The good thing about RPGs is that they can take hundreds of hours to complete. The bad thing about them is that they can take hundreds of hours to complete.
Honestly, there’s little in all video games that beats the feeling of that final fade to black on a sweeping saga that takes the equivalent of a waking week to get through. Dreamy remembrance of the characters, music, battles, and plot points shove out memories of your childhood, and a beloved chapter of your gaming life is sealed in time. I certainly mentioned a few of those in my list of personal favorites.
But it takes a long time to hit that sweet spot where it all feels worth it naturally. Sure, the game might frontload with an operatic epic battle set piece, but it’s a long time before things get there again. There’s nothing wrong with that, primarily when it serves a story well to pace things so methodically, but there are so many other games you could be playing that don’t require your undivided attention for weeks and months..
So getting a more flexible, ‘’bite-size’’ RPG is a nice treat. A palate cleanser of sorts. Or maybe a little snack between hearty meals. While Cygames’ Granblue Fantasy: Relink potentially has hundreds of hours in the tank, its main story can be swept aside in half a day.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink Revels in Bite-Size Spectacle
Granblue Fantasy Relink sees a crew of adventurers in the Sky Realm get caught up in a plot that could see primal beasts cause the destruction of the world. This crew sails the skies, heading to the various floating isles that populate the world, in search of answers and picking plenty of fights along the way.
Given Granblue Fantasy’s success as a Gacha game on mobile, it’s no surprise to see Relink’s structure is mainly bite-sized and riddled with unlockables. And yet these are not the predatory red flags you’d think. Everything is easily unlockable through play, and you can see the end without hoping on the luck of the draw. It has an online co-op side, but it’s surprisingly not going for the live service dollars. No, GB Relink is an entertaining, casual action RPG that can offer you depth and challenge if you want it.
GB Relink can afford to look good doing it, with its story broken up into relatively small maps and moderately sized chapters. The key word that came to mind when playing the game was spectacle. Cygames sure knows how to present a spectacle. Colossal boss fights, skyfaring battles, and tried and trusted world-ending threats tell a familiar tale, but do so in a grandiose manner. Following the story path means you’re never too far from some big moment. As a fan of Kaiju movies, Granblue Fantasy: Relink unexpectedly ticked some boxes for me.
I’m the Captain, Now
The way combat plays out also lends itself to a pick-up-and-play style. Battles happen in real time, and the player controls one of four party members, utilizing their specialties to help turn the tide. Canonically, you play as the Captain (either Gran or Djeeta), an all-rounder perfect for the main story, but beyond that, there’s a wealth of character options both readily available and unlockable over time.
Playing as the Captain through the story made sense to me, as I could use the skills of my three party members to fill in the gaps in strength. Plus, it felt a lot less jarring for the main story to keep the original party members in play.
This visually striking game does feel a tad shallow and predictable, but there is something quite refreshing about having snack-sized RPG bites that feed me chunks of dazzling beauty and spectacle at a frequent pace. It’s a bit like a one-off anime series that eventually spins off into a looser, longer show. The budget gets poured into a set portion of the game, and anything left over does the job for the rather pleasant grind beyond.
Being able to tap out of that extra stuff without being punished on a narrative level was freeing. I didn’t feel obligated to do more, but it made me want to at least try because I was having fun in a loose, comfortable way. I just about got my money’s worth out of GB Relink’s story alone, so the significantly large portion after it was a nice bonus I feel I can dip in and out of without worrying about the plot.
