Granblue Fantasy: Relink was one of the more surprising JRPGs in recent years. This is partly because the game had a notoriously troubled development cycle, yet turned out to be excellent (generally, if something takes eight years and multiple different developers to finish, it’s going to be terrible). It’s also because it’s one of the rare cases of a junk mobile title being turned into something genuinely worth playing.
Of course, if there’s one thing that’s universally true of mobile developers and publishers, it’s that they’re not going to let a good thing go without squeezing it for everything it’s worth. Enter Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok. I have to believe the title is a knowing wink on the part of the developers, because “endless content” is both true of mobile games and one of the worst things about them, and it does seem like they’ve borrowed from this design philosophy for the expanded game.
Endless Ragnarok adds more stuff to the post-game after you’ve hit the credits of the main quest. It gives you six new playable characters, some roguelike progression, new character customisation and combat mechanics. It also goes crossplay for multiplayer, which is nice because the game is new to the Switch and, one presumes, a lot of players will have buddies that are already stuck into the game on one of the previous platforms.
And new story content. Oh yes. Lots more content. You’ll visit the quest counter, go grind away and kill a bunch of enemies, and then get a little memory cut scene the next time you visit the quest counter. It’s very MMO design, in that the story elements are presented in such a way that they won’t slow down the co-op gameplay when one of the players in the party wants to see the story stuff. It’s also very MMO, in that the story stuff is there purely for the sake of having a density of content. The story doesn’t have anything important, challenging, or thematically rich to say. That’s true of the main game too, of course, but at least the main game had great party dynamics and fun characterisation that was building somewhere. By the time you get to Ragnarok’s content, however, there’s nowhere really to go, so all those characters, likeable as they are, just stagnate out.
On the gameplay side, as mentioned, there are roguelike elements – so, content for the sake of content – but there are additions that are fun to mess around with. Being able to directly control summons is the main one. For a game that was always about the power fantasy, it’s surprising that this wasn’t the case from the start, but it’s enormously satisfying to be able to smash your way through with those beasts of power. Very Final Fantasy.
The developers also went back to fix some of the weaker elements of the base game, like the character progression systems, and, as mentioned, the game’s finally in portable form thanks to being on the Switch. It’s not the perfect effort – it would have been nice for them to have taken a crack at right-sizing the interface for the Switch 2’s screen, given that it’s smaller than a large TV and therefore menu items and fonts look tiny. The gorgeous level of detail in the game is also lost a little, though the art direction remains beautiful.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok is still Relink, and as I mentioned in my original review, it has the potential to be the next big console JRPG property: “I refuse to play mobile gatcha games (in part because I know that I’m the kind of personality that would get too hooked on a favourite one if I found one). However, I have always found Granblue Fantasy’s vision and promise particularly intriguing. The fighting game whet my appetite, but Granblue Fantasy Relink has been my first real exposure to the property. Not only are the characters, setting, lore and world building every bit as enjoyable as I hoped from all the promo material I’ve seen over the years, but for a “spin-off” this is a much better action RPG than I was anticipating. While eight years is no doubt longer than Cygames hoped to spend developing Granblue Fantasy Relink, the wait has been worth it, and this is, potentially, the start of a very big new property that will rival the best that Bandai Namco, SEGA and Square Enix produce.”
However, I do think that Ragnarok is a sign that the fledgling series (of one title so far) could go the wrong way. I appreciate that the DNA of a free-to-play property is the Granblue name, obviously, but the console titles should be an opportunity to build the name into something meaningful. Not just continue to churn out endless content to keep people playing.
