The Magical Girl, or mahoshoujo, genre is beloved and has exploded in recognition and popularity over the years. With all of the amazing powers, emotional character-driven plots, and cute outfits, it seems ripe for video games! Yet, somehow, we seem to hardly get any fully fledged Magical Girl themed games that go all in on the concept. Set in its own finely crafted universe with its own rules and aesthetic, the Blue Reflection series aims to create a wonderful, magical, and Heroic world about girls overcoming their struggles. Through extensive character interaction and customization systems, these girls help one another navigate through daily life and the dangers of a realm known as the Common. With the release of Blue Reflection Quartet, the original game, its sequel, a spinoff, and a brand new video game reimagining of the TV anime Blue Reflection: Ray are rolled into a single bundle.
JRPGs are incredibly diverse, with more worlds, characters, and themes than you can wrap your head around. Genre Giants like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy fall into classic fantasy tropes and aesthetics, typically, as well as many other series like Gust’s own Atelier series. But, now and then, more contemporary-themed RPGs make their mark, such as Persona or Mother. Getting hit with a dose of reality can be oddly refreshing, and it’s here where Blue Reflection as a series lies – in a world of heart.
Precious Memories, Rediscovered
Nearly a decade now, huh? Passion is the only thing that can keep a project like this burning on. Starting as a project to push more pretty girls and a series rooted in the personal, daily struggles of young ladies, Blue Reflection began as a humbly scaled RPG full of heart and magical girl transformations. What seemed like distant dreams for a sequel eventually paid off in spades, ending in a beautiful Quartet of games and more!
The real main courses of this collection are Blue Reflection and Blue Reflection: Second Light. These are what I’d call the full main entries, as each is content-rich and aims to deliver a full RPG experience. Not to say that what comes next isn’t worth it, because Ray and Sun are completely worthwhile experiences to fans of Blue Reflection. The original game and Second Light skew much closer to Gust’s Atelier games, just with a different ratio of priorities. While Atelier usually focuses on crafting or other management systems, Blue Reflection leans way more into social sim and dungeon-crawling elements.
Sideswiping me, and possibly many other Gust fans, is the inclusion of not only Blue Reflection: Sun, a now-defunct mobile game, but a video game adaptation of the Ray anime series. Honestly, just having a duology collection is about all I could have expected. Throwing Sun into that bundle made sense, and Gust has been great about preserving their mobile offerings recently with Atelier. But reimagining Ray into a game!? Absolute insanity in the best of ways. Sun is an awesome inclusion, and I really like the designs of this batch of girls combined with the Ashen Apocalypse story. Having a male protagonist is kinda cool and reminds me a lot of Sakura Wars and modern gacha storytelling. I’m glad this game was saved and turned into a streamlined and cool side game that hopefully stays accessible for years to come. Meanwhile, Blue Reflection Ray is a little strange in my opinion, because rather than adapting the anime’s story straight, you play as Ruka and Hiori just before the conclusion of the series, regathering their memory Fragments. This framing does offer new content and context, but you miss out on some of the anime’s appeal, even more so with the game featuring stills from the show. At least this game has Best Buddy hand-holding action! It’s even reactive! Definitely an interesting side game!
I’m also proud of Koei Tecmo for the pricing on this collection! I was expecting $90 like the Atelier collections, but nope! It’s $50! Kind of shocking considering this collection has a new side game and a remade spinoff. This is a much easier-to-swallow price, although I suppose the content breadth between the Atelier and Blue Reflection series is on a different scale. With a decent remaster deal like this for once, it feels good!
The Power of Feelings!
Tons of great games involve going on epic quests across the globe or dangerous missions in spectacular locations, but sometimes, isn’t it nice to catch a bit of a break? In terms of scale, the Blue Reflection games are rather conservative, but they really don’t need to be more than that. Each game features multiple Common realms with a school building typically being the main hub, and outside of a few vignettes of other small areas, that’s about it. Very focused games at their core with little fluff for what they want to achieve. The real sauce here is the relationships the player builds throughout their journey, so the games focus on the character writing and lore building. Get used to staring into sparkly eyes and pushing back dark feelings!
In the very best of ways, these games reflect heartwarming Slice of Life anime, with the characters standing up against their real-life issues by supporting one another hand-in-hand. The main draw of these games is for sure the character interactions. Walking around the school, selecting dialogue options, and participating in various character events is the strong suit of Blue Reflection. Interacting with and helping girls through their daily struggles while dealing with brewing Magical Girl issues is what you’re here for. These games do have a bit of an edge with some darkness lurking within, while avoiding something like Persona’s M-Rating presentation. Regardless of this, characters balance having a bit of realistic grit and anime aura. Drama isn’t shorthanded in the main scenarios, and fun isn’t skimped on in the side material to create a well-rounded understanding of the work. It’s the light found in the people you meet that guide the way forward and bring joy into your life. It’s simply rewarding to experience, and, uh, tangibly rewarding, as well, which helps.
Quite possibly my favorite aspect of the relationship building is the Fragments. This is such an amazing reward for putting time into building your relationships and engaging with the game. Fragments are gathered throughout gameplay and relationship building in these games. Each one represents a key character or moment while also being an integral piece to your battle kit. Fragments, you see, can be attached to each of the girls’ different combat skills to augment them further. These add-ons can range from applying a status effect to healing HP when dealing damage. Mixing and matching Fragments with the right skills is addictive and can craft some extremely powerful strategies in battle.
Flowery Words, Thorny Retribution
No matter which way you slice it, Gust games typically focus on the characters and world, intending to create experiences that anyone can tuck into and enjoy. That doesn’t mean, however, that Blue Reflection lacks depth or an interesting combat system. That couldn’t be more wrong! The supporting gameplay of Gust’s library props everything up with customization and interconnectivity to other mechanics – everything is meant to snugly fit into place.
Solid combat mechanics alongside some really sick customization honestly make the first game in the series’ battles fun in a really simple way with the knockback and timing elements. With the Fragments, you can craft all sorts of strategies with buffs, debuffs, and boosted attacks; but it’s also just fun to manipulate the timeline and drive enemies into submission. Simple but satisfying. However, with Second Light pushing the series forward, the combat evolved. Rather than the turn-based system found in the first game, Second Light adopts a real-time command system with a combo and gear-shifting system. This makes the battle system feel faster while ditching the recharge mechanic. Now you deal more damage as you build your combo, and the more attacks you unleash, the more you will unlock the next section of the timeline to allow more powerful skill usage. When hitting the third section, or gear, your girl will transform into her Reflector form and receive a huge power boost. These additional mechanics make battles snappier and offer more strategic elements for the player to juggle, forcing them to plan a customizable route to big damage with the retained Fragment system. Some parts of the thought-out strategy are lost in the real-time element, but it more than makes up for it in management execution.
One of the neatest aspects of this collection is the inclusion of Blue Reflection Ray and Sun, bringing the stories of a dead mobile game and finished anime to life yet again. This is accomplished, in part, by rebuilding these other projects with the building blocks of Second Light. Memorable battles are recreated with the evolved battle system found in the sequel, putting your favorite spinoff girls into familiar, gear-shifting bouts. It helps satisfyingly stitch Sun and Ray together into cohesive wholes.
A Ring For You?
With so many High Fantasy-focused RPGs on the market, it can be hard to forget that the genre can fit other aesthetics. Enter Blue Reflection Quartet, a Magical Girl-themed Heroic RPG Collection. These charming games gush pretty shoujo aesthetics while offering beautiful character moments between high-gear battles in a variety of heartscapes. This miraculous bundle not only includes remastered versions of Blue Reflection and Blue Reflection: Second Light, but also two side games that take place between the events of the main titles. Blue Reflection Ray retells the anime of the same name from a different perspective, and Blue Reflection: Sun recompiles the story of an offline mobile game into a playable experience. These titles are tied together with Second Light’s battle system, fully bringing every Blue Reflection title to life in a bombastic way.
Looking more closely at the gameplay and world within the collection hides just as much surprise, with timing-based battles that ramp up in intensity and power breaking up typical school days and girl dates that melt your heart. Protect those who can’t protect themselves and safeguard the world by transforming into a Reflector and diving into the heartscapes of the Common to defeat demons. On the surface, everything appears simple, but as it all comes together, it blossoms into a delightful experience. With the added Quality of Life features like autosaves, some sprinklings of new content, and the remastered graphics improving the pretty art, it’s even more enticing. For those looking for something that captures the feeling of a Slice of Life anime or have always wanted a Magical Girl-themed RPG: don’t miss out on Blue Reflection Quartet, especially at that price!
Disclaimer: Koei Tecmo provided a PlayStation 5 copy of Blue Reflection Quartet for review purposes.
