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Potential spoilers ahead.

I did not expect to have this much fun with Magical Diary. I really didn't and well... I'm not even sure what to say about this game...Magical Diary is a little RPG, a little bit Harry Potter, and a lot of visual novel. It has every plot element common to the Mary Sue-genre (even your characters default name is Mary Sue...) and yet someone I didn't find myself laughing at it, poking holes in it, or hating on it. Hell within the first hour of playing I found I was heavily invested in the story and actually wanted to see where things panned out, I started changing my class schedule just to meet a specific character...

You play the game as a young girl who discovers she’s a witch (muggle born) and starts her first year at Hogwarts(?). The goal is to graduate without fucking up. As silly as the premise sounds... its fun.

From the outlook, it seems simple, but it’s disarmingly complex. Don't get me wrong, the mechanics are very simple, which revolve around you picking your classes at the start of each week, and pick convo options that play out the story. What is deceptive and complex is that some convo choices don't have the obviously predictable results -refusing to do things doesn't make your friends, missing dates lead to anguish etc-, however some options just seem to be completely bizarre, -save a professor from a demon? Congratulations in magic law you are now forced into marriage etc,- it often feels like more of a roll of the dice at times than you actually getting to pick what happens.

One big part of how disarmingly complex this game is comes in the form of missed chances are opportunities you never know existed. At the start of the week you get a choice of how to spend 5 days, getting to pick one option a day, this comes in the form of 5 magic classes, the gym, studying or sleeping. If you do a certain activity on a certain week (sometimes it’s as strict as being day specific), you open up a chance encounter and thus the chance to develop relationships with the other characters, win merits, and improve your stats.

Some of these can be extremely game changing. For example, the very first scene in the game involves Professor Snape taking 10 points from Gryffindor which leaves you on -10 from the out. Within the first couple of weeks you get a chance to run for class treasurer or president, but if you have negatives points (which oh shit, we do) you can't run. I thought this was just a way to explain why would couldn't fill those positions, but in a second play through while trying to get an achievement I spent the whole day sleeping in my first week, I managed a chance encounter with a student that allowed me to earn points for Gryffindor, which let me run for class treasurer which drastically affected the story the second time around for me, allowing me to begin relationships with characters I barely spoke to the first time around.

Again, this was a chance encounter only possible by sleeping on one of the first days of term... And there are many situations that you can only begin by picking the correct choices on the correct days; it is suddenly alarmingly complex, especially when you can only do one action a day. The point of learning spells and going to classes is to complete the challenges, of which sadly there are only about 6, and you probably won’t have much trouble doing them all, they never have one single fixed solution, and usually all branches of magic have a spell that will get you out. Force magic to push stuff to create a bridge, Illusion magic to teleport over the abyss, growth magic to jump over the abyss etc... But that’s kind of disappointing at times when all challenges are dirt-simple and take 1-2 spells, more like a tutorial to the RPG system that never takes off. The challenge is in short supply, and the final challenge is handled via dialogue instead of the same challenge system.

The meat of this game then falls down to the Visual novel sections, which actually work great, the writing narrative is tight. In my first play through I didn't think I had much control over what was happening, and all the VN sections I encountered were scripted and I was just doing it badly. But the more you play the more obvious it becomes as to just how many branches and sub-stories are possible and the majority not even hinted at. There are many scenes, the majority you won't see because you were not at the right place at the right time, or you were at the right place but didn't have the right stats. The game is short to 'win', but I'm now 5 play throughs in, fast-forwarding through scenes I've already done, coming across new scenes all the time, it seems just about I can start a relationship with anyone, and in fact in one play through I was dating my roommate and a demon lover and that lead me to ending with neither of them o.o;. This game certainly deserves multiple play throughs. What is certainly refreshing is the rest of the cast. They’re more fun than the usual boxset of tsundere, moe and Yamato Nadeshiko types, and hence the interaction between the characters feel real and believable most of the time, which certainly sets it aside from the imported Japanese visual novels I've read in the past and the offering of lots of branches that are quite simple to navigate is very enjoyable.

At times it feels like a dating sim, or as I described it in chat earlier, a spread sheet stat manager, it’s the writing that really sells this game, while they are obviously never going to win awards for the writing, it does feel like the writers had a lot of fun coming up with the scripts and a lot of it feels very tongue in cheek at times. The anime/manga inspired visuals make the game for me; it was lovely to have long hair, huge eyes, cats’ ears and bat wings. You even get to buy items later on as you earn money that is displayed on your character such as a new wand, sunglasses etc. Sadly as I mentioned the RPG elements are on the thin side and all the replay ability is in the story, but boy are the story sections enjoyable, especially on the romance side where I'm pretty sure you can date everyone. Visual Novels are definitely an acquired taste and if you don't like lots of reading I'd stay away.