Folks, we are back with Granblue Fantasy, a gacha game that I think is surprisingly okay. I swear I’ll do another Opera Omnia one soon; like, I’ve taken so long on it that they’ve updated the app icon to just be a cute Moogle now.
After the last post, I started out by getting 60 free rolls, which ain’t bad at all. But then my friend Jawnsunn told everyone to hold off because there was a limited time flash banner coming up. It was some weird shadow attuned lady that has a pacifier? Hm. Can’t say no to limited time, even though I think she’s a fucking weirdo. But because I was very smart, I decided that I might as well use the normal free roll they were still offering me.
I got 4 characters. Don’t know how good they are, but hey, I got them. And so, I waited until the next day, after the banner reset but before my rolls reset.
And yo, I really lucked the fuck out. Among these rolls were Lucio and Zooey, who are apparently top tier light elemental heroes. I guess I’m kinda set on making a proper light team for a while?? Anyway, back to the main story.
The gang heads to the Valtz Duchy, an industrious island whose main population are Draphs, those humanoid people with the big animal horns that you’ve seen in my rolls. The Archduke of the Duchy had disappeared, so everyone’s kinda on edge. Sierokarte apparently followed the gang here and she tells them to meet up with an informant. But hmm, there’s somebody following them in the shadows…
They meet up with Christophe, who tasks the gang with locating the missing Archduke. Thankfully, the Archduke for whatever reason kept a detailed log of his steps, so the gang just ends up retracing them. Anyway, the person tailing them fucking sucks at it because she gets caught up with a bunch of monsters. She turns out to be a young mage girl and Lyria really wants to hang out with her, which is valid.
They can’t find the Archduke, but that mage girl ends up getting kidnapped for her troubles. Oh hey, it’s Drang and Sturm again. They kidnapped the girl because they think the crew knows where the Archduke is, because apparently the empire doesn’t know either, despite the rumors. Haha, what a wonderful comedy of errors. Anyway, everybody gets attacked by robots. In the aftermath, the gang recovers the girl and takes her to safety.
It’s then that the big guaranteed 200 pull happened. I already have too many fucking pictures of new characters I got, so here’s all the SSR characters I have:
Back to the plot, the mage recovers and she tells the gang that she’s Io, the Archduke’s apprentice, and she’s been following them around in hopes that they could lead her to him. While Drang was holding her hostage she heard that the Empire’s secretly doing research on a nearby island of abandoned mines, so they all set out there.
Deep in its depths, they meet the Black Knight, the top adviser of the Erste Empire. Funnily enough, he doesn’t even know where the Archduke is either. According to him though, the Archduke kinda went nuts with regards to technology harnessing primal crystals. Technology such as those robots, who attack once again. Io tries to make an emotional appeal to the robots, but alas, they’re robots. Io’s upset but she’s now ride or die with the crew. I’m probably not going to use her at all because I got a pretty stacked water team from all the free rolls, but welcome aboard.
Sierokarte examined the remains of the machines and sees that they’re built to withstand extreme heat, so the posse deduces that they were probably made near this lava lake past the local desert. Everyone’s dying in the heat. Rackam voices his reasonable concern that the Archduke is going to commit war crimes independent of the Empire, but I’m sure it’s fine.
Io finds a cave that the Archduke once brought her to and speculates that he went down there. The heat’s even worse underground – Katalina should be dead in her suit of armor by now. Anyway, goddamn it, it’s Drang and Sturm again. They all have a temporary ceasefire until all the hostile robots are gone, in which case, the two ditch them to get ahead. They should have let Io just kill them. Speaking of which, wow Io’s got a surprising bloodlust.
There’s an ancient factory underneath all of this which the Astrals used to run. The Astrals enslaved Draphs to build mechanical primal beasts, and at one point, the Draphs tried to craft the Colossus, a big armored machine primal that was intended to help the Draphs rebel against the Astrals.
We finally meet the Archduke, who intends to revive the Colossus to continue the dreams of his failed ancestors. He sics the Colossus on the gang but they win, which also inexplicably causes parts of the ceiling to collapse. Io cries out and her emotions reaches the Colossus, which shields the Archduke with the last of its lifeforce. From the shadows, the Erste Empire gang (those two, the Black Knight and a still mysterious girl) observe, seeing it as a test of sorts for Lyria.
A few days later, the Archduke recovers, perfectly normal now. He discovered part of the sky map while he was going batshit and hands it off to the crew and gives Io his blessing to tag along with the gang. He informs them that the Black Knight has something planned for the Auguste Isles, which is where we’ll be heading next time.
I’m probably not going to do events for these because I’d have to really power through them. But you know what’s some side content that I can cover? The fate episodes! I’m probably just going to do them in the order that the game presents me with because I kinda don’t want to pick through to find my favorites.
In Walder’s story, the gang investigates a forest primal shrine for a map piece. There isn’t one to be found, but compared to a lot of their situations, the area’s pretty peaceful. At least until Walder attempts to snipe them, thinking that they’re a bunch of hunters. Thankfully, Lyria talks sense into him before we could get into a pointless fight.
The forest shrine belongs to a primal named Jade, whom Walder befriended. Walder attempts to regale the crew with his tales of adventure with Jade but Vyrn tells him to shut up. At one point, Jade fell asleep and Walder’s concerned that he can’t communicate with him anymore. When Jade awakens, he wishes to regale him with stories of his own adventures in hopes of deepening their bond. Like dang dude, you really want him to be your monster boyfriend, huh?
At the start of Jasmine’s episode, Vyrn is sick, which really contrasts with how he called himself the coolest member of the crew in Walder’s episode. They meet a herbalist named Jasmine, who’s lamenting the health of the forest. She’s happy to help out Vyrn, but she’s unable to prepare anything because monsters polluted the forest. Huh? Anyway, the gang decides to fight the monsters because it’d somehow fix the forest’s problems immediately. Jasmine chooses to tag along and the gang beats up the monsters off-screen.
Hooray, Vyrn has his medicine now! But also, Vyrn is an idiot because the reason why he was so sick is that he ate something off the ground. Buddy, you’re not a fucking dog. The crew’s missing a doctor and Vyrn will probably fuck up again in the future, so they invite Jasmine along to go see the world.
The future’s full of uncertainty, and in fact, the present still has a bunch; like, what’s the deal with Lyria? To get some answers, the gang seeks out a witch that’s hopefully experienced in these magical matters.
Enter Anna, a forest witch, and her talking doll Nightmare. She initially sees the crew as hallucinations because she hasn’t had any human contact in a long time, as she’s clearly a very nervous person. She knows nothing about primal magic, but she’s fascinated by the crew’s quest of crossing the skies. Nightmare thinks that they’ll be a third wheel to the crew (I guess they’re right), but Anna gets invited along anyway.
After a bunch of offscreen travels (presumably because Rackam’s in this episode), the gang meets De La Fille, a princess of some country unconnected to the game’s conflict. Well, she hates imperials though and seems to think the heroes are imperial spies. She cools down, but instead she’s really unimpressed by the heroes. She thinks that the crew fucking sucks at fighting the Erste Empire, so she volunteers to join up. Cool!
…And with that, I’ve decided to take another break here. As we continue on with Granblue Fantasy’s main story, let me know what kinda stuff I should talk about or if I should look at any particular fate episodes. Don’t judge my party compositions either because I don’t know what’s “meta.” Don’t you dare talk to me about weapon grids either.
Indie Hell Zone 