Granblue Fantasy | |
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Developer(s) | Cygames |
Publisher(s) | Cygames |
Director(s) | Tetsuya Fukuhara |
Producer(s) | Yuito Kimura (2014) Koichi Haruta (2014 - 2016) Yuito Kimura (2016 - current) |
Artist(s) | Hideo Minaba Yuya Nagai Ryoji Ohara Ryota Murayama Hitomi Yoshimura |
Composer(s) |
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Platform(s) | |
Release |
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Genre(s) | Massively multiplayer online role-playing game |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Granblue Fantasy [a] is a Japanese role-playing video game developed by Cygames for Android, iOS and web browsers, which first released in Japan in March 2014. The game reunites music composer Nobuo Uematsu and art director Hideo Minaba, who previously collaborated on Final Fantasy V (1992), VI (1994), and IX (2000) and Lost Odyssey (2007).
The game plays as a role-playing video game with turn-based battles. [1] The game also contains summons and a class system that alters the main character's move-set and growth. [2] Characters gain levels and abilities by accruing experience; by collecting certain materials, some character may earn an extra star (which is called "FLB" or full limit break), resulting in new abilities and drastically improving their power. The player character, who is always a part of the party, can equip various classes to best suit the current challenge. Summons and weapons equipped also confer characters with bonuses on attack power, HP, and the passive skills each weapon hold. Building up a 'grid' of weapons and summons is the core of progression in Granblue Fantasy, with a variety of grids and character line-ups required to tackle the harder challenges in the game.
Whilst some quests are single player, there are a variety of challenges that are tackled co-operatively, called Raids, where up to 30 players work together to defeat the boss. In these encounters, everyone's damage collectively depletes the enemy HP, with all debuffs and enemy attacks being shared amongst the gathered players. Depending on the amount of damage they contributed, victors will receive chests of different rarity, many of which drop weapons and items key to progression.
The characters themselves are gained either via quests (the main story quests or special event quests) or by using in-game currency to roll and receive random crystal fragments, which may contain special weapons that add specific characters to the party. Characters, summons, and weapons are ranked (from best to worst) as SSR, SR, R, or N; each is also of type wind, water, fire, earth, light, or darkness. It is recommended to use a superior element in battle (for example using water against fire type opponents) as there are several benefits in doing so like increasing player team's damage output. There are even some levels that even penalize the player for not using the superior element. Voice actors provide voices for all of the characters in battle, and for much of the main and event story lines including tie-in/collaboration's characters and stories.
The game frequently holds a variety of special events. These include story events, that are detached from the main story, but feature various characters that are obtained via the gacha system; Unite and Fight, a mode which allows groups of players, called Crews, to compete for points for rare rewards; and special tie-in collaborations that feature characters and franchises from outside Granblue Fantasy, such as Jujutsu Kaisen , Attack on Titan , My Hero Academia , Demon Slayer , Hello Kitty , Doraemon , Cardcaptor Sakura , Street Fighter , and Samurai Shodown .
Act 1: Girl in Blue [3]
The Captain (Japanese : 団長, romanized: Danchō; the player character, either Gran (male) or Djeeta (female) by default) and their winged companion Vyrn are relaxing in the town of Zinkenstill when they spot an Erste Empire airship in the sky nearby. The Captain inadvertently comes to the rescue of a girl named Lyria and an imperial officer named Katalina as they try to escape from the Empire. However, the Captain suffers a mortal wound during the fight, forcing Lyria to merge her soul with them to bring them back from the brink of death. Lyria then uses her power to summon a giant monster called Proto-Bahamut, driving the Empire's forces away. With the Captain and Katalina's fates now tied to Lyria, the three of them decide to head to the island of Estalucia, both to escape from the Empire and possibly find clues about the Captain's estranged father.
Despite escaping, Katalina's poor piloting skills cause them to crash-land elsewhere in the Port Breeze Archipelago. The trio look for a working airship and a pilot to steer it. They end up meeting Rackam, an odd helmsman working on an airship that has been broken for years, but the Empire follows them to the island as well, looking to recapture Lyria. The three eventually manage to convince Rackam to help them fight off the Imperial soldiers chasing them, and in return help him finish repairing his airship, the Grandcypher, to make it skyworthy.
As the Captain travels across the skies, gathering up more allies on their journey and fighting Primal Beasts, creatures created by those many years ago, the crew find themselves slowly dragged into a plot involving the mysterious Black Knight, the doll-like Orchis, and the history that the Empire seeks to keep secret while they pursue Lyria.
After thwarting Freesia's ambitions and collecting the remaining Skydom Map Pieces, with the completed Phantagrande Skydom Map, they manage to break through the miasma of the Grim Basin, but due to Loki's manipulation, the Grandcypher crew is separated. The destination they arrived at was the unified kingdom that was destroyed ten years ago, the Nalhegrande Skydom. As the main characters and Katalina gather in one place, they meet a young man named Cain on Melkmaar Island, where they had drifted. [3]
After preventing The True King from taking over the Nalhe Great Wall, the Grandcypher crew went to chase after the Main Character who had fallen from the collapsing island and rescued Alliah. [3]
I thought to myself, "Can we really make a mobile RPG with such a large-scale feeling from this?" but after seeing the game screen, I was truly surprised...It's as if you completely forget that you're playing a mobile game. [4]
Uematsu worked on eleven tracks for the game, with Tsutomu Narita doing nine others, and Minaba drawing roughly 100 potential character designs. [5] The game also contains voice overs from Hiroaki Hirata as Rackam, who previously worked on Final Fantasy XII and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy . [2]
The game was originally planned for release in Japan for December 17, 2013, but was pushed back to March 10, 2014. [6] The game is free-to-play and published by Mobage. [7] Granblue Fantasy was expected to receive an international release in March 2016. [8] Instead of an international launch, a language patch was released adding an in-game option to switch from Japanese to English. [9] This allows international players who have been playing the Japanese version to keep all of their data.
The designs were created from subsidiary company CyDesignation that had created designs for different series such as Final Fantasy series ( Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII , Mobius Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy Legends II ), Lord of Vermilion III , Bravely Second and Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE . [10] Granblue Fantasy's character designs were done by Hideo Minaba, Yuya Nagai, Ryoji Ohara, Ryota Murayama and Hitomi Yoshimura. Scenery designs by Sotaro Hori, Hitomi Yoshimura, Yutaro Kaneda, Megumi Hasegawa, Masaki Hirooka, YUU Kikuchi, Toronn and Fumio Seno. [11]
By March 2016, the game had been downloaded over 10 million times in Japan, [12] which had risen to over 25 million by December 2019. [13] The game grossed ¥20.9 billion ($190.43 million) between January and October 2017. [14] In 2018, it grossed ¥33.9 billion ($308.88 million) where it was the year's sixth highest-grossing mobile game. [15] Combined, the game grossed at least ¥54.8 billion ($499 million) in Japan between 2017 and 2018. Many journalists compared it favorably to earlier Final Fantasy games. [1] [7] [16]
In December 2015, due to the proven lucrative system of the game economy, some players compulsively attempted to get desired characters via spending money on repeated random character acquisitions. [17] [18] The Japan Online Game Association imposed stricter restrictions on the industry after a player streamed themselves spending around ¥ 700,000 (~6,000 US dollars) attempting to get Andira, a new and heavily advertised character, on December 31. [18] There was a time-limited period where Andira's appearance rate increased, with her becoming more difficult to acquire on January 3, fueling pressure on players to attempt to get her immediately. [17] Frustration and claims of Andira's drop rate being less than advertised led developer Cygames to offer compensation in crystals to people caught in the incident, a promise to set up a system to automatically give a drop after too many "misses", and an apology from the management. [19] On January 8, the management issued an in-game apology for the confusion and discomfort caused to customers, but no compensation has been announced for the apology. [20] After the change in policy, players choose and immediately acquire a desired character after spending 90,000 crystals (totaling 300 draws).
A manga adaptation of the series written by Makoto Fuugetsu and illustrated by choco was serialized on Cycomics between 2016 and 2019. [27]
Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as one of his biggest influences in pursuing a musical career.
The Chocobo is a fictional species created for the Final Fantasy franchise by Square Enix. A galliform bird commonly having yellow feathers, they were first introduced in Final Fantasy II (1988), and have since featured in some capacity in nearly every Final Fantasy title, usually as a means of transport. Chocobos or chocobo-themed characters have played story roles in multiple titles, notably in Final Fantasy V and XIII. A recurring Chocobo also acts as protagonist of the Chocobo spin-off series.
Final Fantasy: Unlimited (FF:U) is an anime television series based on Square Enix's popular Final Fantasy role-playing video game franchise. Produced by Gonzo, avex mode, TV Tokyo, Dentsu and GDH, the series was directed by Mahiro Maeda, with Atsuhiro Tomioka writing the scripts, Kazuto Nakazawa and Camel 7 designing the characters and Shirō Hamaguchi and Akifumi Tada composing the music. The TV series incorporates both 2D animation and 3D graphics, and takes elements from the Final Fantasy games. It was licensed for North America and the United Kingdom by ADV Films were released on Blu-ray. Square Enix game designer Akitoshi Kawazu served as base concept planning and was intended to be the director for the planned video game series.
Final Fantasy is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and owned by Square Enix that includes video games, motion pictures, and other merchandise. The series began in 1987 as an eponymous role-playing video game developed by Square, spawning a video game series that became the central focus of the franchise. The music of the Final Fantasy series refers to the soundtracks of the Final Fantasy series of video games, as well as the surrounding medley of soundtrack, arranged, and compilation albums. The series' music ranges from very light background music to emotionally intense interweavings of character and situation leitmotifs.
Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing video game by Square as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. Released in 1997, the game sparked the release of a collection of media centered on the game entitled the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. The music of the Final Fantasy VII series includes not only the soundtrack to the original game and its associated albums, but also the soundtracks and music albums released for the other titles in the collection. The first album produced was Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack, a compilation of all the music in the game. It was released as a soundtrack album on four CDs by DigiCube in 1997. A selection of tracks from the album was released in the single-disc Reunion Tracks by DigiCube the same year. Piano Collections Final Fantasy VII, an album featuring piano arrangements of pieces from the soundtrack, was released in 2003 by DigiCube, and Square Enix began reprinting all three albums in 2004. To date, these are the only released albums based on the original game's soundtrack, and were solely composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu; his role for the majority of subsequent albums has been filled by Masashi Hamauzu and Takeharu Ishimoto.
The music of the video game Final Fantasy VI was composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version, a compilation of all the music in the game, was released in Japan by NTT Publishing in 1994 and re-released by Square Enix in 2004. The album was released by Square Co./NTT Publishing in North America in 1994 under the name Kefka's Domain. Selected tracks from the official soundtrack were later released as part of the Music From FFV and FFVI Video Games album that was included with the release of Final Fantasy Anthology, and two EPs were produced containing character theme tracks entitled Final Fantasy VI Stars Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. A special orchestral arrangement of selected tracks from the game, arranged by Shiro Sagisu and Tsuneyoshi Saito, and performed by the Milan Symphony Orchestra, was released under the title Final Fantasy VI Grand Finale by NTT Publishing in 1994 and 2004, and a collection of piano arrangements, arranged by Shirou Satou and performed by Reiko Nomura, was released under the title Piano Collections Final Fantasy VI by Square/NTT Publishing in 1994 and by NTT Publishing in 2001. Additionally, a single containing unused and remixed tracks from the game was released as Final Fantasy VI Special Tracks by NTT Publishing in 1994.
The music of the video games Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II was composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu, who would go on to be the exclusive composer for the next eight Final Fantasy games. Although they were composed separately, music from the two games has only been released together. All Sounds of Final Fantasy I•II, a compilation of almost all of the music in the games, was released by DataM/Polystar in 1989, and subsequently re-released by NTT Publishing in 1994. Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy, an arranged album of music from the two games by Katsuhisa Hattori and his son Takayuki Hattori was released by DataM in 1989, and re-released by NTT Publishing/Polystar in 1994. Final Fantasy & Final Fantasy II Original Soundtrack, another arranged album, this time by Nobuo Uematsu and Tsuyoshi Sekito, was released in 2002 by DigiCube and again in 2004 by Square Enix.
Square's Tom Sawyer is a role-playing video game produced by Square that was released exclusively in Japan in 1989 for the Family Computer. The game is directly based on Mark Twain's renowned 1876 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and was developed in the role-playing video game niche that made Square famous with its acclaimed Final Fantasy series of video games.
The music of the video game Final Fantasy VIII was composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack, a compilation of all music in the game, was released on four Compact Discs by DigiCube in Japan, and by Square EA in North America. A special orchestral arrangement of selected tracks from the game—arranged by Shirō Hamaguchi—was released under the title Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec Final Fantasy VIII, and a collection of piano arrangements—performed by Shinko Ogata—was released under the title Piano Collections Final Fantasy VIII.
The music of the video game Final Fantasy IV was composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The Final Fantasy IV Original Sound Version, a compilation of almost all of the music in the game, was released by Square Co./NTT Publishing, and subsequently re-released by NTT Publishing. It was released in North America by Tokyopop as Final Fantasy IV Official Soundtrack: Music from Final Fantasy Chronicles, with one additional track. It has since been re-released multiple times with slight changes as part of the Final Fantasy Finest Box and as Final Fantasy IV DS OST. An arranged album entitled Final Fantasy IV Celtic Moon, containing a selection of musical tracks from the game performed in the style of Celtic music by Máire Breatnach, was released by Square and later re-released by NTT Publishing. Additionally, a collection of piano arrangements composed by Nobuo Uematsu and played by Toshiyuki Mori titled Piano Collections Final Fantasy IV was released by NTT Publishing.
The music of the video game Final Fantasy III was composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu. Final Fantasy III Original Sound Version, a compilation of almost all of the music in the game, was released by Square Co./NTT Publishing in 1991, and subsequently re-released by NTT Publishing in 1994 and 2004. The soundtrack to the remake of Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS, Final Fantasy III Original Soundtrack was released by NTT Publishing in 2006, with revamped versions of the tracks and additional tracks. A vocal arrangement album entitled Final Fantasy III Yūkyū no Kaze Densetsu, or literally Final Fantasy III Legend of the Eternal Wind, contained a selection of musical tracks from the game. The tracks were performed by Nobuo Uematsu and Dido, a duo composed of Michiaki Kato and Sizzle Ohtaka. The album was released by Data M in 1990 and by Polystar in 1994.
The music of the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI was composed by Naoshi Mizuta along with regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka. The Final Fantasy XI Original Soundtrack, a compilation of almost all of the music in the game, was released by DigiCube in 2002, and subsequently re-released by Square Enix in 2004. Final Fantasy XI Rise of the Zilart Original Soundtrack was released by DigiCube in 2003 after the release of the Rise of the Zilart expansion for Final Fantasy XI, and re-released by Square Enix in 2004. Final Fantasy XI Chains of Promathia Original Soundtrack was produced by Square Enix in 2004 after the release of the Chains of Promathia expansion, and in 2005 Square Enix published Music from the Other Side of Vana'diel, a collection of arranged tracks from the game performed by The Star Onions, a group composed of Square Enix composers including Naoshi Mizuta, Kumi Tanioka and Hidenori Iwasaki. Final Fantasy XI Treasures of Aht Urhgan Original Soundtrack was released by Square Enix in 2006 for the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion.
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