3.5/5 ★ – xdarkthunderx's review of BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light.

Much better than the first but still not the best. Has potential though. I really enjoyed the characters. They all had their quirks and had pretty cute interactions with Ao, the main character. My favorites would be Uta, Rena, and Shiho, though my preferred party was Hinako, Shiho, and Ao. Some characters did feel a little unnecessary but still were enjoyable. Glad we didn’t get even more, that would’ve been excessive. My big issues come with the balancing and padding. As far as balancing goes, the early game is a little slow and more thought-based due to limited options and new mechanics being introduced. It’s not challenging but you can’t really rely on the auto feature. However, the final 3 or so chapters are the complete opposite. I ended up reaching max level hours before the final boss and had to find numerous mini bosses before I finally reached the end, despite getting nothing out of them exp wise. It was quite boring. They were not challenging in the slightest. As I mentioned, the game had quite a bit of extra padding. After the last new girls’ dungeons you’re forced to run through the last part of all dungeons again and fight mini bosses before you can go to the actual final dungeon. It’s not hard but sort of time consuming. It really felt like it was added just to drag out the run-time. The last few hours of the game really felt unplanned and rushed. Overall I couldn’t really recommend this game. It’s got fun characters and a decent story but it gets to a point where it’s more frustrating than fun. Everything begins to feel tedious and rushed, similarly to how I felt with Tales of Arise. However, it’s a huge improvement from the original. If they can tweak some gameplay elements and quality of life stuff they’d have a great series on their hands. Hopefully they make more and improve.