Adapting a long-running game series in a new form presents a lot of challenges. You need to bring new players up to speed without boring series fans and balance the gameplay to feel true to the series without just rehashing what you’ve done before. At least, that’s one way to do it. Now on PlayStation Plus, Granblue Fantasy: Relink does almost no work to get new players caught up on the story while completely changing its gameplay from its gacha roots — and as strange as those choices are, it results in a phenomenal action RPG nonetheless.
Granblue Fantasy dates back to a 2014 mobile gacha game that’s had a lot of success in Japan but remains relatively obscure elsewhere. That makes it a bit odd that both the fighting game Granblue Fantasy: Versus and Granblue Fantasy: Relink got a worldwide release in 2020 and 2024, respectively, and even more surprising how well they both turned out. And while neither game has much in common with the original mobile Granblue Fantasy, both draw on its biggest strength as a gacha game — its enormous roster of characters.
