as long as we're together: magical girls sweet & pure
by cloverfirefly
Price (US): Name your own price
Included In: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
Genre: Visual Novel
Pitch: Bad magic is making good magical girls fight each other. The only thing that can save the day is the power of friendship!
My expectations: I super don't care about magical girls anime, and I'm feeling a bit grumpy this morning. Good luck, as long as we're together.
The game was first published four years ago and is still listed as "in development," which doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence.
I'm curious about how much visual variety there will be. The Itch page shows two screenshots in a row featuring the same characters in the same poses, but they're wearing different outfits in each picture.
Review:
Sweet and Pure are magical girls. Some evil force has possessed Pure. She attacks Sweet. A series of flashbacks remind the heroines of the power of friendship. Pure shakes off the corruption. Evil is no match for the power of friendship. Nothing can harm these two as long as they’re together.
At the default text speed, taking time to read all the dialogue without skipping anything, a single playthrough takes less than five minutes. That’s not a complaint—the laughable writing lost me in minute one.
At a few points, you’ll be asked to pick a card, which determines which flashbacks are shown. These are blind, arbitrary choices that have no bearing on the outcome of the story, and do little to flesh out the characters, their relationship, or their world. Each of my three runs felt equally pointless and unfulfilling.
The low-resolution, limited-palette, dithered aesthetic is appealing. There are only three characters, each locked in a single pose, but they change outfits and facial expressions often enough to maintain visual interest. If you’re going to keep saying there’s a sword in Pure’s hand, though, maybe draw the sword?
As for audio… It doesn’t exist. No music. No sound effects.
+ Looks nice enough.
+ Ends quickly
– Poor writing.
– No audio.
– Arbitrary choices
🧡🤍🤍🤍🤍
Bottom Line: I don't know much about anime, but I'm pretty sure if you want magical girls to teach you about the power of friendship, you have better options than as long as we're together: magical girls sweet & pure.
#JakeReviewsItch is a series of daily game reviews. You can learn more here. You can also browse past reviews...
Awakened Shrubs by the fantastic @cloverfirefly! This is her first piece for the blog and it is indeed cute! An awakened shrub is a shrub had has been given motion and sentience by magical means. Clearly, that motion has been stumpy little hedgehog legs this whole time!
Feel free to use this in your campaign if you, like us, wondered just why are there no cute pictures to use for that monster. If you do use our monsters we’d be thrilled to hear about it or see pictures!
cloverfirefly replied to your post:sad nerd realization i really want to try...
I was actually introduced to a website at PAX which is specifically for people who want to tabletop RPG over the internets. I can send you the link if you want.
haku23 replied to your post:sad nerd realization i really want to try...
Same but …yeah same. Some people play online? But it’s not really the same I guess :’D
yeah I don't really wanna do online. It seems like something that would be a lot more fun to do in person with a group of friends.
trumie-chan replied to your post:sad nerd realization i really want to try...
LET’S FUCKIGNG DO THIS.
YOU WANNA?????????? we need a group of people!! LET'S DO IT TRUMAINE.
I wanna try Scion or something, not DnD.... something with more focus on the storytelling/character building than battle scenarios....
