Navigating uncharted territory to create new experiences can be daunting, especially when the endeavour is already riddled with expectations right from the start. Cygames’ wildly-popular Granblue Fantasy series, which started as a role-playing mobile game in 2014, has enjoyed the fruits of risk-taking with spin-off brawlers Granblue Fantasy Versus and its sequel, Versus Rising, but Granblue Fantasy: Relink presents a different kind of challenge.
The upcoming adventure marks the franchise’s first foray into the action role-playing game (ARPG) genre, which traditionally features flashy attack combos, real-time combat, and manoeuvres like dodging and blocking. On-screen action is almost always busy, awash with bright colours, striking visual effects, and slick animation.
It’s one thing to develop a new ARPG, and another to have it set in the greater universe of the mobile game, however. Since Granblue Fantasy: Relink tells an original story with familiar faces, one of the bigger challenges is striking a balance between accommodating newcomers and satisfying the existing player base. The team’s approach, as shared by game director Yasuyuki Kaji, was to establish a fresh combat experience around a core mechanic from its mainline counterpart.
“Granblue Fantasy is a four-player party RPG, and one of the most satisfying parts of it is the Chain Burst. We didn’t want to disappoint fans of the original, so we added more [gameplay] elements based on that,” he said in a group interview held for select Southeast Asia media in the company’s office in Tokyo, Japan.
“As such, one of the first concepts we incorporated was that you move as a four-member team in the action game.”
This execution isn’t limited to AI companions, too. While primarily a single-player title, Granblue Fantasy: Relink also features co-op elements, where players can host or join a party and complete quests together as various characters from the roster. The teamwork component, alongside the focus on Chain Bursts and Link Attacks – tag-team assaults activated in tandem with another party member – brings some depth to the gameplay and switches things up, which is something Kaji emphasises.
“When you have a four-player game, it’s important to think about how to make it interesting. For Link Attacks, you can think about how you can use your abilities to be of use to your comrades and vice versa, or calculate timings to create chances to attack together. Depending on how you time your attacks together, you can also activate Link Time, which is one of the most rewarding elements,” explained the director.
In Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Link Time is triggered when the party’s link level reaches 100 per cent, achieved through the use of Link Attacks. The more frequent they are, the faster the gauge fills; once it maxes out, time will slow down for a short window while characters’ health regenerates. It’s a mechanic exclusive to the upcoming ARPG, but Tetsuya Fukuhara, general director for the IP, shared that it encompasses more of the franchise’s essence than the Granblue Fantasy Versus games.
“Versus, as a one-on-one fighting game, is a bit different from what you’d expect from Granblue Fantasy, but this is more in line with the original game. So fans who’ve enjoyed it up to this point will enjoy Relink, and for those who haven’t played Granblue Fantasy before, we think the multiplayer aspect will make it appealing to them,” said the series veteran.
Indeed, our experience with a short hands-on preview echoes this sentiment. The difference in each character’s play style and overall feel is prominent, and combat elements – from landing a hit and dodging attacks to zipping around mid-air – are a smooth, enthralling affair. Part of the credit goes to Kaji, who drew on his past experiences with Bayonetta 2 and NieR: Automata to refine the ARPG formula.
“I’ve learned a lot about what’s important when it comes to an action game. For example, when a button is pressed, it has to feel like your character is throwing a hit,” the former PlatinumGames employee shared. “A lot of attention was also put into timing adjustments, and different motions, as well as when effects should appear and disappear.”
He added, “This isn’t limited to just the characters but also extends to stage design, like the depth of the environment, and whether there is airborne gameplay. For button mashing, the concept for us was that it had to give off a good sensation.”
The detail to attention is important to shaping the ARPG structure, particularly for a game that Kaji considers to be more “action than RPG”, which means more emphasis on technical skills like dodging, blocking, and chaining attacks than over-reliance on gear and weapons. However, he and Fukuhara are quick to assure that Granblue Fantasy: Relink will be approachable for newcomers, with various difficulty levels, an Assist Mode, prompts that guide players, and some classic RPG elements offsetting the leap into an unfamiliar genre.
“We want players of other genres to enjoy the joy of battle, so the difficulty is quite low in the beginning,” Fukuhara said. “We also want them to play the main story without a lot of challenges, whereas each of the quests is set to different difficulty levels; that way, players with more experience can play to their liking.”
For ARPG veterans, Granblue Fantasy: Relink promises more in store. A robust roster and customisation system encourage players to mess around with team compositions and ability loadouts, while endgame content packs some of the most difficult fights in the game. It looks to be an adventure for most camps, from genre novices to co-op enthusiasts, so it’s only natural that longtime fans will be in for a little treat as well.
“If you get bored of the same character, you’ll have an entirely new experience by playing a different character,” teased Fukuhara. “If you do so, they have different dialogues [between each other] – I would love for fans to try that out.”
Granblue Fantasy: Relink will come to PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam on 1 February 2024.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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