Granblue Fantasy: Relink (initially unveiled as Granblue Fantasy Project Re:Link) is an Action RPG and Spin-Off of the Granblue Fantasy video game series. The game was developed and published by Cygames for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on consoles and Steam on PC. The game's official website can be found here
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Originally announced to be released in 2018 in the 2016 Djeeta Trailer, the game's development scope expanded to the point where any release date confirmations will only be revealed by Cygames when Relink would be close to completion. The game was released on February 1, 2024. A demo for the game was released a month before its release date on the aforementioned Sony platforms.
PlatinumGames was credited as co-developer until their contract ended on February 2019. Further development later moved in-house to the Osaka branch of Cygames.
Set sometime ahead of the original mobile game's third Story Arc in the Zegagrande Skydom, Relink follows the protagonist and the crew of the Grandcypher on their adventures. Cygames has stated characters who make their debut in Relink may wind up appearing in Granblue Fantasy proper.
Similar to the smartphone game, players can form a party of up to four characters - one controlled by the player, while the AI controls the others. Co-Op Multiplayer is also a possibility, allowing four players to form a party by selecting various Grandcypher crew members to go on quests in a fashion not dissimilar to Monster Hunter.
Trailers: 2016, 2016 (Djeeta version) Granblue Fes 2017 Gameplay, 2018, Granblue Fes 2018 Gameplay, 2019 Dragon Knights reveal, 2019 Dragon Knights co-op gameplay, 2020 Mega Fleet Battle demo, 2021 Teaser Trailer
Playable Characters
- Base Roster: Gran/Djeeta, Katalina, Rackam, Io, Eugen, Rosetta, Charlotta, Ghandagoza, Ferry, Narmaya, Lancelot, Vane, Percival, Siegfried, Cagliostro, Yodarha, Zeta, Vaseraga, Id
- Expansion Characters: Seofon, Tweyen, Sandalphon
The game and its trailers provide examples of:
- Adaptational Badass:
- In the gacha game, certain enemies, such as the Griffin, Golem, and Goblins, are usually SR summons at best and basic enemies at worst that can be dispatched with one attack from any player prepped beyond the bare minimum. Here, they're full fledged bosses that require entire parties to take down.
- Some of the Terminus Weapons also fall under this, being event-farmed or character unlock SSR weapons from the original game that see little use beyond being filler weapons until you get better ones, but here are the most powerful weapons available for their respective characters.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: Rosetta's default element is normally Wind, but Relink changes her element to Dark, so as to round out the elemental diversity of the starting characters.
- Advancing Wall of Doom:
- In the third chapter segment, the party has to rush through the nearby cliff before the storm destroys the wooden pathway.
- During the final chapter, the party has to outrun rising levels of purple ichor flooding the surrounding area.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Story mode doesn't use the Critical Gauge, so you're never at risk of an instant game over for falling in battle too often unless the entire party is taken out at once. It also has an abundance of auto-save checkpoints throughout, so if you ever do fail a story quest, it's quick and easy to get back into the fight you just lost and try again.
- Recruited crew members come pre-packaged with character levels, a leveled weapon and a certain amount of their Mastery trees unlocked depending on your progress in the story, sparing you the need to actively grind them to be on-par with the rest of the group. In fact, in all likelihood they'll come out the box stronger than your current story party.
- The wish list system lets you note down a certain number of materials that will receive an eye-catching magnifying glass mark everywhere it shows up, making it easier to both keep track of what you may need for any sort of progress and quickly know at a glance if a mission has what you want.
- Played With concerning Sierokarte's trading system. On one hand, trading for her Knickknack Vouchers is extremely easy, automatically matching your treasures to the amount of vouchers they're supposed to receive and stopping you if you would exceed the cap on them, plus the sorting system for Sigils is quite robust and comes with a mass-trade option so you don't have to handpick every single one. On the other hand, actually using the vouchers for Sigil/Wrightstone trading and the Transmarvel system, which you will be using constantly in the endgame, has no mass-trade option, making it a horrendous slog of one-at-a-time button mashing to get through it. Plus, the cap on Vouchers is relatively low, at 999 when each ideal Voucher use costs 25, meaning you're constantly flipping back and forth between trading for Vouchers, burning them, and trading for more.
- Anti-Villain: Maglielle may be one of Lilith's top generals, but she is an affable and noble woman who is A Mother to Her Men and genuinely believes in the cause of saving the world, and later turns against Lilith when she finds out she never actually planned to bring salvation to the skies.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: The Final Boss fight against Bahamut Versa is accompanied by "End of Ragnarok", a heart-pounding rock anthem.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Furycane's humanoid form is depicted to be entirely green, without revealing much of its naughty parts.
- Barrier Change Boss: The fight against the Automagod Pyet-A employs this. It starts the fight Non-Elemental, and will eventually cast Elemental Shift to summon several adds which correspond to Fire, Ice, and Light that it will absorb to change the properties and status effects inflicted by many of its attacks as well as taking on the appropriate elemental weakness. While it's impossible to stop this process, the adds can be destroyed to influence which element is absorbed, and every so often the boss will lose its typing and cast the move again which can result in a different element.
- Battleship Raid: At one point in the story, Avia forces attempt to bring down the Grandcypher while it is en route to one of Zegagrande's islands. What follows is an aerial battle that leads to the Captain and his crew boarding Avia's battleships to sink them.
- Blow You Away: Furycane is capable of creating storms and whirlwinds during its boss fight in the Granblue Fes 2018 trailer.
- Blocking Stops All Damage: Against most attacks, you will take no damage guarding against them, though any associated status effects (Burn, Frostbite, etc.) will still afflict you. Block too many attacks over a short period though (sans Perfect Guards), and your guard will break, needing time to recover; some attacks also cannot be blocked at all.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Downplayed Trope as Lyria didn't go mad and wasn't manipulating anybody, but a plot point of the story is Lyria being brainwashed by Lilith to be completely loyal to the Church of Avia's cause, with the Grancypher crew clashing with the Church of Avia to bring Lyria back.
- Bullet Time: If all party members perform a Link Attack after the Link Meter reaches 100%, Link Time activates, slowing down enemies significantly and conferring beefy buffs for the party for the duration.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Throughout the game, Lilith strictly orders her generals not to kill the Captain, due to the life-link they and Lyria share. Id, who swore to protect Lyria, being Locked Out of the Loop about this fact becomes a key point to his eventual turn against Lilith.
- Combat Resuscitation: If a party member runs out of HP, they will be placed into a "Critical" state, where their actions are reduced to slowly limping. So long as at least one party member is still active, they can revive "Critical" teammates (helpfully bringing them back to max HP in the doing), but they must do so quickly: a timer counts down when party members are in a "Critical" state, and if it runs out, it's an immediate Game Over.
- Combination Attack: When party members unleash consecutive Skybound Arts, a "Burst" is created that deals additional damage. Having all four party members perform their SBAs one after another creates a "Full Burst" that deals even more damage.
- Defeat Means Explosion: Defeating Mooks causes them to explode in a shower of blood and loot drops.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: After Gallanza and Maglielle are defeated for the second time, they show up to help the party fight against Lilith, as both of them come to respect the crew's strength. Maglielle in particular genuinely believes in the cause for salvation, and has no problem killing Lilith to achieve that. After that, the Fate Episodes show them being quite cordial to the party, with Gallanza finding a Worthy Opponent in Ghandagoza, and Maglielle having developed a rapport with Zeta over their shared love of desserts.
- Defiant to the End: Lilith refuses to accept defeat, even in death. After her attempt to summon Angra Mainyu is thwarted, she unleashes Bahamut Versa from within Id in a final act of defiant spite: if she can't return to the Astral Realm, she'll happily settle for unleashing a Primal Beast that will rend the Sky Realm asunder.
- Deflector Shields: If an enemy tries to attack Lyria, she will let out a blue dome to protect herself. She can also unleash a larger dome to protect the entire party. Vane also has one as a skill, generating a Beehive Barrier that makes any party members inside it invincible to damage, though he's unable to attack or move while using it.
- Dual Boss: Some higher-difficulty fights will pit you against two (or more) different boss enemies at once. The pinnacle of this is the Proud-difficulty fight against Gallanza and Maglielle, who possess extremely complimentary combat styles, can engage their own Link Attack if you're hit with Dizzy, and even have a Combination Attack.
- Evil Costume Switch: While under the Church of Avia's control and Lilith's command, Lyria switches out her signature white one-piece dress to a similar one adorned with black laces and foregoes her usually barefoot look for white shoes.
- Gale-Force Sound: The Goblin boss lets out a scream that pushes your party members away from it. Bosses hitting Overdrive are also accompanied by this, briefly stunning and shoving away any nearby party members. While the push itself does no damage, it does still count as an attack which can be perfect-dodged or blocked
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Narmaya's Fate Episode sees her suffer a Heroic BSoD due to the events of Chapter 3 and fall back into her bad habit of running herself ragged to protect Gran/Djeta and the crew. The player starts her mission with no items and her health in the red, since she has been fighting nonstop for days in the biggest monster nest she could find. Thankfully the rest of the group arrives at the nick of time just as she collapses from exhaustion.
- Gathering Steam:
- A great number of characters do this, most often by landing combo finishers to build up a character-specific resource that can either be expended for extra benefit (e.g. Gran/Djeeta's Adept Arts), maintained for consistent increased strength (Rackam's Heat Gauge), or a combination of both (Ferry's Pets, which can be maintained or expended as desired).
- Yodarha uniquely shortens his ground combo by a step with every combo finisher he does simply for performing it. With enough time spent attacking and finishing his combo, he'll be performing a finisher every other attack, constantly gaining invincibility frames and building Triple Shroud stacks with insane speed so long as he doesn't stop attacking.
- God Was My Co-Pilot: Rolan, the resident Vicar and handyman from Folca, is actually an Astral, one of the godlike beings that lorded over humanity in ancient times and created the Primal Beasts. As opposed to fellow Astral Lilith, however, Rolan has grown to love humanity and fights to protect them. While he attempts to aid the Grandcypher crew from the sidelines at first, when the true scope of Lilith's plans come to light, he begins to play a more active role in thwarting her.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Late in the game, Id joins the heroes in fighting to save Lyria from Lilith. He leaves the party after Lilith forcibly transforms him into Bahamut Versa, but then joins again after he is saved, this time on a longer-term basis.
- Heel–Face Turn: By the end of the game, Lilith's lieutenants all join the player in fighting against Lilith: Id wants to keep his promise to protect Lyria (and later becoming a permanent member of the Grandcypher crew); Gallanza aids the crew as he sees Lilith as the perfect kill; and Maglielle aids them out of pride and respect, and as thanks for sparing her fellow Sword Veil members after her previous defeat.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first time the party face off against Id, he calmly states "I'll end this in 90 seconds". This is no empty boast, as he proceeds to do exactly that. The second time you face him does not go any better either.
- Immune to Flinching: In general, the Stout Heart buff grants this to characters, mostly gained during certain skill attacks. There's a sigil you can trade for from Sierokarte which grants the buff perpetually, and other sigils which play around it. Vaseraga can gain it simply by pressing his charged attack button, and is by far the most ready user of it.
- Intangibility: Part of what makes Angra Mainyu so dangerous is the fact that it exists slightly out-of-phase with physical space, often appearing semi-transparent and being untouchable by normal means. Defeating it means finding a way to bring either it or yourself and your party into the same space to physically damage it.
- "Just Frame" Bonus:
- Common masteries across all characters grant this - blocking or dodging within a few frames of an attack hitting you will execute a Perfect Block or Dodge; the former will lose no durability on your shield, while the latter grants a brief period of invincibility. Certain equipped sigils will grant additional bonuses to these, from extra attack power to boosts to your Skybound Art gauge.
- Many characters (e.g. Rackam, Ghandagoza, etc.) can use precise button presses for certain combos and attacks to gain extra benefits. Some (e.g. Charlotta) include a "parrying" mechanic where certain moves will negate enemy attacks when performed at the right moment, often with equipable sigils which grant bonuses for doing so.
- Mini-Mecha: When Avia launches an assault on Seedhollow's castle, they bring in small quadruped walker robots to attack the heroes. After putting one out of commission, Rolan uses his magic powers to repair one for you to use to drive off other mechs and a battleship.
- Heroic Sacrifice: At the conclusion of the story mode, the Captain and Id are trapped in another dimension while repelling Bahamut Versa. Rolan uses his power as an Astral to open a rift and fling them back into the Sky Realm, but ends up stranded as a result. Rescuing him becomes the goal of the post-game.
- Shield Bash: The Goblin boss can use its tower shield to push forward, damaging nearby party members.
- Stance System: Narmaya's main mechanic centers around two stances: "Freeflutter Stance", which focuses on rapid-fire combo attacks; and "Dawnfly Stance", which focuses on wide-area charged attacks. Landing the last hit of a combo in Freeflutter Stance, or landing a fully-charged attack in Dawnfly Stance, gathers butterflies that strengthen her skills.
- Super Mode: Id's mechanic has a meter that fills when landing strong attacks. Once it is full, he transforms into his Dragon Form, enhancing his attack power and swapping out his skills for more powerful abilities.
- Troperiffic: The game's main story absolutely revels in its tropes, playing a bunch of standard fantasy tropes and imagery completely straight and with earnestness (even ones that the original mobile game has both used before and even riffed on). This is one of the game's strengths; if it was a bit more cynical or "clever" about its tropes, it would run the risk of coming off as insincere. And while its tropes are still incredibly easy to identify and even predict, the sheer gusto of the production prevents it from coming across as tired or played-out.
- Turns Red: Come two-tiered for bosses. There's Overdrive, which operates much like the mobile game where damaging the boss will fill a bar to trigger it, leading the boss into a frenzy with more powerful and varied attacks, and draining the bar with damage will inflict Break and stun the boss for a while. Then there's the Bloodlust buff, indicated with a bright electric yellow aura, used for unique scripted attack patterns for each boss that can be triggered varying ways (such as at specific health break points) and grants the boss immense damage reduction and immunity to crowd control and Skybound Arts for its duration.
- Wrecked Weapon: Id breaks Gran/Djeeta's sword during the Hopeless Boss Fight at the end of Chapter 3. At the start of Chapter 4, they're given a new sword that retains the level and equipped sigils of their starter weapon.
