[Games] Magical Diary: A Wee Review

[† Emotional Outlet]

Well, to start, it's currently on sale, so you can pick it up for just over ten bucks on Steam. I picked it up because one of my friends wanted it and it was on sale, and I like being able to dress up my characters. Yes, good.

I've played it obsessively enough to generate some opinions.

General

So you're a witch--you found this out when you were thirteen and you did some crazy Super Mario jump that made some people come up to you and asked you to make a Choice. You end up at a boarding school for magical people and from there the choice is yours. You find out you're a wildseed, a witch born of non-magical parents.

The nice thing about the game is you don't really have to choose between your studies or having a social life. There are a few cutscenes that are only available when you go to the mall on Saturday instead of staying in and studying, but your romancing normally won't have any effect on your skill building. With one notable exception, which I'll cover later in a spoiler.

Bits and pieces about your family are revealed through gameplay while all the other character's stories are revealed primarily through their romantic paths--as expected. None of these stories I found myself especially emotionally vested in--unlike Hatoful Boyfriend which almost had me in tears at one point--but they're interesting and compelling enough to warrant a playthrough or two.

Some things I found interesting and worth mentioning:

Your romantic options include POC and women. The diversity was refreshing and greatly appreciated.

There's a class where you learn about pronoun usage. For those who aren't familiar with pronoun etiquette, there are people who have preferred pronouns when referring to them. It comes up in a discussion about magical beings whose species may not be characterised by sexual dimorphism or may switch between sexes or be without sex entirely. Your professor teaches you a set of agender pronouns to use when you aren't certain what pronouns are appropriate to use. This makes people excited. I don't know if this makes you guys excited.

The same professor happily gives you lectures on sex education. The gist of it is you can do whatever you want as long as you give consent. There is no judgment for non-heterosexual relationships or even for non-monogamous relationships. It's mentioned in a line at the end of the year that people came to the May Day ball not only in pairs, but in threes and fours. It's a utopia people dream of.

Age differences seem not to matter much--at least within the magical world and when both people are consenting. This is mostly explored when you're on Grabiner's path.

Customisation

To start, you can customise your little witch and give her an awesome magical name! Unfortunately, you can ONLY be a witch. The devs probably didn't want to have to deal with scripting the game to be played from a male perspective. Anyway.

You have two body type options--one is the typical slender character and the other is slightly shorter and curvier. They're both cute body types, but nothing special. For skin tones, you have five options from fairly dark to pasty white. The darkest skintone isn't as dark as I would have liked, but you can't win them all!

With regards to hair, you have twelve options of style ranging from some cute little dreads to shorter pixie cuts to some long flowing locks, and fifteen colours.

For faces, you have four choices. They're all pretty cute and androgynous, so you can pair them with some of the shorter hairs and complete the look.

If you're looking for some in-depth character creation where you can program their personality, adjust the bridge of her nose, you won't find that here. It is better than some other dating sims where you don't even get to adjust the appearance of your character as they never appear on screen.

Overall, pretty decent customisation!

Art

Well, I think it's pretty and doesn't detract from gameplay. I prefer the heavier body type since it makes the faces look nicer, but that's just personal choice.

If you're familiar with dating sims, you're probably used to the characters not really moving around that much. They have expressions, but it's a limited palette and almost all of the students make the same expressions. The teachers are more unique in that regard. Some attention was paid in representing heavier characters, but that seems to have only been limited to Ellen, your roommate. None of the male characters appear to be heavyset, although you do meet one with some sweet dog ears.

The backgrounds are nicely done, though there's not many to see as your character doesn't go to very many locations outside of the school. She does go to the beach and mall, which has a few places within for your character to visit on Saturdays. The magic special effects aren't anything amazing, just an animated overlay on your screen. Of note--you get a gallery of your romantic conquests. Mine so far reflects two characters ending up with Damien, two with Donald, one with Ellen, one with Grabiner, and a kiss with Pastel. More on the romantic options later.

Overall, the art is very nice, but not spectacular.

Music/Sound

I'm afraid my opinion here may not mean much because I listen to a lot of stuff and tolerate a lot of crap, but there is music and there are sound effects. Voice acting is absent, so whether you find a positive or negative is up to you. I personally like it because I ended up replaying the game about a thousand times and listening to the voices clip as I auto-skip scenes would annoy the ever-living hell out of me. The music is done well, however, and doesn't detract from game, so no weird, inappropriately happy songs during sad scenes! I don't think there were that many songs to the game, so you'll hear the same ones over and over again.

The sound effects were limited to the magic. Nothing special there.

Overall, the music and sound are done well, but aren't anything mind-blowing.

Romance

I'm going to touch on this section before heading to gameplay because this is a dating sim.

You have a few options for romance.

The most obvious one you encounter in gameplay is Damien, the boy your roommate Virginia tells you is a demon.

He becomes your senior during initiation week and continues to interact and flirt with you shamelessly throughout the year--so long as you actually do initiation! His path was my first playthrough and I will say it was definitely interesting. See spoiler below for more on him.

Throughout his path, he's incredibly flirty and dramatic. He's a troublesome character to date as it causes friction between you and your roommates, as well as the rest of the school. You get the feeling he's a bad boy with a soft side--he openly admits he's been with many people before your character, and you get to meet several of his exes through the school year.

However, one day he sends you a letter asking to meet him in the gym one night and he tells you he's dying, that he's going to be gone by the end of the school year. You can offer your soul to him, but whether you do or don't, you still find out he's been lying to you the entire time. He is a demon and he wants your soul so he can ascend to princehood and establish his kingdom in the Otherworld.

You have to agree to giving him your soul in order to get his good ending. Either way, he drains your magic and you end up with a "permanent" drop in your strength if you agree. You can build it up at the gym afterwards, but I don't think you have enough time to get it back to the way it was prior to the ceremony.

Unlike some other characters who are represented as bad boys with hearts of gold, Damien is through and through a demon--not a single trace of gold. That's just what he is. The way the romance between your character and Damien unfolds after the ceremony is tenuous and emotional. He loves you, he hates you. He wants to kill you and have you by his side forever. I personally enjoyed his characterisation and find it interesting.

Next up is Donald.

He's Virginia's older brother, but he's in the same year as you. He's mischievous, spends every Saturday in detention, and is always playing pranks. I actually ended up on his path by accident when attempting to complete achievements (one is getting five detentions in a single year), so if you're curious how to get there, that's how! I found him to be very likable and interesting to date, considering the chemistry between him and your character. So far I think he's the best choice for your character, but that's just my interpretation.

And then there's Virginia!

She's William's (completely unattainable, just so you know) and Donald's little sister and your roommate and comes from a completely magical family. I haven't yet gotten on her romantic path (I was trying and then ended up on Ellen's???). She's incredibly athletic, a little hot-headed, has a great sense of humour, and loves her some sweets. Donald and Virginia don't get along together very well, but William is her self-proclaimed favourite brother. She's one of your main detractors when dating Damien and almost always confronts you about your romantic life at your final exam--she's a little awkward when you date Donald, but is cool with it.

ETA: Okay, I finally did her path. It's interesting and adds a lot of depth to her character. Some of the other characters struggle with their identity (it seems to run in Virginia's family, at least), and Virginia's struggle with facets of her identity is worth taking her path to read about. Her story was cute and a little unconventional, but nothing outrageous or unrealistic.

Interestingly, in the kiss photo with Virginia, your character is on "top", whereas in the other kiss photos, even with Ellen, your character is on the "bottom". It's an interesting contrast.

And then there's Ellen.

This little cutie is also your roommate. She's very studious, meticulous, and scientifically-minded. You find out the extent of her interest in science and magic on her path. Ellen is also pretty soft-spoken and friendly, which you see play out in several different ways depending on how you play the game. You can give her advice on her crush on William and see her bond with Donald, but that seems to be the extent of her romantic interests beyond you. There is a little hint of something with Pastel, but nothing significant.

Speaking of Pastel.

She flirts with everything. Literally everything. If you run for class president or treasurer and give free hugs, she does something moderately inappropriate with her hips when she hugs you. The only other interaction you really have with her besides seeing her in cutscenes interacting with other people is if you send her a romantic Valentine. She shows up at your room, blows some crazy pixie dust in your face, and tells you to kiss her. Depending on which path you're on (if you're on one to begin with), kissing her can be detrimental to your relationship. If you don't care or aren't on one and you kiss her, she then tells you to run away with her or something, but your character gets flustered and rejects her.

She's interesting, but I can see why she's not a true romantic option for your character. She just kind of... wants everyone.

Your last real romantic option is one of the professors, and it's not the fun pink one.

No, it's the Snape-ish Professor Grabiner whom you bump into on your first day and immediately get into trouble with! Congratulations, he thinks you suck at life for being a wildseed. He turns out not to be a very bad dude and is just looking out for everyone, which is expected, really. To end up on his path, you have to do some silly heroics as the treasurer. More on him in the spoiler.

You have to save him from a Manus to end up on his path--and it's not so much a path as it is being forced to marry him because the only way to keep you from getting eaten by the Manus is to be recognised as a member of his family. You then go through the school year trying to keep it a secret while your other professor tells you to go ahead and seduce the hell out of him because he hasn't been in love since he was younger.

I took his path and made it through the good romantic end, which I found pretty sweet, Even with the age difference. These kinds of romances--teacher-student--seem to be typical for these kinds of games, though. He also doesn't flirt with you at all during the school year, so if these kinds of romances don't interest you, you're safe from any weird teacher creeping. Grabiner just wants to protect his students and prevent them from killing themselves through stupidity. He'll just spend the year terrorising you if you don't end up on his path.

Gameplay

Like other dating sim games, as you go through the story, you're often faced with decision windows that branch the narrative. Sometimes these decisions are binary, others offer you the chance to explore all of the options without having to backtrack, while others are dependent on your magical ability.

Every week you get to choose what classes you take and build your magic, strength, or intelligence at your discretion. You can also choose to sleep, which relieves stress. As you progress through the classes, you learn new spells. These come into play throughout the story and in the exams. Every week you get an allowance of five dollars, which you can save up and occasionally gamble to gain more--you can buy some stat boosting items at the store and items through the school year to support social events.

The exams--in my opinion--were the best part of the game. You're dropped into a dungeon and your objective is to get out without dying or being beat by opponents. Each exam can be completed several different ways using different magics, so even if you end up focussing more on one type than others, you may still be able to complete the exam. Failure isn't the end of the world as you generally only receive demerits--get too many, though, and you get kicked out. Opportunities to gain merits come up--more often if you're on Donald's path, of all things. Unfortunately, the exams are the same every single time and there's a limited number of them. The final exam is interesting because it's a group exam--your roommates take the test with you. The professor has a way of making you feel terrible when you fail that exam!

Overall

Well, if you're into magic and dating sims, I certainly recommend getting the game! The characters are decently written--some more than others, which is to be expected--and the plotlines you discover that connect across paths are interesting. The world built within the game is done well if limited, though that's primarily because your character is new to the world and things are revealed to her gradually--and only if it's appropriate for a freshman to know! You can draw similarities between this game and other entertainment based in a magical world, but it is its own unique thing and doesn't draw too heavily from any one source that it detracts from its own charm.

I really enjoyed it and intend to continue playing it, if only to get me some achievements! Give it a try some time (there's a demo on Steam) and see if you like it.

I think there has been talk of a sequel coming out, which I'll be sure to snatch up once it comes out.

Sorry if you guys wanted numbers in the review--I don't find those kinds of ratings to be very useful for myself. Just because I'm really excited about POC and pronouns and chubby characters (even if there's only one and she's not even that chubby) doesn't mean other people are, so my ratings would seem inflated.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Emotional Outlet