Sorcery Jokers All Ages Version

Since there's no review for this yet, I'll throw down my off the top of my head review. I bought this VN completely blind, didn't read the summary or anything. Saw $40 VN and immediately bought it. Was it worth the $40? Sure was. Story: This is a very plot heavy VN. This is a unique kinetic story-line (we make zero choices at all). We play as two protagonists, the typical mysterious bad-ass adult (his age is never mentioned now that I think about it), and the very, very typical naive shounen high-school boy. I say typical, but viewing the story and connecting all the dots from their different PoV is entertaining and being cliches doesn't take anything away from the story (though I did prefer the former in terms of his character). They both have two heroines, but, where there is romance here, it takes a back seat to the overall story (bummer for me, as I would've loved to see a polygamy (not harem) VN). You will occasionally view the world from the heroine's side as well. So if you're a curious little ♥♥♥♥ and want to know EVERYTHING that happens and what they're all thinking about, then there ya go. This does require a bit of thinking and puzzle solving, as where one protag will find info about this event, the other will find info that causes this said event, etc, etc. Some smaller details are missing, but it could have just been me missing a piece here or there. Not as long as a Key main title visual novel (Clannad/Little Busters!), but long enough to warrent the pricing. Gameplay: Normally this isn't an issue with VNs because all you do is read, minus a random mini-game here or there in some. But this has a unique branch of "nodes/episodes" that you select to read. I don't think that the order of the nodes that you read matters at all, as you will have to read all of them before unlocking the main event node. I personally read them by what time they happen at (ie. Day X, XX:XXpm), which worked out fine, but as they unlock, or just clearing out the one character's branch wouldn't cause any problems in understanding the story. A great thing about this, is that if you miss out on information from a previous node, or forgot what happened, you can simply just reread that node whenever you want and not lose any progress of where you currently are. In a normal VN, you'd have to reread/skip to that event which can be a pain. Think of the nodes as tons of checkpoints. Game explains it better than I do, lol. Art: Not too much to comment here, as I'm not an art connoisseur. Some great stuff here. Character designs are great. Plenty of CGs and some nicely detailed backgrounds. Cool effects and whatnot during battles. Only gripe I have, is that this being a story heavy VN with a good amount of magic battles, there wasn't a lot of actual battle CGs. There will be CGs of that character in an action pose, but not a character A vs character D with battle effects/blood on them, or character C clashing against character G. Just reused battle CG poses for the multiple battles, with effects flashing across the screen. Considering the resolutions they did and how great the art is, that was a missed opportunity. Music: Not memorable, but not horrible. While reading the VN, I didn't really notice the music. It would match the tone that's happening, the battle music would play when battles are starting. But nothing really hit me as a "Oh damn, this some dope music." Very average, I guess? There are like, 5 different openings though, and those were good so there's that, lmfao. Ending song was great too. +Detailed, lengthy story +Multiple PoV story telling +Character development actually happens +Unique episodic nodes that allow you to read whatever part of the story again +Nice character designs - plenty of CGs +Voice acting was great. Antags VA's actually made me want to kill them, lol. GG +All 4 heroines are waifu +HD anime tiddies -Not enough battle CGs - most are reused with a bit of editing -Battle effects are reused as well, but that's a tiny thing compared to the CG -Romance was a back seat thing (this just my personal thing, lol) -BGM wasn't memorable enough -Naive protag might annoy you a bit until he gets some growth going In terms of performance, I only had two issues. Very rarely, I'll get an error when an effect tries to play during a battle (think this only happened 4 times). Another was the bigger issue. After playing for 3~ hours, I'd get a "Game has stopped responding" thing and it'd close. Even though the game was 100% okay and I could even continue interacting with the game for a brief second before it closes. The bright side to that is that the game has an auto-save feature if you tend to forget to save like me. And the fact that the nodes allow you to just continue off from where you were, or to select the node that you were on. Overall, recommend this game for anyone that bought any of the other $40 VN games on Steam. I may have missed something here or there as I gotta head off to work now, so I may edit this here and there later on. o/

Third-eye is a VN maker that has since streamlined several games with their trademark chuuni style, usually in a fantasy/magic setting. There is a saying that if you deny Third-eye's chuuni, there is nothing else left. That's not true. They still got twice the MFF threesome thing going on. Seriously, now. Rather than seeing their style as chuuni in the context of VN (like dies irae for example), it is more akin to battle shounen. It just happens that the vn has one protagonist exact like what you would expect from a shounen genre. The other protagonist, who is more mature, complement the story-telling to give us the whole picture of the plot. Overall, it would say that this is an "alright" VN. The story has its plot holes, but is able to tell a story without too much disbelief and was able to close the experience off quite well. The characters are a mixed bag, but you would at least find a few of them to your liking. On the technical front, I liked the story branch system, where it is easy to see visually what happened in which time on a flow chart. Normally, this is where I give this vn the alright 7/10 score and declare a (weak) positive recommendation. Unfortunately, I can't do that. The bugs destroyed my experience. And even if they were fixed in the future, nothing will change for me. Hence, negative recommendation. --------------------------------------------------------- Appendix (bug and fix method): I can't give it a good recommendation right now due to a very problematic bug. The specific place is on 1-year after plot line on 6th day 01:10, right after the line "I heard your voice. Your heart screaming out so desperately with your desire to kill me" spoken by Ruu. I would encounter an not responding error message for the game when proceeding to the next line. I tried to play around with the setting (there was a bug before like this but I somehow went through it by messing with config), but to no avail. Update: I advanced one line by changing the font back to default. After that, every time I try to jump to that event it was automatically error message no matter what font it is, no thanks to the forced save system. Now I am stuck on this game. edit: In the end I was able to progress through the game, using a very convoluted method that exploit save data. You probably want to try it if you can't progress even after playing around with config (espcially font). But try changing config first. 1. Find your sorcery joker save folder. An easy way to do this is right click sorcery joker -> open property -> go to local files tab -> click view local files. You will open a folder that contains the game sorcery joker. Everything inside [b]"data_sjsez"[/b] folder is your save files. 2. Copy and paste everything in your save folder to another secure and easily accessible location not in your sorcery joker game folder. Delete everything in your game save folder. 3. Restart steam in offline mode (Otherwise game will automatically restore deleted save files). 4. Start sorcery joker. Now you will start from the beginning. Press start, and play a few lines. Then close the game. 5. Restart steam in online mode. Steam will automatically restore your previous save locations, but will keep the current sjsez_save.bin. Your game will look weird. You can load your most recent save but everything else looks like you've just started the game. 6. Somehow, now if you load the part you previously can't progress through, you will somehow be able to read without bugs. Remember, you have to make a new save before the scene ends (ie. the story move to a new tile). It might run into problems if you don't. 7. Finally, close the game again. Find your back up save in step 2. Copy only [b]sjsez_save.bin[/b] in your backup and overwrite it in your sorcery joker game save folder. 8. Start the game again. If you followed all steps correctly, you can load the new save you made after you passed the bug area in step 6. The game will look as if you haven't moved all the save data around.

When MangaGamer announced that they've licenced Sorcery Jokers I couldn't believe it. 3rdEye is my second favorite VN studio and I thought that their games are rather unknown to many. I've already finished this VN 2 years ago in Japanese and this review is a quick summary of positives/negatives based on my experience from Japanese version + translation/technical stuff I've noticed by launching this game to check translation quality. +Interesting world +Multi protagonist system which is a better form of dual protagonist system from Gensou no Idea, 3rdEye previous game +Good art & CGs +High quality of translation - MangaGamer actually subbed fragments which were not subbed in original Japanese version (like Ring voice messages, at least I don't remember them subbed) +High tension battle music +VN is mostly kinetic, but you can choose order of scenes/which character to follow first which may change your overall experience +Asahi +Pretty good seiyuu cast - Kawashima Rino/Aoba Ringo/Sawasa Sawa are well known in this industry +Fully translated glossary +Long, but interesting and action packed +Non-intrusive references to previous 3rdEye titles -FPS drops -Haruto can be a bit annoying in the first part of the game Overall I gave this VN 8.5/10 on VNDB, so this is also my final rating here. Might edit this review after I have more experience with English version. Sincere thanks to MangaGamer for licencing this hidden gem. If you ever decide to licence Gensou no Idea you have my money.

So, I'm reading another VN with a twisted plot and riddles. 15 hours pass, answers and climax begin to appear. I think that's it, the end is near. And at this moment, the OPENING (second) begins. What? Okay, I'm surprised and excited to read more. Another 15 hours pass and the third opening begins. EPIC. I still can't tear myself away from the novel. And after another 10 hours the ending comes. As a result, I unexpectedly liked this VN very much. An interesting plot, much-loved characters, for whom I was worried in battles and smiled in rare moments of peace. I even caught myself thinking that I wanted to see more of the daily interaction of the characters, and not just the battles and the plot - I liked them so much. Many people did not like Haruto and his naive way of thinking in most of the game. But his character did not cause me any irritation. On the contrary, I waited for his scenes and loved them more than the scenes of Senri. Music is normal. Not a masterpiece, but not a horror either. I still liked three or five songs and I will probably listen to them from time to time. The fact that the vn without choices is also good for me. I read VNs not for the sake of option, but for the sake of one whole plot. I appreciate such VNs more than VNs with a bunch of different routs and plots. It's just a pity that the VNs does not work on tablets (and any touch devices) and had to be read on a computer. Conclusion: The novel easily entered my top 10 for all time. Читаю очередную новеллу, с закрученным сюжетом и загадками. Проходит 15 часов, начинают появляться ответы и развязка. Думаю, что вот уже всё, конец близок. И в этот момент начинается ОПЕНИНГ (второй). ЧТО? Окей, я удивлен и с воодушевлением читаю дальше. Проходит еще 15 часов и начинается третий опенинг. ЭПИЧНО. По-прежнему не могу оторваться от новеллы. И спустя ещё 10 часов таки наступает концовка. В итоге, новелла неожиданно сильно мне понравилась. Интересный сюжет, сильно полюбившиеся персонажи, за которых я и переживал в битвах и улыбался, умилялся в редкие моменты покоя. Даже ловил себя на мысли, что хочется посмотреть больше повседневного взаимодействия персонажей, а не только битвы и сюжет - настолько они мне понравились. Многим не понравился Харуто и его наивный образ мышления в большей части новеллы. Но у меня его характер не вызвал никакого раздражения. Даже наоборот, его сцены я ждал и любил больше, чем сцены Сэнри. Музыка норм. Не шедевр, но и не ужас. Три-пять композиций таки понравились и я возможно, буду их слушать время от времени. То, что новелла без выборов также как раз по мне. Я читаю новеллы не ради выборов, а ради одного цельного сюжета. Такие новеллы я ценю больше, чем новеллы с кучей разных рутов и сюжетов. Жаль только, что новелле на работает на планшетах (и любых сенсорных устройствах) и пришлось читать на компе.​ Вывод: Новелла легко вошла в мой топ 10 за всё время.

[h1]Likes:[/h1] [b]O[/b] Solid action, fanstasy, and mystery story with satisfying ending. [b]O[/b] While some main characters are very annoying at first, they all have a very solid development throughout the story. [b]O[/b] Lots of plot twists; while some are quite predictable, others aren't. [b]O[/b] Multiple protagonists are well implemented in the story. [h1]Dislikes:[/h1] [b]X[/b] While most of the antagonists are well written, the final boss is extremely underwhelming and has no personality at all. [b]X[/b] Background music is average at best. [b]X[/b] Though the game engine is quite capable, it is not well optimised, especially during scene with lots of visual effects. [h1]Remarks:[/h1] [b]-[/b] This is a kinetic novel with no branching plot line (30-50 hours long, depending on your read speed). However, there are short epilogues for each heroines (if you download and install free adult DLC from the publisher website). [b]-[/b] Romances are very minimal and not really the highlight here. [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] Overall, Sorcery Jokers is a very solid fantasy and mystery novel with interesting cast. Highly recommended for those who don't mind a linear visual novel with urban fantasy element.

[h2]游戏介绍 [/h2] 《魔法王牌》（ソーサリージョーカーズ—SORCERY JOKERS）是NK Create株式会社旗下品牌3rdEye（三眼社）于2015年7月24日发行的以现代魔法世界为舞台背景的成人ADV游戏，游戏在Getchu美少女游戏大赏2015的“剧本部门”中，力压了“柚子社”的《魔女的夜宴》获得了第三名的成绩，而排在它前面的是大名鼎鼎的“枕”社的《樱之诗 - 在樱花之森上飞舞》和US社的《时钟机关的Ley-line -朝雾中飘零之花》，所以玩家完全不需要担心本作的剧情。作为三眼社的4th保留和前作一样的双男主设计，在演出、作画、音乐等方面一如既往地保持着高水准。而且本作大胆的启用了两位剧本老师不死鳥和四万十川清流分别为两位男主千里和阳斗撰写剧情。 [h2] 画面 [/h2] 因为是是群像ADV，所以本作出场角色众多，而且蒔田真記老师原画的立绘很棒，虽然发售至今10多年，但是画风依旧没有过时。并且本作CG数量众多，部分CG让人眼前一亮。但是作为一款双线叙事的作品，4位女主的成人CG内容较少，共计16个，其中三个还是放在后日谈中出现的，本篇里只有各一个非本垒成人CG，算是一个小遗憾。 [h2] 音乐 [/h2] 本作的的音乐在我看来可谓相当豪华，一部作品中有多达5个MV，其中有3首Vocal曲，分别是OP1、OP2、GrandED，以及两首章节插入曲（也可以当作OP3、OP4），而BGM方面，因为本作中有大量的战斗场景，在BGM的加持下能给玩家营造出非常沉浸的紧张感。 CV方面，本作所有有立绘的角色全都有CV，配置可谓豪华。CV表现也不错，其中个人认为修女的CV表现惊艳，两种声线很好地表现出两种性格的反差，声线切换在主线修女成人CG里表现尤其突出非常加分。此外さわさわさわ的角色的软萌和犯病两种声线的反差个人也很喜欢。 [h2] 系统[/h2] 本作使用大（臭）名（名）鼎（昭）鼎（著）的椎シ名ナ里リ绪オ引擎，特效演出的确不错，但游戏bug也实在有点多，卡退黑屏卡死，总有一款适合你。本作系统基本功能算是齐全，虽无逐句回跳功能，但与之相对配备了流程图回跳功能。流程图还有根据已读与否和阅读顺序而变化的多种图标，但本作主线实际上还是线性流程，所以也没啥太大用处。还有一个不得不吐槽之处是本作的CG和音乐鉴赏界面都！不！全！而且没有五个MV的回想界面。 [h2] 结构[/h2] 作基本上可以通过几个OP区分为3个大章节，各章节在结构上略有差异。虽然很长且比较慢热，但剧情很紧凑不拖沓，完全不会让人感到乏味。但是两位老师在角色刻画上差别比较大，个人更喜欢千里线的剧情。第一章是共通可以自由切换看除了诺亚之外其余五个主角的视角（当然还有幕间也就是幕后黑手视角），在这一群像展开下可以清楚看到每个人在特定时间点的行动。这一群像化设计我觉得是三眼敢于冲击新的剧情设计所作出的一种创新，也为之后从第二章开始的双男主视角进线的安排作了一定铺垫。 [h2]双线男主 [/h2] 总体来看，阳斗线体验很糟心，男主日常犯傻挨揍，朝日娘日常电波独走，凛久不是跟着前两人一起发楞，就是脑袋发热独走，角色行动逻辑支离破碎根本看不懂。而且在剧情推动上，主角团三人基本被剧情推着走，信息获取也一样被动，感情线和剧情割裂感又强，个人认为这一侧主角的人物成长描绘也不好连续完整性都比较差。 千里线作为重心所在，体验和阳斗线几乎刚好相反，虽然也免不了一些缺乏铺垫的超展开，但相比起来更大的问题可能还是在于很多细节不够翔实，不过毕竟这条线事件、信息密度都要比另一条线更多，篇幅不够展开，也算情有可原。 [h2] 细节[/h2] 本作的细节处理有待提高，虽然千里线相较于阳斗线整体上好不少，但仍有些小瑕疵。首先是关角色的身世背景交待不够充分，千里和修女这种设定上阅历丰富的角色，过往却仅仅几笔带过，没有细节展现其当前性格的形成过程。诺亚的过去也可以深挖，将信息投放分摊在一个更长的周期内，而非全挤到故事中后期连续超展开。阳斗线三人中阳斗个人经历比较白板姑且不论，朝日和凛久的过往也有不少填充的空间。 其次是故事流程中很多细节着笔不够，其中既包括日常细节也包括战斗细节。日常细节方面，以修女为例，文本中两位“义父”的言行相关细节太少，给玩家印象太淡，不足以支撑其个人信念的形成，这也严重影响了后续数个高潮场景的冲击力。另一个个人尤其遗憾的是记者，这一角色在设定上是探索黑幕的最前线，如果能活用这一有利视角，想必能将事件描写得更翔实生动。其他对个人观感没有那么打的细节问题就不一一赘述了。战斗细节方面，一大槽点在于前后分配不合理，故事前期的部分杂兵战投入的笔墨都比后期很多意义重大的战斗更多。修女对义父、凛久对朱乃、千里对诺亚这几场在故事构成上不可避的“宿命对决”都草草收尾，这观感就很糟心了。ミキヒサ与前自警团、阳斗和老师等具有第二等重要性的战斗也自不必说。当然，个人认为本作有不少细节写得也是很不错的。主要集中在第二章千里线，千里和修女的数次对决和相互吸引，一家三口间的牵绊与彼此间的互相影响。其后亦散见于千里线各处（阳斗线当然是不存在的）。 [quote]欢迎关注[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45214439/]轻游社[/url]，以轻松认真的态度，对待每一款游戏 [/quote]

"Its left no impression on me" Would be the perfect way to summarise this visual novel. The story starts off pretty well with two thematically different protagonists with vastly differing world views. On top of an interesting world, the differing viewpoints of all the characters truly allow us to feel what it would be like to live in this world with magic. While the setup of story was done pretty well, it starts falling apart pretty badly once the villains start showing up. Brainless villains, Aizen level overconfidence, pointless side characters that showed promise in the beginning but ends up being pointless noise and topping it all is a mary sue protagonist. Character designs are very nice, though a bit too weirdly slutty at times, though i guess thats a matter of tolerance. Battle animations are subpar, though what are you expecting from a visual novel. Music is pretty meh, aside from like that one battle music that plays when senri is about to show us 0.0001% of his power. H-scenes are below average, there was barely any variety, also romance was non-existent so that didnt help. Having said all of that, I actually did enjoy playing through this novel, the plot twists were great and the mystery always kept me wondering, though their pay off and execution was pretty bad. Overall id say its barely above the average visual novel thats coming out nowadays. 6/10. Get it if you are really hungry for some urban fantasy visual novel. Basically get it only if you are interested in the setting, dont expect anything to blow you away.

VN with a really high quality production. The story is nothing special, but it's decent enough (though I remember the finale being pretty underwhelming). The artstyle is gorgeous and the fight scenes are engaging. I finished this VN back in 2018 and it was a positive experience overall. I liked most of the cast, but Senri is definitely better as both character and the protagonist, so the duel protagonist thing was kinda holding the story back for me and I wish Senri was the only protagonist. 8/10

[h1]前言[/h1] 《Sorcery Jokers All Ages Version》是一款由3rdEye制作，于2015年7月24日发行的视觉小说游戏，本作为全年龄版本，现由MangaGamer代理发行并登录steam平台。 [h1]游玩体验[/h1] 游戏画面表现非常精美，无论是场景还是角色立绘都十分精细。游戏中的CG插画精美绝伦，每一张都能让人惊叹不已。场景的绘制具有独特的风格，细腻的细节和丰富的色彩让人沉浸其中。人物立绘更是给人留下深刻的印象，每个角色的表情和姿态使得栩栩如生。 背景音乐在大多数情况下能够与剧情氛围相匹配，为游戏场景增添了一定的情感色彩。不同场景和情节中的音乐选择恰到好处，但整体而言较为一般，并没有给我留下较深印象的bgm。 本作故事设定在一个现实世界中，魔法突然出现并普及到人们的生活中，它的存在不再是秘密，政府公开宣布，魔法迅速成为常识，主角们生活在一个魔法被视为稀松平常的事物，并渗透到世界的各行各业，这是一个关于生活在这个魔法世界中的人们命运的故事。 剧情通过树状时间节点的叙述方式，玩家可以在游戏中体验到不同时间点和不同角色之间发生的故事。这种双线叙述的设计使得剧情更加丰富多样，玩家可以深入了解每个角色的成长和发展。六个截然不同的人物相互结识，他们的命运逐渐交织在一起。游戏通过双男主设定，以及四位女主角的参与，展现了这些角色在魔法世界中的成长和命运之间的纠葛。 整体剧情紧凑且充满张力，并融入了诸多战斗要素。每个角色都有独特的故事和目标，通过他们的冒险和成长，展现了丰富多样的情感体验，如友情、爱情、背叛和牺牲。逐渐揭开剧情的谜团，体验到角色们内心世界和情感变化，此外，甚至有对道德和伦理问题的探讨，激发玩家对权力、正义和个人信仰的思考。 [b]其他[/b] [list] [*]游戏目前无官中版本也无民汉版本，想用中文无障碍游玩的玩家可能要失望了，对于英文苦手的玩家建议搭配VNR食用体验更佳哦，而且游戏需要额外布丁。 [*]Steamdeck的运行状况——虽然Steamdeck上的兼容性显示是未知，但我亲测在Steamdeck上可以完美运行，玩家无需更改兼容层，打开游戏即可游玩，这为各位玩家提供更加舒适、便捷的游戏体验。 [/list] [h1]结语[/h1] 总的来说，本作剧情紧凑扣人心弦，人物塑造细致入微，音画表现惟妙惟肖。虽然没有中文，对于英文苦手的笔者游玩难免有点困难。对于喜爱Galgame的玩家，这是一款值得一试的视觉小说游戏。 [code]双语评测，认准我们： [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35263058-Bilingual-Curator/]双语评测[/url] Make Chinese and English speaker feel at home： [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35263058-Bilingual-Curator/]Bilingual Curator[/url][/code]

Sorcery Jokers is a chuuni VN about a world where magic suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and the secrets that surrounds it. Overall, it's at least alright. Not bad, but doesn't blow you away either. [+] Good art (1920 x 1080) and battle soundtrack (but one could argue they don't fit) [+] Actual character development [+] There's plenty of mystery and plot twists to keep one engaged (but nothing mind-blowing) [+] I like Senri and Asahi [0] Overall story and battle scenes are serviceable. The antagonists not having a lot of depth doesn't help either. [-] Lack of CG variation -- Battles CGs are all reused here and there with some visual effects put in (Good thing there's this neat little thing called your imagination). Despite the gruesome stuff the MC and heroines are implied to go through, the CGs still look as if they're in peak condition which feels a little weird. [-] Haruto (the student MC) was initially really annoying, to say the least. He DOES get better later on, but it still made me wonder how this man didn't die before that. Remarks: - This game has no choices. You have two protagonists and multiple perspectives, but ultimately it's pretty much a kinetic novel where you just read for 30-40 hours depending on your reading speed. - It's not a visual novel if it doesn't have a long and slow prologue that takes multiple hours to read. - Romance (and H) is pretty much an afterthought.