GranBlue Fantasy: Relink’s anime action will convince you you’re playing the TV show

thesixthaxis.com:

GranBlue Fantasy is one of the biggest anime franchises in the world, and yet its rise to stardom was the reverse of many of its peers, beginning life as a hit mobile game before extending into animation and manga. Whatever its roots, the tale, set within the multiple kingdoms of the Zegagranda Skydom, follows Gran and his companions across the skies, and now Cygames are set to bring the GranBlue Fantasy world to a wider audience with GranBlue Fantasy: Relink, a third-person action RPG with visuals lifted straight out of the anime.

Our hands-on gave us a great chance to check out a good portion of the game, and more importantly the combat that lies at the heart of Relink. The demo allowed us to play as series hero Gran, as well as Siegfried, Rackam, Katalina, Io, Charlotta and Lancelot, with each character boasting their own set of special moves and abilities, as well as their own particular fighting style. While you’re pummelling a series of skeletons and other suitably evil bad guys, the dragon-like Vryn floats around delivering words of advice in his own delightfully annoying way.

Relink ascribes to the hack-and-slash school of anime combat, and whether you’re rocking Gran, Katalina or Lancelot, you’re building up combos with your pointy implement of choice. As you connect with hits you’re filling the Link Time metre, triggered when you reach 100%, and each member of the party performs a link attack. During this time enemy movement is slowed down, and you’re given a bunch of buffs as well such as increased attack power and health regeneration. As we found during our hands-on, it’s the perfect thing for taking down a giant boss character!

Gerasene is that giant boss, and he’s a huge skeleton that’s ready to pound you into