Anime MMORPG Blue Protocol: Star Resonance, developed by Tencent-funded studio BOKURA and published by A Plus, finally became available worldwide on October 9. As Bandai Namco’s original game shut down before ever making it to the West, overseas fans of the IP seemed to be quite excited for when the title’s revival was announced. And while the hype definitely looks strong with the MMORPG already in the top 15 most played games on Steam right now, the review score already fell to a modest “Mixed.” So what is going on here?
According to Steam DB, Blue Protocol: Star Resonance was the 14th most played game on steam at the time of writing, with over 40,000 concurrent players and a 24-hour peak of over 94,000 players. It ialso maintained the position of the 5th global top-seller on its first day of launch.
However, if we go over to Steam, things don’t look so bright. Out of almost 6,000 reviews at the time of writing, 45% are positive, earning the game a “Mixed” rating. Looking at the language breakdown, it seems like all available language-specific scores for the release, including English, Spanish, Portuguese and German, are “Mixed.” The only exception is the French score which plummeted to “Mostly Negative” with only 31% positive reviews.
Looking at the actual reviews, it seems that many players are disappointed with Blue Protocol: Star Resonance’s gameplay loop, clunky controls – but also overwhelming and confusing UI design. Furthermore, European and Australian gamers have voiced their dissatisfaction over the unstable servers and ping (as the global server seems to be located in the US). Many also cite the presence of numerous monetization features – gacha banners, battle passes, and season passes – as being ultimately distracting from the overall gameplay experience. On the other hand, positive reviews are praising the intricate graphics and character customization features.
However, since it’s only been one day since the game officially released, it is yet to be seen what the review score is going to be like once the hype mellows out. Judging by the high concurrent player count, it seems many players may be actively enjoying the game and review bombing it in order to push BOKURA to take action and make some improvements to the game – especially the server issues.
