Blue Reflection: Second Light Review

I have my reservations for JRPGs in general. So, it wasn’t a surprise when I started playing Blue Reflection: Second Light with absolutely no clue about it. After all, JRPGs are not something I actively play and enjoy. Little did I know, the story and gameplay would eventually start growing on me.

Expand Tweet

It is still a very by-the-books JRPG, but the developers made sure to add small tweaks to the gameplay to set it apart from the other games in the genre.

Looking for Crossword hints & solutions? Check out latest NYT Mini Crossword Answers, LA Times Crossword Answers, and USA Today Crossword Answers

Developed by Gust, Blue Reflection: Second Light is the follow-up to 2017’s Blue Reflection and is a “magical girl JRPG” following a group of new characters in unknown lands, trying to survive and get answers about the world they are transported to. With unique real-time turn-based combat, a pretty summer world to explore, and a gripping storyline about friendship, bond, and memory, Blue Reflection: Second Light managed to keep me hooked for quite a while.

Explore the Heartscape with your group of friends

Blue Reflection: Second Light follows high-school girl Ao, who gets transported to a mysterious land stuck in summer, and a school surrounded by water. With no clue why she got transported, and her memories intact, she meets three different schoolgirls: Reina, Kokoro, and Yuki, living in the school before here and with no recollection of their past life. Thus, the story begins as players explore the world with Ao, Reina, Kokoro, and Yuki, learning about it and also trying to help the other girls get their memories back.

(Image via Blue Reflection: Second Light)

Players can only control Ao in this game, as other girls will accompany her on the journey as party members. Every character in this game is voice-acted by prominent Japanese female voice actors from the anime and video-games industry. There is no English dub in the game, so brushing up on the subtitle reading skills is advised.

The lip-sync of the characters were off and were just there, but at least it wasn’t like some of the other JRPGs with little to no lip movements. Compared to the usual character models of Koei Tecmo Games, which follows the semi-realistic idol-like female and male characters, Blue Reflection: Second Light went for a more cartoonish, anime style. So much so that the game wants players to feel like they are playing an anime episode.

Most of the time in Blue Reflections: Second Light will be spent exploring Heartscape, a world created from the memories, heart, and mind of each character Ao meets in the world. Each Heartland looks different than the other and is beautifully crafted.

Heartscapes are still more or less similar in structure and design, and players get to explore them for items and quests. Apart from Heartscape, players spend their time in high school, where they can explore and do chores to help them in their journey in Heartscapes. The settings and backdrops are pretty good and managed to keep me hooked for most of the game.

Battle demons in Heartscape and get stronger

The journey in Heartscape is not an easy one, as Ao and her friends have to protect themselves from the monsters roaming the world. Called Demons, they will attack Ao and her friends whenever they see them. Players can ignore the fights if they want to by just running away from the demons. Search mode shows the players the enemy visual range, and they can ignore it accordingly. If they sneak up and hit the enemy, players get an advantage and get to attack first. But if they can’t, players will get into the real-time turn-based combat section of the game.

(Image via Koei Tecmo/Blue Reflection: Second Light)

Combat in Blue Reflection: Second Light follows the usual JRPG turn-based format. Players take turns attacking and dealing damage to their opponents. However, SecondLlight does this a bit differently. There is a battle bar at the right corner of the screen, in which the position of the character keeps moving, every time the character reaches a certain “Ether” point, they can attack or deal stat damage on their opponent.

Each time you attack, the ether point will recharge quicker. After each successive attack, the position of characters keeps moving to the next Ether Point. The higher the ether point, the different the attacks become. Each successful attack also gives Gear Points. If players manage to reach Gear 3, Ao and her party members will transform into Reflectors. Reflectors transform them into magical girls with different outfits.

Ao as a reflector (Image via Koei Tecmo/Blue Reflection: Second Light)

Apart from this, players can also keep a support party member in the game, who will support the front-line attackers with health, stat items, and switch with party members in the battle. Time also stops in the game when players decide what attack they want to use on their opponent, giving them some ease.

The whole combat is basically chaining attacks to ensure your opponent gets knocked down in battle so that players can deal additional damage to the enemy. Get closer to a powerful enemy during combat, and Ao will enter into a phase called “1 v 1”. In 1 v 1, players need to find openings in their opponent and chain combos. Chain enough combos and deal a special finisher attack which will deal heavy damage.

Successful combat will grant party-level points and item components. Item Components will help players create items that help them in fights, and leveling up will increase character stats and give new attacks.

Living high-school life and bonding with friends

Blue Reflection: Second Light features a high school that acts as the hub point for characters to talk about and players to build items for their journey to Heartscape. The building is pretty much empty and is only inhabited by the characters of the game as a place for them to stay and live their day-to-day life.

Players can build items in the kitchen-cum-workshop space with the components they have to gather from their adventures in Heartscape. The items range from food and drink to help in battle and building materials.

Building materials are used to build facilities. Called “School Development”, players can build facilities in school to make the place look better. That is not all, facilities built via School Development give a stat boost to the girls during their battle.

School Development (Image via Blue Reflection: Second Light)

Apart from this, players can talk with the girls in the school and accept their requests in fetch quests or building specific facilities. This is highly suggested as fulfilling the request for the girls will help the players bond with them, which in turn will give them Talent Points or TP. TP grants a permanent status boost or special attack to the player's character and her party member.

TP screen (Image via Blue Reflection: Second Light)

Support characters like Yuki who don’t fight actively in the field also gain TP, and those points can be spent to boost the active party member stats. Each character has their own separate TP point, and it is not shared, so players are suggested to make the requests for the girls.

Players can also, in some cases, go out on a date with the other girls in the school. The dates revolve around going to a particular section of the school and talking with the girls. In the end, Ao and the other girl will bond, which will provide TP points to the characters.

Ao on a date with Kotoko (Image via Koei Tecmo)

I would go ahead and bite the Persona meme bullet and say that Blue Reflection: Second Light takes a few things from Persona’s books, but adds its twist to it, which makes it stand apart from it, and gives it its own identity. I enjoyed most of the interactions which I had in the school among the girls.

Fiddle around with the Photo Mode

Like Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, Blue Reflection: Second Light features a very extensive photo mode.

The photo mode (Image via Blue Reflection: Second Light)

The photo mode features a myriad of options, and just like the Fatal Frame photo mode, it allows players to also bring in other characters. This will enable players to go creative with the feature, letting them create and take unique shots with the girls.

The photo mode is fun (Image via Blue Reflection: Second Light)

However, like the Fatal Frame photo mode, Blue Reflection: Second Light photo mode also does not feature a brightness/contrast/sharpness setting. The filters and poses available are minimal.

Ao might be not feeling it today (Image via Blue Reflection: Second Light)

However, the time of the day can be changed. Regardless, the photo mode is a welcome addition, and I had my fair share of fun with it in the game.

Performance

Blue Reflection: Second Light was tested on a base PlayStation 4 slim and a 1080p television, and man, do I have to say a lot about its performance.

The game runs 1080p and 30fps, with no frame drops during the actual fights and exploration. However, there were a few frame drops during the game's cutscenes, which might get fixed with the launch patch of the game.

The lighting and environment manage to look well on Playstation 4. However, the shadow of the characters is at a lower resolution and jaggy with no visible AA on it, and the textures of the game are, at best, really okay. It’s not high-resolution, nor is it bad. It is just okay. Given the install size of the game, which is roughly 12GB, I expect the textures, if not, to look better on items.

Apart from these, general Anti-Aliasing issues are there when the characters are looked at from a distance in certain cases. Regardless, the game’s art style gives it a unique anime look, and it still manages to look plentiful pretty in most cases.

Conclusion

For someone who actively despises JRPGs for its gameplay system, Blue Reflection: Second Light was plentiful fun and changed my perception of the genre as a whole. With an excellent real-time turn-based battle system, some lovable characters, anime storyline, good photo mode, and small yet nice side quests, Blue Reflection: Second Light is an absolute delight to sit down and play.

However, I do not know if non JRPG fans would enjoy the game or not since the game pacing can be very different from conventional western video games. From my personal experience, Blue Reflection: Second Light is recommended to the series fans or someone who is not awkward to try the game out based on its premise.