Aspiring artist Hinata Amamiya is used to being on the sidelines of life, but when she meets a mysterious girl named Momo who claims that Hinata is destined for greater things. Together they encounter colorful creatures and powerful enemies as they learn more about their past lives in an alternate universe.
The “blue reflection: second light steam” is a visual novel that takes place in a summer camp. The protagonist, Hinako, is a transfer student who has just arrived to the school and meets a colorful cast of girls with whom she will spend her summer vacation.
Gust has always been a small-scale Japanese developer, but one of my favorites. When the first Blue Reflection debuted in 2017, I was attracted by its unique viewpoint and current Sailor Moon-esque appearance and style. It was the studio’s attempt to do something new from its main Atelier series.
I think Blue Reflection was a good game, particularly for a first-person shooter. I was pleased when Gust revealed Blue Reflection: Second Light since he has a flair for developing fantastic sequels, such as Atelier Ryza 2.
Second Light’s Blue Reflection is no exception.
A Magical Girl Summer — Blue Reflection: Second Light Review
Second Light features Ao Hoshizaki, a new heroine who wakes up in her classroom with just a few other girls she doesn’t remember. She wakes up in a wide, infinite ocean surrounded by her school and has no idea why she’s there or what happened to the school in the first place. On her way back home, she seeks answers to those questions.
Throughout Second Light, Hoshizaki encounters other schoolgirls who, like her, have no recollection of how they got there. You take these females out on casual dates, much like in the original Blue Reflection, to discover more about their hobbies and personalities. It functions in a similar way to the Persona series’ Social Links.
Dates also provide the ladies with Talent Points (TP), which they may use to acquire new fighting skills and abilities. You’ll get a Fragment with a passive fighting effect after each date, which your characters may equip. This makes learning more about the different characters a fun part of the game.
While the narrative of Second Light may be appreciated without having played the previous game, it helps to see the 24-episode Blue Reflection Ray anime series, which serves as a prelude to Second Light. Hinako, the protagonist from the original game, returns as a playable party member, as do a handful of the characters from Ray.
The old has to go, and the new has to come in.
Second Light makes significant improvements to its fighting system in order to bring it closer to Gust’s previous Atelier titles. Second Light is a real-time turn-based hybrid, comparable to Atelier Ryza. The original Blue Reflection is entirely turn-based. Both your group and your adversaries move through time, and the longer you wait in the history, the more Ether you get, enabling you to conduct more powerful assaults.
Your character’s “Gear” level rises as you unleash more assaults, allowing them to span the timeframe and accumulate Ether quicker. When a character achieves Gear Level 3, she becomes a Reflector, with a new costume and enhanced fighting skills. As long as you keep attacking, your Combo count will rise, which will double your damage output as it rises.
The new one-on-one feature of this revised hybrid fighting system makes it less compelling. When a character breaks past an enemy’s defenses and triggers the “Knock Down” effect, a one-on-one combat ensues. In these confrontations, you have four options: attack, support, dodge, and counter. Of course, attacking, dodging, and countering are self-explanatory, while Support enables you to improve your numbers.
If you time it perfectly, you may escape harm by using the Dodge or Counter button when the attacker hits. The issue is that these inputs must be timed very precisely. It will strike when your enemy’s symbol passes the white line in the timeline, but such little windows disrupt the flow of fight.
Atelier is becoming more and more like Atelier.
Another significant change is in exploration, which aligns it with the Atelier series once again. Players explore Common in Blue Reflection, which contains four various sorts of settings, however this time they explore Heartscapes. Each Heartscape usually contains two or three zones, which are expressions of certain characters’ emotions that fit around them like miniature versions of Persona 5’s Palaces.
Second Light, like Atelier, offers a greater emphasis on item production. You may make things to use in combat as well as buildings to beautify the school by collecting resources.
A shooting range to a flower garden are examples of these buildings. Each has a passive effect, such as enhancing the defensive capabilities of the group by 10% or increasing the material drop rate from killing foes by 5%. These constructions may also be updated with additional materials to enhance the passive effects even further.
Many of the blueprints for these constructions are obtained via side missions assigned by the characters. The buildings also serve as new Date places for the characters, allowing them to participate in more cutscenes and earn more Talent Points.
Regrettably, not every new addition is accepted. While the stealth feature is good in and of itself (you crouch to view opponent line of sight and execute special strikes while striking from behind), it is used primarily in select areas of Second Light. You can’t fight adversaries during these stealth missions. If you’re discovered, you’ll have to restart the section from the beginning.
This is a positive step in the right direction.
The toned-down sexualization of the females in Second Light is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction. Many sequences in the original game show the females in their underwear, and when it rains, you can see through their white school uniforms. It’s rather disturbing and unsettling, particularly since they’re minors. That’s almost non-existent in Second Light.
Backward compatibility allows the PlayStation 4 version of the game to run well on the PlayStation 5, and Gust’s clean and sharp graphic style comes through.
While Blue Reflection is held back by the fact that it was also published for PlayStation Vita, Second Light demonstrates the series’ potential in terms of aesthetics and animations. During cutscenes, each character’s mouth has a particular shape, and the way they move their gaze conveys a lot of emotion.
The piano-heavy, tranquil, and placid music is very enjoyable to listen to.
Unfortunately, Second Light does not have an English dub; just the Japanese voice recording was available for evaluation. Blue Reflection lacks one as well, however English voice acting might aid immersion for gamers who don’t speak Japanese or just want a second choice.
There are quips and phrases that the characters make during combat that aren’t truly subtitled, much like in many Japanese voice-only JRPGs. Because I didn’t understand what the characters were saying while they completed their attacks, I felt like I was losing out on some flavor.
The Bottom Line: Blue Reflection: Second Light
Pros
- The battle system has been updated.
- Characters in the cast
- Variation in the environment
- Wonderful music.
- Excellent presentation
- The initial game’s strange and unsettling sexualization of youngsters has been removed.
Cons
- Stealth mission mechanics are a pain to deal with.
- One-on-one conflicts that haven’t been fine-tuned
- For the complete background, you’ll need to play the first Blue Reflection and see the prequel anime series.
- There is no English voice track.
On practically every level, Blue Reflection: Second Light improves on the prior game. The redesigned fighting system, as well as the array of characters, are enthralling. While there are some new aspects that I don’t agree with, I had a good time playing the game.
Second Light is a fantastic game for everybody who wishes to play as a magical princess safeguarding the planet from wicked creatures.
[Note: The copy of Blue Reflection: Second Light used for this review was given by Koei Tecmo.]
The “blue reflection: second light release date” is a popular anime that will be released on July 26th. The anime has been getting good reviews from critics.
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