It’s about time they made a modern high quality magical girl lifestyle RPG, and Gust is practically the greatest developer these days to do it beautifully and great
I would import but understanding the language is essential to the experience, so they gotta localize it. Unlike shooters, fighting, and hack n slash, it’s not all just about the routines, thrills and combat.
All the socializing, relationships and more are a part of the core experience and give greater meaning to all
Then you’re going to see my question and think you have an answer. At which point, you should forget that answer, click this link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gust_Co._Ltd. , and then spend an irrelevant amount of time trying to come up with a good answer until you realize that any possible response you may have to my question is inherently wrong.
I have not heard of most of their shit but the word Atelier rings a very tiny bell in a dead end hallway.
Maybe you guys shouldn’t have gone with the 3 word name like a certain-- man’s sky
(guaranteed to have super complicated for no reason bad choices battle system not worth anybodys time, sorry dude who may have bought when I reported it on sale for that $6.00)
Neither of those series actually fit the bill for magical girl. They have the suit transformation thing, but outside of that they’re pretty different from the standard breasts those shows would have.
Neptunia especially is just a standard sci-fi fantasy RPG with transformations, and the other one is standard RPG+idols
Those are specifically games with only girls you role play and do magic with.
Girls doing magic
Is actually in every RPG ever. But if this has to fit a bill of lolicon fetish shit all checkmarks need to be ticked. I don’t think I need to know anymore.
Of course someone would mindlessly bring up Omega Quintet, which is NOT a pure nor true magical girl RPG.
Omega Quintent is a masculine tainted idol harem simulator with badly designed rpg concept.
No self respecting mahou shoujo / maho shojo creation would make a male character the protagonist nor perspective of the story, world or game.
A magical girl concept would be about the player being a magical girl in a magical girls group and living a magical girl life, focusing on magical girl style things like friendships between girls. And in popular conventional magical girl concepts, the player/protagonist as a one of the magical girls would have a dual life between being a normal girl, and a magical girl fighting and defeating evil while helping and protecting the innocent.
Magical girl concept is a pure feminine themed catgory
Pure magical girls concept is about magical girls from a magical girl perspective and magical girl leadership.
They can have a male cheerleader errr assistant like Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon, but a magical girl scenario would be about magical girls being at the top of the heroism and leadership hierarchy, and no one stands above them.
Also Gust >>>>>>>>>>>> Compile Heart/Idea Factory. And even for a idol harem game that glorifies male protagonist, Omega Quintet is still totally wasted and bad taste
True magical girl themed game would glorify only magical girls and be only about the magical girls, with no males members in the group nor being their coach/instructor.
I don’t count Neptunia as “magical girl” theme. it is first and foremost a parody of the videogame industry with magical goddesses in a digital/computer themed reality.
Like it was stated, Neptunia series is more of sci fi fantasy RPG with transformations. it’s the closest thing to “magical girl RPG” We’ve ever gotten since the Sailor Moon RPG on SNES, however, Blue Reflection is the first TRUE genuine magical girl videogame that is 100% about magical girls, and the player has the role of a girl that becomes a magical girl in that world.
There is literally no true high production values magical girl videogame since SNES Sailor Moon RPG, and even that is based on a story, characters and world that was already explored in the manga and anime. Meanwhile, something like Blue Reflection is brand new and unexplored, so the experience is much more fresh, personal and with more potential surprises and new experiences. (and yes it is high production values. It has better graphics than Tales of Berseria and some other games with a mainstream fanbase, and higher quality art than the Atelier games. The graphics are so advanced by Gust standards, even the beta version loading time for battles may need some optimizing since they want to load the high quality models before the gameplay transitions into battle phase, unlike something like Chrono Cross that loads the battle zone before the character models.)
Also whether people like or dislike Atelier games, Blue Reflection is its own style and theme. Even the battle system is very innovative in several aspects.
Plus while Atelier games take place in a more alchemy, swords and sorcery themed world , Blue Reflection has a more modern/contemporary reality that is closer to our own world.
Also the whole structure of Blue Reflection is different, some even relate it’s format is a little like the Persona games, from a school life sim standpoint, but Blue Reflection is the only one thats centers on magical girl theme. It’s practically the first magical girl lifestyle game of its kind.
I would say Blue Reflection has more in common with Valis than Atelier, in a more magical girl lifestyle RPG way instead of action game.
