Recent reviews by Cyntax Error

100+ hours in, this game is great.

The slow progression is nice, and the ship diversity is great.

I hopped on the open-beta to take advantage of the newest updates, and I'll easily be sinking another few hundred hours into this game.

This is the best game to load up for fifteen minutes to get Discord Orbs. Thanks NetEase, for another copy/paste game.

Fantastic driving game with absolutely piss-awful 'checkpoints' that reset your progress abruptly if you happen to miss them by a few feet.

They're badly positioned, buggy on at LEAST one mission (the 2nd-to-last checkpoint shifts on the second lap of a mid-tier race off of the road and to the right into an open field), and all in all make for the worst experience this game has to offer.

Please devs, if you have a 'focus' have it be fixing and polishing the checkpoints of this game. It is a heavy *quit-point* when you get *forcibly-respawned* alluvasudden, driving down a large open street because you weren't on the right SIDE of the street at the time. Reason you were driving in the opposite lane? PUSHED OFF the right side of the street by your HOSTILE AI racers... Taking my time into a winnable race and throwing it away immediately as I'm thrown into last, respawning at a dead stop, because I was forced into oncoming (nonexistent) traffic, and missed your beyond-holy 'checkpoint.' Absolute ass. :(

This is a decently fun 'anime girl farming sim,' fully-equipped and progression-locking using gatcha mechanics, on top of an energy/stamina system; player beware. However, it's one of the most forgiving anime girl gacha games out there, comparatively speaking. I'd honestly recommend it if you're weird, and are willing to deal with the... 'interesting quirks. It's these 'quirks' that leave this rating a negative, after a thorough and thoughtful edit 200+ hours in, having not spent a dime.

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So, all in all, Blue Archive suffers from a painful mix of utilizing both a microtransactionary gacha 'pull' system as their primary monetization, as well as an energy/stamina system to limit progression. This leads to an extremely slow 'wind-up' period for newer players, who cannot accomplish as much starting off. The game does throw a lot of premium currency at you, encouraging you to 'pull' for the girls, or as the game (obviously) refers to them as, 'students.'

The obvious problem lies in when you can no longer pull for more students. Progression is locked in several different fashions, as simply pulling for a student successfully and unlocking them into your repitoire begins a long and arduous process of having to 'refine' them. Luckily, unlike other anime girl gacha games, this isn't simply accomplished by pulling for the student several more times... Instead, Blue Archive uses a weird purple currency called 'Eligma,' allowing users to slowly 'refine' their students over time. So that's a note in their favor.

That being said; the pulls are utterly atrocious. I have never actually gotten an advertised student from one of their limited-time pulls, ever. 200+ hours in, using free 'pyroxenes' I was given. That isn't to say I haven't gotten their premium 'purple' quality students from said pulls before; just never the one advertised, which really sucks. They have an 'archive pull,' allowing users to slowly acquire older characters, but it's just gacha with a pity system... so yay I guess?

Also the game has a historical event system, allowing you to acquire a fair bit of students from events past. So the fact they took a pass on the FOMO there is nice. Not saying Blue Archive doesn't utilize FOMO mechanics; but they will archive select events allowing you to backtrack, and new players to catch up. It's worth mentioning any time a gacha game foregoes FOMO for player interactivity. That's a good thing.

Still though, it doesn't deter from the massive wind-up in having to play. I'm 200+ hours in, and I'm not close to having even half the students, and the ones I do have I can only effectively upgrade to ~10-15 levels beneath my account's level. It's not that I wouldn't spend money; but I'm not super rich, and other than select packs that are decently priced, the microtransactions aren't very well priced for what you're getting. Not the most abusive anime girl gacha game out there, but by no means the best.

The game has a story? It's charming and endearing, but goofy and directly translated (I'm fairly certain); leading to those wonderfully awkward anime moments that would never happen in North America or Europe... lots of those 'only in Asia' moments. Maybe transliteration was the better choice? Who knows... it doesn't even have English voice actors, meaning NIKKE and the Hoyoverse games already have a notch up on Blue Archive. I appreciate the Japanese voice-actresses, as I speak a little Japanese so I can understand them a bit; and they're doing a good job; but I'd love to hear the students in my native tongue.

The developers responded to my original review stating to give feedback on their forum. I'm sorry, but I won't be doing that. This is feedback, you can see it here just fine, and act off it accordingly. It's feedback both you the developer and publisher, as well as you, the gamer deciding if they're going to give this game their time, can see. Because keep in mind, if you're unable or unwilling to open your wallet, time will be your required currency for this game... and a lot of it...

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Okay so let's talk about the elephant in the room... these are HIGH SCHOOL aged girls, ranging from 12-17. That could really use a retcon to university aged women, ages 18-22; as a lot of them could pass for chicks in college. Sadly, a lot more of them look frighteningly young for the way they interact with the player... And this wouldn't be so bad if not for Blue Archive's absolutely massive presence on Rule 34. You know it, I know it, Jesus knows it; and if the devs don't know it... that's wild.

PREFACE: This is not a traditional 'video game,' it is an idle simulator with heavily abusive Gacha mechanics.

Well, it's a stereotypical 'gacha game'... charging entirely too much money for 'pulls' while offering VERY LITTLE in terms of other methods of play. I'm stuck at the level 40-range, as a free-to-play player it's an abusive experience, knowing the game doesn't care about you, and would prefer you spent money. Everyone may ♥♥♥♥♥ about NIKKE, which is also pretty abusive, but at least they got English voice-actors... GF2 and Blue Archive are still entirely in Asiatic languages with bad translations. I'm glad the dolls are at least decently well animated, as that's practically the -only- thing saving this tragic gambling app.

EDIT: Wow, new doll comes out and everyone in my Platoon has bought one for money... it hasn't even been a full day... you people don't even make video games you just make gambling addictions don't you..? This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pathetic...

EDIT: You want me to 'bless' them? When they unlock characters on your monetarily abusive gacha system by spending money? CLICK A BUTTON TO THANK THEM FOR SPENDING MONEY ON YOUR GAME...
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Reply from Developer: Dear Commander. Sorry to hear that. If you have any feedback or suggestions for the game, we'd appreciate it if you could share them with us within in-game customer service or send them to our support email: GF2ENsupport@sunborngame.com.

My reply: Scripted response, this is why your game is "Overwhelmingly Negative," and has no hopes of improvement. You couldn't even properly discern the problem from hundreds of similar reviews.

So I just finished the tutorial, and wow this game's great.

PS: Please fix the -many- clipping issues!

TL;DR: Needs a lot of polish, get this on discount.

I was gifted this game by a friend, upon recommendation from a third friend. The two of us installed simultaneously while our third friend waited, and we three played together, the two of us newbies earning the same amount of experience (or so I thought) and unlocking our first new characters in unison, after our third or fourth match together.

Things were looking up. I was dying the least in our group, and often I would be in the middle or at the top of the damage charts. I thought I was making good progress. We all finished another run, and this is where ♥♥♥♥ kind of hit the fan:

For my progress, and 'equal experience,' my friend unlocked a second new character. So did our experienced friend, now nearing having unlocked all the characters. "How?" I thought, a bit peeved, staring at Wukong, the character I had unlocked first and didn't desire to play. "We did about as well as each other and played the same amount of games together, we should have identical experience.... not wanting to start beef with my group because the game had gyped me.

So I quit playing. Kind of lame that your friends get to try new characters like a cool vampire and siren, while your identical efforts yield less progress. I'd give this game a good review if it didn't feel like it picked favorites. I know I'm not great at Roguelikes but this game makes me not want to try, affirming to me that my efforts simply won't bear as much fruit.

So again, ♥♥♥♥ this co-op lie... we played identical matches over our evening and somehow our progress drifted, and if anything, playing as the Snow Queen, I topped damage once or twice as a new player utilizing her effective AoE, but somehow got LESS from the game as a reward for my effort. I'll go put my time into something less abusive, because a challenging game is always fun, but specifically being denied progress is kind of wild to me.

I can't stress that this experiment was almost scientific in nature. We installed, tutorial'd, and played together entirely (the two of us friends who were new), not going off on our own to run a few times solo, so I'm so curious how my friend who was new to the game along with me, who should've been unlocking things at an identical rate, managed to pass me. Furthermore, I'm curious how our third friend, the one who originally recommended this game, ALSO unlocked two characters during our play. He started having MORE progress than the two of us, so his unlock progress should have been SLOWER, but somehow despite having played well enough, I'm now the least-progressed of my friends and the game hasn't given a valid reason as to -WHY.- ♥♥♥♥ off Ravenswatch. Thanks for ruining a fun co-op session with my friends and I.

I really wouldn't call this a "Roguelite?" I played two fun rounds with a friend just to realize, after losing both times, that I'd unlocked -ZERO- progression whatsoever for my own efforts to complete the game, but I'd unlocked new -TOUGHER- enemies to spawn in my newer attempts. I feel like I've been punished by the game. Way more "RogueLIKE" and not very "RogueLITE" at all. I'd love this game if it had teensy progression elements akin to Vampire Survivors-like games that helped me through the almost 50 unlockable enemies and five additional difficulties past "Normal."

Don't watch Dragon Ball Z, just play Xenoverse II. You get to participate in all the relevant fights without hours of Shonen fluff to wade through.

Great top-down Roguelite with guns as the focus. If you enjoyed Vampire Survivors you'll enjoy this.