Magical Diary: Horse Hall

I picked up a number of things in the Steam Lunar New Year Sale (always so tempting), including Magical Diary: Horse Hall by Hanako Games. It's an older one (2011) and the graphics looked very cutesy/silly, but I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't honestly expect much out of it but I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. I've actually finished two whole routes! In fact, the only disappointing thing is that I rather wish it had more love interests to choose from.

So, in this one, you play a "wildseed" (i.e. from a non-magical family) freshman at a magical school. You're 16 and away from home for the first time. You can customise what your avatar looks like by selecting a hair style & colour, skin tone, eye shape, and two different body types. Things get off to a rocky start when your get to school and immediately get some demerits when you run (literally) into one of your professors (who is also a route, which sounds dodgy, but isn't as much as it sounds due to circumstances). You also have two roommates: Ellen and Virginia. 

You have to attend class and can learn a number of different types of magic, as well as go to the gym to increase your physical stamina (i.e. HP) and the library to study (i.e. mana power). There are exams throughout the school year (the game encompasses your entire freshman year) which are like simple dungeon crawler type things but how you complete them depends on what types of magic you've studied and what spells you know/use. There's more than one way to make it through each.

The love interests allow for LGBTQ choices and are:

• The aforementioned grumpy professor aka Hieronymous Grabiner
• Damien, a winged demon guy and senior
• Virginia (one of your roommates, who comes from a magical family background)
• Ellen (your other roommate, also a wildseed)
• Donald, also a freshman (Virginia's troublemaker brother)
• and a sort-of half route for Steve, a senior who really really likes pinball

There were a number of other characters I wish they'd had routes for -- like William, Virginia's Older Brother and maybe even Jacob, a guy who runs for class treasurer. I'm not honestly much interested in the roommate routes, though I might try them sometime, as...I dunno, I didn't find either of them all that attractive and based on the sort-of common route-ish bits, seems a bit like you really have to push for it rather than it being natural. Does that make sense? Also, Ellen starts off with having a crush on William, so it seems more odd because of that.

To be fair, I'm not super enthused about the Donald route either as he's a troublemaker and it looks like you'd have to spend a great deal of time in detention in his route and I'm generally a bit of a goody-two-shoes. Can't help it.

Anyway, I did the Damien route first because a) it seems the easiest route to fall into and b) he was the most "different" (he's blue! with wings!) and c) I would never normally start the older LI route and often find them skeevy, especially when it is a teacher/student relationship. But more on that in a minute.

So....I don't want to be too spoilery but I'd say that Damien's route was interesting and a bit unexpected! Though after you figure out what's going on, I wasn't totally sure I wanted to be in his route and I finished it for a "good"? end just because, rather than feeling like the MC should actually go that way. In fact, I played almost the entire way through without looking anything up and I would have definitely hit a non-good end if I'd continued on that way. Though it might not have necessarily been bad...

But I really enjoyed the game play and even though it seems like it should feel a bit grind-y (like Backstage Pass), the fact that there's a real difference in the exams depending on what magic types you learn gives it a good level of re-playability. So I actually jumped right back in, determined to figure out the professor route and see how it was. 

As you can perhaps surmise from the picture and your first meeting where he gives you demerits, he's a bit of a grump. Very stern and slightly terrifying, as opposed to the headmistress, Potsdam, who's all earth-mothery. 

To get on his route, you have to become the freshman treasurer and, while working with him one day, attempt to save him from a Manus (genie-like creature) that you think is attacking him. To then save YOU from being eaten alive, you have to marry Grabiner. At this point, he barely likes you as a student and you certainly don't feel anything for him other than a wary respect. 

The reason this route works for me is because he never attempts in any way whatsoever to in any way seduce or have a relationship with the 16 year old MC. His intent is to have this be entirely a marriage in name only and divorce you in a year's time, at which point you would both get on with your lives. But, over time, you both learn to appreciate each other and the end, while it has a chaste kiss, definitely seems like a BEGINNING of something possibly, rather than a foregone conclusion.  He's also got his tragic backstory and in a weird twist of unintended fate, his dead girlfriend was named Violet and I'd actually named the MC Violet. So that was weird.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed both routes and the game in general. There's a sequel called Magical Diary: Wolf Hall, which features (I gather) a male MC, and I wound up buying that in the sale too after I liked the first one so much. I haven't tried it yet, but will report back.

This one did surprise me. The dialogue was good, the gameplay was handled well, different choices really made a difference...the only thing is that there's no indication anywhere that you're on a particular path (or how many endings there are, or which you've unlocked) other than if certain events *don't* happen -- which you wouldn't know unless you looked up a walkthrough. That's the only reason I even knew there was another option in the Steve character. I'd randomly run into him ONCE on the Damien route but he's hard to find, so if I hadn't read that he's a potential prospect, I would have had no idea. His is a route you'd definitely never figure out if you didn't have some hints as it requires very specific visits to places and actions that aren't necessarily things you'd normally do.

Also, it was made in Ren'py, which is the thing I want to learn how to use, so it was very cool to see some new things in it (like the dungeon scenes; a little clunky, sure, but honestly not bad). I will likely go back to do Steve and Donald and maybe Ellen, though I'll probably try one of the other games I picked up first so I don't OD on it.

Oh, and one more thing--I like that you can save your "Yearbook Page" at the end and it goes up on a website! Here's Violet Vestry and Lirael Sirrocco.