Okay, so like here me out: Jungian psychotherapy mixed with slice of life magical girl business. Before you speak—shut up, before Persona there was Xenosaga so let us not speak of it. So shit man, the collective unconscious back and it's apocalyptic dreams are becoming a reality; cue high-school girls who have the magic power to bring order to teenage girl emotions by leaping into the common and beating up weird analogous demons.
Yeah, so this game has got some jank, weird. Style wise this game is going for a more grounded anime style, there ain't no primary hair color bullshit her, however a few characters do have reasonable dyed hair. Something is just ...off, with the visuals here; the analogous color palette leaves me longing for the beautiful pastels of Sailor Moon, instead there's a white haze lingering in the air that feels a bit empty. Eyes, you know those huge expressive fuckers in anime, well they're more resembling children of the corn here, there's zero life to them and they just kind of exist. It can be difficult to decipher the mood of characters and for a game about emotions it really stands out.
The combat system here isn't anything special; it's a nice balancing act, choosing when you want to add an extra turn to a round and deal some massive damage, using knockback attacks that push the enemy down the timeline or regenerate your ether. There's no grinding here, you level up by finishing quests, the issue with this system is that there's nothing stopping your from grinding social links; it's very easy to just become overleved resulting in battles ending after a single turn. You only get item drops from enemies, and it sometimes leaves the feeling of just doing the bare-minimum to get by. So like Persona you attend hig—fuck I said it—shit, okay whatever, yeah you attend high-school and get to learn about your classmates and solve their mundane emotional issues in order to stave off the quote unquote COLLECTIVE UNCONCIOUS. Sometimes you're forced into doing side quests to progress the plot.
Since I brought up Persona again I might as well go into more detail. The world of Blue Reflection is not fleshed out very well. I don't even remember if it mentions the name of the school you attend; the interior design looks stark, would have been interesting if they went for a old fashioned wooded school-house since the setting is in a sleepy little town. The uniforms aren't striking either, none of the characters have that slight flair to make them stand out, you gotta go by hair style. There's not really any activities that happen either, there's a festival that's brought up a lot but that's it; would have been nice if there was a school trip or something. Another strange thing is that they hide all of the school staff, the only characters you will interact with are students, it just feels like they didn't fully utilize the school setting to craft something more bold.
Look, there's one last point I feel like I need to mention; you already know the name of this elephant, the big booba oogas side of anime culture. A good mount of the cinematography likes to linger on skirt shots, however there's no explicit upskirt action. Dialog often happens in communal showers so there's side-booba, top-booba, bottom booba, sometimes even the exotic mosaic booba. There's no cringe features like clothing... tearing apart in battle or striping down for ultimate attacks; honestly the demographic seems to be aimed at more feminine audience.
So, uh yeah. It's a rough around the edges magic girl Persona, with chill vibes. The Jungian focus has become a common theme in recent times due to growing popularity of SMT; however overused, you cannot deny that it makes an excellent spine to focus on character studies while also giving meaning to enemy designs and the alternate realties. For a directors first shot at his own IP there's heart and isn't cynically low effort for a change. It doesn't dig too deep into character trauma, could have made better use of the psychological themes, but characters still come across as likeable but maybe too simple. Nothing here is going will blow you away, just a fun time and I for one welcome any JRPG that foregoes the generic fantasy settings.
Side note: There is alot of speling mistakes goimg on here, nothinf seriou but just found it kinda funnt OK
Yeah, so this game has got some jank, weird. Style wise this game is going for a more grounded anime style, there ain't no primary hair color bullshit her, however a few characters do have reasonable dyed hair. Something is just ...off, with the visuals here; the analogous color palette leaves me longing for the beautiful pastels of Sailor Moon, instead there's a white haze lingering in the air that feels a bit empty. Eyes, you know those huge expressive fuckers in anime, well they're more resembling children of the corn here, there's zero life to them and they just kind of exist. It can be difficult to decipher the mood of characters and for a game about emotions it really stands out.
The combat system here isn't anything special; it's a nice balancing act, choosing when you want to add an extra turn to a round and deal some massive damage, using knockback attacks that push the enemy down the timeline or regenerate your ether. There's no grinding here, you level up by finishing quests, the issue with this system is that there's nothing stopping your from grinding social links; it's very easy to just become overleved resulting in battles ending after a single turn. You only get item drops from enemies, and it sometimes leaves the feeling of just doing the bare-minimum to get by. So like Persona you attend hig—fuck I said it—shit, okay whatever, yeah you attend high-school and get to learn about your classmates and solve their mundane emotional issues in order to stave off the quote unquote COLLECTIVE UNCONCIOUS. Sometimes you're forced into doing side quests to progress the plot.
Since I brought up Persona again I might as well go into more detail. The world of Blue Reflection is not fleshed out very well. I don't even remember if it mentions the name of the school you attend; the interior design looks stark, would have been interesting if they went for a old fashioned wooded school-house since the setting is in a sleepy little town. The uniforms aren't striking either, none of the characters have that slight flair to make them stand out, you gotta go by hair style. There's not really any activities that happen either, there's a festival that's brought up a lot but that's it; would have been nice if there was a school trip or something. Another strange thing is that they hide all of the school staff, the only characters you will interact with are students, it just feels like they didn't fully utilize the school setting to craft something more bold.
Look, there's one last point I feel like I need to mention; you already know the name of this elephant, the big booba oogas side of anime culture. A good mount of the cinematography likes to linger on skirt shots, however there's no explicit upskirt action. Dialog often happens in communal showers so there's side-booba, top-booba, bottom booba, sometimes even the exotic mosaic booba. There's no cringe features like clothing... tearing apart in battle or striping down for ultimate attacks; honestly the demographic seems to be aimed at more feminine audience.
So, uh yeah. It's a rough around the edges magic girl Persona, with chill vibes. The Jungian focus has become a common theme in recent times due to growing popularity of SMT; however overused, you cannot deny that it makes an excellent spine to focus on character studies while also giving meaning to enemy designs and the alternate realties. For a directors first shot at his own IP there's heart and isn't cynically low effort for a change. It doesn't dig too deep into character trauma, could have made better use of the psychological themes, but characters still come across as likeable but maybe too simple. Nothing here is going will blow you away, just a fun time and I for one welcome any JRPG that foregoes the generic fantasy settings.
Side note: There is alot of speling mistakes goimg on here, nothinf seriou but just found it kinda funnt OK