Blue Reflection Quartet

Blue Reflection Quartet by developer Gust and publisher Koei Tecmo America—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes.

The Blue Reflection series by Gust is a high school slice of life with apocalyptic level situations and magical girls. With the world on the brink of destruction, it'll be up to a select few to tackle those that wish to destroy it, all while managing the emotions of their friends, fellow students, and themselves…

Blue Reflection Quartet, is the compilation of these entries. From the original Blue Reflection back in 2017, to Blue Reflection Second Light in 2021, Quartet adds a retelling of the anime series in Blue Reflection Ray, and the now offline mobile game Blue Reflection Sun in one single package.

Note: The following will contain spoilers. I’ll try to keep them light when possible, but consider yourselves advised!

Blue Reflection

Release date: September 26, 2017
Nick's 2017 Blue Reflection - PS4 Review
PY’s 2021 Blue Reflection (2017) - Retro Reflection

Starting from the beginning, Blue Reflection stars Hinako, a high school student returning to classes after recovering as much as she can from a knee injury. Depressed that she will no longer be able to dance again due to the level of the injury, this ballet dancer will very soon find out that returning to regular classes is not all that she has to worry about.

In terms of overall gameplay, not much has changed from the original launch. Hinako will go through her school days automatically, no surprise pop quizzes here! During these days, you’ll interact with other classmates and students, often leading to misunderstandings setting off high levels of emotions making them “go out of control”. This will require Hinako to dive into a space known as The Commons to regulate these emotions. To do so, Hinako will need to find their soul fragments and heal it through a shared empathy, which will further heal her own currently fragile emotions.

What remains interesting is that this functionality is directly related to how Hinako, and her “party members” Yuzu and Lime level up. As the bonds increase, each of them is given a stat point to place into an attribute of your choice. Each path, or combination of paths, will lead to new abilities to further help you in The Commons and against the powerful beings known as the Sephira who will attack in the real world.

The Sephira are pretty scary all things considered, when or if you fail, the world ends. That said, these battles showcase the best of what Blue Quartet have to offer with multiple appendages to contend with alongside the main body. You can concentrate on just the main body if you want, as the appendages will heal themselves back up, but that’s just asking to be wiped out. With their own independent attacks, it’s not a battle of attrition as much as a strategic battle with how you use each character’s skills at the right time to move the flow into your favor.

Blue Reflection Quartet’s version of Blue Reflection makes a few quality of life updates that make this title smoother to play. While updated graphics and character models are a nice touch, and can be seen across the four titles, it’s the other elements like the ability to speed up combat that steal the show. A lot of your party’s skills are flashy to say the least, so when it’s sped up, you’re not spending as much time watching all of these elegant displays over and over just to find out you’ve already won the battle.

Blue Reflection Ray

Anime release date: April to September 2021
Quartet release date: July 30, 2026

Following the events of the original Blue Reflection, Blue Reflection Ray follows new Reflectors as they challenge one of their own. Unlike Blue Reflection which was a PlayStation 4 title, Blue Reflection Ray is based on the anime series that aired from April to September in 2021. Redesigned to fit a gameplay and CG style with the other titles, the events of the anime are compressed into a two ish hour visual novel walking simulator.

While the anime itself is still on my 'to watch' list, or eternal backlog, I really appreciated this entry for several reasons. The first of these is that the anime introduced various characters and their back stories that make later appearances. The second is that it opened up the world of Blue Reflection to “what happened” after the fateful final battle of Blue Reflection.

And it was wild.

Saving the world came with a choice. Let a not so benevolent god converge all of humanity into a single entity and remove all possible conflict. Or fight, and restore everything to that fateful day that Hinako walked through the school gates and became a magical girl known as a Reflector. Clearly you fought, you won, the world reset, but it was not without its own issues which is what Blue Reflection Ray explores.

Other Reflectors fought, died, and even fought against one another. While the reset allowed for another chance to do good with the Sephira now gone, others used this reset to start their villain eras. Following our new protagonists Hiori and Ruka, we get to walk through the current and past events as they regain their memories that were stolen from them.

While I would have preferred Blue Reflection Ray to be a bit longer as some parts felt a bit rushed and a bit disjointed due to the back and forth in the timeline, the much smaller, combat less experience, doesn’t overstay its welcome. It gives enough backstory to head into the next chronological entry, Blue Reflection Sun.

Blue Reflection Sun

Mobile release date: February 21, 2023 to May 30, 2024
Quartet release date: July 30, 2026

Following the events of Blue Reflection Ray, Blue Reflection Sun takes place a year and a half later. With Ash now falling from the sky causing new monsters known as the Testa to appear in the real world. The battle has extended past the Reflectors and is now in the hands of both them, and those infected with the ash known as the Eroded.

Originally a mobile game that was released years after Blue Reflection: Second Light, Blue Reflection Sun, like Blue Reflection Ray, was re-engineered into the same format and engine as the rest of the titles under Blue Reflection Quartet. This really helped keep a similar feel as you go from one title to the next chronologically.

Interestingly, for both good and bad, Blue Reflection Sun has you take control of the first male in the series. Having transferred to a new school, and battlefield, it'll be up to you to save the world as you are put in charge of the “weakest squad in history”. As an Eroded yourself, and a proven leader on the battlefield with your abilities, you’ll be managing this new cast of characters to victory.

Where things didn’t work is that if you remove the main protagonist, not a lot changes. He’s not used in combat. Other than being called leader at a few key points, he’s only there to move the story along. Unlike EVERYONE else, he’s not voiced, the “choices” that appear are not even choices, just a single option to select, and he never actually interacts with anyone in the squad other than a few mentions that he did. All of the substories are between the rest of the cast and never include him.

When it comes to the core gameplay loop however, Blue Reflection Sun is a fun and streamlined experience of the original Blue Reflection using Blue Reflection: Second Light’s combat system. Main story events will occur, and then it’s up to you if you want to dive into the smaller substories between the members of your squad and visiting Reflectors from the original Blue Reflection and the sequel Second Light.

Where Blue Reflections Sun truly shines (no I didn’t mean to make this pun) is the story. If Blue Reflections Ray was the backstory to current events, Blue Reflections Sun is the true consequence of Hinako’s actions when she saved the world. The Sephira are gone, but now the world is now in a worse place with Reflectors fighting against each other and the ash falling from the sky turning people into the Eroded, and then the Testa once the erosion has gone past the point of no return.

Fighting alongside the Eroded, our original protagonist Hinako, our future protagonist Ao, and current protagonist Shiho (as I’m not counting the leader), will launch a last ditch effort to stop the current cycle of and split The Commons from the real world and instead attach it to another new world called the Oasis. Essentially removing everything that caused these events from happening over and over again, the real world could finally move on with a fresh new start without The Commons, the Reflectors or the Eroded and the Testa.

Blue Reflection: Second Light

Release date: November 9, 2021
PY’s 2021 Blue Reflection: Second Light - PS4 Review

Arriving at the end of the quadrulogy, Blue Reflection: Second Light sees the end of the current Blue Reflection story for our magical girl Reflectors. Arriving in a new world without knowing how she got there, our final protagonist Ao meets several others that have amnesia to who they are, and how they got there.

Departing from the slice of life style, Second Light is more of a JRPG with slice of life elements embedded throughout to give you more time with each of the characters, new and returning. Back in 2021, I thought Second Light stood out from the original Blue Reflection’s style, and I still think this is the case.

The change in approach to the experience allowed for broader gameplay that didn’t feel “as on rails” as its predecessor. While still technically on rails, you can decide if you want to spend time getting to know others better instead of immediately moving forward with the story. You can build facilities to give your characters stat boosts for combat which also unlocks additional character scenes. Or you can casually go back through the previous areas to grind for experience and gather items that you’ll need for crafting.

The only “issue” with this approach is that it felt more like an Atelier Series title instead of a continuation of what made the original Blue Reflection so interesting. The original is all about cultivating bonds with others in order to level up and become more powerful to save the world. Second Lights instead lets you grind experience, and while not recommended, skip the bonds that will allow characters to unlock new crafting abilities, passive and active abilities, and finally fragments to further boost combat abilities.

The devil’s advocate argument would be that it does the same thing, just in a more modern and familiar format. At the end of the day however, it allows you to play as you see fit, and even with the shift in gameplay, I still think it’s a great entry into the series. Because of the premise of arriving in this other world with no idea how she got there, new players could dive right in and not need all of the backstory that is now provided as part of the overall Blue Reflection Quartet package.

For returning players? It’s really neat to see how things unfold with prior knowledge whether it be from going through each title, having watched the anime, or having had a chance to play the original mobile title. So it’s on that note, Second Lights is also benefiting from various upgrades under the Blue Reflection Quartet package. The first of these is the ability to also speed up the combat to make it even faster than it already was. It was honestly so fast at times that I slowed it down just to focus on what was going on overall. Does anyone need healing? Should I deploy defensive buffs or go all out?

In addition to this enhancement, various characters from Ray and Sun have also been added as party members past a certain chapter. While they will not have all of the same benefits as the story characters, it allows you to really test out new combinations for a variety of situations when exploring the Heartscapes as the enemies only get tougher every time you push further.

Release date: July 30, 2026

As a whole, the Blue Reflection Quartet package is a solid one. It was clear that time and effort went into this combination of titles as going through each title felt natural. The choice to bring all four releases into the same engine was brilliant. Each adventure felt like it belonged together and didn’t span multiple years of technologies and mediums.

A solid gameplay experience is not all that it provides. While autosaving and quick load times were great, it was actually the bonus flowchart and timeline material that saved my sanity. There are a lot of terms, characters, names, and events that occur from the beginning of Blue Reflection before even worrying about Ray, Sun, and Second Light.

These charts update as you play, allowing you to go back to the main menu to double check if things are truly lining up, or if you’re missing something. Is this character new to the series? Or are they returning? With all of the characters involved, some similar names and two appearances each? Normal | Reflector or Normal | Eroded, I would sometimes save just to go double check the chart to make sure that I wasn’t getting things mixed up… again. I’m bad with names, so other than Hinako, Yuzu, Lime, Ao, and Shiho? It’s “on yeah! That person”.

All in all, Blue Reflection Quartet is a great remaster of the series. From the quality of life improvements, to bringing no longer available experiences back to life, I really enjoyed this seamless experience of the four titles.

Score: 8 / 10