The Granblue Fantasy collection has by no means significantly appealed to me. Maybe the likes of Persona, Xenoblade, and Fireplace Emblem are in charge — my ‘stunning anime folks in large fights’ cup overfloweth — making the considered taking up one other large anime-flavoured RPG a bit too intimidating. Effectively, after 45 minutes with action-RPG Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Countless Ragnarok, I feel I’m beginning to see the attraction.
Initially launched in 2024 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection, Relink was a serious step for the collection’ foray into gaming. It’s been a mighty fashionable sausage within the years since, racking up over two million purchases and pulling in a want for ‘extra’ within the course of.
Three post-launch expansions had been deliberate, Cygames tells us collected journos on the preview occasion earlier than revealing the hands-on demo, however the dev felt that the sport’s surprising reputation known as for one thing meatier. Enter Countless Ragnarok.
That is the primary time that the sport will probably be obtainable on Swap 2, it’s true, however this model provides extra moreover a brand new platform. There are new characters and storylines, contemporary fight mechanics and executives to make use of them on, and an all-new Conflux mode for these after one thing a bit extra roguelike-y.
I didn’t get to see all of this in my hands-on time — the devs estimate that the sport is roughly 1.5x larger now, with almost double the playtime (HLTB places the earlier model’s ‘Fundamental + Sides’ at 32 hours) — however from what I did catch, Swap 2 appears like an almighty becoming residence for this.
For collection newbies like me, Relink is a bit overwhelming from the bounce. I used to be met by two tutorials on beginning up my demo, which launched me to the sport’s Summon and Grasp Trait mechanics through an enormous monster battle.
Stated tutorials had been refreshingly hands-off, with the sport choosing a ‘you’ll determine it out your self’ strategy over fixed pop-ups, although it did imply that issues grew to become a bit a lot as I used to be welcomed to the world of Abilities, Group Up assaults, and big transformations, all whereas making an attempt to make sense of the gameplay’s fixed harm/therapeutic numbers and influence marks. PlatinumGames was initially on the mission earlier than Cygames took over, and it actually exhibits — there’s Bayonetta and NieR power all through all of this.
With sufficient newbie’s information below my belt, I used to be thrown into my first quest, a battle towards an enormous foe. This flying one-eyed beastie known as for some extra teamwork proficiency, and I quickly settled into the rhythms of utilizing Gran’s buff and therapeutic expertise to focus on my allies and assist them out accordingly.
The chaos of the entire thing grew to become a bit simpler to parse, too. I wasn’t being hit by almost as many assaults (reward the lord for the ‘Maintain Y to get well’ knockdown system), and dare I say, I even began to fireside off my expertise and summons while not having to remind myself of their goal first.
It might all be youngster’s play for these well-versed within the sport, I’m certain, however for somebody fresh-faced, it’s the sort of milestone that I don’t handle to hit with all ARPGs. Sturdy work there, then. If it would not hit like that for you however you need to push via regardless, there is a new Help Mode this time round to make the fight that bit extra accessible.
I significantly appreciated the smaller challenges thrown in in the course of the quests, giving me a collection of subtasks to consider (defeat the monster throughout the allotted time, don’t get downed an excessive amount of, destroy X variety of environmental hazards) when the battle acquired a bit hit-spongey. These big monsters can take a success or two hundred, so it’s good to have another goals on the go to maintain the ol’ mind field energetic.
All of it appeared to carry up actually fairly nicely on Swap 2, too. There’s a lot occurring on display at anybody time that I wouldn’t need to attempt to put a exact quantity on the body charge, however I observed only a few drops even when issues acquired particularly hectic. The visible model seems a bit too much like each different fairly fantasy anime collection on the system for my liking, however that’s to not say it’s remotely harsh on the attention.
Having wrapped up a quest to 2, I used to be thrown ahead into the brand new Conflux sport mode, the place the fight actually began to sing.
Each sport has a roguelike spin as of late, and Relink is not any exception. This mode had me battling via waves of enemies earlier than hopping into one in every of two portals, every providing me a collection of danger/reward potentialities. It’s the same loop to what we’ve seen beforehand with the likes of Shredder’s Revenge’s Dimension Shellshock DLC and even Hades, however there’s no denying that it’s a format that works.
Each few portals, there’s a boss stage, tasking you and your social gathering to take out a much bigger enemy earlier than shifting on and sweeping up some bigger rewards within the course of. Firing on all cylinders with the controls by this level (once more, rookie stuff in comparison with what some folks on the market are able to, I’m certain), I appreciated the elevated problem of each stage and the potential to check out totally different methods on the fly.
Did it get a bit repetitive the longer I performed? After all it did, however I am certain the scaling problem would have saved issues attention-grabbing if I had longer than ~20 minutes with it.
There’s nonetheless a variety of Relink that I am but to see (I acquired solely a whiff of the stacked character roster, and did not contact the single-player marketing campaign), however assuming all of it holds up in addition to the slice I acquired to go hands-on with, I can see this being a success on Swap 2.
As anybody who performed the 2024 launch will let you know, co-op is the place Relink actually comes into its personal. It is one other characteristic that I did not get to see for myself this time, however Cygames has promised full crossplay and Swap 2 wi-fi native co-op, too. If you happen to’ve been dying for some late-night monster searching with buddies, this is likely to be the place to look.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Countless Ragnarok launches on Swap 2 on ninth July 2026. Will you be checking it out? Tell us within the feedback.
