There are quite a few games that have an amazing endgame experience, but I will admit that there are a lot of times when I’ve felt like there wasn’t much point to it because the game’s already done. Of course, yes, you can achievement hunt and even go for the Platinum Trophy, and, yes, I am aware this could be potentially seen as a hot take, but I was always looking for a bit of a deeper reason to do endgame grinds. And for a long time, the strongest motivator for me was always playing with friends. It was okay if I didn’t have a strong narrative reason to play it if I was going through the grind and the experience with friends via multiplayer sessions. That’s when Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok just straight up asked me to hold its beer because it was about to give me BOTH. Here is my Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok Review.
Recap
I have actually given my first impressions on Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok based on a media preview that happened early June this year, where we had a short bit to play the game. Today, I am writing this after putting in, I think, over 20 hours in this game (I honestly lost count, so it could be way more), finished the “story” of this DLC, and have reached the SUPER endgame bosses. Spoiler: I loved EVERY SECOND of it. Yes, I’m also probably biased AF because I genuinely love this game and will glaze it to the high heavens to anyone willing to listen if it means getting more people into the game.
Just like my other articles, let me summarize what I already covered in my first impressions article:
- Endless Ragnarok is basically a huge Endgame DLC for Relink where the vast majority of the new content is located at the tail end of the base game – which is the actual highlight of the Relink games
- Game features new content and new systems
- A new solo mode called “The Conflux”
- New “Chaos Tier” Quests
- Players can now collect and use Summons in battle
- 6 New Characters
- Gallanza and Maglielle
- 2 characters from the OG Relink’s story
- Beatrix and Eustace
- 2 characters that share some lore with some of the existing characters
- Fraux and Fediel
- 2 completely new characters to Endless Ragnarok
- New bosses, both RENEWED old bosses with new mechanics and completely new ones
- Master Traits system that can make you do different builds with your characters
- New weapon upgrade tiers with abilities that unlock higher tiers of damage configurations
- New events and scenes in the original Relink Story
- New story beats that form a sort of “story mode” for the DLC
- Gallanza and Maglielle
- Game will feature crossplay between PS4/5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
That’s the quick rundown, and for this review, I’ll give you a rundown of my thoughts on certain features and then summarize my thoughts and give my verdict on the game.
Endgame Done Right
I mentioned previously that the meat and potatoes of Granblue Fantasy: Relink has always been its late-game / endgame. But that’s the thing. I would usually play a grindy game when it involved being able to bond with friends because the whole experience would be so great. It would either be us celebrating us conquering a challenge while showing off our builds and how we tweaked something in our character. OR it would be that we would rib each other on who threw/carried the match, which would be its own layer of fun. But I always did wish that there was a narrative reason why I would do an endgame grind and not just “oh let’s do it for the achievement”. Endless Ragnarok gave me both, and I am so amazingly happy for this.
Endless Ragnarok basically beefs up Relink’s endgame by adding so many new systems to explore, so many new bosses to beat, AND even has story for that additional lore. Sure, I’ll concede that, just like the base game, the story isn’t AMAZINGLY compelling, but it’s enough to have some really nice and cool moments here and there, and having that narrative direction actually did a lot for me to keep progressing. Meeting new characters like Fraux and Fediel, and even seeing some returning characters like Gallanza and our favorite ojousama, Maglielle, always put a smile on my face. I mean, one of the missions the DLC starts you off on is a fight against Tweyen and Seofon, which is just pure AURA. Like, there are times in the battle where I got so distracted because of how cool both of them looked as they did these amazing combination moves to stomp my sorry ass. I won’t go into spoilers, but let’s just say there were a lot of OMG moments that left me completely in awe. However, I do wish that there were some more moments that were better animated or had more elaborate cutscenes. It would’ve just made things more epic, I think, but I will say, the fact that they even placed these story beats to sort of give direction to the endgame… their mere presence in the game is already such a welcome thing to experience.
The whole DLC is also co-op friendly. Sure, there are a few solo experiences to be had here and there (like The Conflux), but like 95% of the time, you can just keep partying with your friends as you plow through the story together. And you see, Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok is really just that type of game. I reviewed this game with another member of the team, and there were some things about the game that kicked in for me because he noticed it and vice versa. There’s a joy to multiplayer games of discovering and beating stuff together, and that is VERY MUCH possible in this DLC.
I said it before, I am probably amazingly biased with this game because Relink really is one of my all-time favorite games, and Endless Ragnarok seems like a wish I made came true as this game gives me more of what I loved about Relink AND even added to it.
The State of the Grind
One of the issues with the base game was how grindy it got. So much so that AFK grinding became a thing. I am happy to report that the Conflux is such a nice solution to this issue. In case you don’t know, the Conflux is basically a single-player-only game mode that has a bit of rogue-like elements mixed into it. A Conflux run (or a “cycle” as the game calls it) has a specific number of floors for you to fight through. Each floor is random, with boss encounters sprinkled in certain intervals in between and at the very end of the run. Manage to beat all floors, and you’ll be able to select a set of rewards to claim. THAT is why the Conflux is awesome: NO MORE RNG. It takes out the whole annoying thing of going through a task only for the material you want not to drop. In the Conflux, you’re guaranteed to get the reward and guaranteed a specific amount of it (which you can check even before you run the cycle). It’s a huge quality-of-life improvement, and it makes farming materials for weapon upgrades much easier.
Interesting thing about the Conflux runs is that they aren’t just all fight fests, either. Since they knew you’d probably be farming the hell out of this mode, they made it so some floors can become minigame rooms instead of fight rooms, which can make you progress through the run even faster if you’re particularly good at the game. You have stuff like spot the difference, shell games, and more. In all my runs, I would more often than not choose the minigame over the fights because, after a while, I got REALLY good at the minigames, so it only took me a minute or two to complete them versus doing a full fight that could take a bit longer.
Does this mean grinding doesn’t exist anymore? Sadly, no. Some of the new SUPER ENDGAME WEAPON UPGRADES can’t be farmed in the Conflux. Honestly, though? I’m fine with it. Grinding is part of these kinds of experiences. I’m just glad they lessened it with the Conflux system.
What I will speak against is the MSP grind. I’ll get into it more later, but with the new Master Traits system, you will be needing a LOT of MSP (Mastery Points), and I don’t exactly like the grind associated with it. This is because you need a LOT to max out someone’s Mastery Points, and once you spend MSP on a character, that’s it. It’s theirs forever. What’s that? You wanna try a new character. Welp, guess you gotta farm more MSP. This whole process becomes tedious and, honestly, made me a bit hesitant to try out other characters. I wish they made it so that you could refund MSP given to characters so you could play around more and experiment with other characters. Currently, it’s just a bit too limiting.
Exciting Ways of Getting Stronger
Another thing I loved about Endless Ragnarok was all the exciting ways you could ramp up in strength.
Firstly, you have new ways to upgrade your weapons. I won’t go into this too much, but some of them have really awesome skills and just unlock so much of your potential. So yeah, this is the basic one.
THEN you have Master Traits and, just… wow. I love how much these traits get to modify your character’s build. Let me use Tweyen, for example. She was one of my mains since base Relink, so I used her in Endless Ragnarok. Then I saw that they now have a whole Mastery Trait Tree for Two Crown Strife – which was an insta-skip skill for me given how it was a ONCE PER BATTLE skill and all it did was hit hard and extend the duration of debuffs. However, with the new Mastery Trait, it was now a viable skill because there was a trait that made it so that, once you used it, it would also give you MASSIVE permanent buffs. This is what Mastery Traits can do. It is capable of unlocking new builds for your character or even heavily improve your current builds. And they did this for EACH character. It’s absolutely crazy, and I wanted to explore this deeper with other characters.
Lastly, you have Summons. Man, I loved this addition. The range of what summons you can get goes from epic to utterly hilarious. You can get PRIMALS!… and you can also get cats. Normal cats. Amazing. That funny aspect aside, the attacks they do can be absolute game changers. Some of them can apply crowd control debuffs to your foes like Paralyze and Glaciate, which can buy you some time on the battlefield or squeeze out even more DPS in a particular window. It’s also a tactical tool, as you can use it to skip certain boss mechanics since you are invulnerable the whole time you’re controlling your summon. ALSO ALSO, without spoiling, some summons are just mind-blowingly cool. YOU CAN HAVE LUCILIUS AS A SUMMON! IT WAS SO EFFING COOL! I was beside myself the whole time I first used him.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok Final Verdict – 9.5/10
This was probably one of the best endgame DLCs I’ve ever played and added so much to what was already such an amazing game. Cygames heard the fans asking for more content for Relink, and they delivered all that and more by not just giving us tough bosses to beat but also cool ways to get stronger.
I truly commend them for making the grind easier and for putting up some nice story beats to set the stage for all this. The only reason this isn’t a perfect 10 is that I do wish the story was better and that the MSP issue didn’t limit how you want to try out more characters.
But all-in-all, this was truly endgame done right. Now more than ever, I want even more people to experience and try Relink, especially with how Endless Ragnarok further enriched the experience.
This review was made via a PC game code provided by the publisher.