Blue Reflection (2017)

A star rating for this game is hard... since it feels like the writing team and the art direction team never spoke to each other about what they were trying to do with this game. One wanted to make a great game with a touching story about magical girls... the other wanted to make softcore pornography starring underage girls. So, story and gameplay get at 4 stars, the creepy graphics get a 1 star.

The story centers around a former ballet dancer who, due to an injury, can never dance again. At the beginning of the game, she is depressed and her life holds no meaning anymore (totally understandable, given her circumstances). Then two girls show up and teach her how to become a magical girl - she can cross into another dimension and fight monsters! This other world is like a collective human consciousness, and when people basically have a breakdown, it's because a part of their consciousness has "fragmented" off. Normally, this isn't a big deal, people heal and move on, but because they live at some kind of hellmouth, demons show up and exacerbate this stuff in order to fuel their evil masters (who, once they have enough power, show up in the real world and can cause real harm).

ANYWAY the entire game takes place in an all-girl's school, where your job is to get to know your classmates, understand their problems, empathize with them, in order to keep their fragments stable and keep the power out of evil hands. So like, really, the bulk of the game involves teen girls talking about their problems -- friends drifting apart, trying to live up to parents' expectations, bullying, overcoming shyness to make friends... etc. It's very wholesome and sweet, and some of the plotlines were honestly so touching I got emotional over them.

Buuuuut... then there's the art.

The camera constantly pans over the girl's bodies during cut scenes (esp when they're in swimsuits) in a way that feels like a lecherous old man zooming in on their asses, etc. Every day after school you have a chance to like, study, socialize, stretch etc. and these boost your stats... or you can choose "get into the bath" and get a scene of the MC naked in the bath, with options to "wash your legs" and etc. It's... honestly super creepy. There are random shower, pool, and changing room scenes with the expected disgusting nonsense. But the worst offender... when it rains, all of the girls in the school's white uniform shirts go see-through and you can see their bras. So like... they had to animate every single girl in the school with a different bra (they're all unique). I just. x__x omg. so much extra work to be so creepy.

These girls are all 14 years old, also. Did I mention that? YEAH. They're first years, so at MOST they are 15. Great job, Japan. Ugh.

The battle system is interesting. It's turn-based, but while you're waiting for your turn, you can hold down buttons to build your defense, heal yourself, or other stat boosts. I'm really not a hardcore gamer by any means, but I had to crank the difficulty to hard just so battle wouldn't be laughably easy. (From reading stuff online, this may have been my fault for having too much fun on side quests and accidentally boosting my chars' stats too high lmao)

Basically.... I don't know. I genuinely liked the game... if I aggressively ignored ALL OF THE VISUALS. And it sucks that a game that's like, what, $55??? you need to do that much compartmentalizing in your brain just to get through. But the story was genuinely great and I had a lot of fun with it. I wish I could download a mod that turned the creep factor WAY DOWN but... blah. SIGH.