This is a condensed version of the full review which can be found on my Main Blog Here.

Genre – School Life, Comedy, Romance    Play Time – 10-15 per game    Developer – Minato Soft    VNDB

When Only Characters Remain

Once a game series has given all the stories it can, what remains to be extracted from it? Perhaps you expand the world by adding a new setting or maybe you introduce an exciting new threat. The answer the Majikoi A games have settled on is to fixate on what the previous titles did best, its larger than life characters. As such each game in the A series is an anthology of after stories and stand alone routes which cover the remaining cast members who had not been given one beforehand. There is no common route or joining material between these sections and it relies wholly on the quality of each element to overcome its lack of cohesion. Despite all the effort that has clearly gone into these games, the question must be asked, is this addition to the series really necessary or is this just the case of a developer trying to wring all the money it can out of its audience? This is a question Majikoi A struggles with across it entire duration and presents to us the value and damage such a continuation can bring. Let’s find some warrior women and discover the answer.

Untold Possibilities – Narrative and Themes

Unlike the previous games the A series is not interested in having any grand overarching narrative and instead bet on its characters being enough to keep the player invested. This is not to say that there are no narrative threads at all, but instead they are smaller and of a self-contained nature. These sections are a strange mix of stagnation and mixing up the formula in exiting ways seemingly at random.

Each of the A games is a mixture of after stories and new routes for cast members who had previously been secondary characters. This provides a good spread of new and established relationships and showcases the different stages of the romantic relationships for the cast in a less direct way due to the almost laissez-faire manner they are dealt with by the game’s segregated structure. Of course having such a loose connective tissue is also a massive drawback since there is no driving force to keep the player going beyond whatever route they choose first and should they be disappointed with that route then the game has no way to keep the player from putting it down. 

The after stories sit in a strange place in this equation as they are the part of the game the player is most likely to engage with due to their focus on established characters the player already has an investment in and they draw the player away from the new routes. However, this is also the second round of after stories since Majikoi S also had a fair few and you can feel the fatigue in the writing at times where the developers try to not repeat themselves and give each character the send off their deserve. On the flip-side we have the new routes that sit in an odd position since they start mid narrative with no lead up due to the lack of a common route. There is a sense of being suddenly thrown in the deep end which persists for a few scenes as the game scrambles to make it clear what happened before the start of the route. As this occurs for every route it becomes this constant feature and distracts from what are some of the best routes that Majkoi has ever produced.

Shining Gems And Questionable Choices – Characters

Of the character who get the spotlight, the most memorable and those with the strongest routes are the bushido plan clones, Benkei, Seiso and Yoshitsune. Their potency stems from the fact that of the remaining cast without routes, they are the ones with the best established personal flaws necessary to provide room for growth. Benkei brings elements of Yamato’s personality to the forefront that are otherwise unexplored, Seiso makes full use of her duel nature for all kinds of high jinks and Yoshitsune offers some of the most impactful choices of the A games. They were held back in Majikoi S due to their importance to the central plot, but with that now used up they are free to be their own people and showcase what made them interesting in the first place. It also helps that they are given some of the more diverse narrative beats and structures to complement their respective character arcs as well as the secrets and weaknesses they are hiding. Here in their routes is Majikoi A’s main justification for its existence and why it had to be a series of separate routes as they are stories that need to take place before the finale of Majikoi S where the big reveals about them happen so the rest of the cast is in the dark about them and there can be natural interactions between the two groups. Their nature demands knowledge of the conclusion and being set before it means that they could never escape the fate of being segregated from everything else, so having them with a selection of other self-contained routes was a smart choice to hide this fact and ensure a smooth engagement with the player.

It is once we reach the characters who have been given after stories the sense of déjà vu begins to take over and Majikoi has to try its hardest to keep the audience’s attention. This is an inevitable part of those characters as they have already had their arc concluded in previous games leaving little to be explored. As such they retread a lot of ground that has already been presented to the player and focus on the solidification of the romantic relationship into a more concrete form than it was left on. The choices of characters to have after stories does remedy this issue to an extent as they are some of the more distinctive members of the original cast. Seeing Monshiro grow into her new found place with Yamato is easily the most heart warming thing in these games while Tsubame and Margit bringing a much need dose of banter to match up to Yamato. They offer a good spread of personalities and they are spaced out in way where they compliment and contrast with the new routes they are placed alongside to add much need flavour and variety.

2009 Never Ended – Visual, Audio and Technical

Majikoi has always had an easily recognisable visual and auditory identity that anyone who has even heard of these games can recognise at a glance. The A games are no exception to this and embraces the player in the same lively atmosphere they have come to expect. Each portrait imbues their respective character with personality that pushes itself into the player’s face and demands to be noticed as they dance around the screen. What new CGs are provided to these games share this same sense of life and over the top energy that helped make the series so popular in the first place. Even the music and sound effects share this powerful forward momentum and injects the player with a sound scape befitting of a series that so often leans into the absurd as part of its comedy lifeblood. Combined these elements have always defined the Majikoi experience and any game in the series would feel lacking without them.

Unfortunately a lot of what makes Majikoi A pop out is reused content from the previous games repackaged to serve a continuous identity carried over from those titles. Recycling these elements is by no means a bad thing especially given how strong they are and how much they form what the player expects of these games. It helps save money on these smaller scale entries and allows for them to be produced in a more reasonable time frame and tell stories they would not otherwise be able to. However, the issue with Majikoi A doing this is the fact that its predecessor Majikoi S already heavily relied on reusing assets from the first game making the A games the second time the player has been presented with a lack of innovation in this aspect. This sense of stagnation extends into all the technical aspects of these games as they use an almost unchanged version of systems of the original game. The original Majikoi was released in 2009 and the last A title, A-5, was released in 2016 meaning the series remained technologically stagnant for seven years and you can really feel this as you play through the games. Aspect Ratio is still 4:3 and is naturally set to 800x600 with any attempt to increase it resulting in blurry graphics due to the art being created with that smaller screen size in mind and the disorganised and sprawling menus and UI create an experience that wastes the player’s time. Back in 2009 this was understandable given the state of other the visual novels at the time, but is was certainly far behind the times by 2016.

Conclusion

Majikoi A is more Majikoi. While this statement might seem obvious it holds a lot of hidden meaning linked to both brilliance and stagnation. These games offer some of the best character writing in the series, bringing to life this colourful world, and at the same time they make questionable choices in what characters they thinks are worthy of attention. The mixture of after stories and new routes has similar ups and downs with the game at once repeating what has come before and creating exciting twists on their narrative formula. It also maintains the visual and auditory identity of the previous games by reusing most of the assets with a sprinkling of its own leading to sense of being stuck in the past. A is very much a game for fans but it is also an intriguing example of the drawbacks and opportunities of continuing a series after it has lived its natural course.

Verdict -  This is more of what made Majikoi so beloved with its excellent characters and engaging drama, but like anything old it often feels like its repeating itself and stuck in the past.

Pros

+ Route structure has a good amount of variation to it and regularly throws surprises at you.

+ The Bushido Plan clones and the after story characters maintain the strong standard of Majikoi’s character routes.

+ Majikoi’s distinctive visual and musical personality is adhered to and the new additions merge well into this lively style. 

Cons