I'm a big fan of the classical fantasy world of Granblue Fantasy. There's just one problem: I don't actually like any of the games. I adore the art of the games, and I enjoyed the narrative crash course of the series' promotional anime, but the titular game is an infamously grindy gacha and the fighting game spinoffs honestly scare me even more. So I'm immensely pleased to hear that Granblue Fantasy: Relink, an action JRPG that's finally approaching launch some eight years after its reveal, is a deliberately different take on the series.
In issue 389 of Edge magazine, Relink general director Tetsuya Fukuhara discusses the direction of the upcoming JRPG. "It's not that we're trying to funnel players into the mobile game or keep them in the spin-off universe," he begins, "it's rather that we recognize that some people don't necessarily like playing mobile games and some people don't necessarily like console games. So just providing games within the Granblue universe that everyone wants to play is our objective."
Hi, it's me, I'm people. Granblue Fantasy: Relink, for me, is shaping up to be more than just a promising, Tales-esque action JRPG. It may also finally give me a way to properly explore and enjoy what seems like a really cool universe. It's had some serious development troubles, but Relink's latest trailers have looked pretty solid, especially the one with all the exceedingly Final Fantasy 16-style monster fights.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is now due February 1, 2024 on PS4, PS5, and PC (Steam).
Way back in 2020, an encouraging hands-on preview of Relink teased what could be "Monster Hunter by way of Devil May Cry," which sounds like Exactly My Jam.
