There is this brutal honesty that I enjoy of Nexon Games’ ‘Blue Archive’. Their free-to-play auto tactics title launched a little over four years ago and has since taken parts of the internet by storm, especially across Asian gaming communities. And it’s not hard to see why: the game and its world have taken inspiration from classic anime and sprinkled in what I consider to be “universal desires” of anime fans and otaku across this big, beautiful planet.
About a month or so back, the publisher had reached out and asked if I’d like to give the game a review. Seeing as how I’ve already been playing Blue Archive for the better part of four years, I thought “sure, why not?”. But instead of reviewing the game based on the perspective of a day one player, I opted to create a new account and hop into the world as a fresh player across the PC Steam client and my mobile devices. My goal here is simple: I’d jump in as a full free-to-play player and, through the perspective of a new account holder, I wanted to see if this is a game I could recommend.
And to that, I say yes!
(NEXON)
Welcome to Kivotos, Teach
In Blue Archive, players take on the role of “Sensei”, an enigmatic character who comes to the land of Kivotos to take on the duties of the General Student Council while its leader remains missing in action. You are an outsider, a representative of a faction known only as SCHALE, and it is your duty to be a helping hand, guide, and mentor to the hundreds if not thousands of students across Kivotos—but these aren’t just any ol’ kiddos: we’re talking about a society that strictly nothing but girls with “halos” floating over their heads. And they’re usually all armed to the teeth with guns, missiles, bombs, you name it. But that’s just life for these kids, taking bullets to the face doesn’t really mean all that much the vast majority of the time thanks to these mysterious “powers” of sorts.
Kivotos is in disarray. The region is chock full of student federations, warring factions, and splinter groups roaming about and doing their own things. The politics that rule the land are backed by what seems to be generations of high schoolers building their establishments and influenced by what few adults there seem to be as hinted by the story. And that’s what makes you special: you are an adult figure to these girls and basically the only male human in the entirety of Kivotos. As besides your students, this place seems to be home only to androids, bipedal slash sentient dogs and cats, and hippie robots. With your knowledge and, well, “wisdom”, Sensei seems to be the only hope of keeping the peace and he’ll be doing so with his trusty AI companion (no, not LLM slop) Arona that resides within his tablet—unfortunately named the “Shittim Chest”.
If this reads like some bizarro world with no regards to any sort of reality check, that’s because that’s exactly what Blue Archive is. And it’s only compounded by the fact that the game’s narrative explains almost nothing to the player. Every story beat, every conversation you hold with the game’s enormous cast is played straight and to the point—and this is one of Blue Archive’s strongest points. You will always be left wondering about Kivotos and your students and these random side characters that come into play. What the hell are these kids and why can they eat a shotgun blast to the face and yet live? What are those strange, angelic monuments that permeate every bit of landscape I see? Who is this AI that seems to live in my tablet, and why does she bear a striking resemblance to the missing Student Council President? What is SCHALE? Is there even life outside Kivotos and what does it look like?
Too often I find young adult fiction these days to spell things out a little too plainly. Leaving nothing to the imagination and boring their readers to death with answers they probably weren’t even searching for. And I will be honest, the last place I was looking for subtlety was Blue Archive and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how Kivotos has evolved since the game’s launch earlier in the decade. Touché.
(NEXON)
I’m mostly caught up with the game’s main story, having read the chapters over the last few years. But as a new player, a re-read of the main scenarios were in order!
Blue Archive splits its critical narrative across several “volumes”, with each volume putting a specific group of students at center stage. For example, Volume 1 chronicles the story of the “Foreclosure Task Force”, a group of students whose school and region have been weathered by climate change to such a catastrophic point that they are the only students remaining are the ones fighting off the accrued debt their school has taken on to combat the sandstorms that have wreaked havoc. Volume 3, one of my favourites, focuses on Trinity and Gehenna, the former heavily connected to faith and the latter just oh-so loosely. Being major factions within Kivotos, their head honchos are pursuing a treaty that would (hopefully) put an end to hostilities. But that isn’t entirely Sensei’s concern, at least not right away—because he’s tasked with passing a court of nutter students through a remedial class lest they be expelled.
I don’t want this review to be a play-by-play of every chapter in the game, but I do want to express how much I enjoyed certain parts of Blue Archive’s narrative. Volume 3 is a bit of a roller coaster in terms of emotions, serving as a stark reminder of what blind faith can do to a people and their future generations. It’s also one of the longer arcs in the game and it really does take a while to get going. Matter of fact, I’d suggest buckling down and grabbing a cup of Ceylon tea when going through the story as you’ll be reading for quite a while. As a plus, I noticed that the story mode had full Korean dubbing! And while I have no qualms with silent reading, being able to experience the narrative again with a strong voice cast enhanced this second run of mine.
Sadly, that was a bit short-lived, as Volume 3 and beyond currently lack voiceovers. Bit of a kick to the nads, especially since I was looking forward to hearing the likes of Hifumi, Hanako, Mika (my princess), and the like. I figure that the other chapters will receive dubbings over time, but I want my cool things now. Oh well.
(NEXON)
Now I don’t enjoy every aspect of Blue Archive’s story. Volume 4, for example, is a bit of a slog; particularly the second half of it, which I skipped almost entirely. While the first chapter of that volume offers a nice set up for one of the more neglected schools within Kivotos, the second chapter of it I found to be a waste of time. A filler beat that, while expanding the background of said school, didn’t really excite me all that much like the other Volumes have. On the bright side, it’s got a great reverse bout moment that at least made it worth the read.
A chapter I really didn’t enjoy was Volume 2’s, which puts one of the main cast members of that Volume in a life-or-death situation by another member. I’ve been doing my best to avoid spoilers for every description I’ve given about the game’s narrative, but there’s something you should know about Volume 2: it unironically brings up the “Trolley Problem”, forcing an involuntary reaction that sent my eyes rolling into the back of my skull. And while the perpetrator gets their comeuppance, it did get me wondering about the sense of danger that permeates the world of Kivotos. Despite these girls being able to tank missiles to the face, they’re still able to die under certain circumstances. In Sensei’s case, they’re very much in constant danger—a single stray bullet or bit of shrapnel can tear this dood apart and I’m fairly certain they don’t get hazard pay. Or health insurance.
To be more precise, a problem Blue Archive has is signifying what danger can actually be without it being some sort of cataclysmic event. I think the narrative is at its best when the conflicts are personal with a hint of overarching danger, rather than “pseudo intellectual” problem created to drive our protagonists to action.
(NEXON)
Tactical Tablet Action and Schoolwork
Before I really delve into the gameplay of Blue Archive, I think it’s best to really describe the kind of “experience” you’re going to have with the game. This is a games-as-a-service gacha title after all, so the uninitiated may find themselves a bit confused on why you can’t progress as fast as, say, a PC or console game. Here, your progress starts out slow: your Sensei Level determines the level of your students, and that level can be increased by spending stamina that accrues over time. Your students’ base level is a crucial mechanic as it determines overall base stats and unlocks other parts of their kit.
Stamina is a limited resource that you either let fill on its own, pay up, or complete “dailies”, which are essentially your daily chores as a representative of SCHALE. By chores, I mostly mean completing the game’s many, many challenges that run outside of the main story—these include Bounty Hunting, Class Battles, offline Player VS. Player, Lesson Planning, major raids, and weekly/bi-weekly events that run parallel to the game’s latest patch version. The more content you engage with on a daily basis, the more resources you’ll accumulate, which lets you build stronger students to engage with higher level content (including story battles—keep this one in mind for a bit).
There is also a little cafe that you can run. It’s not demanding, but you can customise it with furniture that you can collect by simply using the game’s crafting system. The more you trick out the place and the further you advance into the game, the more you can level up this cafe which in turn generates more money and stamina while you’re away from the game. This little pot is a crucial pool of resources, so it’s a good idea to get that levelled up as soon as you can. Plus, the number of students that visit will increase, and you can use this time to bump up the level on their relationship with you as that boosts their base stats and unlocks their side stories for you to read. Read those to their ends and you’ll get their Live2D wallpaper for use at the main menu. These are interactable “memories” of sorts that let add a bit of flair to the lobby and of course, be with your favourite student all the more. These are my favourite moments of the game, especially when you hang out with some of the more eccentric characters.
And of course, this being a gacha game, you’re going to have to “pull” for your students. Long story short, as you play (or if you spend money) you will accumulate a mineral-based currency called “Pyroxenes”. These can be used to “pull the lever” at a featured character banner to obtain whoever is leading the pool. The rates are low, so you’ll need to pull that lever multiple time, which will also accumulate you resources for students of lower rarity. This can be a resource draining process, so it’s a good idea to save your Pyroxenes for a student that you’d like to have on your roster. Or, of course, you can spend money to purchase packs.
I don’t want to linger too much on this aspect as I’ve covered similar lootbox-like systems in other game reviews, but know this: know your limits, spend wisely, and if you’re of the compulsive spender kind—I would suggest outright avoiding any games with gacha systems as their primary monetisation model.
(NEXON)
Moving on! This might all sound overwhelming, but it really isn’t all that. Though I fully recognise that I am ingrained in the style of progression for the average mobile title, it’s worth noting that all these dailies I’ve mentioned can be completed in a matter of five minutes tops. In the beginning, you will have to complete levels manually, but once you’ve cleared a stage with all the challenge requirements fulfilled, you’ll have the option to skip the fight the next time around and collect resources instead. Once you’ve established yourself in Kivotos, logging into the game once a day becomes more about skipping through menus than seeing a single bit of action. No, the issue you’ll run into here is the speed of the progression itself, but as I said earlier: hold that thought for a moment, I’ve still got to discuss the gameplay.
Blue Archive is an auto-battling tactics title. Six students of yours will engage enemy forces as they make their way down a hallway of a map. You don’t actually control any of Kivotos’ denizens: they’ll run to cover and shoot just fine on their own. You’re here to make sure they don’t die by using their skills to either direct their attention towards specific foes that can pose a danger, drop heals and buffs, area-of-effect attacks, and whatever else lines their kits. Each stage will take you roughly two or so minutes, even less time if you speed up the game. And if you get tired of directing your students, you can always turn on the auto battle function and look away from the screen.
I actually highly recommend making use of this function as the vast majority of the game’s content can be auto’d without you ever having to engage with the combat yourself. Party compositions can be automatically set up as well and so long as you have the students and resources, clearing content becomes a breeze. If you do lose a battle, simply level up your students and try again. If you lose again, that’s when you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and take matters into your own hands. Blue Archive is a simple game really, and the developers have implemented quality-of-life changes over the last few years that have cleared up some of my frustrations such as those lengthy story-mandated levels that require multiple teams to complete. Now, there’s an option that lets you simply challenge the final boss of those levels and if you want the additional Pyroxene reward, you can always retry the level normally. A good compromise, I think.
Now if you’re in the business for a tactical challenge, there are fights within the game that do require not only composition knowledge but positioning, skill usage, and even an understanding of how the game client responds if you want to take on the leaderboards. The problem with this is that it takes quite a while to reach this state of endgame and even myself, playing Blue Archive casually over a month and a half, I’ve still yet to reach that part of the game. Not to mention, if you want to be competitive, you’ll need to pull for students that are viable—characters such as Gehenna’s Ako or Trinity’s Mika, and in the case of the latter, my little princess appears in the gacha pools only once in a blue moon. Even if you were to pony up dosh, you’d still be very much behind compared to a day one or even a year two player.
This issue also eventually creeps up in the game’s main story, where you’ll have to bring in your own teams to advance. This gatekeep takes a while to get to, and while story relevant, can be frustrating to run into.
to keep you from getting lost and all the while giving you some sweet rewards.
(NEXON)
For what it’s worth, Blue Archive is a really generous game. There are well over several events that have been catalogued that allow you to collect students almost immediately. Other miscellaneous events reward you with a flurry of levelling materials and Pyroxenes slash free ten-pull tickets that you can horde until that must-have character comes in. As a “new player”, I was not compelled to spend any money to progress in any shape or form and I still have many, many ways to farm more pulling currency for future character banners. Really, I think the game’s problem for new players is just getting up to speed—it’s a much slower experience than some of the many other popular gacha titles on the market.
But I drop gacha games like I do the hundreds of games in my backlog. Yet here I am, some four years later, still playing Blue Archive. It’s a low-maintenance game with a creative cacophony of ideas mixed with a dab of fourth wall-skirting plays that appeals to a wide-reaching audience of all ages. Where many games opt to host depressing narratives to appeal to their young adult audience, Blue Archive instead plays itself straight—keeping an upbeat vibe with a touch of comic mischief while not being afraid to touch on the “what-ifs” if things all went wrong. It’s easy to pick up and play and I wouldn’t have it any other way. ∎
Blue Archive is available on PC via Steam, iOS, and Android via Google Play as a free-to-play title.
Blue Archive
Played on
Windows 11 PC, Android
PROS
- Super creative and fun narrative with a great cast of characters.
- Easy to pick up and play.
- Great visuals and awesome music.
CONS
- Not every story beat lands.
- Progression is slower than the typical gacha title.
