Magical Diary: Horse Hall

Magical Diary: Horse Hall is a visual novel with RPG elements where you play as a new student at a magic school. You get to choose your character's name and appearance, then play through your character's freshman year and decide which skills and relationships to develop. You decide your character's schedule for the week, choosing either classes or other activities to raise your magic skill, smarts, strength, or decrease your stress. Your magic skills allow you to unlock spells, your strength and smarts determine your mana pool and health, and your stress affects your chances for success in class. Between classes, you'll experience different events and make choices that affect the way your story proceeds. Several times during the game, you'll have to take an exam, where you'll go to a dungeon and use your abilities to escape. You won't be given any information on what to do for the dungeons beforehand, so the first time around there's a chance you'll fail some of them, either by not knowing useful spells or by wasting mana or running out of health. You only get some demerits for failing an exam, so it isn't a big deal if you aren't able to pass all of them at first. There are multiple ways to solve each dungeon, so you aren't locked in to studying one particular set of spells if you want to pass all of them. It was fun figuring out different ways to get through each dungeon, although none of the puzzles were very difficult to figure out. There are six different character routes you can get during the game, five major and one minor. Three of them are pretty easy to get, you just have to make a point of talking to the character and being nice to them, but the other three are more finicky and require a more specific set of conditions. Most of the routes either have romantic or platonic variations, although they aren't hugely different either way. I generally liked all of the routes, although there were definitely some I liked more than others. To see all the story options in the game, you have to play through it multiple times. I enjoyed playing through all the routes and making different choices each time. It never felt too repetitive, as you can skip through all the dialogue you've seen before, and there were new things to discover even after multiple playthroughs. For example, you can get special conversations by taking particular classes on certain days. Going for all of the achievements is a pretty good way to get most of the major endings, and it was fun trying to figure out how to get some of the more difficult ones. The characters and the world they lived in were very interesting to get to know. Certain aspects of the school and a couple of the characters seemed to be taking a bit of inspiration from Harry Potter, but the world and the story were pretty different and unique. The main characters were multifaceted and it was fun getting to know the different sides of their personalities. I did feel like there were a few story threads related to some of the side characters that were introduced but not fully developed or that didn't end in a satisfying way. Overall, Magical Diary: Horse Hall is a cute visual novel/RPG. I enjoyed the story and characters, and it was fun playing through it to get all the details. I wish some of the side characters had been more fleshed out here, but some of them did end up getting more details in the sequel. 9/10

This game helped me realize that I could love abusive people but I couldn't expect them to change or treat me right. It changed my life dramatically for the better and I'll always have a place in my heart for this series because of that. Thank you Hanako Games.

So, yeah... I'm so normal about this game

containts depictions of abuse and grooming of underaged main character. i dont recomend it for young players. please add warnings of adult content.

That stupid blue thing called me ugly, talentless and wished death on me, grrrr ༽◺_◿༼ [spoiler] But yes, I do agree that marrying your professor who is twice your age and is named Hieronymous is totally cool... Will do that again when the opportunity presents itself [/spoiler]

the game has a morally black demon man simp and an old man btw

this game feels so nostalgic despite having not played it before. it's comforting.

this one is the GOAT for ppl like me who got it off a sketchy website in 2011. i still really like it so i bought it so i could replay it whenever i wanted to :) i'm also glad wolf hall is a different game because the style of this game is so iconic to it that if they'd replaced it i would've never bought it. they're pure early 2010's anime couture instead of generic 2020's isekai harem raggery. this artstyle built a generation. do not Disrespect It. (also it's just a very lively style that feels very nostalgic and close to home for me, regardless of bug eyes) the game is actually a little bit worse off than i remembered. there were a few scenes that felt awkward, and the actual gameplay was kinda stressful (given i was used to just plugging in the cheat codes) because you really have to hunker down and perfect that school schedule on TOP of playing the story, which kinda takes away from being immersed (at least for me). still a quirky little game and i'm glad it's real and not something i had a fever dream about when i was 12

A decent visual novel dating sim placed in a magical school.

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