Magical Diary: Horse Hall

This game is the greatest piece of media to come out into this world since the creation of the Mona Lisa. It was a life changing experience, and I will never be the same. I cannot undo having played this game. God help me. It changed the lives of those around me as well. Oh boy did it. Frog with sunglasses. Truly this game is a force for change. My life is better because of Snog Pilk. Thank you for the game. I love you

Truth be told you shouldn't expect much from this game, the romances are lacklure and so is the overall lore. The writing is good but again nothing spectacular. Play this game with the mindset of that it was made in 2012

first played this when I was 13 and I can still remember how much I liked Damien- replaying this so much older and I still think the dialogue for his route is SO GOOD. the angst... olivia wilde nod. overall, I think this dating sim holds up fairly well! it's fun and the mechanics of choosing classes for the week/exams aren't too hard.

This game sadly feels like a demo/intro to what the full game should be. The story just abruptly ends after the first year. You don't get to fully explore some of the relationships in the game or see much of the world that it takes place in. For the route I picked you don't even get to be in a relationship with them until the very last scene of the game. There's no overarching plot or conflict you face besides passing the tests. By the end of the game it feels like things were just getting started. You're not really challenged with the magic system you're given or get to use the majority of the spells you learn. For every test you can easily brute force your way through them with just the most basic spells you learn. Also, the autosave just randomly stops at some points which is very annoying There's so much potential here that I hope gets utilized in the sequel, but for this title alone I wouldn't recommend spending your time with it.

Got this game on sale. Enjoyed it, but i do wish that it continued beyond freshman year. Hope that more years will be added in the future.

As someone who likes romance in my video games, but not in a way that is painfully overindulgent, this game was a somewhat nice surprise. Don't get me wrong- the romance is a big focus but I really liked how dark it could get and the school/gameplay mechanics. Like other dating sims, you're given a class schedule and get to choose what classes to attend which impacts your stats and abilities. These can be used during exams, which are a sort of point-and-click dungeon crawler adventure. These exams were really fun and I'd have liked more of them. I also like that your character's friends have big roles to play and feel like they matter more than just being added as accessories. I will say this, though... I wish the character creation had some hair options unique to your character. You're only really given what other characters already have, so your character is bound to resemble someone and that takes the fun out of the customization. For my first run, my character romanced Damien. [spoiler] This was easily my favorite part. It's really messed up at points and subverted my expectations for the genre. The writers really leaned into letting him be manipulative, dangerous and abusive…