Review | Love Magic (season one)

How often do you encounter a totally free to play otome game? On Google Play probably never. Those "supposed" to be free games usually hide their microtransaction until you install the ap and clear the prolog. Then you are to pay for every guy and scenario separately. But what if I tell you completely F2P otoges actually exist, and what's more, they are fun to play?

At first sight, Love Magic is another swords and magic title with a magician as a protagonist. We have a hag granny, a super handsome cat familiar and a world reigned by witch hunters. Sounds clichéd and dull but there's much more to that. Particularly, the Sabrina, the Teenage Witch TV series style.

Our protagonist is a geeky teenager who loves otome games. She's not very popular in her school so imagine her reaction when the most attractive and famous guy rescues her from a bully and gives her his number! Of course she immediately falls in love with him! But before she decides to do something with her new crush, her beloved grandmother dies. At night she has a dream about her granny asking her to follow a black cat. When she wakes up a black kitty actually appears and she runs after it to an old house in the woods. There the fur ball transforms into a man and tells the girl she is a witch, just like her grandmother. After this shocking annoucement the heroine decides to use some magic tricks to get closer to her charming schoolmate.

A very simple idea for a story, but it works perfectly! The plot is interesting, has well-paced narration, and what's more important, it's hilarious! The protagonist, just like Sabrina from the TV series, uses her newly acquired abilities to make herself popular but as her experience with magic is low, she often gets into a trouble.

I found the jokes and situations universal and smart. The spotlight is stolen mostly by our magical companion, Minuet whose ironic replies actually made the game. I laughed a lot and I guarantee anyone else would do in my place. 

Our protagonist, though not very bright, is very creative and likable. She's also an otome addict and, as one can guess, this fact is made fun of throughout the title. The heroine has got numerous silly ideas which are potentially fatal but even as she balances on the edge of the sword, her adventures are still laughable and fun to watch.

In Love Magic we can pursue two romance options: the attractive schoolmate, Paris or our familiar cat, Minuet. Their routes intertwine so there is only one story during which we are to make crucial decisions whether we want to support Minuet or go after Paris. There are a lot choices in the game but the majority of them appear in dialogs.

Both the men are brilliant characters. Paris, who we meet first, is the school council president and the most popular guy in the school. He's charming and super kind, although Paris is far from being a saint - he has a dark sercret that we are to find out very soon.Minuet is a familiar who can take a form of either a human or a cat. He had been adopted by the heroine's granny who asked him to accompany the girl after her death. Minuet is our guide - he shows us the world of magic and teaches us how to use it. The cat boy is often ironical and makes mean comments (or gestures :D) but overal he is absolutely lovable.

I truly love the art of the game. The individuals are distinctive and neatly drawn. The backgrounds are simply gorgeous! Someone had a great idea to use watercolors instead of typical art style. Illustrations are clearly based on Japanese comics and that style makes illustrations very unique even in otome games genre. There's sound and music in the game but (unfortunately) no voice actors.

Love Magic is a very minimalistic game. The story is super short and ends where the others usually have just started but there are supposed to be multiple seasons (at least two) so it's not a big deal. The game consists of only two routes and doesn't offer any additionally features; actually there's only "new game" and "continue". The title saves automatically and there's no load option which makes our choices permanent. We can't check our relationship status and some choices are pretty tricky but getting a desirable ending isn't as hard as it looks like at the beginning ("the flirty cutie" or "the sexy gentleman"?). 

The title is totally free to play but if we play it online, there will be an ad banner on the bottom of the screen. Fair exchange for such a high quality game! Moreover, the miniatures of other Hanabi's productions are shown right beneath the menu, but again, there are not oppressive or irritating. Since I fell in love with Love Magic I wil definitely check out the rest of Hanabi's games!

Overal, Love Magic is a brilliant game. I can recommend it to all of you with smartphones, tablets or any ohter devices supporting Google Play.

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Details:

Developer/publisher: Hanabi Media

Date of publishing: November 21, 2016

Genre: otome / visual novel

Platform: Android

Number of routes: 2

Voice acting: no

Animations: no

Can be bought at:

Digital version: Google Play