Hot off the heels of a preview event earlier this year, Wccftech recently went hands-on with the latest build of Granblue Fantasy: Relink of what might be one of the last preview events ahead of the February 1st launch. Cygames’ signature mobile gacha is given a fresh pair of wings and the freedom to fly as a story-driven action RPG spinoff from the main storyline. To get a deeper look at the soon-to-be-third console title in the Granblue Fantasy franchise, we sat down with Cygames ahead of The Game Awards to get a multi-hour-long second look at the title.

　　The pedigree of established character action developers shines through the moment you pick up a controller for the first time. While still constrained in the rules that dictate RPGs, from a cornucopia of stats and status effects, Relink still manages to work within those constraints without being boxed in. Captain Gran and his crew of adventurers still level up after each encounter with those all-important stats feeding directly into their power levels in ways that simply make sense. Character action RPGs typically veer away from the holy trinity of RPGs while dishing up DPS of every flavor.

　　That’s not the case here in Granblue Fantasy: Relink. Hostility, Granblue’s form of generated enmity, is the thin line that keeps your magical casters from suddenly having to tank the floor. Heavy body types can augment the amount of hostility they draw through imbuing their weapons with sigils and other various means, while raw DPS-centric characters should build towards reducing it as much as possible. As player progress through the story and dip their toes into the extensive postgame content, exploring sigil combinations to enhance that character’s natural strengths becomes a core pillar of working up toward the higher difficulty tiers (there’s never a good reason not to throw critical rate increases on every character).

　　Our hands-on preview of Granblue Fantasy: Relink ran through the first three chapters, skipping over the prologue that sets up the narrative. Gran and Djeena’s adventures take them to the city of Folca, a popular hub for adventurers wanting to earn their chops. Players can advance the main quest and narrative through a series of progressively more difficult quests, side quests where the odd NPC wants to see invasive fauna and goblins eradicated, and the group multiplayer that establishes the main pillar of Relink’s content. Because Cygames wouldn’t want players getting too beefy and grinding their way through the main story, players can raise their levels freely but breaking the level cap on their weapon takes materials and unlocks that don’t make their presence known until later chapters in the narrative. Every character level also offers up MSP that can be spent on any character to slowly fill out their talent trees, but if you’re a power gamer, every point could be invested into the character you like to play most (which might have to be Gran or Djeena given their insistence to take part in every four-player party in the campaign).

　　This December session was the first time that Cygames allowed us to take part in the multiplayer component of Granblue Fantasy: Relink. For those already intimately familiar with the hunting genre (Rathalos, not Cabela’s), the multiplayer loops are instantly recognizable, although I kept telling myself that the multiplayer was more in line with Ragnarok Odyssey from the PlayStation Vita days. Players can either host a quest or join one that’s actively recruiting and take part in a selection of missions completely separate from the main campaign. Our mission selection consisted of three different combat encounters, of which we picked a griffin as the target and went with a slew of melee-type attackers. Ghandagoza was my character of choice, particularly because of a personal fondness for his buffing and charge attack prowess.

　　Unfortunately, had we taken the time to properly prepare for the hunt, we would’ve realized that the griffin, being as it’s a bird at heart, would spend most of the time flying around the arena. For far too long, my Ghandagoza and other characters would run around underneath the griffin’s silhouette and jump in hopes of landing one or two melee hits. Had we brought in a single spellcaster or ranged attacker, the fight most likely would have gone so much smoother. Sadly, because we couldn’t touch the griffin long enough to pull off a flashy skill combo, the fight took much longer than anticipated and easily went well beyond the ten-minute window that would’ve guaranteed a higher score and, thus, higher loot drops.

　　Boss fights, from the lowly goblin war chief to the awe-inspiring proto-beasts, all come with their own unique attack patterns and group mechanics. Glowing red circles inform players to make haste and evade the oncoming attacks. During the level 50 fights, these might be a small series of tornadoes in a row while scaling up to the endgame fight we watched against a level 135 wyvern fills the entire battlefield with elemental storms that require the utmost care in dodging and blocking to avoid being knocked out in a single blow. Investing in those perfect dodge skills at the beginning of the talent tree for each character will be paramount to surviving these endgame challenges.

　　Just a few months after the last preview event for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, there isn’t much to talk about in terms of drastic changes to the visuals and gameplay that weren’t already discussed. Both the English and Japanese dubs are up to the Granblue Fantasy standards and fit the plethora of characters under the Captain’s watchful eye quite well. Character models appear more polished than before, with only a minor amount of aliasing. Combat is likewise just as snappy as I remembered it, and combos flow freely into link attacks for devastating results. Both the English and Japanese dub tracks are solid work with several familiar voice actors popping up when you least expect them. Cygames could probably ship the game right now and be playable after The Game Awards, but alas, fans still have a fairly lengthy wait to endure until February 1st, 2024 (which admittedly is just a drop in the bucket compared to how long the title went from announcement to the first glimpses of gameplay).

　　Granblue Fantasy: Relink will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. Early adopters on PlayStation will receive a serial code that can be used in the mobile Granblue Fantasy title to unlock wearable Rebelwear for the main Captain and either the Eternals’ Transcendence Set or Evoker’s Domain Set (you’ll need to also purchase Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising for the other Set).