Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy Reviews
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.
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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.