🎮 Magic Story 2

Written by Daikon

This article was featured in our 2024 July-August issue. Check out more articles and interviews in the full issue.

Have you ever heard of Madou Monogatari, also known in the West as Sorcery Saga? It's a beloved series of 3D dungeon exploration games stretching all the way back to the 90s on MSX home computers, and was a decent hit in the gold rush of Japanese RPGs styled after the genre-defining Wizardry series. Despite being fairly popular at the time, Madou Monogatari hasn't many modern releases, and players these days mostly only know of it as the backstory for the characters in Compile's much more famous puzzle game, Puyo Puyo. And yet, there are still fans of the original Madou Monogatari who are nostalgic for its bright and colorful world, cute character art, and charming dialogue.

Are you ready to plumb the depths of Magic Story 2?

Luckily, indie and doujin games are here to pick up where Compile left off, such as the Magic Story series by Frequen Modulation. This doujin game circle previously released the first Magic Story using Petit Computer, a fantasy console from the Nintendo DSi, 3DS, and Wii U era that lets users make and play games using SmileBASIC, a modified version of the BASIC programming language. Unfortunately, with the closing of Nintendo's eShop on those platforms, the original Magic Story can no longer be downloaded. But not to worry, for Frequen Modulation have been hard at work on its sequel Magic Story 2, and a demo that includes its first chapter is available to download now.

"Good morning, Senpai!"

Magic Story takes clear inspiration from Madou Monogatari, and just like its namesake, is a bubbly anime take on the first-person dungeon-crawling genre. The students and teachers of a magical school have been scattered around a dungeon and need to meet up with one another. The player can swap between characters to use their unique abilities in order to disarm traps and explore areas that the other characters cannot reach. Switching between characters and filling out the map is the overarching puzzle of the dungeon level, and it feels very satisfying when you are able to finally unite all of the party members.

"An enemy! Time to stamp it out!"

While exploring, the player will have random encounters with adorable slimes and monsters. Unlike the traditional grim dungeons of the genre, the hand-drawn art of Magic Story is made up of colorful pastels, and the characters' battle animations have a cute and wobbly look that make even the toughest battles warm and inviting. Both the player characters and enemies have adorable voice lines when landing attacks which really adds to the light-hearted atmosphere.

"I think the slime looks a bit weaker, maybe?"

Another big departure from other dungeon-crawling games is that rather than expressing damage and health through numbers and stats, instead you inspect your party or the enemies and get a brief rundown of their facial expression and body posture. The player can then infer that an enemy is running low on HP if they are grimacing, or that a party member who looks pumped still has a lot of MP to burn. The amount of damage you inflict per attack is also not quantified and is instead expressed with phrases like, "That was a big hit!" In this sense, Magic Story feels like being in conversation with the DM of a tabletop RPG. It is a lot easier to feel like a part of the world since the game conveys itself through natural dialogue rather than clinical numbers.

"The mini-zombie attacks!"

I was very excited every time I encountered a new type of enemy. My favorites are these mini-zombies that start popping up towards the middle of the game. Despite what you would think, they are not grotesque but are rather quite adorable and not very strong. They are very direct with their attacks and come at your party head-on, waving their arms around like a child throwing a tantrum. They do look a bit shocking when you defeat them, since they are, in the end, zombies. But even then, I found them very cute. Please play this game for yourself and you can see what I mean.

"Ugh..."

Magic Story 2 is still being developed with plans for the dungeon levels to be even bigger and for the party to venture deeper inside, along with plans for even more characters and monsters. I look forward to seeing more of the cute and mysterious world that Frequen Modulation has created here. Whether you were a diehard fan of Madou Monogatari back in the day or have never encountered any of the old school Japanese dungeon crawlers, I am sure that you will enjoy exploring the colorful and cozy world of Magic Story!