If you want a comparison of
Blue Reflection, just imagine the
Persona series. Players take control of Hinako, a quiet high school girl who is resuming her studies. As Hinako, players will get to experience the high school life at an all-girls school and help her to regain her hopes for the future.
Hinako has two places to go daily: school and the Common. She’ll start the day by attending school, where you will sometimes see a cutscene. At school, players can interact with other students and build your relationship with certain ones, complete missions, buy things, or just explore the school. Exploration isn’t the most fun option because Hinako is slow. I mean, she’s so slow it’s ridiculous. I can understand why, given her circumstances, but still. She has such a funny running animation that goes so perfectly with the speed she’s traveling, I often ended up just running around for fun. Ok, enough bashing on Hinako, she’s still great. Anyway, you can pretty much do anything you want within a day since there aren’t timed activities, but there are a limited number of things to do in a day. Once you run out of things to do or simply get bored, you can go home and go on to the next day. The Common is the dungeon of the game. The Common has several different areas which correspond to the various emotions we may feel. In the beginning, you can only traverse a specific target’s Common area, but you’ll quickly unlock the ability to go to and from the Common as you please. It’s real convenient to hear that battle music.
Hinako's accident left her unable to run or move as freely as she used to. Thankfully, she gets to enjoy herself to the fullest in battle. Combat in Blue Reflection is turn-based, with a character’s speed usually deciding when they’ll end up moving at the start of battle. The turn bar at the top of the screen will show who gets to move next by having each character’s portrait scroll to the middle of the bar. After performing an action, that character’s portrait will be placed somewhere else on the bar and they must wait to perform another action. Before initiating battle, you can press (Square) to strike in the field. If you connect with the enemy, you’ll gain the advantage going into battle. You’ll be in charge of making sure Hinako and her two sidekicks get the job done in battle. You’re allowed to perform one of several actions per turn, with the main options being attack, support, or escaping. Attack combines both your normal attack and your special attacks. Your normal attack costs nothing to use, but special attacks cost a varying amount of MP to cast. If you have insufficient MP, you’ll be unable to use any special attacks. The MP and HP of your team will be shown at the bottom next to their portrait. Support options allow you to heal your teammates or cast buffs and debuffs. These also require MP to use. Escape is pretty self-explanatory. Use this if you feel outmatched or you just don’t feel like battling.
Battling is fun, but having your team get wiped isn’t. A good way to prevent this is by making your characters stronger! By completing missions and other activities, you’ll sometimes be rewarded with growth points. Each character receives a growth point from rewards and players can then distribute them between the character’s four stats: Attack, Defense, Support, and Technical. Attack increases your unit’s attack stat, Defense increases the unit’s HP and Defense stats, Support increases Luck and MP, and Technical increases the unit’s Agility. By distributing growth points, your unit will also increase in level, which in turn increases the unit’s stats by a set amount. In addition, once you get one of the four stats up to a certain level, you’ll gain special skills as well. You can check the special skills learned by pressing (Square) on the growth page. Stronger opponents and bosses require you to get stronger, otherwise you’ll run into trouble.
Ever met someone who has a smartphone, but has no idea how to use it? Yeah, that’s Hinako. Smartphones aren’t a big deal in Blue Reflection, but you’ll often see your classmates using them. By pressing (R1), Hinako can bring out her smartphone and check messages, play a monster game, access the jukebox, or change the wallpaper on her smartphone. The messages allow you to interact with your close friends, even if you don’t want to run all over and find them. You can’t really do much besides tell Hinako to reply, though. She’ll say whatever she’d like and you’re left to read the conversation. Honestly, the smartphone thing is interesting, but I would’ve liked some more interactivity on my end rather than just leaving it to Hinako. The conversations are pretty interesting regardless, though.
