GranBlue Fantasy is one of the biggest anime franchises in the world, and yet its rise to stardom was the reverse of many of its peers, beginning life as a hit mobile game before extending into animation and manga. Whatever its roots, the tale, set within the multiple kingdoms of the Zegagranda Skydom, follows Gran and his companions across the skies, and now Cygames are set to bring the GranBlue Fantasy world to a wider audience with GranBlue Fantasy: Relink, a third-person action RPG with visuals lifted straight out of the anime.
Our hands-on gave us a great chance to check out a good portion of the game, and more importantly the combat that lies at the heart of Relink. The demo allowed us to play as series hero Gran, as well as Siegfried, Rackam, Katalina, Io, Charlotta and Lancelot, with each character boasting their own set of special moves and abilities, as well as their own particular fighting style. While you’re pummelling a series of skeletons and other suitably evil bad guys, the dragon-like Vryn floats around delivering words of advice in his own delightfully annoying way.
Relink ascribes to the hack-and-slash school of anime combat, and whether you’re rocking Gran, Katalina or Lancelot, you’re building up combos with your pointy implement of choice. As you connect with hits you’re filling the Link Time metre, triggered when you reach 100%, and each member of the party performs a link attack. During this time enemy movement is slowed down, and you’re given a bunch of buffs as well such as increased attack power and health regeneration. As we found during our hands-on, it’s the perfect thing for taking down a giant boss character!
Gerasene is that giant boss, and he’s a huge skeleton that’s ready to pound you into the dirt. Our demo was time-limited – though I doubt we’ll see that in the final release – and while I got to take a couple of runs through, it was clear that if you didn’t use the Link attacks at the correct time it was much slower going for you and your teammates against this huge foe. It was a lot of fun avoiding Gerasene’s attacks, and while this certainly isn’t a Souls or a Monster Hunter game, there’s some of that DNA unexpectedly sneaking through.
Like Monster Hunter, though, you can take to Relink’s battlefields with up to three friends. Just like that series this feels as though it’s going to be even better with a full team of companions alongside you, and pulling together to fire off your attacks at the right time will need communication and teamwork.
GranBlue Fantasy: Relink is certainly the best-looking digital outing we’ve had from the series, building on the fantastic visuals of GranBlue Fantasy Versus, and turning the same bold, manga-esque lines to third-person combat. The different link attacks add plenty of visual flair as well, with a host of animations punctuating each battle with cinematic style. This is a universe that has found a huge number of fans around the world, and they’ll love just how vibrant and true to the anime Relink is.
GranBlue Fantasy: Relink looks like it’s going to be another anime hit, and while it’s going to delight fans of the series, there’s plenty of action for hack-and-slash devotees as well.
GranBlue Fantasy Relink launches for PS5, PS4 and PC on the 1st February 2024.
