The Vibe-Killing Nature of Blue Protocol: Star Resonance's Story Presentation Demonstrates A Problem With Modern MMOs

Blue Protocol: Star Resonance is visually striking, bursting with anime-style flair and colorful characters that feel straight out of a high-budget RPG. Its world is beautiful, its art direction is cohesive, and its gameplay is competent. Yet despite all of that, the experience falls flat. And it is all because of the story, the dialogue, and the cutscenes. They do not elevate the game whatsoever. Nope. They drag it down entirely.

This free-to-play MMORPG leans heavily into its “RPG” side while forgetting what makes the “MMO” part special. It treats players as passive viewers rather than active participants. Gameplay is constantly interrupted by stiff, drawn-out cutscenes and pages of generic dialogue. What should be a fluid, connected adventure instead becomes a stop-and-go routine of unskippable exposition.

Players have been voicing these frustrations since launch. On Steam and Reddit, the most common complaint is not about bugs, servers, or monetization (which is more bad than good, by the way) — it is that the game simply refuses to let you play. Nearly every quest, no matter how small, forces another cinematic. Characters speak at you rather than to you, spouting lines that sound as though they were translated twice before localization. It feels like you are playing “Anime: The Video Game.” The visuals are gorgeous, but the narrative delivery is painfully dull.

These cutscenes exist primarily as filler, padding out time between exploration and combat rather than adding meaning or emotion. Most players are mashing the ESC key before a single sentence finishes.

The sad irony is that Blue Protocol: Star Resonance is actually a solid game underneath all of this. Its combat system is fast and punchy. The classes feel distinct, and the life skill systems provide relaxing breaks from fighting. But the constant interruptions — each one required for progress since the story is the main source of EXP — make it feel like you are battling the game itself just to enjoy it. You fight some bad guys, ready to keep the action going, only to be yanked back into another slow, mandatory dialogue sequence. The rhythm of play never gets the chance to breathe.

This problem is not unique to Blue Protocol: Star Resonance too. Many MMOs have been trending toward cinematic storytelling over the last decade, and I find that deeply disappointing. These games thrive on community and spontaneity, not scripted monologues. The best memories in any MMO are unscripted — moments that happen between players, not because of pre-written dialogue. When you log in, you want to explore and fight alongside others, not sit through endless lectures from NPCs about lore no one will remember or even care about.

Blue Protocol: Star Resonance mistakes polish for pacing. It believes flashy presentation equals immersion, when true immersion comes from player engagement. You cannot be engaged when you are forced to watch instead of act. Players do not want to be told a story — they want to play one.

What makes this especially disappointing is that the original Blue Protocol was marketed as an adventure built around teamwork and discovery. Somewhere along the way, that identity was lost. Star Resonance feels like it is chasing a mobile-style formula where every simple task is over-explained and every moment stretched out.

There is a genuinely good game buried beneath the noise. When you are actually free to play — gliding across open fields and chaining abilities together during combat — Blue Protocol: Star Resonance shines. Those moments are fun. The problem is that you have to wade through an ocean of unwanted story sequences to reach them.

The game will lose many players because of this constant barrage of dialogue and cutscenes. Blue Protocol: Star Resonance already likely has. If I had not known that valuable gameplay was buried behind all the fluff, I would have quit too. This could have been a sleek, fast-paced anime MMO focused on cooperation and combat. Instead, it constantly gets in its own way — pausing to show you something you never asked to see.