One of Exe-Create's "gentler difficulty" RPGs, by the team that made Ghost Sync and Jinshin. Mediocre story, standard yet appealing gameplay.

Infinite Links is clearly made by the same Exe-Create team that made Ghost Sync, Jinshin, and Knights of Grayfang. Infinite Links shares a similar user interface, has only three difficulty settings, and the highest difficulty of Hard is relatively easy unless the player deliberately limits their use of stat-boosting fragments and/or restricts purchases from the Shop.

This review is for the Switch version of Infinite Links. Console/PC versions all but guarantee that the player will have more Shop currency than they could ever need just from regular gameplay.

The story of Infinite Links is mostly an underwhelming and ultra-common teen-hero, save-the-world fantasy. Unlike Ghost Sync, Knights of Grayfang, and (to a lesser extent) Jinshin, Infinite Links is not a “shojo” RPG designed to appeal to girls. It is squarely a “shonen” game in that the male protagonist is the center of the story and (almost) everyone looks up to him, maybe a little too much. (There is no or almost no romance, though.)

The other four party members do get their own story arcs, but their devotion to the hero is so great that they would die or give up their freedom for him. At least they disagree with or (gently) criticize him at times, which is something.

All of the playable characters are likeable enough, and the plot does have a few mildly interesting twists. Don’t expect anything outstanding. There are a few sci-fi elements (artificial lifeforms who are major characters, robotic random enemies, dungeons that look futuristic) but the story is almost purely fantasy; any use of technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The true appeal of Infinite Links is its gameplay. While its turn-based combat is very bog-standard, there are so many different ways to improve or customize one’s party – battle formations, equipment selection, upgrading weapons and armor, combining and equipping fragments for stat boosts or other beneficial effects, buying and dissembling talismans for even more fragments, and most intricately of all, equipping talismans to determine the party’s spell selection AND their super move selection.

Up to 9 talismans can be equipped by each member, and their placement on a 3×3 grid determines which, if any, super moves that member can use. (Super moves are further restricted by a meter that slowly builds during combat, and resets to 0 out of combat.) Each party member has elemental affinities that limit which talismans/spells they can equip.

There is an enemy catalog with “catalog rewards” for killing enough of each enemy. None of these “catalog rewards” are irreplaceable, and grinding them out can take a long time. Some enemies are rare, and a few (the “Leader” enemies) don’t seem to appear in battles triggered by monster-encounter pillars (the ability to force battles with each step is not obtainable until the postgame).

Be warned that attempting to grind out all catalog rewards will make 95% of the game EXTREMELY easy just from leveling up, let alone the Shop currency and in-game gold earned from it. There is a hard level cap of 99 that makes postgame challenges (notably a postgame “high score” challenge to do as much damage as possible in one attack) a little more difficult. While the player will not get anywhere near maximum stats from normal gameplay, there is no need for max stats to beat all postgame challenges.

Overall, Infinite Links is nothing special and a little grindy… but the gameplay is so easy that the player doesn’t HAVE to grind. It’s just so appealing when almost every random battle gives something to power up the party, whether it’s a +1 weapon or armor to combine with the party’s equipment, a stat booster, a fragment, a +1 talisman that can be combined with others of the same spell, or a talisman that can be dissembled into a fragment.

A robust autobattle system with speed-up x3 and multiple tactical options makes grinding even more fun!

Infinite Fun

Infinite Links is a pretty basic RPG game when you look at it, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. I rate the game a 9/10 overall and here are my takes!

While playing this game, I immediately got attached to the characters. Kronos being the son of an ancient hero, Selene being cursed, Meytia being an orphan, Yumil being secretive, and Beruna being the holy talisman reeled me in for more. Although I have general issues with focusing I enjoyed the story nonetheless. And honestly you can argue that the story is basic and predictable but of course as I’ve already said… that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun! I personally enjoy most things.

Onto mechanics and gameplay, they’re not too bad and pretty nice. The way you obtain elemental skills is by adding talismans (the skills) to a character’s board. And depending on what level and element those skills are, they can give you a powerful attack when put into a row. I enjoy that and think it’s unique! There’s no walk speed up button in the overworld but that’s alright because everything else really makes up for it. You can even change character formations mid-battle and they give you stat boosts, it’s standard but amazing…

I don’t have much else to say but this game is pretty nice to play whenever you’re bored and want any story.