party.

Granblue fantasy is more about action. Every character has different mechanics, so it's fun to play everyone and pick character that you feel yourself comfortable. The main problem here there is not much "support" type characters. Like you cannot have a healer or tank role in a some sense. Yes, some character can use heal with a high CD time, some can make party invincible, some can increase hostility via skills or items. But in broad sense every character here is DD first. Battle here are pretty dynamic with a TONS of effects. Sometimes there are so many effects that I cannot see a crap. So it's sometimes feels like a bullet hell game. Your main purpose in battles to grind for a gear that make you stronger and make it easier to beat stronger enemies. Unfortunately there are not that many different viable builds for every character. Probably all builds use ~8-10 of 12 of same sigils. But it's still pretty fun playing coop and try different characters.

[Flan]

Thanks for all the replies, I decided to get Final Fantasy XII for the story, I want to play a game with more plot at the moment.

I'll save up to buy Granblue at some point when a friend wants to play with me, your answers have made me eager to play it at some point, it must be super fun to play this game in co-op, speaking of which, does this game let you play together from start to finish or is it a bit bureaucratic to play online?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Publicado originalmente por Flan:

Thanks for all the replies, I decided to get Final Fantasy XII for the story, I want to play a game with more plot at the moment.

I'll save up to buy Granblue at some point when a friend wants to play with me, your answers have made me eager to play it at some point, it must be super fun to play this game in co-op, speaking of which, does this game let you play together from start to finish or is it a bit bureaucratic to play online?

The story campaign is singleplayer only with three AI controlled party members. Sidequests (basically boss fights) can be done with either three AI controlled party members or three other players. The game has been out for a year so there are not that many people playing anymore, with the multiplayer population concentrated at the upper tiers of sidequests. There is a mod on Skyrim nexus that undoes the regionlock on your game so that you can get matched with people in Japan.

[Xaelon]

I would not recommend someone purchase GBF: Relink purely for the story.

While the story campaign is enjoyable, it's pretty short (10ish hours). Thankfully there is generous amounts of postgame content, but it's more akin to Monster Hunter: grinding bosses to gather stuff to strengthen your characters, rather than story-driven encounters. Thankfully the combat is excellent overall and the bosses are amazing.

I can't really comment on FF12 as I haven't played it.