Blue Archive

Kade

Edit 3 or 4 (I forgor): I figured out the F2P "recipe," and progression has been fairly smooth. Maximizing the amount of pulls I can do on banners has increased my chances of getting characters I wanted, so it's pretty good on that front. Once you get the hang of the system, it's pretty f2p friendly and the game itself is very fun and polished, so I can recommend this game in good conscience. There are a few typos, but nothing game breaking. (Changed from 3 to 5 stars)

David Hane

Pros: Very appealing art style. The animation is gorgeous. Even the chibi models are very well done. The music is outstanding. The story is alright... Nothing extraordinary, but the characters are likable. The user interface is also very simple and easy to follow, with the exception to the convoluted crafting system (I needed to look up YouTube guides to fully understand it). Other than that, the menus are a treat to look at. The combat system is pretty simple and easy to understand. Cons: While the game play may feel unique and refreshing, it quickly falls off after some time. Rather than the combat itself, your ability to complete a tough stage is dependent on your team's composition. Unit movements can be spontaneous as you don't really have control over them. They supposedly move based on their role: Front/Middle/Back. And most of the time they do so, but every now and then you have back lines moving too close to your front line when there is lack of coverage, or your front line being too far back close to your middle, which leads to both front and middle units taking AOE damage. The game is pretty reliant on getting specific units to get past certain missions within both Events and Storyline. While some 1 and 2 star units can be helpful, without certain powerful AOE units, progression can become very stagnant very quickly. For example, The Assault Raids that come every now and then, you need units that fulfill specifics damage type coverage. Last Assault, if you failed to roll for the new banner and get Mystic units, you are going to struggle big time. The drop rate for character shards is very very low, unlocking higher tier mystics for your lower starred units will take months to do. Stamina does not last as long, as soon as you sweep missions to partially progress your weapon upgrades, you're left with about nothing else to do, especially if you've done your dailies. The PVP system is horrendous. For example: You can slowly fight your way to ranking in the 4000s, and the very next morning you'll end up back to rank 10,000. Keep in mind I am someone who plays this somewhat consistently, everyday at the very least. There is also no control over PVP, so your units will botch their skill usage pretty often. The worst part of it is that you cannot skip right away. You need to wait it out a bit before you can do so. To sum it all up: Very nicely designed in terms of aesthetics, but style can only go so far. Because of that, I feel like this game is going to hook people initially, only to be filled with the same complaints I've given out throughout this review. A Gacha game is going to be a long term time and/or money investment. Play this one casually at best. Although the walls you hit will end up taking more than months to get by. The game slowly becomes a chore to do with no satisfying paced progression. Though I will change my rating if I see the developers strive to better the game in the near future. I want this beautifully styled game to do well, and it's still early from the global release, so I will give this game a bit more time before I decide whether I drop it completely.

Choco Bos

Game gave good rewards and has good art. Pull rate seems fair compare to some other games. My issue is the combat. It's quite simple and leaves a lot to be desired. I was hoping to actually command my units instead of them kinda running around like headless chickens. Even if I played for the art, the gameplay is so stale and dull, that I wish I could do something.

Tariq Burroughs

Great character design, great story, dialogue is fresh, clear, and at times comical. This game is a grind. It is hard to level up enough to keep up with the enemies and pick up the materials to a character's skills. The stamina limit makes it hard to progress enough to level up; the fact that character's are limited to the player level is tough, especially when the experience gained for the player is based off the amount of stamina you use. The game is still fun and bright.

Bisami Blanch

The stories and skills of the girls are all unique and interesting, as you progress it gets harder, energy to collect resources so you can level up your girls becomes more expensive. Unless you spend money on this game, this game literally forces you to stop playing to let your energy recharge. This is an awesome game, but if you don't have energy to play it's teaching you to give up on the game. And eventually uninstall.

David Nostrand

Didn't really know what to expect from this game, but I'm really enjoying it so far! The presentation is great. The whole package looks very slick, from the menus, to the art, and especially the music. Re-roll process is straightforward and you got a lot of rolls upfront, which is nice. And we already got some of the quality of life improvements that JP had to wait months for. A good launch so far. Only complaint from me is that navigating menus feels a bit sluggish and load times are a bit long, and there are some framerate drops during combat. It runs well overall, but people with older phones won't have a perfectly smooth experience.

Roman Draco

I like the goofiness and obvious service in this; very easy gacha too. But, the gameplay is extremely boring. You aren't even really playing, it's just stat upkeep and maybe a few ability choices. You can't even tell your squad where to move, and the group-up skills don't really do anything. Some of your higher up characters can't even work on certain maps or their stats drop, which is a strange feature that doesn't make much sense. Dunno. It's not bad for the dating, but the gameplay is meh.

Skratcher Of Vinyls

The music is amazing, combat is strategic and at times pretty hard (but rewarding!), the girls and art style is cute as hell (always excited to pull a new unit!), you get a good amount of premium currency just by playing so you get to pull a good amount at the start. Yes it can be a bit too different at times, but what gatcha game isn't? Just need to grind for mats and levels before moving on to the next stage. So far, loving the game, may even spend a few on it in the future! Keep it up!

Joseph F

The chibi gameplay and girls are cute and refreshing. The voice acting is top notch. However the serious issue with this game is the frame lag. It appears to be a memory leak that bogs the menu transitions down hard. Tested on mobile and emulators. I encountered the same issue on both devices

Nicholas

The gameplay itself is really good, but...the app takes *forever* to launch and actually connect. There's also significant loading time between screens. The constant noise from the girls is also kind of annoying. I also didn't particularly like how grinds it quickly becomes. Even when dumping all your energy into the EXP missions, you'll still find yourself coming up short trying to keep the various girls on par with your account level.