Merrily her life is but a dream

Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deep Blue review

(9 hours 10 minutes and 2 seconds to “100%” according to my save file. Played on Switch with Japanese text.)

To describe Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deep Blue by Inti Creates is to keep the impulse of using “sequel” and “spin-off” in check. First there was Love Live! phone game. Then it got an animated adaption which became a new horizon for a couple of anime critics I trust. Then that show got a sequel subtitled Sunshine. Or was it adapting the phone game’s upgrades?

Just as Aquor, Sunshine’s idol group, seemed to be disbanded like Muse before them, a fantasy spin-off called Yohane the Parhelion came out in 2023 featuring the 9 girls who didn’t manage to save their school with winning Love Live. Here they are leading mounding lives in a fantasy world. Tie-in video games did not fall far behind in this case.

There are 2 Yohane the Parhelion video games planned: one being a deck builder set for early 2024; the other is Blaze in the Deep Blue I am writing about here. (I ordered those 2 as such because I typed “Yohane” into Steam search bar and the deck builder came up first. Guess Valve’s algorism has its audience figured out.) This “Super Metroid like” made by “more Castlevania people” is a 2023 game through and through since it fits into the following 3 “trends”.

First there is the mega corporations bleed into the so-called “indie” game development scene started with people looking into Dave the Diver. This franchise started with dependence on whales now it has a decent enough pixel side-scroller, what are the odds? Speak of whales of phone game, the second point is that very much like Fate/Samurai Remanent, Blaze in the Deep Blue dares to ask those same whales to pay just for playing the game this game. Last but not least, an anime tie-in game not being a polygonal affair in 2023 certainly screams cutting spend on contents generation…

My fellow Love Live! Sunshine fans…

As the title points out, Aquors’ resident day dreamer Yohane is the player character. No, she is not called Yoshiko Tsushima ever once in the 13 animated episodes aired between July and September 2023. In fact, nobody has a family name in the show. Yohane’s day dreaming is almost the reverse of Sunshine’s Yoshiko. While Yoshiko is fantasizing about being a fallen angel in a relatively realistic world where her follow school girls pursue music, Yohane is pursuing a music career in a fantasy word where her peers start to have “real jobs”: baker, inn-keeper, postal worker, mayor, so on and so forth. After yet another failed audition, Yohane went to her hometown, started to take on odd jobs to make ends meet and put the band “back” together if you may.

How the game Blaze in the Deep Blue fits into the anime’ continuity is tricky and ultimately not important. By the start of the game Yohane already knew all 8 other Aquor members and got to rescue them as the usual upgrades in “Super Metroid likes”. Always after a boss fight.

The game’s humor lays heavily on puns just like the Sunshine animated series. For starters, the Japanese counterpart to “the Parhelion” part of the title reads as “gen jitsu” with 2 kanjis mean either “fantasy days” or “day dreaming”. Yet, the kanjis associated with “gen jitsu” the most actually mean “reality”. So, the game does throw those know Japanese a curve ball once booted up. At least 3 of the Aquor members got punny catchphrases that would make one go “Cut it out, sister!” Along with all the winks and nods regarding Sunshine’s more comedic plot points and the returning voice cast, I say the appeal to fans is obvious. Though this being a Inti Creates joint, one cannot help but feel that the 2D character portraits in the cut scenes had been Gal-gunned up…

…and the rest of us

Now the rose-tinted glasses can come off. Blaze in the Deep Blue is a “Super Metroid like”, certainly more Metroid than Vania if you ask me. The progress is linear like Metroid games despite all the back tracking required in the Deep Blue undersea dungeon with no chance of sequence breaking. Yahane does not level-up like those player characters in the Vania side of things, instead there is the crafting system. Get the right material and craft armor to increase health and the mana pool called Darkness Point. Weapons are crafted rather than found and they take up DP.

Inti Creates being the side-scrolling Mega Man people does bleed in. There are 8 bosses blocking 8 attack upgrades and you got to fight them all over again in the end game boss rush. The game starts you with Yohane’s wolf nanny Lailaps, who does a weak beat that does not take up any resource then other 8 Aquor members would provide attacks consuming DP. One can still use most of those attack when DP run out, they just take up health at that point. Of course, weak bite is not the only thing the wolf nanny has to offer. In true "baby's first Metroid" fashion, she would carry Yohane to her home base once her life runs out. And the map will keep track how far the player goes.

Aquor members and wolf mum’s attacks are mapped to left face button while weapon is mapped to right trigger. Left trigger is for Aquor members’ more powerful attacks and those upgrades are gated in a more Metroid like fashion. Aquor members’ attacks are mostly mapped after their appearance in the anime, like inn-keeper Chika and de-facto mayor Dia both have vigilante alter-egoes in the show, so their attacks are modeled after those. Postal worker Yo’s human cannon and diving scavenger Kanan’s drop-stomping frag-shaped robot are just tools for their trades in this fantasy world. But some can feel out of left filed even for those who watched the show. Such as the baker Hanamaru, who would roll spikes into flat ground while her explosive left-trigger thing is a nod to the original Sunshine.

Another RPG element is the debuffs. There are the usual poisoned, frozen, attack down, defend down and so on. This game got one called Lonely meaning disabling the left face button and left trigger attacks, kind of an anti-thesis to the power of friendship this type of story likes to preach.

The game’s sense of “being rushed” is in the details. Like how the shop only sells but does not buy. After one failed attempt at a Boss with all portion spent, the player is forced to either try without portions or grind a bit for portion money. Then there is the logic of one type of puzzles near the end. It involves Aquor’s token white girl Mari’s time stopping power, the left trigger one. In one of those one got to step on one single weight trigger, stop time and get through the door. In other, one got step on one of 2 triggers, stop time, step on the second one and door opens. It’s by no mean deal breaker but somewhat implies that something was not thought through.

Verdict

30 US dollars for a under 10 hours long game is not exactly a bargain. Yours truly somehow felt this year of gaming is not complete without one 2D side-scroller and this one just came to the shelf. It helps that I like Sunshine and it also helps that I got a mechanic itch. However, I cannot in good conscience give Blaze in the Deep Blue my full inducement. But if you are fan enough, you can do a lot worse than this one.