Magical Diary: Wolf Hall

This has to be the first time I have dropped a visual novel in my entire life. The writing didn't just feel bland; it felt meaningless. Reading it was just a chore. The same was true for the dungeons. They are such an unchallenging gimmick that you may as well take them out instead of forcing the player to spend time on the most boring minute of their life every single time they want to try and get a different route. The characters simply never stop feeling like a sprite with dialogue chosen for them by a writer. There is no point of immersion across the whole game. Every single non-casual conversation just feels like an outlet for outdated political talking points that nobody has heard of or thought about in over 10 years. If the only thing you can write decently is casual banter between kids, you're not a writer.

Recommended for fans of VNs and light RPGs. Good story and characters but light on depth and some paths can be difficult/unintuitive to get. Sort of an anime style Harry Potter. Also recommend Sunrider, Planet Stronghold, Tales of Aravorn, Loren, Life is Strange, the Atelier series, and the Persona series. +Visuals, art style +Music +Some appearance/name customization +Variety of magic schools/stats +Wizard school theme +Save anytime +Story, characters, writing +Variety of spells and effects +Choice of classes to take/stats to level +Dungeons to solve with spells +Quick spell bar +Variety of ways to solve puzzles +Personality traits develop by choices/dialogue +Several routes for replay +Purchase items for spell focus -No voice -Barebones options/settings -Male character only -Can't choose magic house assigned -Forced traits can be confusing/unintentional -Need for a lot more spell quick slots -Many missed opportunities for hangouts/relationships -Some obtuse puzzles -Choices can result in unsolvable puzzle/exam -Possible to fail stat raising/ waste a day -Some heavy-handed political messaging -Very few items/equipment -Money is very restricted -Fairly short, ~3-5 hrs/playthrough

super fun and very well written.

Wonderful, memorable characters inside a narrative that switches between adorable and heartbreaking without ever leaving you with a sense of tonal whiplash or feeling like it isn't handling some of the heavier topics with the care they deserve. Exams are satisfying puzzles that reward the player for thinking about how to use the tool sets they've built up. Barbara is Best Girl. (But so is Raven)

Am I still sad I couldn’t date Minnie as a girl in the first game? Yeah Am I still extremely happy with Minnie route? yes oh my god she’s the bestest

I thought Magical Diary: Horse Hall was a really cute, quirky dating sim with a fun writing style and a surprising amount of depth for a semi-niche indie game that came out in 2011. Wolf Hall so far has expanded on every aspect that it should for a sequel. Though you could safely skip Horse Hall and play this one without prior knowledge, and I think the writing does a great job of world-building in organically weaving in additional layers of complexity and nuance to magic society as you go, I think you greatly benefit from playing the first game as a solid basis for appreciating the changes made here. It doesn't necessarily *assume* that you've completed Horse Hall, but a lot of the fun at least imo comes from getting a different perspective on the characters and events. There were quite a few loose ends in the og that you can tell the writers wanted to expand on, and the shift in perspective from a fish-out-of-water Wildseed to someone who is far more entrenched in the magical world from the getgo does a huge service in making things not feel too repetitive despite me playing these two games back-to-back. While the overall progression of the year stays mostly the same, the MC's voice, the variety of romance options, and all the focus in injecting more details to flesh out the day-to-day happenings adds a lot to the universe. Events that would've gotten like one or two sentences in the previous game get a lot more description, which makes sense in universe as the MC is way more savvy instead of an outsider to all of this, he naturally has more to add on stuff in his internal monologue. Playtime aside, it feels like a *much* bigger game than Horse Hall. There are a lot of choices, some of them inconsequential, some of them more significant than you could guess, and they aid in the immersion of making you feel like you're a magic student working towards something. Something I also really like about Hanako Games (because LLTQ does this too) is that it'll often *show* you which specific flags you've passed and failed on the side: it's a dual function of not only being satisfying when you've accomplished something thanks to your prior decisions, but significantly adds to the replayability--"huh, I wonder what would've happened if I had a higher/lower blue magic stat," or "I wonder how this conversation would've gone if I'd talked to Ellen more." When I say this game feels a lot "more" than Horse Hall, I don't mean just the writing. The dungeon mechanics are improved and exams feel a lot less basic (though you can still cheese some of them with how versatile specific spells can be). The presentation is charming and distinctive. The art style is mostly an improvement even if in some spots it feels more generic than Horse Hall and some characters look a little odd now (Virginia I'm still sad about what they did you </3). Things never feel too static with the number of characters revolving in and out, the sprite changes, and appropriate transitions. CGs are rare yet nicely detailed, and now there are smaller illustrations that take up only a portion of the screen for minor events. The text box having this weird slope on the top border bothers me a little, but that's a minor pet peeve. If you don't really dig stat-raisers and the randomness that comes with, or the trial and error method of figuring out the game's quirks, the gameplay loop won't really be appealing. As for me, I have some nostalgia for Horse Hall but forgot most of what happens in that game before I revisited it, and for whatever reason never touched this one. My expectations were satisfied and then some! If the other routes are as engaging as Barbara's was, this could genuinely be a contender for one of my favorite VNs ever.

If you've played the original Magical Diary then you will love this one. It acts as a sort of ''what if instead of a wildseed/non-magic heritage girl joining it was an exchange student who is also from a noble family''. It keeps all the best parts without turning it into a repeat. If you've never heard of the original one then you'll still love it because the characters are fun, events are clever and stat building is great. Highly recommend.

Super fun addition to the series, and I loved all the new storylines that were added compared to the previous game!! I've been a longtime fan of the first game, and I love how many more options there are in this one (way more romanceable characters, you can join different clubs, etc.) The dungeons are a bit harder, which is a blessing and a curse in my mind, because it gives an additional challenge that's fun at first, but later it just means you have to spend more time getting through them. Overall, I'm very glad I was able to play this one, both for nostalgia and a fun, cute visual novel.