Just a few weeks remain until the arrival of BLUE REFLECTION Quartet, a special compilation from Koei Tecmo that brings together the magical girl RPG series. This collection features refreshed versions of all four Blue Reflection games, including a fully playable adaptation of the Blue Reflection Ray anime, along with extra content, features, and quality-of-life enhancements.
Ahead of its debut, character designer and supervisor Mel Kishida has offered some insights into the game’s development, including the backstory behind the controversial male protagonist introduced in Blue Reflection Sun.
Blue Reflection Sun served as the fourth and most recent chapter in the Blue Reflection series, launching in Japan in 2023 as a free-to-play game. Unfortunately, the title faced early challenges and shut down services in 2024 without reaching Western markets. Compounding its troubles, Sun encountered significant criticism even before launch for featuring the series’ first male lead. The game was met with backlash for deviating from the franchise’s tradition of an all-female cast, but as Kishida recently disclosed, this was largely due to poor timing.
“The Ray anime and Second Light established the series’ ‘girls-only’ setting, so I feel terrible that Sun, which was intended to follow the original Blue Reflection, ended up being released last because of various circumstances and left everyone confused,” Kishida shared on X. He noted that he had already begun crafting character designs—including the male protagonist’s—as soon as work on the first Blue Reflection game concluded.
In a subsequent post, Kishida clarified that budget limitations initially restricted the original Blue Reflection to female models only. However, the team aspired to create an RPG with both male and female characters, leading to the concept for Blue Reflection Sun. The decision to include a “stereotypical” male protagonist, akin to those in bishojo games, was a deliberate design choice to realize this vision. The timing, however, was problematic since it occurred right after the first Blue Reflection’s release, before the series had solidified its “girls-only” identity.
Given this context, it will be intriguing to observe how Blue Reflection Sun integrates into the series’ larger narrative, especially since Blue Reflection Quartet aims to unify all entries into a cohesive package.
BLUE REFLECTION Quartet is set to launch on July 30 for PC (Steam), PS5, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.