Blue Reflection (2017)

Just got the platinum. It's an okay game. It's nice to play a magical girl game that isn't a bad spin-off of some anime, but it's still nothing special. It's a story of the power of friendship through and through. All of your power ups come through helping people and getting to know your friends better. The characters themselves are fine: nice designs and decent personalities, but nothing too deep. I'll play the second one at some point and maybe check out the mobile one, but it's not a priority.

It also seems like whoever did the English localization did not hire a QA team. There are a quite a few typos and inconsistencies. I didn't analyze the TL itself that much, but nothing struck me as obviously wrong.

Just finished chapter six. Despite its flaws, it's hard to not love the game. The combat has gotten stale, but the decent animation and slick UI is doing a good job to make the combat at the very least, entertaining.

The low budget feeling also started to kick in, but they did a great job to make the most out of what they have. The cutscenes are directed in a fairly cinematic way that the "basic"-ness of it doesn't really matter, they look nice. And while there are a lot to say about the other world, the school is surprisingly detailed, even more so than games like Persona 5. The game isn't fully voiced, but for the lines that do get voiced, the voice acting is amazing.

The music, art direction, and story really carried the whole experience. it's really personal story in a genre that's mostly focused on the world rather than the characters. Can't say I've played any JRPG like this. I get why most people are recommending this game to mahou shoujo fans, but I think this game will be appreciated more by fans of japanese teen drama media in general. If you're a fan of anime like リズと青い鳥 or books like こうして彼は屋上を燃やすことにした, I think you'll enjoy this game.

I'm sorry, what the hell is Blue Reflection and why does it have a season's pass that costs more than $100 CAD? I was browsing the current PS store deals, and this was in the add-on deals section. This is ludicrous. That's not including the price of the game, just the Season Pass to cover the cost of all the DLC. The game itself is $79.99 CAD.

SIGH well they just introduced a character as having a "condition" very similar to autism, and then are making a huge point that she has no emotions. Their magic is based on emotion, and she has none. Great. ugh.

Edit: Nevermind they're making a point that her emotions are different somehow? Or that she didn't know how to recognize them before? This is still just a really weird subplot they have going on.

I've been enjoying playing this.... in spite of the extremely gratuitous fan service that occurs every two minutes. The camera pans over the girl's butts in swimsuits, and they have "rainy days" where all of the girls run around completely drenched so you can see through their bras through their white shirts. The available DLC is several outfit packs... including swimsuits for all the girls and just... towels. For all the girls.

Every day you go home, you also have the option to "enter the bath" which gives you a cutscene of her bathing. Sigh.

There is no explicit nudity, but the sexualization of girls who are first years in high school (meaning they are about 15-16 years old) is super gross to me.

Which I hate because this game is fun, the story and characters are fun, and it's the only "magical girl"-style rpg that I've ever seen. SIGHHHHHH.

I just started playing this... I was super excited about the idea of a jprg based around the magical girl trope. But the fan service is gratuitous, and gross considering they are high school girls. I'm continuing to play it while just, aggressively ignoring that part.

Since (so far) much of the plot revolves around giving advice to people about their problems, it would be a much more compelling game if they gave you the option to choose between 1-3 advice options, and you got to see that play out in the girls' lives. Instead, the characters ask your MC what to do, and she just goes ahead and answers for you. Eh.