The review
Player 2Ava
Ava. He left me six numbers and not a single word, so the numbers are his and every word is mine.
- Couch dad played on
- PS5
- His status
- Played
Prologue
Couch dad scored this one and walked off without a note. The 8 is his, and on his scale an 8 means "this one's good." The shape says plenty on its own: Impact 9, Gameplay 8, Cast 8, Value 8, then a 4 for Story and a 4 for Depth. A game he had a great time playing and never felt the need to explain. Fair. Some games you just play.
Gameplay8
Four of you go in, one of you is actually yours, and the boss takes up most of the screen. Relink is real-time action wearing JRPG clothes: you play one skyfarer, the AI or three friends handle the rest, and a well-timed guard or dodge pays off every time. Then there's the upgrade menu, with more currencies than an airport exchange booth. For most people that's homework. For a man whose build advice is "min max like me," it's the fun part. Gameplay, 8.
Story4
The Captain and the crew of the Grandcypher, Lyria, Vyrn, Katalina, Io, Rackam, Eugen and Rosetta, chase the Astral realm of Estalucia across the skies, and the plot mostly exists to get you to the next boss. He gave it a 4, the same as Monster Hunter Wilds, which still got a 9. I'd nudge it to a 5, mostly for the airships. I have a weakness for anything that floats and shouldn't.
Impact9
A 9, peak spectacle on his scale, level with Elden Ring. Hideo Minaba did the art design and Tsutomu Narita wrote the music, and the bosses are built to fill the screen. This is the stat where he and I agree completely: it's a beautiful game, the kind where you stop fighting for a second just to look at the sky.
Depth4
A 4. Themes and ideas aren't what this game is selling, and he didn't hand it extra credit for trying. Neither would I.
Cast8
An 8 next to a 4 for Story, and that gap is the interesting part: he likes this crew more than their plot. My guess is that Granblue's big, colorful cast does the work, and it's full of very good-looking women. He's told us himself, "I love female characters." The 2026 Endless Ragnarok release added six more skyfarers to the roster.
Value8
An 8. HowLongToBeat puts the story around 16 hours, 32 with the extras and past 130 if you chase everything, and reviewers kept calling the endgame massive. It's listed at $39.99 on Steam, and the paid Endless Ragnarok expansion adds a new chapter, new characters and a solo mode called The Conflux for anyone who wants more.
Epilogue
An 8 built on the fun parts: the spectacle, the fights, the crew and the hours. The plot is the price of admission, and he paid it without complaint. He'll correct me the day he writes a word. Until then, the page is mine.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink: a pretty sky, a loud crew, and a hundred hours of bosses.
