Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok Review

I have pretty minimal experience with Granblue Fantasy as a franchise. I played a little of the original Granblue Fantasy Versus near release, and then bought the follow-up more recently. The world always felt charming, and the characters had some really interesting designs, but I never got around to Granblue Fantasy: Relink. With the impending release of the DLC, Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok, I figured when would be better than right now… and I am very glad I took the leap.

I want to cover many of the additions to the core game first, primarily the new activity and playable characters. The Conflux is the big new mode that is accessible through progression during the main story, and it's a lot of fun. It feels like a condensation of multiple different quests placed back-to-back, with the addition of roguelike elements to keep things fresh. From my experience, the boons you collect aren't game-changing, but they're fun boosts to different aspects of combat, such as improving status effects. They're pretty rewarding too. While most quests have very specific drops, which can allow for some good target farming, The Conflux rather focuses on a more general area of upgrade materials for both weapons and sigils.

It makes for a far more interesting experience when specifically focusing on certain pieces of gear and upgrade materials, as some of the base game's quests can be pretty tedious when grinding for certain materials. A more varied and general activity keeps things feeling fresh, while helping the progression feel far smoother. Despite this, it's a little awkwardly paced. You'll gain access to the first Cycle, which is essentially the first difficulty, at the mid-point of the main story, and it's fine, but it feels somewhat pointless here. I didn't feel a need to run this at all, and the first section is only three short battles and it's over. It doesn't give enough upgrades to get a good feel for the roguelike structure, and it's rewards aren't realistically worth the time investment this early on in the game. The same can be said for the second Cycle when that opens up. It's a little more valuable here, since you are just beginning to dive into the post-game, but it still lacks much value.

Later Cycles are where the value shines, though. The first two feel like they're introduced too early to be valuable, and act as more of a tutorial to the mode, rather than an earlier incarnation.

As for the new characters, they're all incredible amounts of fun, both Beatrix and Eustace were mainstays during my playthrough of the base game, and Magielle and Gallanza were often used in the latter half of my playtime. It's nice to have such variety here too, having ranged-, magic-, and melee- focused characters. They all feel viable in the long run, and a game with already great gameplay, more options are always appreciated.

Endless Ragnarok's main story is framed as an epilogue, and it's pretty solid. It does a great job at following through from the base game with many of the same feelings. The characters continue to be fun and pretty well written, if a little simple. It's formatted in a similar way to Chapter 0 of the base game, which itself functions as a precursor to the core endgame loop. The new story feels like a way to introduce all the new elements of the endgame, with a generally solid story formula, but it's not quite reaching the same heights as the base game story.

The new progression systems are solid, and they seem to have some very good options for players wanting to experiment. Alongside this, the new gameplay mechanics are incredibly fun too. Summons bring the insane kaiju battle-esque sequences from the story into more traditional gameplay scenarios, while still being pretty strong in their own right, and primal bursts aren't mechanically too complex, but are a nice change from the relatively stale chain bursts (but I assume will reach the same point after some time).

As a whole, Endless Ragnarok feels like more Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and I mean that as a positive. The story is decent, the characters are charming, and all play incredibly well, and there's seemingly an incredible amount of content here that I'm still yet to dive into. If you're fond of Relink, I can't recommend Endless Ragnarok enough, but it's definitely not going to change your mind if it didn't interest you initially.