My first, last, and everything in-between impression of these is that they are SO PRETTY.  I mean, look at them!  The Berry Blast spectrum is like the color scheme for a stained glass window in a public aquarium somewhere tropical.  Florida.  A public aquarium in Florida.

I spent a lot of time just gazing upon them, and occasionally rearranging the colors.  Putting pink beside orange, for example, or moving that ice blue in between a purple and a dark blue.  Gorgeous!

The flavors themselves are mostly alright, although I have some real problems with "Peach Berry."  I mean for one thing, there is no such thing as a "Peach Berry."  Why would you take an assortment of berry flavors and think, "Hmm, you know what this needs?   Peach.  But since it's a berry assortment, we'll have to give it a vaguely berry flavor and then call it Peach Berry."

There's no clear mandate for including a Peach Berry flavor, is what I'm saying.  But I have to admit that the color is really pretty, and it nicely balances out the other colors.  I can actually see a scenario in which someone says "We need a sort of light orange color in here, like a pale tangerine - what flavor should that be?"

Furthermore, the Peach Berry had kind of a pukey taste, if you ask me.  

The other flavors were pretty decent.  Wild Berry (purple) is just a misc berry fruity flavor.  Strawberry (pink) has some good complexity to it, without being too syrupy sweet as strawberry flavored candy tends to be.  Blue Raspberry (ice blue) tastes blue, and Blueberry (dark blue) is I guess a fair approximation of blueberry flavor.

(Blueberry is a tough one to pull off, so I grade blueberry on a curve.  Blueberries don't really taste like anything.  I have an uncle who refuses to eat them, on the grounds that they are a fruit version of the Emperor's New Clothes.  He has a point.)

These also pass the "cram a whole handful into your mouth" test.  The berry flavors meld passably well, without anything standing out too much.  This is key because let's face it, at least half the time you just tip the box up and let them pour into your mouth.  It's okay, I understand.  I do it too.

Now I would like to address an issue with the packaging.  It has pictures of berries all over it, and then on the back it says "Bursting with FRUIT JUICE flavor!"  Flavor, see that?  Fruit juice FLAVOR.  Not fruit juice!  Fruit juice FLAVOR.

A less cynical person could be forgiven for thinking that there might be actual fruit juice in these candies.  Obviously, there is not.  Not in meaningful quantities, anyway.  It does contain "pear juice from concentrate," but pear juice is notoriously used to provide a basic "undifferentiated fruity" flavor.  (Which is why I find pear flavored Jelly Belly candies to be so wonderfully ironic.)

I like Mike and Ike candies a lot, and I will definitely be adding Berry Blast to my regular line-up.