[archived from a cohost post, originally made on february 6, 2024]
I don't really know how to preface this properly to convey how excited I was to hear this game was finally coming out.
I was there, caring about the original game when this spinoff was announced. I was playing granblue off and on for several years, eventually deciding to "take it seriously" and join a crew instead of just chilling in a solo crew for guild wars. I then later joined a top-2k crew where I helped out for a few GWs and then ended up ducking out to make room for someone who actually wanted to be there.
the franchise has had some irreversible effect on my brain and my general being that I can't really quantify, and while I've quit for too long to ever really get back into the swing of things, I can't ever shake the itch to return to the grind.
I started because I saw art of narmaya blowing up on jp art twitter and was just. perplexed? bewitched? something flipped a switch in my awful anime fan brain and I got into it, before they'd added an english translation to the game, showing up for the 10 million user celebration where they ran several days of free 10-pulls. a perfect way to start things. lots of free pulls for newbies, a fervent attempt to teach people how to navigate the menus and explain gameplay concepts from the existing bilingual playerbase,
it's a funny part of my memories and history, and it's just one of those things that I really can't escape.
so I'm very glad this game came out, roughly seven years after it was announced. it's good. character action rpg, features a respectable roster of playable characters with varied enough playstyles and gimmicks, with more on the way. the story is like one of the longer story events from granblue fantasy prime, and it doesn't overstay its welcome too much before leaving you to simply make the numbers go up. because the numbers can go up in so many ways!
I'm not done with this game, per se, but I "beat" it after roughly 12 hours, and now I'm in the postgame, of sorts, with some more plot dangled behind higher leveled quests and I'm fine calling this complete for the sake of this project.
it's good. I'm glad it's good. it's nice that they were cooking for seven years and they came out with a lovely game that they plan to update for a while. it's a beautiful game with nice music and I can play it with my fiancee and have fun pointing at characters and going "this is why I care about this one!" or "this is a thing that happened in this one's backstory!" or "WHEEEEEEEEEE, I'M A SLED"