Magical Diary: Grabiner's Line

Magical Diary

Meet four of your potential dates!

Costs money (I don't know how much--a friend got it for me as a gift for my birthday. MY FRIENDS HELP ME WITH MY HABIT! Thanks Ann!), but can be played on Mac, Linux, PC.

This time around I played it on my Mac (upon realizing you could play it on Mac) and things went much better in character creation:

Check Checkit.

I NO LONGER HAVE TO START MY NAME WITH MARY SUE YAY. So meet Avery Johnson. I'm also going to cheat with her, because god damnit there's a python console so I'm going to use it so to see some alternate things I otherwise didn't well manage.

But mostly she's going to be focusing on black magic.

Before I go on, I realized I never actually showed pictures of your roommates Virginia and Ellen:

They're both actually sport (because you're in the Horse Hall).
Virginia on left, Ellen on right.

 And on that note, since I remembered this round, I want to show how this game is better than 99% of dating Sims. Presented without further comment:

Do you see that? Not only is this dating sim telling you that enthusiastic consent is a must, but it's also going into gender issues. This is officially one of my favorite dating sims ever now. And that's not going into the stuff I've otherwise heard about -- like that if you date Virginia (who I will get to when I do that playthrough), she lets you know that she is asexual and THAT'S TOTALLY COOL

Like seriously. In a world of dating games where it's like "OH LET ME GET YOUR BAG FOR YOU ARE WOMAN AND WEAK" and "LOL PERIOD JOKES," this is absolutely fucking beautiful.

Anyway so, on to the actual point of this. DATING! Professor Grabiner:

Yeah. He's your Professor. But like..it's...less weird then you think it would be? Like, god, I feel weird saying that, but I honestly have to say that of all the lines I've done so far (Three: haven't yet talked/written about Donald's) this is my favorite, because it's a slow developing thing. And I like those.

Also, I have a thing for older grumpy guys. What can I say?

This is how you win dates.

So to date Grabby you have to first be a treasurer. And one day, on your way to do your duties, you come across this:

DATING!

whereupon you get the choice to charge in and save him or find help. If you select to charge in, you end up married to Grabby. (Because the monster can't hurt him because he's of the Grabiner blood and you charge in so the monster can hurt you and so Professor Potsdam charges in and says you're engaged so to fool the demon you have to actually become married).

The wedding is hysterical:

Uhh, I know I'm being pretty unexciting about this but I got a ton of photos.

OKAY SO BASICALLY YOU GET MARRIED, GRABINER IS PISSED. You go through your classes, no one finds out except Minnie Cochran the class president because you needed a witness aside from Potsdam. You and Grabiner slowly talk to each other a little bit and slowly grow to open up a bit to each other, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.

The day after your marriage!

You end up having to send yourself a valentine:

trolololol

And there's one moment pretty subtle at one point, where -- after all this time, you've been calling him sir and Mister Grabiner, and he's been calling you Miss [your last name, in my case Johnson], and then this happens:

And when this happened I stopped rapidly hitting my space key.

And I squealed, because it was literally the first time he'd said my first name and it was fucking THRILLING. And he goes on to say you no longer have to call him sir:

like I seriously got so delighted here.

Also, this made me laugh:

BUT LONG STORY SHORT.

I love Grabiner's story line. It was incredibly well done, it was pretty damn classy, and I appreciated how it went about everything.

And finally in the end, your character calls Grabiner out on his bullshit, and notes she's grown to care for him, he admits similarly, the marriage stays on though you guys plan on taking things very slow.

Honestly, the only disappointing moment is that this is
just a palette swap of every other kiss in this game.

SCORES

Each of the below categories is on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 being the worst, 10 being amazing). Thus the max total for a game is 40 points. "Rating" involves me giving a 0-10 rating depending on how NSFW the game is. 0 would mean it's so chaste there's nothing of the sort that would be even...remotely ...touchable. Or whatever. 10 would mean there's some hardcore raunchy sex. "Rating" is not calculated into the overall score.

NSFW Rating: 5: Eeehh. Copying my Damien line rating: I'm honestly really wibbly on this rating. They discuss sex. In several of the classes they discuss sex too -- the headmaster talks about safe sex, noting it's fine to have relationships, just take care of yourself and talk to her if you need help getting protection. There's discussion of androgyny and intersexuality and genders and it's all treated rather well, and you can romance guys or girls (and demon changeling dudes as well obviously).  So I'm rating it on lack of sexual content, though the discussions are WELL DONE as far as dating sim games go. So take that for what you will? Would I say they're flawless? Never. But incredibly well done.

--

Graphics: 6: Nnngh, most of the graphics are kind of awful, I won't lie. But there's a sort of charm to them that I appreciate? I mean, sure, all the faces look exactly the same, but it makes up for it by letting me make my own character.

Gameplay: 10: I fucking loved playing this game. I liked figuring out how to balance my stress levels with my school levels. I liked the little dungeon mini games where you had to sort out what magic would be best. It was fucking fun. Like, seriously, the magic system was fun -- sure it wasn't often used, but it WAS fun. It was a breath of fresh air.

Story: 10:  For all my laughter at it above, it really did pull me in because it seemed like everything I did mattered, and all the characters had their own stories and lives going on that I may or may not be involved in. I loved it.

Fun: 10: INCREDIBLY fun.

Overall: 36 / 40 -- I DON'T CARE IF THIS WAS AN A- I LOVED THIS LINE A++++