Granblue Fantasy: Reconnection hits so many RPG and anime tropes within the first few hours, it’s almost staggering. Boss fights against building-sized monsters, world-ending evil gods, catgirls, women who understand the combat applications of thigh-high slit skirts, and cutscenes that are so dramatic! It would be easy to dismiss the game as just one of those if it weren’t surrounded by a delightfully layered and satisfying combat system.
It also helps when you’re peeling back thick layers of anime tropes. Please contact again reveals something more personal and valuable. It’s a surprisingly well-told tale of parental abuse and the children’s struggle to find their own identity outside of their parents’ shadow. The main villain uses someone’s child as a cog in his evil plan, and the story of this child trying to break free overshadows the larger plot of saving the world and makes for a welcome break from genre tradition.
The main cast is an explorer-type crew eager to discover new places and go on new adventures. The player character is the captain of this ship – in my case a girl named Rebecca – who is vitally attached to a magical girl named Liria. Long story short, Lyria is kidnapped by a villain for nefarious reasons, and you embark on an island-hopping adventure to get your friend back.
It wasn’t the most complicated of yarns, but it was was a compelling one. Infinite Ragnarok, new expansion for Granblue Fantasy: Reconnection which dropped alongside the new Switch 2 version ( reviewed here ) follows the same trend.
If you’re expecting a new story, temper those expectations. Infinite Ragnarok adds a new story arc that does its job well enough, but it’s still a huge tool to give you more (much more) than the game’s already excellent combat. This is not necessarily a criticism. Relink has always been at its best when taking on giant bosses, perfectly timing runs, chaining skills with your party and watching the screen turn into a glorious mess of particle effects. The expansion just gives you more excuses to do it.
The biggest additions come after the credits are released. New quest levels, tougher bosses, Master Traits, and the excellent Conflux roguelite mode dramatically expand the end game. Conflux in particular feels like the standout feature here. Its random encounters and evolving buffs constantly shake up the familiar gameplay loop, making each run feel different without sacrificing the fast-paced combat that made Relink so satisfying. It adds just enough unpredictability to keep it feeling fresh rather than repetitive.
The fight remains the real star of the show. Each character still feels distinct enough to justify experimenting outside of your comfort zone, and the new additions naturally add to an already excellent roster. The action strikes a satisfying balance between accessibility and depth. You can absolutely muddle your way through early encounters, but as the difficulty increases, canceling, positioning, and mastering team composition become increasingly important. It’s brilliant without being shallow, a surprisingly difficult balance to achieve.
Endless Ragnarok expands the game’s cast of playable characters with six new additions. the beauty of Please contact again‘s characters was always that they weren’t all that distinct, but that any one character contained enough depth and complexity to carry an entire game of character action on their own. New additions carry the same ethos.
Some of them, like Gallanza and Maglielle, were introduced as bosses you fought with in the main game, but are now playable characters that allow you to unleash the same terror on your enemies by incorporating every move they use against you. Of course, I haven’t had a chance to get a full look at each of the new characters, but I’ve spent a lot of time playing with Beatrix and Fraux in the game’s new roguelite mode, Conflux, and they’re surprisingly great!
Both Breatrix and Fraux use a stance-switching mechanic that allows them to seamlessly weave different stances into the same combo, but here Beatrix uses a greatsword as her tool of choice and focuses mainly on honing herself in defense, attack, or regeneration; Fraux is essentially Cygames’ take on Bayonetta, and it glorious. Using free-flowing punches, he can set up combos that summon a demon to punch for him, and it’s as fun as it sounds on paper.
That’s not to mention the excellent co-op activity on offer. While the main story campaign is solo-playable, all side missions and end-game hunts can be tackled cooperatively by teams of up to four players, with varying character synergies and team dynamics. indeed to shine This was true for the base game, but has now been enhanced with the addition of cross-platform multiplayer.
Visually, the game is an impressive fit for Nintendo’s hybrid console. Although it aims for 30fps rather than 60fps, performance remains solid even in spectacular late-game encounters where the screen is filled with attacks, effects and damage numbers. There are inevitable visual compromises compared to more powerful platforms, but they’re easy to forgive when a game looks this good on a portable screen. The vibrant art direction does a lot of heavy lifting and ensures that the world never loses its charm despite the reduced technical ceiling.
The only real caveat is that Endless Ragnarok assumes you’ve already invested in Relink. While newcomers can certainly jump in, the expansion is clearly designed for players who want an end-game system rather than an entirely new experience. If the core game’s loop of repetitive quests, farm tools, and constantly upgrading your builds didn’t click the first time, this expansion probably won’t change your mind.
Unlocking new content means finishing the entire base game and playing through its entire end game, leveling up all your characters well above where you are before you have a party that can handle whatever the expansion throws at you. If you just want to understand the story and call it a day, chances are you won’t even experience the narrative component of the story. Endless Ragnarok.
But for a special breed of patient who spends 100+ hours grinding Granblue Fantasy Relink last year on PC? (mostly patients like me) Infinite Ragnarok is exactly what you want from an expansion. It doesn’t complicate a winning formula or chase unnecessary reinventions. Instead, it doubles down on great combat, meaningful progression, and near-infinite replayability. If you’re the kind of person who can waste endless hours on loot Diablo or material economy Monster Hunterit’s a no brainer for you.
Granblue Fantasy: Reconnection was already one of the best action RPGs of the past few years, so Endless Ragnarok isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, it takes what made the original so compelling and just gives players more reasons to keep coming back. On the Switch 2, this approach works surprisingly well. It feels like the kind of game that was always meant to be played in handheld mode, where squeezing in a few quests between other games somehow turns into a three-hour session before you know it.
