Japanese publisher Cygames aims to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with via this meaty, ambitious action role-player.
A new player has stealthily entered the games industry: Japanese publisher Cygames, which set up European and US subsidiaries this April and now seems ready to take on peers like Square Enix and Bandai Namco. In the great Japanese tradition, one of its first games to get a UK release will be an action role-player called Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and we managed to get a substantial taste of it at a recent hands-on event.
First, a bit of history. Cygames has been around since 2011 and its first big hit in Japan was 2014’s Granblue Fantasy, a Japanese role-playing game for mobile that also operated in web browsers. That, and a series of anime spin-offs, established the Granblue Fantasy universe, which Granblue Fantasy: Relink is now poised to mine in a more satisfying and credible manner on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. Although, somewhat confusingly, before Relink arrives in February a console beat ‘em-up featuring characters from the same universe, entitled Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising, will launch on December 14.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is the game that will excite fans of heavyweight Japanese role-players, especially those who enjoy the output of PlatinumGames, including the likes of Bayonetta and NieR: Automata. Relink’s development began at PlatinumGames, before Cygames took it in-house, and Relink’s director, Yasuyuki Kaji, previously worked on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Bayonetta 2, and NieR: Automata there.
Kaji confirmed to us that Granblue Fantasy: Relink will provide a properly meaty chunk of gameplay: as well as a 20-hour, single-player main storyline it will have a multiplayer side, playable by up to four people co-operatively (with the ability to drop in AI-controlled party members). This will include extra story elements that could also take 20 hours to work through, along with an endgame – which also supports co-op – that Cygames says could take up to 40 hours to complete.
The first part of Cygames’ preview event involved playing the first three chapters of Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s main story. First off, we were given the choice between playing as a male or female protagonist, we stayed with the male one and his designated name, Gran, although we could have renamed him (your character is referred to as ‘Captain’ throughout, in dialogue and cut scenes).
The story opens in pretty cute fashion, on a retro wooden ship called Grandcypher, flying in the clouds above an archipelago of islands floating in the sky. Some quick character expositions introduce your shipmates, who include two non-playable characters in the form of a baby dragon called Vyrn (with a somewhat annoying squeaky voice) and a girl called Lyria who, we learned, was somehow bound to Gran and had the ability to interact with (and summon) giant elemental behemoths called primal beasts. An overarching quest was revealed: Gran’s desire to get to the mythical, utopian island of Estalucia.
Gran’s other playable companions on the ship are a varied bunch including Io, a young female mage; female knight Katalina; the gun-wielding Eugen; ship’s navigator Rackam; and the Bayonetta-like Rosetta – all of who will be familiar to anyone who has previously played a Granblue Fantasy game.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink operates in real-time, rather than being turn-based, and melee and ranged (depending on the character you control) combos can be built up using the square and triangle buttons.
The gameplay centres on a four-character party, with characters able to combine to launch powerful Link attacks, which can be chained, given the right conditions and timing, into super-powerful attacks involving all four characters. Enemies can be stunned and a period of Link Time triggered, in which time is temporarily slowed so your party can inflict extra damage for a short period.
Before long, we arrived at a hub town, where the storyline really started to get into its stride and Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s structure and systems began to reveal themselves. The usual elements found in a Japanese role-playing game’s hub town seemed present and correct, including a merchant called Sierokarte who, it transpired, would reappear at every Hallowed Ground crystal – enabling you to save and restore health before tackling each stage of a mission.
In the same town, we were introduced to some of the game’s key systems, such as its skills tree. This is powered by Mastery Points, essentially XP, earned when fulfilling missions and levelling up. You have to spend Mastery Points individually for each playable character. Once spent, points cannot be redeemed and the skills trees offered both new abilities and opportunities to increase particular stats.
That structure seems to be designed to encouraged swapping members of your battle-team around as you progress, and keeping all of them levelled up, in case you should encounter specific enemies that would require individual approaches. Luckily, even in the early stages of the game, we could tell that Granblue Fantasy: Relink is pretty generous in the manner in which it doles out Mastery Points, which Kaji confirmed under questioning.
We also found a blacksmith, who will upgrade your weapons in exchange for a specific in-game currency and began to encounter Sigils – specific buffs and perks that can be attached to weapons and also upgraded. Large numbers of Sigils can be equipped and they are, apparently, particularly key in the game’s later stages. Lastly, we managed to unlock a new Skybound Art for each character before embarking on the next two chapters – allowing us to pick between two of a possible four.
Meeting a character called Rolan, who described himself as a Mr Fix-it, we decided which three characters of the party would accompany Gran (we could also have opted to play as any of them while the AI controlled Gran), jumped into an airship and headed to a nearby sky island where we found the locals beset by monsters who seemed to be stirred up by a mysterious wind.
As we worked our way through the island, eliminating groups of monsters and liberating gaggles of inhabitants, it became apparent that Granblue Fantasy: Relink isn’t a truly open world game – the way the map is chopped up into different islands sess to that.
Taking on the first boss, the AI seemed to work pretty well, with supporting characters healing us when required and firing off link and chain attacks at the right moments. Overall, the battle system felt great: responsive, layered, and tactical when up against more challenging enemies (although those were in fairly short supply in the early stages).
In the next part of our hands-on experience, we jumped into four-player co-op multiplayer, experiencing what Granblue Fantasy: Relink had to offer after its main storyline had been completed. Although that didn’t include any of the additional story gameplay, that game director Kaji had spoken about. There was plenty of flexibility to the process: Kaji confirmed that AI players could be swapped in for party members, and slots in four-player battle parties could even be left unfilled, in order to bump up the difficulty.
What we did experience was a number of quests accessed from the quest counter that could be found in any hub town, which proved quite varied, ranging from short, timed quests in which the party had to eliminate a set amount of enemies in a certain time to full-blown major boss battles. Key quests, which tended to be boss battles, also opened up new sets of quests. It looked as though Cygames had worked hard to design a large number of post-story quests.
Playing with three others was pretty good fun, although live communication via gaming headsets hadn’t been enabled in the game; tapping the PlayStation 5’s touchpad brought up an interface allowing communication via lists of phrases and emotes, however. A certain amount of pre-quest communication proved useful, making sure the party was balanced between support, melee, and ranged characters. And it was worth taking the effort to switch around Skybound Arts and Sigils, and visit the blacksmith to upgrade weapons before each quest.
We equipped an area-effect healing Skybound Art along with three that offered different ranged attacks (when playing as a melee-focused character), which came in especially handy during boss battles when low on health – although in typical genre fashion, we could also avail ourselves of health potions.
Finally, we were able to witness an example of the endgame in action, in the form of a fearsomely high-level boss called Radis Whitewyrm: a giant dragon with an array of fearsome attacks. The boss battle was enacted live, by two members of Cygames’ team. Their approach was interesting – the boss’s attacks were so powerful that being hit by two would have knocked out the weaker party member, the mage Io.
But Io has access to one of the most damaging Skybound Arts attacks, which has a long charging period. So she was accompanied by Eugen, the most tank-like of the game’s characters, buffed with Sigils that made him even tougher, and equipped with a Skybound Art that generated a temporary impenetrable shield.
The resulting spectacle was pretty entertaining and after the boss was beaten, Cygames promised that there were even tougher ones in Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s endgame. It certainly looks like a game with plenty to offer beyond its single-player storyline.
Our hands-on experience with Granblue Fantasy: Relink was an enjoyable one, which should excite aficionados of the genre. It is, without doubt, a heavyweight contender that has the sort of layered, nuanced battle system to take on the likes of Final Fantasy and NieR, along with a satisfying meatiness which should ensure significant longevity.
It also managed to avoid feeling generic: its general vibe, at least in the early stages, seemed a bit more naïve and pastoral than that of its peers, although darker undercurrents were beginning to emerge towards the end of the third chapter of the storyline. It felt nicely fettled and balanced, whether played solo or co-operatively with three others. Anyone with an interest in big, ambitious Japanese-flavoured action role-players would do well to put it on their radar.
Formats: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC
Publisher: Cygames
Developer: Cygames
Release Date: 1st February 2024
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