This game's combat fuses the very best elements from Tales of Arise, Final Fantasy 16/14, and Monster Hunter Rise. Absolutely worth your time and money. I'm in the end game and it has wildly exceeded my expectations!

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I’m glad to read that you’re loving it! I can’t wait to play the new characters!

@castoputa

6 ай бұрын

There’s a nice dash of Wild Hearts too, this game is like the best bits of all the games I love the most, hard to describe it to people though lol

@tommydannybruv

6 ай бұрын

End game in less than a week of release? Doesn't seem like there's much to do in the game.

Grabbed this today instead of Persona 3 because I wanted a shorter game and it was described by one outlet as “Like a warm hug”

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

That’s an interesting take! It’s definitely a bold way to tell the story, and I like it for that!

@Jake9066

6 ай бұрын

I already own (FES on PS2, Portable on PSP, Portable on PC, etc.), so I'm heavily leaning this way instead of P3 again.

@JeannieLove

6 ай бұрын

​@@Jake9066I highly recommend it, especially if you like quest/mission based genes.

as someone who just beat the “short” base game, i still sank about 15 hours into it doing some of the side missions, and i skipped a lot of cutscenes because they give you a synopsis paragraph about what you’re skipping and it is a very simple story. Tip: when using your first Crewmate Card, you can get a character and try them out in the practice arena, then just quit out without saving and reload your save. that helped me avoid buyer’s remorse with new playable characters

Very well written review! I'm about 15ish hours in and loving the game. I'm only on chapter 8 cause I've been doing everything as they pop up (side quest, trying every character, missions, exploring every area throughly, etc.) So i think i will actually hit their estimated 20-25 hours before hitting post game. That being said, yes the story is short but i think it's decent for what it is. But I've indulged in the granblue fantasy franchise (the mobile game i only play VERY rarely on and off again) for awhile now so i knew kind of what to expect. No crazy wild twist but a feeling of a living breathing world with a rich lore in a gorgeous art style, and amazing character designs. For some like myself this works well. For others i can understand why it would feel a little lacking narrative wise. TLDR; so far i think the games really great.

@sierrablue2206

6 ай бұрын

What I personally like about the story is it feels like a fun and enjoyable adventure.

I think the 20-25 hours they cited is including going through the Hard-Very Hard quests until you unlock Extreme and finish the null chapter. Either way, credits at 10-15 hours felt fine, any longer and it may have over stayed its welcome. Or I could just feel that way because I wanted to get to the quest mode as Easy and Normal only felt supplemental.

Awesome review. Will grabbed it one day when on sale as money is tight

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I feel you!

Great review - definitely on my birthday wishlist now!

Really solid review, Alex. This game is visually gorgeous, if I ever buy a PS5, I'll definitely be picking this one up!

I feel they may have been cheeky and included chapter 0 in the 20 hour main story runtime, I’ve put about 40 hours in sofar myself and loving every second of it, I hope they continue to support this game long term and keep adding content!

@JeannieLove

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, I just commented about this myself. Guess credits rolling doesn't always mean the end. I do like that they continued the story in the quest mode.

@JeannieLove

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, I just commented about this myself. Guess credits rolling doesn't always mean the end. I do like that they continued the story in the quest mode.

This is the best review of the game that i have ever heard of. Thank you.

Got this game 2 days ago and i am in-love! Did not regret getting this instead of call of duty mw3. Hope they have future dlc's coming.

@jinyboi

6 ай бұрын

They already announced a slew of dlc in the making

@BlackBladeSombra

6 ай бұрын

We have a new raid boss coming up with 2 new characters dropping a little later and even more yet to be revealed content in may

Legend of Mana was a 9 out of 10 for me. Legend of Mana in Couch Co-Op adventuring and leveling up with my best friend made it unequivocally the greatest Action-JRPG of all time IMPO. So something going for that immediately has my attention! EDIT: This review sold me on it, I'm totally buying this dang game! Thanks B-L-B!

@fu102

6 ай бұрын

its for sure a bit of the old mana vibe. this is worth your purchase, enjoy it now that the launch kinks are patched.

This video explained the game better than any other review ive seen so far. Ill probably get it when it goes on heavy sale.

This game is such a blast! I convinced my friends to pick this up, and they're absolutely loving it. Can't wait to party up with them tomorrow.

Good review, keep it up ❤

I feel like this game is a balanced mix of God Eater games and Tales of Arise. God Eater games are really similar to MH but are faster paced and more focused on flashy skills

I was set on not getting this game after the hype died down due to its many delays. But this honestly ticks all the boxes of a great JRPG in my book. Will be copping this along with ff7 rebirth this year

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

It’s super fun! And I’m kinda hoping we can build something so people in the community can play together!

@jinyboi

6 ай бұрын

My biggest gripe is that ps players can't crossplay with Pc players

Is this co-op multiplayer only? Can I play it offline as a single player game?

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

You can play it offline either by yourself or with AI party members

Thanks for the review. Glad to hear the game was worth the wait.

It took me 23 hours to beat it. That was going straight thru the game with minimal sidetracking so it was spot on for me. My friend did it 15 or so.

Loving and enjoying this game.. agree on all your points but i have to say.. the game has gacha mechanic when trying to acquire the ultimate sigils.. but the good thing is you don't need to use real world money for this gacha mechanic..

Great review Alex! I was gonna get this game to play with friends but this review made me realize its not for me. I hated monster hunter and i cant justify spending that much for only 10-15 hours of story. I look forward to your next vid!

@WaruiDeshou

6 ай бұрын

Depending on why you hated MonHun, you may still enjoy this. Can't do anything about the single player length, though :)

I have this on my wishlist, I'm glad to hear it's even a little similar to Xenoblade because I've been looking for a game to scratch that sort of itch since I beat all the Switch titles last year and now that's my favourite series. I'll definitely be trying out the demo soon

@BacklogBattle

3 ай бұрын

I've seen some others mention Xenoblade in the comments and I don't quite agree with that comparison. Honestly, I'm a bit confused as to how these comparisons came about, given that its general gameplay loop, story and character progression, all don't match up with what I see in Xenoblade.

@TheFaceSoap

3 ай бұрын

@@BacklogBattle huh fair enough then. I'll keep that in mind, I guess I see big monsters in JRPGs and immediately default to thinking of Xenoblade since I played it lol, thanks for replying

@BacklogBattle

3 ай бұрын

No problem! All in all, the demo is a pretty accurate representation of how the game plays, so it's good that you're considering checking it out!

I’m switch player so hopefully it released eventually after great marketing, it’s combat and story reminds me of Xenoblade 2 but not much focus on characters so hopefully they improve it.

Going to ask before watching, will playing Granblue Fantasy Versus help with me knowing the plot and cast of this game?

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

The plot is entirely original, so no. And from what I recall, Versus doesn’t really do alot of backstories to introduce its characters. Relink does, to an extent, and I talk about it in the video

@SUPERVEGETTO92

6 ай бұрын

Ah, thanks

@aquamanzx

6 ай бұрын

I think having versus background will help your familiarize with gbf world better since relink mostly rely on ingame wiki to inform about the backstory and past event wich mostly tookplace in vs story

wow weird, all 8 years of seeing stuff about this game and I had teh wrong idea of what it was the ENTIRE time, terrible job on advertising but I might pick this up for 4 player online gaming where I rarely pay any attention to teh story anyways

I knew right from the get-go that a lot of people were complaining that the story was very short or that the gameplay was repetitive that these people were not paying attention to the development that this game underwent for the past several years. They got understand that this was made by a team that took one part of a development idea from 1 developer then try to develop their own thing from scratch and while yes it took a really long time and yes maybe the story is short and yes maybe it's repetitive but come on, you have characters that play differently from each other meaning you HAVE a reason to play the cast. Not to mention they actually promise that we're gonna be getting a whole bunch of stuff even after you beat the main story so I really don't see the problem. And while the story may be simplistic, it also doesn't suffer from modern gaming like a lot of filler JUST to get to more parts of the story and I did have a feeling that the plot would be straight forward, but I took into account that since this is based off of a mobile game I can already tell that we're not gonna get like say a God Eater type of narrative of an original story and it takes like 30 hours to complete. I'm just happy overall that this game came out despite going through development hell for several years and considering that people still wanted to play The Game despite the short story length but there's so much Content that is Here and the Content that we're gonna be getting After You beat the main story within a few months, I do think that it's More than enough incentive to actually play this game instead of just be complaining that the story is so short. In other words I would have been more mad if the story was short and we didn't get a whole bunch of characters already to play as and you have to wait month after month just to play as the rest of the cast. Great job on the review Alex!

This game has been so much fun. The combat is just too good. Lancelot is now my favorite. Char was for the entire campaign then i got endgame together and man lance wrecks and is so fast and easy to dodge with.

@yass3425

6 ай бұрын

I want to main him as well does he work well as first pick?

@itz_x_salvation395

6 ай бұрын

@yass3425 I would assume so yes, but I picked char as my first until i finished the story then I changed but Lance is just so fast and his triangle allows him to dodge so you can be a dancing god around the fight and never get hit. If I started again he would be my first pick to play for sure.

Is it worth the 60 dollar? Find it abit too much. Inalso want to try Chained Echoes. Also how is the game when playing solo

@BL4CKF4NG

6 ай бұрын

Personally i say yes it's worth it.. main story is on the shorter side but the meat on the stick are the post game contents and they are adding extra contents monthly like new heroes/enemies/quests..

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

As a solo player, this was super fun! The AI is very smart, and you can even remove them from your party if you don’t want help and make things harder! IMO if you value gameplay a lot you’re going to love this game

@Rayan01012

6 ай бұрын

Thanks i might give it a try when there is a sale

Amazing game. What a surprise.

Thanks for the review Alex! I really am intrigued by this one! I've talked with my wife about how what I want from most gatcha games is for them be interpreted as traditional RPGs; i.e. we get the intetesting characters, story, and mechanics without the gatcha trappings. Will definitely be a future pickup!

This game looks amazing

Just put this down omg grandblue was awesome. Even as a bitesized game was fab. And now on to persona 3 reload

The granblue fantasy (mobile game) main story is not very deep because it needs to be never-ending. However, where the story really shines is in the Fate Episodes and the Side Story. Some makes you laugh out loud, some makes you cry in sorrow, others in happiness, and then there is this thing called Unbound Asterism....

I will be playing this after I’m done with the lad infinite wealth

Just saw chaotiks review right before this, and his one sentence sums it really well, that this is an anti gacha game. This lets people experience a typical AAA gacha/genshin game without the gacha elements and live service model. Ik people are not gono like it compared to genshin but I can't unsee it now.

IMO the campaign might be on the shorter side but it is jam-pack wich super fun and epic encounter back to back that Im having the ratatouille critic moment Reliving the time i play KH2 as a kid Noone made game like this anymore im having a blast

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

The set pieces are incredible! I love jumping from ship to ship just to take them down! And I actually didn’t mind protecting that one lady from all those monsters! Super fun encounters!

@dreioo8759

6 ай бұрын

The KH comparisson's got me all gitty. I've been chasing the KH high for a long time

After all these gloomy dark rpgs these are my favorite. That’s why I still love ff9

Oof! Every time I hear about this game's really short story mode I die a little inside lol I got this game, just like any game I get, for the story and characters first and foremost so hearing it really is just a measly 10-20 hours really bums me out cause the mobile game is out and the Versus'' fighting gameplay is not a favorite of mine and the story is not the main focus there either. Here I thought I get to enjoy the characters and this world much more than in Versus but nope, it's another gameplay focused one.😭 Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun, flashy, and easy to understand which is great for me but after a while I'll get bored of just fighting and fighting all the time without any meaty lengthy story cutscenes in between. Sigh, oh well. I'll enjoy it but it'll most likely be at the bottom of my most enjoyed game in the batch of games that I recently got/will get which are Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, Persona 3 Reload, and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Shame but at least I have those games to enjoy to make up for this one's very short story.

This game is a great and if you have any sort of interest in action RPGs this game is definitely for you, the story is great but most of your time will be spent playing with friends or the quests anyways, and for the price of this game being only 60 dollars rather then 70, that isn't a huge reason to anything other then showing the devs aren't greedy, at least until the expansions release for 30 dollars later on down the line 🤣

i am so looking forward to getting this (on sale of course, i have never bought a game at full price)

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

Of course! The game will still be fun regardless of the price!

Only if dd2 did the same as granblue 😂, Its so much fun playing with friend and have smart ai

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I still have nightmares of my Pawns being dumb in DD 😅

I am interested, but honestly I have too many new games over the next three months and backlog. To make me want to put my game time to just a battle grinder. These just seems like a battle arena boss grinder. If it has staying power I may circle back to it on a few months, but I expect it will be empty by then.

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I can tell you that the story is absolutely not just a boss arena, as I’ve showcased in the video. And I do recommend playing this with others as it does up the enjoyment of it

@Trace153

6 ай бұрын

@@BacklogBattle I am talking about the end game the “monster hunter bits”. As the story here does not strike me as one I would love/like or want to play over the other games I have were story is one of the pillars and not just added to say it’s there. Any game is more fun with friends if you can get them on the game and playing with you more than a few times is another matter. Playing with randoms is just as boring as with bots. In monster hunter you have the world to play in and “live in” this seems just like a hub where you pick missions and repeat the best grinding ones over and over to make numbers go higher.

I bought the collector's edition, but I think I will return it, I definitely a story focused kind of guy and have been a little disappointed with reviews, I will likely just pick it up later on sale, if I'm gonna sink 80 or more hours in a game a need a story to keep me going. It looks fun, just not for me!

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I’m usually very story focused too, but the gameplay and character variety is something that I’ve loved! I want to master every character!

@fu102

6 ай бұрын

I quite like the story of Relink. Its not deep, BUT the characters are. Im not one to really care that much about bonding to video game characters, but this game legit makes me want more screen time for a few of them because their personalities and backstory are so dang good.

I wish this game didnt had cooldowns, it really holds the combat back from being stellar Its just not an engaging thing to put into a fast paced hack n slash game

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

The cooldowns exist because those are elements from both the fighting game and the original game and are part of the franchise's design that does away with MP and those types of secondary cost systems. It's also a way to keep a similar feeling for the games across several genres.

I’m good on this. I’m gonna wait for Dragons Dogma 2.

Monster Hunter isn't rigid, it's deliberate. It's not supposed to be twitch combat. In fact, that's what makes this comparison to MH inaccurate and silly. The combat looks more like recent Y's entries to me.

@WaruiDeshou

6 ай бұрын

I think he meant deliberate and weighty. He goes on to talk about GBF's ability to cancel animations to further the contrast. I agree that the combat is very Ys, but the quest-based structure and multiplayer component warrants comparison to Capcom's flagship series. Therefore, it is good to point out how different the two games can feel in the moment to moment combat.

How is this game now? Ive just seen the player count is there anything driving people away from this game?

It is good, but it is VERY repetitive and I wish you could tone down the effects, sometimes I can't see what is happening.

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I think understanding what’s happening counts down to learning how the game is showing your character and the tells. Comparatively, I think Tales of Arise actually had some crazier effects that almost obscured everything onscreen!

@hakunamatata7056

6 ай бұрын

@@BacklogBattle But you can't deny it that sometimes has too much things happening at once, especially when boss goes overdrive, then you have a bunch of effect on screen, BIG damage numbers, you and your party using skills and the boss using big AOE attacks. Even on Reddit or Steam forums people are asking for a way to tone down effects.

I will play and enjoy this game probably this summer, but I am glad I did not preorder it because of the story length. The art style is very nice.

I wish it had more story and exploration. The moment I found it was going to have co-op, my hype died. Now, the story is just a tutorial for the battle system. Bummer.

I just finished the game today at 16 hours and can easily say that GranBlue Fantasy: Relink is what the Tales of Series spent decades trying to achieve.

idk if its just me but god this game is too saccharine. like love is the strongest magic saccharine. and maybe its cause i didnt play the gacha but i have 0 clue who these people are and why i should care about them. especially the blue haired girl that everyone in my party is absolutely foaming at the mouth over.

@kvltslime2261

6 ай бұрын

like all these places and people that pop up like a fucking end credit marvel plug with 0 explanation for anything lol. the combat is cool though

i found the gameplay very messy and confused visually, pretty disappointed tbh, reselling it already; not for me, the story and characters are also very lame... the endgame also seems a pretty huge waste of my time; no regrets

This looks interesting, but multiple reviewers mentioned the unique story campaign content ends MUCH sooner than expected. I don't know how I feel about a game that turns into a Lite MMO, and whose fun heavily relies on other people.

@BacklogBattle

6 ай бұрын

I think maybe the reviewers are saying that given the dev team said it’d be much longer? I thought the story ended fine. And I do have to say that I played a majority of the game solo and I enjoyed the whole thing without having to play with others!

@firefistgaming117

6 ай бұрын

You definitely don't need to rely on others for the fun. Game is entirely beatable Solo and the AI bots are some of the smartest AI I've seen in a game, sometimes they are far better then Playing with others lol.

@RicochetForce

6 ай бұрын

@@BacklogBattle Yeah, that's what I suspect. That every one I've seen so far has mentioned the game's short campaign makes it seem like an expectation was created, widely adopted, and never checked at any point. That you played majority solo definitely eases my concerns. One of the things I love about single player games is that they're evergreen. They can be played whenever you want, their quality is consistent, and they don't require other people or internet connections to enjoy. That it still holds up when played Solo is a strong point in its favor.

@RicochetForce

6 ай бұрын

@@firefistgaming117 Wait, the AI party members are actually good?

@firefistgaming117

6 ай бұрын

@@RicochetForce yes, I'm a Player that vastly prefers Offline solo play and hate online only games for most part and Granblue Fantasy Relink has all the appeal of a Gacha (character collector wise) with 20 playable characters that are all completly unique but with no online Only elements and absolutely zero gacha, the Combat of Tales of Arise and FF16 mixed together, Monster Hunters Quest design and How big bosses act (you can break parts off the body like Horns ect and get the parts as items to upgrade weapons) lots of spectacle and a *VERY* strong end game. The story is short yes but it's *Very* sweet, it has like zero filler aside from one quest and is quite a Fun romp. Im in proud difficulty (highest quest difficulty) and I beat Everything up till now Completely solo with Zero issues from AI, these are some of the most intelligent AI companions in a Action RPG I've seen in a video game tbh. They will prioritize Reviving you or other party members if Downed, they heal and buff accordingly, they all do the Link attacks very consistently (only miss if one is Away from the Link circle fighting something else or downed) and they are very consistent with chaining ultimates alongside you, best thing tho? They play like a pro player in movement, they will consistently Perfect guard and perfect dodge enemy attacks alongside knowing where to run/stand during boss overdrive moments on the big attacks and I've experienced ME being downed FAR more then any AI, only have seen them get downed more often on higher difficulties when trying to help my Ass for mistiming a dodge.