Granblue Fantasy: Relink was already a very jam-packed and deep game at launch. Cygames didn’t slack at all when it came to content, which makes the release of the Endless Ragnarok expansion a surprise. It comes with a new storyline and a slate of gameplay features that greatly expand the game’s overall playtime. As nice as that sounds on paper, there can be too much of a good thing. Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok may only be worth it for those who just couldn’t get enough of the base game’s challenging boss raids and stat chasing.
The Zegagrande Skydom is once again facing an apocalyptic threat that only the best of skyfarers can stand up against. Ferocious monsters known as Ragnalia have been spotted across the skies and the crew of the Grandcypher has been tasked with locating the source of this new calamity. It borrows heavily from the lore of the original Granblue Fantasy mobile game and feels like it was made for diehard fans. The base game’s story accommodated series newcomers by being a standalone and straightforward narrative, but that isn’t really the case here.
There’s both a lot going on and not much at the same time. Most of the story is delivered through dialogue and most of the spectacle comes from the big boss encounters. One of the base game’s greatest strengths was its commitment to making players feel like they were on a grand adventure with a group of tight-knit friends. Endless Ragnarok feels less personal and fun by zooming out instead of in on the characters, who carried Relink‘s otherwise tropey story to respectable heights. Longtime Granblue Fantasy fans may get something substantial out of it, but it certainly isn’t worth getting for the story alone, as the gameplay is what it’s all about.
The majority of the expansion’s content is only accessible deep into the post-game, so players who only beat the main story will have to play serious catch-up. There’s hours upon hours of questing between the main story and the expansion, and it unfortunately becomes a total slog due to recycled boss fights and constant difficulty spikes. There is also a metric ton of grinding needed to keep player characters strong enough to be viable, which makes it the most tedious part of the whole package. It’s unfortunately a sign of what’s to come in the expansion.
The Conflux, the new roguelite mode unlocked by purchasing Endless Ragnarok, makes the grind less obnoxious through its generous material drops, but it doesn’t mitigate it entirely. Progression through the post-game and expansion is painfully incremental. Weapons, for instance, have to be leveled, uncapped, awakened, and transcended multiple times each to reach their fullest potential. At the same time, quests continue to scale in difficulty, making upgrades feel necessary for survival instead of them making the game more fun or like a power fantasy.
Once into the expansion proper, that fight for survival only gets worse. Bosses unleash multi-stage attacks that rip the party to shreds and the recommended power level for quests shoots past the stratosphere in response. A single mistake makes a twenty-minute long attempt amount to nothing, and all the visual clutter from the insane attacks makes it hard to tell what exactly is going on and what is expected of players. On Nintendo Switch 2, the game also runs at 30fps and lower resolution, which doesn’t help.
The new summons deal incredible damage, but their power feels like a necessary tool instead of the explosive, awesome ability it could have been. Their utility and spectacle is fantastic, but the heightened challenge makes it hard to appreciate their destructiveness. The game almost feels like it’s afraid to hand players a win. There’s always a bigger fish, another apocalypse on the horizon, and another upgrade that’ll be the difference between brutal defeat and a hard-fought victory. There’s an audience for this playstyle and it certainly respects players enough to believe they can overcome its obstacles, but it gets very exhausting very quickly. The base game could be recommended to most players with confidence, but the expansion is a beast only some can tame.
While the expansion adds six new playable characters, the time and resources needed to make multiple characters viable discourages full-scale experimentation. Focusing on one or a handful out of the now 28 characters is best. Other grind-heavy games like Disgaea 7 avoid this by having ways to quickly bring characters up to speed. There are methods to do that, but not in a timely manner. It’s a time sink of endless proportion, and even if its core mechanics are solid, Endless Ragnarok feels too big for its own good. There’s close to a hundred hours of gameplay when taking the base game, post-game, and expansion altogether.
Online multiplayer can streamline both the challenge and length of the whole experience, as one only needs to optimise their star character instead of a whole party. These multiplayer raids feel like they are how the game was meant to be played, and Endless Ragnarok‘s sky-high difficulty seems to confirm it. However, online play is locked behind subscription services like Nintendo Switch Online for console players, and there are many who would want solo play to be as manageable and fun as multiplayer.
It’s incredibly demoralising as a solo player to take on a new quest and find that another dozen hours of material grinding and build optimisation will be needed to stand a chance. Between the Conflux and new upgrade systems like transcendence and skill-granting Master Traits, there are now more ways to get stronger, but also more systems to manage and more numbers to pay attention to. The Disgaea comparison runs deep, with it feeling like the expansion’s primary appeal is min-maxing and optimisation, not its combat itself or any of its challenges. For those expecting a traditional, curated RPG similar to the main quest of the base game, that is nowhere to be found, and in its place is a never-ending pursuit for a horizon that always feels too far away.
Cygames’ work on Granblue Fantasy: Relink is remarkable and its original success wasn’t a fluke. Even with Endless Ragnarok, there are new, exciting features and an effort from the developers to enhance the experience for players. However, when progression feels so stilted and the difficulty keeps increasing, it starts to feel more like a chore than a game. There may be a charm in its monotony, incremental progression, and suffocating challenge, but only for very specific audiences. Though Relink remains a strong ARPG and something of a sleeper hit, fans, and especially newcomers, may want to think carefully before they get tangled up in Endless Ragnarok‘s web.
