It's a good JRPG in 2024, with no gacha, season pass, battle pass, in game cash shop with xp boosters or MTX for power, launch day issues can very quickly be resolved, we should treasure games like this.

Granblue was only 2 years old when this game was announced. Now, Granblue will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in March.

The only complaint so far is the online is region-locked, so you have to change your steam's "download region" to play with someone in another country.

Edit: they fixed the region-locking

Like 15 years on Steam and maybe a thousand games, and I don't think I've ever, ever left a review for a game. I'm not a GBF fan at all, and was a bit down on the reviews before launch. But the art/animation and what I thought was another entry in my favorite genre (JRPG) motivated me to buy anyway... and this game is simply fun. Fun. Remember fun?

Look, the story is as barebones as it gets. Which is a shame, because it's clear there's a lot of quality lore and franchise history to pull from. The sidekick character is utterly awful to listen to. And the game lacks a good amount of PC settings, has limited frame rate support, and zero ultra wide support (though, it is relatively well optimized, I'll give it that).

But everything else? It's great. It's got high quality character action and stands toe to toe with Platinum's best. It's got more JRPG elements (gear, leveling, systems, parties, etc.) than the newest Final Fantasy. Its world is beautiful. The music is exceptional. The art and graphics are S-Tier. The world, while relatively linear, feels grand and alive. And the combat and boss battles are incredible. And apparently the end game brings PSO/MH-levels of hunting and grinding. Can't wait!

This game is fantastic. Looks great, sounds great and plays great. I've been waiting for this game for a LONG time and I would say Cygames has delivered on all counts. Thank you for taking the time to get everything right.

Gameplay-wise I would say this game sits somewhere between PSO2 and Monster Hunter. The game feels less rigid and more forgiving than Monster Hunter as you are free to use the dodge or guard button to cancel out of a lot of attacks. You also have dedicated buttons for your character's skills rather than the MH approach of making them combo based. A lot of characters also have parry or counter moves that reward skillful play in various ways. The game also employs a stagger system where you can create your own openings by staggering bosses and eventually stunning them for about 10 seconds or so. When you counter a boss into a stagger and then knock them into a stun? It feels SO goooood! The hit feedback in this game is so CRUNCHY. I love it SO much!

I found the story, while short (roughly 10-15 hours), to be very enjoyable thanks to the excellent, highly entertaining, very cinematic boss fights. The game doesn't end after you beat the story though. There's an additional post game story chapter with more bosses and more difficult versions of what you fought during the story and there's even harder stuff after you're done with that. All the while collecting stronger equipment and materials to upgrade your characters.

That's the other neat thing this game does. It gives you a roster of around 20 characters and lets you make a party of any 4 you want. They're also all playable, fully featured characters each with their own gimmicks and distinct playstyle. It was hard to choose what 4 characters to build first because every single one of them seems cool and interesting. The AI itself for your party members is also very good. I find myself getting outscored by the AI when I play badly. Coop and matchmaking is also available for non-story quests too if you'd rather run with other players instead.

There is also a complete lack of live service features, and micro-transactions. You pay once and get the whole game with no restrictions.

I fully believe this will go on to be one of the most fun ARPGs released this year. I hope Relink gets a big expansion because I am 100% willing to pay for more of this game.

A moment of respect for those poor souls playing the Gacha version and funding the Relink project so that we can have a supreme experience of what a video game should be! SOLID!

GBF:R ran without any issues. While there are some reports of people struggling to be able to boot the game shortly after launch, I have not encountered any such problems. The game never crashed, stuttered, or otherwise bugged out. The few hours of multiplayer I have played were stable, although the matchmaking is not exactly fantastic.

Visually, GBF:R is utterly unrivaled for its art style. Both gameplay and cinematics look gorgeous, and there is an incredible amount of detail in just about every location.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3153437575

The sound design is not quite as impressive, with a soundtrack that is still generally good but not that memorable. The voice acting in the game’s original language is beyond fantastic, with a wide range of extremely talented and recognizable voice actors. The English dub, however, suffers from the aforementioned awful localization, at times changing the meaning of entire phrases, and likewise quite horrid voice acting.

You play as either Djeeta or Gran, depending on your gender preference for the main character, the Captain of a diverse cast of Skyfarers in a world entirely made up of floating sky islands. While in search of Estalucia, a fantastical utopia, you encounter a religious cult that takes interest in one of your friends who has the ability to seal and summon pseudo-godlike creatures like the dragon Bahamut.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3151952766

Needless to say, GBF is very much a JRPG with some interesting thematical parallels to specifically Final Fantasy, but it sets itself apart by its very unique setting. As a spin-off title to a gacha game, I was somewhat worried that the story may be an afterthought, but was generally surprised for that to not be the case, and as someone who has not played the gacha, I could follow the story fairly easily, though with a constant feeling of just lacking some context as to the interpersonal relationships of the different crew members.

There is a glossary that is just as boring to read as they always are, but it is nice that the game does give you an extensive interface through which you can browse anything from terms related to the world-building to the backstory of various characters and more. Characters also have mini-stories attached to them, which you unlock as you progress through the main story and level them up. Sadly, this seems to be a bit of a missed opportunity, as they are usually inconsequential enough to not provide significant character development and are also merely a few sentences short per episode.

Despite this, while I wouldn’t recommend GBF:R for the story alone, it is certainly on par with similar titles, such as the Tales of […] series, and may even be good enough to be recommended to fans of certain Final Fantasy titles due to the aforementioned thematic similarities.

GBF:R can be broadly described as a hub-based and mission-centric action RPG. Campaign missions usually take place in a large, but fairly linear, level that encourages some exploration through collectibles and chests that consistently feel relevant and rewarding due to the different methods to progress your characters’ power level.

Side missions, and therefore the bulk of the postgame, take place in smaller segments of those aforementioned levels and range from mission types such as defending a static object to simple boss fights. Unlike other games in the genre, even later bossfights tend to be much faster, lasting typically between 2 and 8 minutes for the longer fights on anything above Maniac difficulty.

Fights are not just fast due to raw numbers, however, but combat tends to be very fast-paced in terms of how quickly attacks come out. To offset this, bigger attacks offer a telegraph a few moments before the attack actually fires. This is something that is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy 14, and I haven’t seen something like this used anywhere else. While this sort of MMO design, at first glance, feels a little odd, it actually does wonders for the game to be able to be as visually striking and responsive as it is, and I’m not sure combat would feel as good without this design decision.

As you progress through the story, you get to unlock more characters for the roster, each of which has a distinct weapon type and a unique gimmick; for example, Io, one of the immediately available characters, is a mage that augments her big spells through basic attacks, allowing for devastating combo-finishers. Each character also features multiple linear skill trees that eventually unlock further active abilities that can be freely slotted in to create unique builds. While this feels impactful, it never felt like I could augment a character towards a distinct role. Rather, the game is very centered around dealing as much damage as possible, even on the later, extremely lethal missions, since outlasting enemies through support just doesn’t feel very feasible.

GBF:R is fast, flashy, and eventually scales to become extremely difficult in the late postgame. While this results in an awkward difficulty curve, it is an incredibly rewarding experience that still has a serviceable story on top of it all. Looking back at the game, while it probably will not end up breaking any new ground, I can’t really pinpoint any single aspect of the game that is outright bad and was a rare experience that I simply enjoyed going through from booting it up for the first time up until the very end.

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Currently the best action JRPG on steam right now. 100% recommend. My only ask is that Cygames adds cross play at some point.

final monster fantasy hunter xvi world

10/10

What happens when you fused Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, and Anime? Well you get Granblue Fantasy Relink!

Overall this game is one of the best Action JRPG Anime Style

+ Addictive combat with variety of elements, hack and slash combos, different mechanism for each characters and QTE, its like fast-paced and fun version of Tales of Arise combat.
+ No gacha, No Resin Cap, No Timegated content, No Silent Protagonist, No mobile gacha ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
+ Grindfest endgame content with multiplayer and intricate progression system
+ Beautiful detailed world and soundtrack
+ Smooth Animation
+ Awesome boss battle scene
+ Polished performance, no crash or black screen and stable at 2K ultra 120 FPS
+ Popular japanese voice actors
+ Premium Genshin Killer
- Predictable and simplistic story with anime trope and epic avenger-esque for final battle
- Uninspiring side quests, mostly fetch quests
- Semi open world / hub city like Monster Hunter World, need more exploration elements.

Cygames did a great job of turning a gacha game into premium experience full of action game.
I’m excited for upcoming contents, from more characters, stories and map.