I’ve spent a lot, if not the majority of my time writing the blog covering yuri games and while I enjoy the theme in pretty much all of its variants (outside of plain porn, at least), I quite rarely stumble upon an EVN that surprises me with its approach to lesbian romance or does something very unusual when setting up such a story. Thus, I was more than just a little intrigued when I’ve learned about Dharker Studio’s Highschool Romance: Magi Trials, a sequel to a “trap protagonist” romance VN, this time featuring magic and gender-bending of a much more thorough and permanent nature than simple cross-dressing, along with exclusively-female love interests. This yuri-and-not-yuri setup, coupled with cute, cartoonish art and non-pornographic approach to gender-bending, pretty much unique to the Highschool Romance series held a lot of promise – something I was very eager to verify.
As I’ve mentioned in one of my recent posts on Dharker Studio, while the team has a very shaky record, especially when it goes to its early titles, the original Highschool Romance, released in late 2015, was a bit of a positive outlier, featuring charming art and a simple, but fun romance storytelling. Despite basing the plot on the idea of a male protagonist crossdressing to attend an all-girls school, it played with this theme in a cute and surprisingly non-offensive manner – the main character is not a pervert (or especially a sexual predator), but just a person forced to hide his true identity due to unusual circumstances, and the heroine arcs are, for the most part, very wholesome, with mild fanservice and teacher-student romance being the most “risqué” elements in them. Despite being a bit too short and basic, Highschool Romance made for a pleasant experience that I ultimately appreciated, and the sequel, transporting the same formula and artstyle into a fantasy setting, sounded seriously appealing. However, going through the Magi Trials, released on Steam in November 2016, reminded me that there’s more required than some interesting ideas and nice-looking art assets to make a genuinely good VN…
The original Highschool Romance surprised with its wholesome approach to the “cross-dressing protagonist in all-girls school” trope, making for a rather cute, short love story
Magi Trials starts with our protagonist, an aspiring mage named Shaun, trying to perform a complex ritual to empower himself before an upcoming entry trial at a magic academy – institution studying in which was always his greatest dream. As he lacked formal training most other initiates possessed, coming from a poor family in the countryside, he decided that this kind of trick is his best way to pass the tests – however, the spell goes haywire, and he wakes up confused and tired the next morning, only to discover he was transformed into a female. After rushing to his her trial and failing miserably, Shaun is accepted as an apprentice by magi Shira, who saw potential in him her after learning about the powerful spell he she was able to perform, even if it didn’t go the intended way. Taking the new identity as Sophie, our protagonist has to deal with awkwardness of her new gender, unsure whether she’ll ever be able to turn back, while also chasing her dream of entering the academy and eventually becoming a sorcerer – a rank exclusive to the highest class of mages, only obtainable through deadly trials that claim the lives of most that attempt them.
One of my initial worries with this setup was how the game will treat Shaun’s/Sophie’s transformation and identity – at the beginning, she is very reluctant to treat the new body and gender as her own and there are many moments of awkwardness and tension connected to that fact. This is especially prevalent in Sophie’s interactions with Charlie – a fellow female apprentice who, unlike Shira, is unaware of the sex-swapping incident (and because the magic used in that ritual is strictly forbidden, both Sophie and Shira are well-motivated to keep it secret). The routes and endings, however, are full on yuri – the two primary love interests are either lesbian or bisexual, with Sophie never going back to her old form and one of the heroines even stating directly, that she has to stay “the way she is now” if their relationship is to continue. This makes the gender-bending a lot more than a gimmick it was in the first game, even if the game could’ve done a lot more to explore it.
While the first Highschool Romance was purely light-hearted, with no dead-end paths or bad endings, Magi Trials tells a dark story, with even the best possible conclusions being somewhat bitter-sweet
“It could’ve done more” is probably a good summary of Magi Trials' story in general, because while its setup is really good, the game’s extremely short nature (around 2 hours of content in total) and average writing leave a lot to be desired – this is especially frustrating as the characters here and ideas behind crucial plot developments are probably the best I’ve seen in Dharker Studio’s VNs. Both Charlie and Shira are very interesting heroines and have great moments in their respective routes, but there’s simply not enough time to explore them properly and develop the romance at a reasonable pace. This was, to be fair, also a problem in the first Highschool Romance, but that game focused on the heroines and SoL content completely, while here we also have significant elements of mystery, and even mild action with multiple, nicely-illustrated confrontations between mages. The same overarching plot, with proper pacing and build-up, could’ve been excellent but in Magi Trials it never managed to be as compelling as it tried to be. The frequent writing and scripting errors, such as messed-up grammar and misattributed dialogue line make it even harder to truly immerse yourself in the story.
What also has to be said about this VN is that its tone is surprisingly dark, with the “Fun Tongue in Cheek Storyline” promised by the Steam page pretty much nowhere to be found. Out of all 8 endings, six of them are bad ones (usually horribly so) and only one could really be described as positive and romantic in the conventional sense. This is pretty much the polar opposite of what the first game did, as there it was nearly impossible to get a negative conclusion. Here, dead ends are plentiful, which is sometimes understandable, but sometimes just plain disheartening – even the third heroine, succubus named Eris who’s summoned by mistake by Sophie and Charlie in the middle of the game (her sex-obsessed dialogue is quite hilarious BTW), is only involved in one of the negative conclusions. Dharker’s affinity towards edgy bad ends and drastic plot developments is nothing new and this is not its not egregious iteration, but I’d still prefer something slightly more varied and balanced.
The game’s art is plentiful and very stylish, but the writing does only a passable job at utilizing it
The game’s character art continues the unusual stylistic of the first Highschool Romance and for such a short game, includes quite an impressive amount of assets. There are two issues with it though: first, the somewhat cartoonish artstyle, while very much to my liking, fits the gloom story of Magi Trials way less than it did the first game’s cute romance plot. There’s also a pretty frequent disconnect between the CGs and the writing accompanying them, as if the writers didn’t bother to communicate properly with the artist or modify the scenes to fit the art they received. This was highly frustrating to observe, because with how good some of the drawings were and how solid the background art was, all those simply deserved being utilized in a better way. Even the music, while standard, was quite solid, further adding to the feeling of wasted potential that underlined my whole experience with this game.
And as the final note, Magi Trials shares an issue common to Dhaker Studio’s titles – very questionable pricing. It’s simply not, by any reasonable measure, a $12 game and that’s how much it costs on Steam to this day. Considering its length and lack of polish, it’s a $5 one at best. Thus, I can only recommend buying it on deep sale, but if you’re able to grab it like that, it can be a really nice yuri-esque experience to fill a single, slow evening with. And ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Final Score: 2,5/5
Pros:
+ Unique artstyle
+ Interesting characters
+ Large number of CGs
Cons:
- Very short
- Tons of scripting and writing mistakes
VNDB Page
Buy Highschool Romance: Magi Trials on Steam
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.