Man, this game lets you FEEL like the playboy billionaire extraordinaire!

Ekhem, to the point. After playing Origins last year, it's a breeze of fresh air, the absolute Batman experience accumulated in a single package. No bloated map - it's small but cozy and has everything important. No MMO fetch quests - everything screams "look how the writers undesrtood the source material!". No wonder it's considered as the best entry in the franchise.

It's a step forward from AA when it comes to gameplay, but story... While it is absorbing and well thought, I found the ending a bit disappointing. Not only that, some subplots are left with no further explaination when they should at least be, hm, explained. I also feel potentials of some characters are unused and they could be better in this game. Oh well.

The freeflow combat is pretty good, and so are predator sections. Love that the exp method and challenge system are "normal" here, shame Origins had to break something that did not need any "fixing". Later fights never were such a bore and frutrating mess as in AO, although I wish we could upgrade damage you deal as a Batman.

GOTY includes all dlcs such as Robin's minicampaign (okay-ish imo), full Catwoman experience (she's also a good part of the game) and challenges maps that I did not care about (just like Riddler's riddles) but I'm sure many will find them a fantasting addition, and probably something more I forgot about, so if you like sinking your precious time in games like this, you'll spend dozens of hours having fun. If you don't intend to complete it entirely, you will spend about 10-15 hours beating goons unconscious. Either way - a pretty good deal if you ask me.

8+/10

This review was possible thanks to duhnuhnuh and their Perpetual Steam Game Giveaway. Thanks again!

Closer to Doom 2016 than older shooters with its arenas, and how both work, but that's fine, I guess.

Tedious, not in difficulty, but in level design. A simple automap would've made the experience way more enjoyable (there's even the otherwise useless skull servitor accompanying you), as the samey corridors really do blend in, and found it quite easy to miss a switch/terminal, and kept going in circles. Took a look at the various forums, and looks like I'm not alone here. Was playing on hard difficulty, and found the overall difficulty to be just fine. Sometimes Aspiring Champions positioned right behind a gate would make me groan, but whatever.

Also not a fan of how the machine spirits secrets/upgrades work, wishing they persisted across missions, but maybe got taken away between chapters (if they have to be taken away for balancing reasons), but it's a power fantasy, let me be obscenely strong.

Otherwise, shooting & movement felt nice, and the trail of gibs you leave behind is neat. You can somewhat zip around the arenas utilizing the Chainsword Charge. Neat. On a side note, found it amusing how Melta got made into the super shotgun. One more thing, the damage feedback's kinda wonky.

Apart from one Legendary Ambull fight, where the boss got stuck on some boxes, I didn't find any bugs.

I had been waiting for this game for years, ever since the first gameplay footages were shown. I was a bit worried at one point due to its long development cycle. But it finally came out, and now that I played it for over 100 hours, I can safely say this was well worth the excruciating wait. In fact, it's even better than I was initially anticipating.

Imma start off by saying that this is my first exposure to the Granblue franchise, I have not played the gacha, and never will since I hate gachas, which sucks because thanks to Relink, I really wanna dive deeper into the series' world and learn more about the characters (although I guess GBVSR will help a bit more with that at least). But yeah, I felt Relink did a fine job at introducing new players like me to its world thanks to its extensive glossary, the fate episodes- basically mini side-stories for each character in the roster- and the main story.

Speaking of the story, I thought it was fine, nothing out of the ordinary, but quite enjoyable from start to finish. Lots of cool moments and setpieces, the later chapters were especially great and the pacing felt just right : short but not too short (took me about 21 hours), while not overstaying its welcome. The main story may be short, but this isn't the whole game. In fact, it's basically just the tutorial. The real fun begins in the postgame...

Visually the game looks beautilful, reminds me a lot of Tales of Arise. The characters all look great animation-wise and some of the bosses' attacks are a sight to behold, I was blown away by some the cutscenes in the story as well. The ost goes crazy hard as well, this was my first exposure to Granblue music and it did not disappoint.

Before playing Relink, I actually had no idea what to expect from the game besides the action combat. So I was quite shocked (in a good way) when I came to the realization that I was basically playing a fucking Monster Hunter game. It's obviously not MonHun, but the gameplay loop, the quest progression, gear customization, coop aspect, all bear certain similarities that I couldn't unsee as a massive MH enjoyer.

Combat-wise, Relink kinda falls on the simpler side imo, but it's hella satisfying and more than makes up for that with its large roster of 19 playable characters (for now), all with their own moveset, fighting styles and unique abilities (comparable to MH's weapon classes, but not as complex), a deep gear system that allows for various different build for every character (just like MH), as well as the (mostly) fantastic boss fights with elaborate movesets and attack patterns that get stronger and more challenging as you climb up the quest ranks (JUST LIKE M-). I know I keep mentioning Monster Hunter, but don't misunderstand, these similarities I'm mentioning are mostly superficial. Relink's core combat is obviously nothing like MH, taking a much faster paced approach, as opposed to MH's slow and deliberate approach. The customization is just as extensive in its own unique way as well, with each character having 2 large skill trees and their own selection of upgradable weapons, a level up system, and so on...

If you're familiar with the quest system in MH or other games of that subgenre, then you'll see that Granblue Relink's also works similarly to those games. There are three ranks, withing each ranks you got different difficulty levels and as mentioned earlier, the bosses get stronger in higher ranks, and even get new moves in some cases. Getting to the higher ranks will require you to beat the main story. These quests can be done solo (either with CPU party member or entirely alone) or online, which once again works kinda like MH, you can create your session with your preferred settings, and then invite your friends or people you played with before. Wish you could also search for sessions, but apparently that's only an option on the PC version, which is fucking stupid.

With its amazing roster & satisfying combat, complemented by the incredible boss fights, its simple but enjoyable main story, incredibly extensive postgame and insane ost, Granblue Fantasy Relink easily semented itself as the best "MH-like" game I've ever played, as well as one of my favorite action RPGs, which I honestly wasn't expecting at all. I do have a few issues that I hope get fixed, such as not being able to search for Online sessions on console, the RNG being a bit too much in the endgame, as well as the recently announced paid item packs, and some smaller nitpicks. But overall, that game exceeded my expectations and was totally worth the long wait. I look forward to seeing how they handle the post-launch support (a bit worried about the paid item packs though) and honestly would buy a MH-style DLC expansion if they ever plan on making one.





(A MH collab would be peak too, just sayin')

Fun game with solid combat, and a good story. Vibrant & gorgeous, it made me stop on several occasions to either take screenshots or just admire the backdrop. Also features a lot of open-wordly stuff, with Shinto Shrines being my fav ones, and I'm usually not a fan of Jumping Puzzles in other games. Fluid movement, satisfying combat. Very polished, in 80h between the base game and Iki Island I've encountered 3 minor glitches (nothing game-breaking, just some physics/collision shenanigans)

Platinumed the base game, and also got all collectibles (without armor dyes, cba to grind the flowers tbh). The penultimate duel (vs Khotun Khan in Act 3) was mid at best. Some of the side quests have gotten repetitive towards the end. A very solid game overall.

Actually left the haptics on in Tsushima, having the controller react while traversing was kinda cool, the adaptive triggers were annoying and got old soon, and I disabled those.

Hoping it'll get ported to PC at some point, the more people enjoy this, the better.

All journeys begin in some way. Was fun to see the beginnings of the one of most iconic series in gaming.

There's no point in being harsh towards the game for being simple in terms of plot etc when compared to what we're getting today. Pretty sure FF1 was probably mindblowing back then. ;)

The remaster part of the game is very solid, with difficulty (lack of it to be more precise) being the only caveat. The QoL changes are a welcome addition, with auto-battle being my favorite, as it saved me both a bit of time. Going through countless random mooks has been made faster, and required far fewer button inputs.

The PR of the very first FF game is a solid version and an easily accessible way to experience this classic.

PS.: Played the entire game on the SteamDeck, and it worked flawlessly.