Talking about Revue Starlight is not an easy task, it’s a game I’m a bit conflicted.
As a game it’s not good at all, the gameplay is not fun, it’s a very basic turn based gameplay, PVE is piss easy, and PVP is mostly determined by power creep, so there’s no real strategy during the fights.
The gameplay parts are also poorly implemented into the game since it’s removed from the main story, it has no relevance being there, it’s just a way to unlock the rest of the story. The only strength of the fights is actually to listen to the songs you want during the activation of the climax of your characters (you can choose the song of your choice, there’s more than 50 of them I think since there are the insert songs of the anime, of the stage plays, of Re Live).
These songs give bonus to your characters, but you don’t care on PVP since it’s so easy, you just choose the song you want.
The gacha aspect is also a very serious issue, it’s a game wanting to take all your money by showing you very beautiful artworks of the characters you want to have, but there’s no way to farm gems to roll, you have to spend money on it (something I refuse to do).
The live 2D sprites are very charming and expressive, all the main characters (and there are more than 30 of them including some of them who only appears during the events and school stories) are dubbed, and it’s a bliss since it makes the game really lively. But the direction of the scenes is very poor, there is very few CG during the main story (the rare ones are good but it’s not on par with a lot of the visual novels I played).
The music is beautiful but except the insert songs, their number is too low, and that’s a shame even if I like them a lot.
But even if all the flaws I wrote about, guess what ? I JUST DON’T GIVE A F***.
Why ? Simply because Revue Starlight without hesitation has my favorite video game story by far (and overall, I only like a bit more Utawarerumono Mask of Truth in weeb media).
I had some doubts before starting the game since it’s a gacha, I’ve never played one but I had a lot of stereotypes (a lot of them were true) about this genre of games, I thought the game was only a way to make the fans spend tons of money (it’s the case but not just that), but the game really has a lovely story, central characters all are well developped (and the majority of them are wonderfully developped), and all of them have a relevance to the thematics of the game.
It probably helps that Re Live was written by Tatsuto Higuchin, the main scenarist of the anime and the movie. Re Live perfectly respects the thematics built by the anime and the movie while being its own thing, thematics regarding the importance of evolve as a person, that everything has an end but that’s okay, it’s just how life is, and also to not cling on toxic habits you can develop with other people even if they like you (or if you like them) but can hurt us, preventing us to express what we really want to be.
Of course these are common and grounded thematics, but I love how the Revue Starlight franchise express it in a really metaphorical way (using japanese theater), offering them a context (the stage) to help them express what they really feel, to break the mask they can have in their life, while showing us how they can shine. So I can say I was delighted to see the game respecting the anime and the movie.
I also need to say that the main story of Re Live is taking place after the events of the anime, so you need to watch it before playing Re Live, and the last arc of the game also has some references to the movie (I don’t think it’s mandatory to watch it to read it, but it’s better for the overall experience regarding the interactions of two characters during the last arc).
But of course, if it was only that (handling thematics already dealt with), it would have been a bit redundant since the anime and the movie already had these themes, especially given the main story is taking place after the events of anime. So I was pleased to discover a lot of new characters, the main story expands very naturally the setting of Revue Starlight, there’s now 4 schools instead of just one (Seisho, Rinmeikan, Siegfeld and Frontier).
These 3 new schools all have a different situation compared to Seisho, and their goal is also different, it gives to all these schools a very varied tone while impacting the relations between the characters. The new cast is extremely endearing, I even think some of them are even better than the original cast. There very varied situations of the characters gives a new flair to the thematics of the anime and the movie, and the greatest strength of Re Live, it’s that all of them will have their moment to shine, I never saw (in a weeb medium at least) so many characters having their moment to shine (even if some characters are more important than others).
Some characters like Aruru of Frontier (my favorite character and I didn’t even like her at the begining), Akira (Siegfeld) or Tomoe are at least on par with the original cast of Starlight.
The original cast has less development than the new cast, but I really like how their past experiences help the other girls of the schools, they feel like mentors and you really feel how they evolved during the anime, it was lovely to see how past events helped them becoming better people, while helping others at the same time.
Another strength of the main story is that it takes more time to build the relations between the characters (without having the pacing of a slice of life visual novel, I would not say it’s a slow burn reading), I think it was something a bit missing with the anime since developing 9 characters with 12 episodes was not enough. Adding that, the fact that it’s a gacha with a updated content allow introducing event stories developing even more the characters using the stage plays they are in, since they often use their outlook of life to play the characters they are playing, and there are sometimes some parallels between their past and how it will influence the plays.
One flaw is that it makes the chronology of story events a bit confusing, sometimes it’s hard to know when an event story happened, even if these event stories are mostly a addition to make the characters even more flashed out and enjoyable, there are not a lot of references to these events in the main story.
But if I already really enjoyed the main story of Re Live, it’s the final arc (Arcana Arcadia, the last half of the main story), and it was phenomenal, it’s at least as good as the movie (and the movie is awesome to me).
Atcana Arcadia brillantly used everything built during the main story to offer an amazing pay-off regarding the characters, a lot of scenes were really emotionally resonant to me, it’s really during this arc that the build-up of the character and the plot came to fruition. The metaphorical aspect of Revue Starlight is very present (while being very clear, I think Re Live is overall more accessible than the anime and the movie), the concept of the arc is genius and make the characters really think about themselves.
This arc also warps up the story in a lovely way, the main story lands the ending perfectly, it has no flaws in my eyes and it’s a miracle since I’m someone very picky.
I would like to wrote more about Arcana Arcadia without spoiling, but the pay-off of the story is amazing, it gave me more emotions and fulfillment than any other games I’ve played.
The six insert songs used during this arc are all incredible (special mention to Yami o Terasu Mono, this song and the context broke my heart) even if it’s a shame that the game only used a small part of the song instead of playing the song in its entirety.
Arcana Arcadia makes of Revue Starlight Re Live a wonderful metaphorical journey where characters look out of themselves, are lost in what they are, are doubtful, but are also evolving and shining brightly, and it was so beautiful, nothing can give me so much vigor than Revue Starlight.
Of course there are some contrivances in the plotting, it’s nothing new, it’s Revue Starlight and it was already established in the anime, the main story sometimes ask the player a suspension of disbelief since sometimes the twists are like «just shut up, it’s magic ». But that’s also the beauty of Revue Starlight, everything can happen on stage.
Thanks Revue Starlight Re Live even if you are a sticky gacha. I was already a big fan of Revue Starlight but the gacha made me a fan even more, and I love it also for allowing other stage plays with the dubbers of the game, it’s a joy since I love the songs of the franchises, there are a lot of new songs inspired by the characters of the gacha.
As a game it’s not good at all, the gameplay is not fun, it’s a very basic turn based gameplay, PVE is piss easy, and PVP is mostly determined by power creep, so there’s no real strategy during the fights.
The gameplay parts are also poorly implemented into the game since it’s removed from the main story, it has no relevance being there, it’s just a way to unlock the rest of the story. The only strength of the fights is actually to listen to the songs you want during the activation of the climax of your characters (you can choose the song of your choice, there’s more than 50 of them I think since there are the insert songs of the anime, of the stage plays, of Re Live).
These songs give bonus to your characters, but you don’t care on PVP since it’s so easy, you just choose the song you want.
The gacha aspect is also a very serious issue, it’s a game wanting to take all your money by showing you very beautiful artworks of the characters you want to have, but there’s no way to farm gems to roll, you have to spend money on it (something I refuse to do).
The live 2D sprites are very charming and expressive, all the main characters (and there are more than 30 of them including some of them who only appears during the events and school stories) are dubbed, and it’s a bliss since it makes the game really lively. But the direction of the scenes is very poor, there is very few CG during the main story (the rare ones are good but it’s not on par with a lot of the visual novels I played).
The music is beautiful but except the insert songs, their number is too low, and that’s a shame even if I like them a lot.
But even if all the flaws I wrote about, guess what ? I JUST DON’T GIVE A F***.
Why ? Simply because Revue Starlight without hesitation has my favorite video game story by far (and overall, I only like a bit more Utawarerumono Mask of Truth in weeb media).
I had some doubts before starting the game since it’s a gacha, I’ve never played one but I had a lot of stereotypes (a lot of them were true) about this genre of games, I thought the game was only a way to make the fans spend tons of money (it’s the case but not just that), but the game really has a lovely story, central characters all are well developped (and the majority of them are wonderfully developped), and all of them have a relevance to the thematics of the game.
It probably helps that Re Live was written by Tatsuto Higuchin, the main scenarist of the anime and the movie. Re Live perfectly respects the thematics built by the anime and the movie while being its own thing, thematics regarding the importance of evolve as a person, that everything has an end but that’s okay, it’s just how life is, and also to not cling on toxic habits you can develop with other people even if they like you (or if you like them) but can hurt us, preventing us to express what we really want to be.
Of course these are common and grounded thematics, but I love how the Revue Starlight franchise express it in a really metaphorical way (using japanese theater), offering them a context (the stage) to help them express what they really feel, to break the mask they can have in their life, while showing us how they can shine. So I can say I was delighted to see the game respecting the anime and the movie.
I also need to say that the main story of Re Live is taking place after the events of the anime, so you need to watch it before playing Re Live, and the last arc of the game also has some references to the movie (I don’t think it’s mandatory to watch it to read it, but it’s better for the overall experience regarding the interactions of two characters during the last arc).
But of course, if it was only that (handling thematics already dealt with), it would have been a bit redundant since the anime and the movie already had these themes, especially given the main story is taking place after the events of anime. So I was pleased to discover a lot of new characters, the main story expands very naturally the setting of Revue Starlight, there’s now 4 schools instead of just one (Seisho, Rinmeikan, Siegfeld and Frontier).
These 3 new schools all have a different situation compared to Seisho, and their goal is also different, it gives to all these schools a very varied tone while impacting the relations between the characters. The new cast is extremely endearing, I even think some of them are even better than the original cast. There very varied situations of the characters gives a new flair to the thematics of the anime and the movie, and the greatest strength of Re Live, it’s that all of them will have their moment to shine, I never saw (in a weeb medium at least) so many characters having their moment to shine (even if some characters are more important than others).
Some characters like Aruru of Frontier (my favorite character and I didn’t even like her at the begining), Akira (Siegfeld) or Tomoe are at least on par with the original cast of Starlight.
The original cast has less development than the new cast, but I really like how their past experiences help the other girls of the schools, they feel like mentors and you really feel how they evolved during the anime, it was lovely to see how past events helped them becoming better people, while helping others at the same time.
Another strength of the main story is that it takes more time to build the relations between the characters (without having the pacing of a slice of life visual novel, I would not say it’s a slow burn reading), I think it was something a bit missing with the anime since developing 9 characters with 12 episodes was not enough. Adding that, the fact that it’s a gacha with a updated content allow introducing event stories developing even more the characters using the stage plays they are in, since they often use their outlook of life to play the characters they are playing, and there are sometimes some parallels between their past and how it will influence the plays.
One flaw is that it makes the chronology of story events a bit confusing, sometimes it’s hard to know when an event story happened, even if these event stories are mostly a addition to make the characters even more flashed out and enjoyable, there are not a lot of references to these events in the main story.
But if I already really enjoyed the main story of Re Live, it’s the final arc (Arcana Arcadia, the last half of the main story), and it was phenomenal, it’s at least as good as the movie (and the movie is awesome to me).
Atcana Arcadia brillantly used everything built during the main story to offer an amazing pay-off regarding the characters, a lot of scenes were really emotionally resonant to me, it’s really during this arc that the build-up of the character and the plot came to fruition. The metaphorical aspect of Revue Starlight is very present (while being very clear, I think Re Live is overall more accessible than the anime and the movie), the concept of the arc is genius and make the characters really think about themselves.
This arc also warps up the story in a lovely way, the main story lands the ending perfectly, it has no flaws in my eyes and it’s a miracle since I’m someone very picky.
I would like to wrote more about Arcana Arcadia without spoiling, but the pay-off of the story is amazing, it gave me more emotions and fulfillment than any other games I’ve played.
The six insert songs used during this arc are all incredible (special mention to Yami o Terasu Mono, this song and the context broke my heart) even if it’s a shame that the game only used a small part of the song instead of playing the song in its entirety.
Arcana Arcadia makes of Revue Starlight Re Live a wonderful metaphorical journey where characters look out of themselves, are lost in what they are, are doubtful, but are also evolving and shining brightly, and it was so beautiful, nothing can give me so much vigor than Revue Starlight.
Of course there are some contrivances in the plotting, it’s nothing new, it’s Revue Starlight and it was already established in the anime, the main story sometimes ask the player a suspension of disbelief since sometimes the twists are like «just shut up, it’s magic ». But that’s also the beauty of Revue Starlight, everything can happen on stage.
Thanks Revue Starlight Re Live even if you are a sticky gacha. I was already a big fan of Revue Starlight but the gacha made me a fan even more, and I love it also for allowing other stage plays with the dubbers of the game, it’s a joy since I love the songs of the franchises, there are a lot of new songs inspired by the characters of the gacha.