Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy Reviews
What distinguishes Mado Monogatari is its extreme enthusiasm and relentless humour. With a joyful art style, hugely entertaining character design and a painfully catchy and exuberant soundtrack, Mado Monogatari ends up being more memorable than it has any right to be. It’s been a stressful couple of weeks for me with an almost overwhelming workload, but whenever I loaded this up I found myself smiling and relaxed almost immediately afterwards.
An average mystery dungeon game that does not break any new grounds or reinvent the formula, it is on the lighter side of mechanics and easy to pick up and play, it is entertaining and worth a completion but I feel like replay-ability and a large plethora of side content is definitely something that is sorely needed.
Dive into the whimsical world of Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy. Despite shallow characters and repetitive combat, it's charming.
Mystery Dungeon sickos may be disappointed with a game that looks like one of those but thoroughly isn’t, but the combat mechanics feel distinct and fun to play with even if their busyness doesn’t always translate to a challenge. Sometimes a dungeon-crawler can just be cute, and that’s okay.
A perfectly serviceable dungeon crawler that leans a little on the bland side, but there's still enough here to satisfy people with a deep urge for dungeon crawling or anime slapstick.
Despite not completely lacking in fun, MADO MONOGATARI: Fia and the Wondrous Academy stops short of doing anything interesting with its academy life sim elements or its dungeon crawling. Try-hard 'funny' dialogue waffles for too long, academy activities is largely messing around in menus, and dungeons are one-note and house the same enemies and traps that don't offer a true challenge. If this is your very first dungeon crawler and you're under the age of twelve, you might find enough fun to get you to the end, but for everyone else, this one will likely lie unfinished on the shelf after the first five hours.
MADO MONOGATARI: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is an entertaining experience that has a lot to offer for those wanting a fun and humorous time. These characters are hilarious, but the gameplay can get a bit repetitive.
Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy‘s story is a mostly enjoyable time, even if the jokes can fall flat on occasion. The same can’t be said for its dungeon crawling, which becomes stale fast and never recovers as time goes by.
Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is a good revival of a franchise with a pretty interesting legacy and that delivers a fun, if not very challenging, experience of a classic Dungeon RPG.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Filled with a blend of quirkiness and near-constant humour, Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is a breath of fresh air compared to the myriad of doom-and-gloom-themed RPGs on PS5. The minimal issues teamed with a jaunty soundtrack compliment the entertaining personalities whose journey is a pleasure to follow. The future of Mado Monogatari games looks extremely promising with unpredictable story twists and fun battle mechanics.
Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy has a fun school setting where you take classes to learn new spells. Plus, who doesn't love Carbuncle?
MADO MONOGATARI: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is a whimsically charming adventure that'll make you wish you could attend its characterful academy. 🏫
Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy offers a soft and whimsical take on the dungeon crawler genre, but fails to deliver meaningful depth or challenge. Its charming art anc cozy atmosphere are overshadowed by overly simple combat, shallow progression, and repetitive dungeon. A nice distraction at best, but hardly memorable
Review in Italian | Read full review
There’s an undertone of frustration within Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy. It is a colourful, magical world, with a charismatic cast of characters who have some of the best comedic situations in an RPG. Unfortunately, combat is just so basic and quick that it feels better to avoid it to just experience more of the world. Luckily, this group of colourful comedians’ antics are funny and charming enough that there’s still a fun adventure to be had.
I enjoyed Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy in spite of itself, as I’m a sucker for any Mystery Dungeon style roguelike.
MADO MONOGATARI: Fia and the Wondrous Academy delivers a dynamic mystery dungeon experience filled with comedy. Moving around while fighting and launching magical attacks immerses you in the action. There’s a learning curve with a long tutorial that holds back some of the concepts. Give the game time to show its potential and you will have a memorable adventure.
Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is an RPG that tries to make a curious mix in its combat, but it ends up being only frustrating and lackluster. With an uninteresting base, the experience doesn't appeal and is a bad way to bring back Compile's classic franchise to a new generation.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
A very limited budget and poorly implemented ideas made MADO MONOGATARI: Fia and the Wondrous Academy a wasted return to a franchise that deserved to be cult and prosperous, not to live in the shadow of a puzzle game. It lacks narrative depth, lacks interesting mechanics, and isn't as suffocatingly challenging as expected of the genre, yet it still manages to make Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God a more contemporary game than the latter in terms of gameplay and visual/graphic beauty.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Fia and her band of lovable disasters in Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy might not cast the deepest spells, but they’ve got just enough magic to keep things moving. The dungeon crawling is light, the combat mildly engaging, and the school life fluff adds just enough variety to break up the loop. Thankfully, it’s all wrapped in a silly, self-aware package that leans into its anime logic and wears it proudly. There’s not much depth to uncover, but you might end up smiling more than you’d expect.
There are maybe two kinds of people whom I can recommend Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy to. The first is the type of Compile Heart fan who will play just about any cute, low-stress, and/or marginally charming moe JRPG on the market. The second is anyone battling chronic insomnia looking for a powerful soporific to help them get a good night’s sleep, because this game is a snoozefest. It functions, it’s cute, it has a couple of funny moments. Beyond that, it’s much too dull of an experience to recommend anyone spend the 25ish hours it takes to beat.