GBF:R ran without any issues. While there are some reports of people struggling to be able to boot the game shortly after launch, I have not encountered any such problems. The game never crashed, stuttered, or otherwise bugged out. The few hours of multiplayer I have played were stable, although the matchmaking is not exactly fantastic.

Visually, GBF:R is utterly unrivaled for its art style. Both gameplay and cinematics look gorgeous, and there is an incredible amount of detail in just about every location.

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The sound design is not quite as impressive, with a soundtrack that is still generally good but not that memorable. The voice acting in the game’s original language is beyond fantastic, with a wide range of extremely talented and recognizable voice actors. The English dub, however, suffers from the aforementioned awful localization, at times changing the meaning of entire phrases, and likewise quite horrid voice acting.

You play as either Djeeta or Gran, depending on your gender preference for the main character, the Captain of a diverse cast of Skyfarers in a world entirely made up of floating sky islands. While in search of Estalucia, a fantastical utopia, you encounter a religious cult that takes interest in one of your friends who has the ability to seal and summon pseudo-godlike creatures like the dragon Bahamut.

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Needless to say, GBF is very much a JRPG with some interesting thematical parallels to specifically Final Fantasy, but it sets itself apart by its very unique setting. As a spin-off title to a gacha game, I was somewhat worried that the story may be an afterthought, but was generally surprised for that to not be the case, and as someone who has not played the gacha, I could follow the story fairly easily, though with a constant feeling of just lacking some context as to the interpersonal relationships of the different crew members.

There is a glossary that is just as boring to read as they always are, but it is nice that the game does give you an extensive interface through which you can browse anything from terms related to the world-building to the backstory of various characters and more. Characters also have mini-stories attached to them, which you unlock as you progress through the main story and level them up. Sadly, this seems to be a bit of a missed opportunity, as they are usually inconsequential enough to not provide significant character development and are also merely a few sentences short per episode.

Despite this, while I wouldn’t recommend GBF:R for the story alone, it is certainly on par with similar titles, such as the Tales of […] series, and may even be good enough to be recommended to fans of certain Final Fantasy titles due to the aforementioned thematic similarities.

GBF:R can be broadly described as a hub-based and mission-centric action RPG. Campaign missions usually take place in a large, but fairly linear, level that encourages some exploration through collectibles and chests that consistently feel relevant and rewarding due to the different methods to progress your characters’ power level.

Side missions, and therefore the bulk of the postgame, take place in smaller segments of those aforementioned levels and range from mission types such as defending a static object to simple boss fights. Unlike other games in the genre, even later bossfights tend to be much faster, lasting typically between 2 and 8 minutes for the longer fights on anything above Maniac difficulty.

Fights are not just fast due to raw numbers, however, but combat tends to be very fast-paced in terms of how quickly attacks come out. To offset this, bigger attacks offer a telegraph a few moments before the attack actually fires. This is something that is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy 14, and I haven’t seen something like this used anywhere else. While this sort of MMO design, at first glance, feels a little odd, it actually does wonders for the game to be able to be as visually striking and responsive as it is, and I’m not sure combat would feel as good without this design decision.

As you progress through the story, you get to unlock more characters for the roster, each of which has a distinct weapon type and a unique gimmick; for example, Io, one of the immediately available characters, is a mage that augments her big spells through basic attacks, allowing for devastating combo-finishers. Each character also features multiple linear skill trees that eventually unlock further active abilities that can be freely slotted in to create unique builds. While this feels impactful, it never felt like I could augment a character towards a distinct role. Rather, the game is very centered around dealing as much damage as possible, even on the later, extremely lethal missions, since outlasting enemies through support just doesn’t feel very feasible.

GBF:R is fast, flashy, and eventually scales to become extremely difficult in the late postgame. While this results in an awkward difficulty curve, it is an incredibly rewarding experience that still has a serviceable story on top of it all. Looking back at the game, while it probably will not end up breaking any new ground, I can’t really pinpoint any single aspect of the game that is outright bad and was a rare experience that I simply enjoyed going through from booting it up for the first time up until the very end.

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