REVIEW

Blue Reflection Review

by Rob Pritchard, October 19th, 2017

After a tragic accident leaves her unable to dance, a young ballet dancer and high school student named Hinako Shirai feels that her life has come to an end. After starting a new year at school, she makes friends with twin girls Yuzu and Lime, who give her the ability to transform into a magical girl styled being known as a Reflector. The twins promise her that if Hinako helps them to eliminate a group of evil beings known as the Seraph, she will be granted a single wish from the bottom of her heart.

The tale of an inexperienced magical girl is one that has been told many times in Japanese media, and Blue Reflection does an excellent job at portraying both the supernatural and the human side of the equation. At the start of the story, Hinako is initially portrayed as a defeated soul, who is selfishly obsessed with regaining her former glory. As the young teenager grows in power and experience by helping her classmates, Hinako grows into a more compassionate individual who has earned a new purpose in life. This is alongside her love for ballet, which was formerly her main focus. Aside from Hinako, the other characters in the story are also portrayed with the same care and attention, especially Yuzu and Lime, who grow to treat the protagonist as a sister as the story continues.

From its core, Blue Reflection is a prime example of a slice of life anime in video game form. Each of the twelve chapters showcases a different student from Hinako’s school, and the issues that they are facing in their lives. Some of these include low key issues like boyfriend troubles, whilst others deal with more serious topics such as domestic abuse from a parental figure. All of the topics are dealt with in a sensitive manner, and offer an inspiring message that there is always a way to overcome the obstacles in your life. At some point during each chapter, the character in question will go into an emotional meltdown, requiring Hinako and her new friends to take on their Reflector guises and enter a parallel world known as The Common. Similar to the way the Persona series uses this supernatural phenomenon, Hinako must uncover the Fragment, which is the source of their distress and purify it by empathizing with their struggles.

Recovering the Fragments is not always a simple task, as there are enemies which need to be fought inside the various areas of The Common. Blue Reflection uses an turn based battle system, which is pretty much identical to the one used in RPG’s such as Final Fantasy X. Alongside the basic attack and special attack functions, it is possible to use an Ether Charge to restore your MP during battle without the use of items, which can be earned from battles or found in The Common outside of enemy encounters. Although the battle system is fairly standard for the RPG genre, the character animations shown during their attacks are vibrant and full of life, making each battle feel like an encore performance rather than a chore.

Once you have become friends with a particular classmate, you can assign them to either Hinako, Yuzu or Lime to take advantage of their unique ability, such as Sanae’s power to heal your injuries without the need of items or spells. You may also gain strength from them using quick time event styled Overdrive attacks, which are especially helpful during boss battles that take place at the end of significant chapters. Recovering fragments and performing various side missions set by Yuzu and Lime will earn you growth points, which can be used to increase three playable characters vital stats such as attack strength and defensive capability. Aside from this system, Blue Reflection lacks any customization system for weapons you use in battle. It does allow you to power up your attacks with the fragments you have earned, as well as permanently upgrade particular fragments with new bonuses such as increased damage for a certain type of skill.

Although you cannot change the equipped weapon used by each Reflector, you can alter their costumes once you have unlocked additional outfits during the game. It is possible to buy additional individual costumes as DLC, but unless you feel like paying over sixty pounds in real world money, it is almost unthinkable to consider whether or not you should purchase the season pass. Changing your costume does not give you any additional stats or bonuses, so if you are not a fan of purely aesthetic bonuses, it is best to stick to the default options that are provided.

If you feel like spending some time away from saving the world, the Free Space application provided via the in-game menu offers a few extra activities such as a chat room to talk with your classmates. Most of the applications definitely feel like filler content, such as the simple yet entertaining virtual pet game relies on Telltale Games style moral choices rather than Tamagotchi style maintenance. Although virtual pets aren’t anything new, the various evolutionary changes that can be made because of your decisions are an entertaining distraction from the pressures of Hinako’s double world life.

Blue Reflection’s graphical style is a mixture between photorealistic models and soft anime style shading. The result of this combination is simply beautiful, and gives the game a distinct visual impression. The only minor problems are that the frame rate does suffer slightly on occasion, the character animations are sometimes a little stiff, and the lip movements can sometimes be completely out of sync with the dialogue. The soundtrack is a mixture of soft orchestral pieces and Japanese rock themes that play during battles and high tension cut scenes. One of the highlights is the title screen theme, which is a wistful melody that sets the player up perfectly for the experience they are about to undertake. Like many recent JRPG’s, the voice acting is purely in Japanese, which will divide fans of the genre directly down the middle. It is a shame that the game lacks an English dub, but it is understandable as the game lacked the budget of a triple A release. In the case of Blue Reflection, all the voice actors provide high quality voice work, especially in the case of Hinako, Yuzu and Lime when the more emotional scenes take place later in the narrative.

Overall, Blue Reflection is a beautiful and intelligent experience, which needs a few minor tweaks to become an excellent product. While it is a bit light on its RPG gameplay mechanics, the deeply emotive story, along with its strong characters and intriguing gameplay set it apart from similar socially dependant RPG’s such as Persona and Trails of Cold Steel. If you are looking for a game to give you a refreshing look at what it means to be human, then Blue Reflection is a magical tale that will give you all the lessons you could ever need.