Mattdarien
2014
As of now, I've reached a point in this game where I am satisfied with doing my dailies every day until I eventually get back into the mood of spending my entire day refreshing for a weapon, yet still somehow felt satisfied by the end of it. To keep myself from rambling on too long, I'll do my best to keep where I think the game succeeds in, and where it falls short, straight to the point. It is also important to mention that I am rank 161, and would be considered around the mid-game. I experienced the early-game back in around 2019-2020, and stopped playing for a few years.
The greatest aspect about this game, in my opinion, is the large scale of progression. I have never played a game that gives you such a gradual sense of getting stronger. This is likely due to the fact that game has been out for 10 years, and the power ceiling has gotten to such an absurd point, but not crossing the threshold of completely neglecting and ruining the early/mid game.
Because the game has been out for so long, there is a lot of content to do. This plays a large factor into the long-term progression. Typically, as a free to play player, you would start with magna1 for early-game, magna2 for mid-game, and higher level raids for end-game. Yet, the content is as simple as following that route. There are characters to unlock, a main story to explore, different weapons to grind for that make your grid better, and so much more to the point where it feels almost like a sandbox. This variety of content always kept me engaged, yet it all falls back under one gameplay loop.
The introduction of full auto may be controversial as it literally takes away the player from playing the game, at least when you're not aiming for more difficult content the game has to offer. However, I consider the planning of your team and grids as part of the gameplay, which has so much depth to the point where using a wiki to learn how the mechanics work and to look up suggested builds is highly encouraged. For those looking for an experience that you can enjoy completely blind, this can be considered a large flaw with the game, but I genuinely think it works well this type of game and the use of a wiki essentially being required to progress through the game's meta shouldn't be dismissed immediately. Games like Dwarf Fortress or EVE Online require great use of outside resources to be enjoyed to the fullest, yet I don't think that harms the quality of the game. Rather I think players coming together to discuss what the best builds might be in different situations enriches the community associated with the game. All of this is to say that while the game might be simple while in action, there is a lot of research and planning before partaking in combat.
This has already gone longer than I would've liked, so here is a short list of other aspects of the game that I enjoy.
- The amount of characters with different backstories
- The frequent updates and new content
- Music
- Art
- World building
- Stories
As for why I couldn't give a game I love a higher rating, the first is that because of the gacha system in the game, some content is just much harder to do if you are simply unlucky, and there is little you can do to mitigate it. This is something that I think is inherent to all gacha games, and if I allowed myself to ponder about it some more, I may even change my stance on it, but as of me writing this right now, I believe that the very fact that units being significantly worse than other units is detriment to the games quality, despite it being the main way the game makes money. (Side note, I would love to play a game similar to this with no gacha, and make it a pay to play game, or even a subscription)
The second biggest issue with the game, in my opinion is the outdated ui. There's no excusing this really. Menus are cluttered and organized. In order to really min-max this game, you need to refresh every time you attack so that you can skip animations and do more damage as debuffs on enemies are on a timer. A lot of it is very archaic, and is a direct blow to the quality of the game.
Overall though, despite it being an endless treadmill designed to suck away money from those vulnerable to it, it's the best one I've seen yet, and I'm hoping that Cygames experiments more with the Granblue IP.
The greatest aspect about this game, in my opinion, is the large scale of progression. I have never played a game that gives you such a gradual sense of getting stronger. This is likely due to the fact that game has been out for 10 years, and the power ceiling has gotten to such an absurd point, but not crossing the threshold of completely neglecting and ruining the early/mid game.
Because the game has been out for so long, there is a lot of content to do. This plays a large factor into the long-term progression. Typically, as a free to play player, you would start with magna1 for early-game, magna2 for mid-game, and higher level raids for end-game. Yet, the content is as simple as following that route. There are characters to unlock, a main story to explore, different weapons to grind for that make your grid better, and so much more to the point where it feels almost like a sandbox. This variety of content always kept me engaged, yet it all falls back under one gameplay loop.
The introduction of full auto may be controversial as it literally takes away the player from playing the game, at least when you're not aiming for more difficult content the game has to offer. However, I consider the planning of your team and grids as part of the gameplay, which has so much depth to the point where using a wiki to learn how the mechanics work and to look up suggested builds is highly encouraged. For those looking for an experience that you can enjoy completely blind, this can be considered a large flaw with the game, but I genuinely think it works well this type of game and the use of a wiki essentially being required to progress through the game's meta shouldn't be dismissed immediately. Games like Dwarf Fortress or EVE Online require great use of outside resources to be enjoyed to the fullest, yet I don't think that harms the quality of the game. Rather I think players coming together to discuss what the best builds might be in different situations enriches the community associated with the game. All of this is to say that while the game might be simple while in action, there is a lot of research and planning before partaking in combat.
This has already gone longer than I would've liked, so here is a short list of other aspects of the game that I enjoy.
- The amount of characters with different backstories
- The frequent updates and new content
- Music
- Art
- World building
- Stories
As for why I couldn't give a game I love a higher rating, the first is that because of the gacha system in the game, some content is just much harder to do if you are simply unlucky, and there is little you can do to mitigate it. This is something that I think is inherent to all gacha games, and if I allowed myself to ponder about it some more, I may even change my stance on it, but as of me writing this right now, I believe that the very fact that units being significantly worse than other units is detriment to the games quality, despite it being the main way the game makes money. (Side note, I would love to play a game similar to this with no gacha, and make it a pay to play game, or even a subscription)
The second biggest issue with the game, in my opinion is the outdated ui. There's no excusing this really. Menus are cluttered and organized. In order to really min-max this game, you need to refresh every time you attack so that you can skip animations and do more damage as debuffs on enemies are on a timer. A lot of it is very archaic, and is a direct blow to the quality of the game.
Overall though, despite it being an endless treadmill designed to suck away money from those vulnerable to it, it's the best one I've seen yet, and I'm hoping that Cygames experiments more with the Granblue IP.
Before I begin my review, I need to mention that not only did this visual novel take me over half a year (maybe even close to a year) to finish, some parts I unfortunately did skim through, and I couldn't drive myself to read the tips at the end of the game. In my defense, one of them is called "Stinky Food Showdown!" and I think it was at that moment that I subconsciously decided that I couldn't handle any more. If there is some grand revelation that happens once all the tips are read through, I apologize for not taking it into consideration for this review. However, I have a strong feeling that my thoughts would have remained the same either way.
I think the greatest aspect about this visual novel is the presentation. While I don't think the songs are on the same level as Higurashi or Umineko, the colors are fantastic. The backgrounds are almost ethereal which I think adds a lot to the atmosphere and works well with the overall setting, and the character designs has gone from something of a meme from the last two entries to something well done within the art style.
As for the story itself, I think there are many issues. Firstly, I believe there is too much trying to be done in this first phase. This is a story with over 30 characters with some having their own character arc, and different powers at play with a unique world that is an advanced version of our own. However, I don't think any of these are given the attention it deserves. First off, many of the characters are very bland and can really be merged into one entity in the grand scheme of things. Their overall purpose in the plot are the same. As for the characters arcs, none of them not only get any conclusions (which is fine, this is only the first part of the story after all), the development gets pushed aside for an incredible amount of world building and explanations of ideas. I don't think this is inherently bad, but the way the world building and description of societal issues are told is done poorly.
The mantra of "show, don't tell" can only be found near the beginning of the story (iirc). Afterwords, world building only exists as a topic to be discussed when the plot requires it. Something will happen, and there will be an info dump to you fill in on what exactly everything is. The exploration of global conflict and relationships between human beings and large powers is something that I was initially excited for. At first, this (along with the world building) was very interesting to read through. However, once a point has been made, I feel as if I read it over and over again, rather than moving on to the next scene (This is where the "Walls of Peace" meme stems from). If it was streamlined, then I think the story could've tackled everything it wanted to, but because it remains so bloated, so many elements of the story are lacking.
Like Higurashi, I believe that Ciconia has a truly great story somewhere inside of it with so many interesting ideas and so much potential, but the process of translating that story to the reader is unfortunately very flawed.
I think the greatest aspect about this visual novel is the presentation. While I don't think the songs are on the same level as Higurashi or Umineko, the colors are fantastic. The backgrounds are almost ethereal which I think adds a lot to the atmosphere and works well with the overall setting, and the character designs has gone from something of a meme from the last two entries to something well done within the art style.
As for the story itself, I think there are many issues. Firstly, I believe there is too much trying to be done in this first phase. This is a story with over 30 characters with some having their own character arc, and different powers at play with a unique world that is an advanced version of our own. However, I don't think any of these are given the attention it deserves. First off, many of the characters are very bland and can really be merged into one entity in the grand scheme of things. Their overall purpose in the plot are the same. As for the characters arcs, none of them not only get any conclusions (which is fine, this is only the first part of the story after all), the development gets pushed aside for an incredible amount of world building and explanations of ideas. I don't think this is inherently bad, but the way the world building and description of societal issues are told is done poorly.
The mantra of "show, don't tell" can only be found near the beginning of the story (iirc). Afterwords, world building only exists as a topic to be discussed when the plot requires it. Something will happen, and there will be an info dump to you fill in on what exactly everything is. The exploration of global conflict and relationships between human beings and large powers is something that I was initially excited for. At first, this (along with the world building) was very interesting to read through. However, once a point has been made, I feel as if I read it over and over again, rather than moving on to the next scene (This is where the "Walls of Peace" meme stems from). If it was streamlined, then I think the story could've tackled everything it wanted to, but because it remains so bloated, so many elements of the story are lacking.
Like Higurashi, I believe that Ciconia has a truly great story somewhere inside of it with so many interesting ideas and so much potential, but the process of translating that story to the reader is unfortunately very flawed.