After several weeks of playing this game, I’ve decided to actually give Blue Archive a somewhat proper review.

To be honest, I was very distant to Blue Archive when I first started it up. After all, I only really downloaded the game to see if Eden Treaty really was top tier storytelling like I’d heard it was. Pretty much everything else was an afterthought, and I was able to get away with this mindset for a decent amount of time, that is until that one specific story episode that forced me to actually build my characters and level up my account. I absolutely resented BA for this and I still think it was a bit of a fucked up move by the devs, but it also kinda acted as a blessing in disguise. It led to me getting much more involved with the game’s systems, I started getting invested in characters who weren’t in the main story that much, and I was able to derive at least some enjoyment out of the game’s combat. It’s amazing what a great story can do to my motivation.

So now here I am, 64 levels deep, listening to Alkaline Tears and After School Dessert almost daily whilst Ayane’s sweat soaked face graces my main menu. Definitely not the position I was expecting to be in when I saw Mika’s design for the first time and thought she looked pretty.

The story is definitely as good as people say it is. Of course Eden Treaty was fantastic, mainly because the Make Up Work Club is literally just my four favorite characters in a single group, but the other Volumes were no slouch either. After playing Genshin and getting consistently frustrated with how much its writing prodded on and on and on for no reason, a concise story that makes its points quickly while knowing when to have some fun is exactly what I needed. Whenever some goofy or chaotic moment happens and it actually becomes an element of the plot I’m always left with a wide grin on my face, aside from that one case where I both smiled and cried a little (I will never look at ski masks the same way ever again). I once heard the plot be called a children’s story for adults and that’s actually pretty accurate. A chapter will put Sensei and their students through utter hell as they deal with extremely stubborn corporate greed, generational hatred, crippling distrust/paranoia, and the horrors of nihilism, before ending with everyone gathering together to best all the odds as someone declares “THE BLUE ARCHIVE IS REAL”. This is only a slight exaggeration. Also, the characters fill me with so much joy and I would legit take a bullet for about 98% of them.

I will say though, the last thing I expected from this game was me loving Sensei and their role in the story as much as I do. Despite being a self insert, they actually get a decent amount characterization as a bad spender with a childish imagination who is sorta kind of a degen. Basically, your average gacha player. However, in the land of Kivotos where most adult figures for the students are either non existent in their lives or are manipulative bastards, Sensei acts as the guiding light that actually teaches them how to grow and learn from their mistakes, and is willing to put a lot on the line to do so. This does end up leading into most of the students fawning over sensei in some way, shape, or form, sometimes in rather suggestive ways. While this quasi-harem comes off as a bit tacky at first, as time went on I began to completely understand the girls’ feelings, especially after reading Where All Miracles Begin because goodness gracious it cannot be underestimated how life changing Sensei’s actions are there I’m choking up just thinking about it. Shit, I’d probably fall head over heels for Sensei in the students’ position too.

Even though i’m docking a star off for the Hell BA put me through to see through its story, don’t be mistaken. I adore this game about as much as my 5 stars, and am genuinely so happy that I was convinced by the dozens of pieces of Mika art being shoved down my throat to give Blue Archive a shot.

Azusa best girl btw
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Edit: I’m bumping the rating up to 4.5 stars because I get happy every time I think about this game and just 4 stars doesn’t feel right

Now that I’ve finished Volume F and almost caught up with the main story (in the English version at least), I can finally talk more about this. If there’s any genre I dislike the most, it’d be gacha. I’ve tried them many times and just couldn’t no matter what, I always find them to be too much of a dedication, especially with most of them being on mobile which is probably my least favourite way to play games. But with Blue Archive… there was something that made it stick with me, and I can easily call this one of my new favourites

The story was such a surprise for me, even with all the hype I saw. I started back when you needed to progress through the missions to get further in the story, so I didn’t think I’d get too far (before they ended up changing that. I even thought about just watching it on Youtube at that point but I’m glad I didn’t). But man, it started strong and only got better as it went on (Eden Treaty and Volume F being the main highlights, I never would’ve expected them to hit anywhere near as hard as they did). Another surprise was the cast. Originally I thought they would’ve been nothing more than weeb bait, but god I love these characters so much. Hifumi is my main favourite, but other favourites are Aru, Mika, Saori, Azusa and Aris (my daughter btw)

There’s a lot more to say about this but I just want to keep this short. I guess in a way, this game has been one of the main things keeping me going these past few months. It’s a game that isn’t easy to recommend with it being a gacha and… other reasons, but I can’t recommend it enough if you’re interested. It’s also very F2P friendly imo. Now that I’ve said all of that, Nexon please bring Nagisa back and give me the rest of my favourites in my next pull

Played on release and then stoped playing for half a year then I came back and never stop playing since, the only gacha game that I like the story and gameplay of.

While not the most entertaining it respects its users time by letting you breeze through the daily missions in like 10 minutes or so.

Took me a long time to catch up to the story but I don't regret it, while some volumes are better than others the 3rd one in particular "The Eden treaty" was an amazing experience.
The gacha rates sometimes feel like a lie, but this is expected and the worse thing is that the spark isn't maintained banner to banner which sucks.

Give it a shot I have a blast and it's my biggest guilty pleassure as of late, I love the designs and the stories are great.

"Atsui~
Atsukute hikarabisoouu~
Ugoite nai no ni atsuiyoo~"

One of the greatest voice lines in all of video games. I needed it for myself. Dumped 200 rolls on Mika's banner the other day. Mika's cute and all, and the 6% rate was tantalizing, but what I was really chasing was that heat. Even with so much saved, it was still a 0.3% rate. Fate/GO players shot for the stars with more, and died in disgrace for less. It was a steep price to pay for missing the train back in January. I wasn't a believer then, but half a year of Twitter art forces a man to acknowledge the sheer strength Blue Archive commandeered as the head honcho of the cute and funny genre. Come April, I knew what I had to do. I installed, started grinding, and bided my time until the fated day would come. Ohhh I waited. Banners came and went, and my gem stock slowly grew. They called me a fool for skipping Himari. But there is no virtue chasing higher ranks in a future without Summer Hoshino. Days became weeks. Weeks became months.

Until Judgement Day. 7/25. The red carpet was rolled out for Mika. Fanfare, Twitter campaigns, displays, advertisements. She had it all. Even Arona Hot Dog was there. But I was only concerned about my pink, 0.3% prize. I only had a 45% chance to get her. I had nothing else but hopes and prayers; I prostrated before the numbers, completely at the mercy of a coin flip. And it flipped.

It was a silly little thing. One moment I didn't have her, and then in the next, I did. 70 pulls in. It's an unbelievable feeling, to entrust the culmination of several months of dreams on a dice roll, and win. At that time, at that place, for a fleeting moment, through no power of mine, the whims of reality and my wordly desires were one and the same. With no rhyme or reason, the Mandate of Heaven bestowed upon me Hoshino. Don't you see what this means? I walked the path forged by the stars, and it was written in indelible celestial text that Victory was my lot.

Anyway +3 stars for Ui, she's my favorite.

(review as the of the end of volume Final)

A game I completely discounted on release, Blue Archive is a perfect example of how gacha soshage have really taken the torch from the 00s/10s eroge scene. Of course, this has been the direction the space has taken since Fate/Grand Order's raucous success, but this one to me feels like the moment. Its hard for me at least to discuss the game except in comparison to its main two competitors in the Story Gacha, FGO and Arknights. Those games I often feel--as great as they are--get away from themselves, with their grand stories and rotating casts often running away from the presentation of the plot--if I was a smarter person, perhaps I'd make some reference to how Grand the scale of those games are and how the small phone screen ill-suits them, but I am not a philosopher.

Blue Archive keeps it simple. Its a game downright obsessed with the small, every day--even the most minor cursory thoughts about how Kivotos as a place works makes the whole thing crash down, but that same small nature just makes it work better for the phone format. I could easily shotgun entire chapters of Blue Archive while at work in a way I struggle to with FGO or (especially) Arknights. The focus on the more day-to-day "nichijou-kei" sort of writing helps this as well, I think.

But all of that would be missed if the writing wasn't up to par, which is where Blue Archive shines. The game's so endearingly optimistic and even the bit characters have too much charm that you can't not love them and buy into their struggles or lackthereof. It even made one of the worst character types--the person who Talks Only In Video Game References--arguably the best, most realized character in the game. The plots themselves can get quite grand in scale--be it Ancient Blood Feuds or Literally The End of Existence of Every Dimension Ever--but they never stop focusing on these girls, and your role in helping them overcome their various traumas, quirks, feelings, or whatever.
Which is where I should put my subnote--yes, the premise is that you're the good-hearted sensei who teaches these girls, and yes they are all very voluptuous and a lot of them definitely do want to jump your bones--but I was honestly shocked by how wholesome the whole game is. Its horny in practice, but in spirit? I'm not as convinced.

I actually really liked how far it takes the teacher conceit--although your character does take definitive action in the stories, it always comes from a place of growth for the girls you are helping. It has a lot of emphasis on how part of the reason Kivotos as a place is fucked is because the world ultimately does not help these girls and there's no mentorship, no people helping them out except themselves--this is exemplified by all the main antagonists being pretty explicit metaphors for methods of control and coercion of the adults these girls should be able to trust and rely on(and, mechanically, this is also tied in by the main character's Otona no Card--literally, adult card, translated into english as your credit card, an object that the other antagonists who are adults should have but don't because they don't accept that responsibility to the students). And that sort of sense of, I don't know, fulfillment? , is what makes the whole plot work.

And its beautiful.

As to the game? Its a passable idle game i guess, but who really cares about that.

Relogging this after finishing Vol F

Fucking Peak, it hit so fucking hard. Never have I thought I would have spent almost 16 hours straight on this one volume hooked and kept on playing even If I was tired. This game lets on more than what it actually is, and some people will actually give their honest opinion making it this far into this game which is Blue Archive actually being peak storytelling.

"Your life matters. Don't regret living.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be happy.

Thinking the only way to end your suffering is through death is terrible.

You weren't born to suffer.

And you shouldn't.

No child should ever feel that way.

If your world is filled with more pain than happiness...

If you're wandering the world feeling like you don't belong in it...

That's not your fault.

It's the fault of the world you live in and the people responsible for it.

No one person should ever carry the entire weight of the world on their shoulders... especially not a child.

No matter how many horrible things you've done, no matter how many unforgivable offenses you've committed...

It should NEVER be that way.

It's not your responsibility.

That duty should fall to the adults in your life.

...I'll be the one to take responsibility."

RE Aoharu changed me. Thank You Blue Archive.

As I sat down and watched the credits roll after finishing a 12 hour reading session for Volume F, I might have relearned a lesson I learned many years ago. That I should never judge a book by its cover, or in Blue Archive's case, a book by its degeneracy. Blue Archive is truly a fantastic heart-warming story that is so earnest with how it portrays its themes via the multiple stories it provides.

Based on the stuff I've seen online, I expected this to be a pretty safe slice of life-ish gacha story, that would be good, but ultimately forgettable. The first two volumes exceeded that expectation, with the underlying message about an adult's role to guide young adolescents into growing and understanding what their goals are and how to achieve them elevating the pretty fun slice of life scenes and the serious moments when the plots get more involved with more stakes. Kivotos as a setting for Blue Archive expands the limits of what Blue Archive can do. It is both a very exaggerated and silly place that seems almost like a parody of slice of life series with how nonsensical many aspects of Kivotos work and are taken as the norm. But at the same time, these oddities are sometimes questioned and are used to expand the world, with raid monsters being these weird eldritch creatures, the main villain group Gematria having surprisingly cool and abstract character design, which makes the world mysterious in a way that makes you want to learn more about it while being vague enough that the writers can do pretty much anything for stories (kind of similar to Touhou now that I think about it).

The overall writing is very sharp and to the point, emphasizing lines that give situations more impact, both for levity and for serious moments, while having very little bloat (aka Arknights) present. There was a scene involving a bridge that takes place late in Volume 3 that conveyed a lot about two characters relationship with few lines of text, which really impressed me, especially coming from reading many Arknights events. Pivotal story moments near the ends of each Volume are voiced too, which greatly enhances the emotional impact of certain scenes.

Eden's Treaty surprised me though, with it ending up as one of the best stories I've read in a gacha (only behind FGO's Avalon le Fae as an absolute favorite). The entire conflict between Trinity and Gehenna and how the narrative explored the themes of communication via the irrational hatred both groups both hold for each other, the inherent flaw in trying to understand others, and the futility of living for a purpose, but to pursue a happy ending for everyone despite those logical fallacies was just so incredibly well executed and explored that it got me to really appreciate how uplifting and positive Blue Archive's story ultimately is, despite all the hardships and despair that can occur. Hifumi's "I love clichés" speech encapsulates everything about the optimistic themes of Blue Archive so well and made me tear up with how genuine and earnest it felt. Volume F continued the bar for high quality story-telling, delving more into choosing to live, despite all the bad circumstances in your life, and the role of an adult shouldering the mistakes a youth can make when they can rely on no one. The entire ending sequence of Volume F though was fantastic and captivated me from start to finish, making up for some bloated pacing during the battle scenes near the middle.

The characters are all very fun to see interact and do shenanigans with, which makes it very easy to be invested in them when the stakes raise and the students have to go through some real hardships. The group dynamics with each student in their specific club and school really allow some of these characters, despite not being the deepest, to just be really fun to watch act on screen (Make-Up Work Club my beloved). Not every character is the most complex or fleshed out, but the characters that are especially focused on (Mika, Saori, Terror Shiroko, etc.) are wonderfully explored and have lots of catharsis tied to their flawed ideologies, yet are guided to hope and grow through their Sensei.

Sensei, while being a self-insert, is a pretty damn good one, being a symbol of an adult just trying to lead their beloved students to a brighter future, despite the influence of corrupt deceitful adults that exist in the world (Gematria, Kaiser Corp, etc.). There is some degeneracy to the character, but the gigantic positive influence Sensei has on the students lives and struggles made me like Sensei as something much more than just a simple gacha self-insert protagonist. The students all get a lot of love too when pulled for, with each character having a unique Live2D lobby animation, and a support chain of events you can perform. These events range from very nice resolutions to story events, very silly but overall fun reads, to completely degenerate. There is LOTS to love about Blue Archive's cast and how the game treats them.

The music is fantastic, with it leaning very heavily into EDM style tracks. Story themes are very memorable and catchy listens, and the core battle themes and important songs in big moments being amazing (RE Aoharu, Alkaline Tears, Defective Pixel, Usagi Flop, too many more to count). It elevates a great story even more and makes the atmosphere very unique compared to other gacha stories.

If this was just a visual novel, I would probably come out loving Blue Archive, but unfortunately, this game is a gacha. To be fair, the game does use the fact that its a gacha for its story extremely well, with each Volume being very distinct from each other and exploring the multitude of students that exist in Kivotos rather than focusing on one centralized cast. But the gacha means that the actual gameplay is kind of bad... It's harmless auto battler stuff, with you selecting skills at the right times and timing skills for good positioning, but I just find that style of gameplay tedious and boring to deal with. The rates look great on paper (3% for a max rarity unit, 6% during certain limited banners), but the focus only being 0.7% means you'll have to spark most of the time (200 pulls) to get the desired unit you'd want. This is actually not the worst, as the average time to get enough currency to spark is 2 months, but the rates do look better than they actually are in terms of getting a focus.

Something that is greatly appreciated is how much this game respects your time, at least once the ball gets going with mission progress on your account. You can skip almost every daily task in the game with a simple sweep command, reaping all the rewards while skipping the tedium of the combat completely once you beat the node with a 3 star rating at least once. This significantly boosted my attention rate in this game, making it possible for me to focus entirely on the story without worrying too much about the gacha and being optimal, just sweeping dailies and completing missions effortlessly to idly progress. Story progression is rarely locked behind the gacha as well (with a few very notable exceptions), meaning that your story progress is moreso locked behind your account level rather than having the most optimal students and building a meta team. This again focuses the attention of the game less on meta and pulling for broken students, and more on just pulling for your favorites, to get their Live2D's, to see more of their characters in their Momotalk. The focus of Blue Archive is always on the students, no matter what.

Despite the actual game portion of Blue Archive being underwhelming to me, Blue Archive as a whole is a great time if taken as a visual novel, and is also so easy to maintain. Dailies take at most 3-5 minutes (unless raid events are happening), and all previous nodes can be swept at no additional stamina cost (unlike something like Limbus). One of my favorite gachas, and I'll definitely stick around for Arc 2.

I followed this for the first year if you count retweeting art of girls as following. And then they came out with track mari and I decided I had to lock in for at least 6 months. I got my spark and my track mari but I also received peak fiction. I think hifumi "I love cliches" speech enjoyers should be giving out less 1 stars and more "hooooooly moly" ratings to games with soul but arent really good. I dont like the gameplay very much but its a gacha and you cant convince me they can be anything but reloads and micromanaging rng (and macromanaging rng by getting good rolls).

Imagina el hecho de como una historia de chicas lindas haciendo cosas lindas acaba siendo una historia de muerte y tristeza sin sentirse forzado intentando ser un wanabe de madoka magica si no que que todo fue pensado desde el principio para crear conflicto y ideas al jugador, cada historia avanza de buena manera sin sentirse que te estan obligando a ver cosas graficas ni ver cosas cute todo el tiempo, un buen equilibrio de estos sentidos. la interaccion entre los personajes aunque a veces sea muy caricaturesca ayuda a crear mas un mundo y sus conflictos veamos el caso de mika aunque al inicio la plantearon como un personaje sumisa y linda acaba desatando tremendos problemas a futuro pero la misma historia ya te lo planteaba con sus accines y ideas con otros personajes, lastima que es un gatcha y no una novela visual, si no fuera por ese hecho del elemento gatcha le daria un nueve, pero nunca me a gustado ese estilo de venta.
almenos blue archive lo hace bien después de 200 punto las tiradas te regalan un personaje sin necesidad de que sigas gastando mas y el juego te regala gemas por todo asi que no se siente tan opresivo.
el juego en si es un autocombate de estrategia y aunque al inicio parezca fácil después te golpeas con un wall level sin previo aviso.
pero al final no es mal juego... muchas veces hasta es motivador, realmente es el mejor juego gatcha...