Title: This Magical Girl is a B☆tch
Developer: Pastel Magic
Publisher: Pastel Magic
Platforms: Steam, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Release Date: October 25, 2024
Price: Free (name your price)

Since Sally the Witch debuted in Japan in 1966, the magical girl genre has been constantly reinventing itself. 1973’s seinen series Cutie Honey gave us our first transforming heroine with a combat-specific costume. 1992’s Sailor Moon combined the genre with elements of Super Sentai, making it the monster-of-the-week superheroine genre we know and love today. And 2002’s Princess Tutu opened the floodgates to dark and tragic stories, paving the way for mainstays like Madoka Magica.

Nowadays, practically every magical girl title is a subversion or reinvention of the genre. And a new title from indie developer Pastel Magic dares to ask a new question: what if a magical girl was just super mean?

This Magical Girl is a B☆tch, the first title from indie studio Pastel Magic, advertises itself as being inspired by series like Cardcaptor Sakura and Shugo Chara! It doesn’t stop at the concept of “young girl has several magical girl outfits,” though. This visual novel both thwarts and interrogates a lot of mainstay tropes in magical girl anime. For example, would a middle schooler (the typical age for magical girls) really jump immediately to using her powers for love and justice? Is friendship and understanding really the key to victory? And how do you regroup when it turns out you may not be the hero of your own story?

Synopsis

Tabitha Bones (a.k.a. Tabbie) is a generally sour and standoffish middle schooler. All the other kids seem to like her, but clearly that’s just next-level bullying. Especially when it comes from a Eden, a boy in her class who also happens to be her eternal nemesis. Fortunately, help comes from two fronts. First is Calem, Eden’s alleged “best friend” who is in actuality just as fed up with him as Tabbie is. The second is a cadre of jester-like pixies whose candy can grant the eater magical powers.

^{Image Credit: Pastel Magic}

What follows is a story of revenge, manipulation, and monster-fighting as Tabbie uses her newfound abilities to defeat the strange creatures that appear at Middling Middle School. But the more she plots and fights, the more her initial views on Eden and Calem begin to come unstuck. What she does, and how she chooses to interact with her new challenges, is in your hands in this interactive visual novel.

Gameplay

Like most traditional visual novels, This Magical Girl is a B☆tch is less a game and more an interactive storybook. There are choices that will affect how the story goes, and there are achievements to unlock. But by and large, you’re following a straightforward on-rails story. Several of the choices in these first two acts will lead to largely the same outcome, with the only difference being which flavor of achievement you earn for your troubles. (For example, you can choose whether you love or hate creepy dolls.) Others will have greater impact, like whether people live or die during a monster attack. This is not Detroit: Become Human levels of branching story.

^{Image Credit: Pastel Magic}

There is, however, absolutely an impetus to go back and replay each act, and not just to score as many of the achievements as possible. An Extras section houses any unlocked CGs, which includes multiple fully-animated transformation sequences. Playing through once won’t grant you every scene or every sticker in your sticker album. Just to get to the bottom of everything included in this game will require multiple playthroughs.

Graphics

A lot of this game’s charm comes from its visuals, which embrace a simple but expressive style. The moment-to-moment sprites aren’t overly complex, but they do have memorable designs and a variety of expressions. The CGs are where this game really shines—both the still images and the fully-animated transformation sequences.

^{Image Credit: Pastel Magic}

The choice to make background characters (especially the trio of Stu, Den, and Tonathan) as simplistic as possible, despite their sheer amount of time onscreen, draws the eye even more to our central trio and the magical sprites around them. The monster designs we’ve seen in these first two acts are especially impressive, stepping just enough outside the style to be frightening without being fully dissonant.

Voice Acting

Hand-in-hand with the game’s charming graphics is its amazing voice acting. This game is fully-voiced—and yes, fully. Not just a full cast of characters that does the first few lines of every scene before reverting to “Ehh?” or “Hmm…” for the rest of it. Every single line spoken by a character in this game is recorded, and every voice actor has a lot of life and personality to them.

^{Image Credit: Pastel Magic}

There’s not a bad voice in the bunch, but there are a few that deserve shout-outs above and beyond even the strong cast as a whole. Abby Pasion’s performance as Tabbie carries this game. Pasion has the difficult job of performing as a player character who swings between comically unlikable and painfully understandable, and she does a fantastic job of selling every line.

Ali Gohar as the manipulative pixie Magician has done a lot with what he’s been given. It’s clear his role will likely blow up even bigger in later acts, but he brings a quiet menace to his role that’s already setting the stage for twists and turns to come.

Final Score (5 out of 5 stars)

While it may attract fans with its straightforward title and subversive concept, This Magical Girl is a B☆tch becomes so much more in its first two acts. It’s a comically accurate depiction of what some of us would have done with magical powers in middle school, yes. But it’s also a surprising lesson in the dangers of both all-encompassing negativity and toxic positivity.

The writing is funny but never leans solely on its humor, and it’s clear by Act 2 to that there is far more to the story than the title suggests. The entire cast, from Tabbie and Eden to the background students and PA announcers, are all full of charm and character. And the art is simple enough to accommodate nearly 200 expressive sprites while being flexible enough to introduce true menace into its visuals. It is, frankly, extremely hard to believe this is an indie studio’s first game; every corner of this game exudes passion for both the magical girl genre and for the story being told.

Feeling the reins loosen on Tabbie’s actions as Act 2 progresses, offering you more opportunities to be a little more understanding, hints at intriguing character development to come. With Act 3 on the horizon, we’re hoping this new contender in the visual novel space can stick to the high standard it’s already established.

The game is free to download on Steam. However, if you want to support the creators, you can name your price on their itch.io page.

Feature Image: Pastel Magic

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