Aurora Magica

Name: Aurora Magica

Developer: Failsauce

Story: The demihuman population is dwindling. A treaty has made sure they can only breed with volunteers and the volunteers are getting fewer each year. The new empress isn't having it so she's sent her troops to villages to take the males and kill the female witnesses. From here, I have completely failed to understand how we got from point A to point B. We start off with a cutscene of the heroes helping a town being raided and then we start the actual game where none of this has happened and you're beginning the life of the typical player character. I guess this is flashing back to how everything began for the characters. This includes that you're friends with a demi-human cat girl that everybody in the town seems to hate. She does later specify that she's a different species of demi-human and that her species isn't interested in breeding and taking men from their homes (of course, the truth on that statement is variable wink wink). Of course, the hero is oblivious to his female companion's affections, obviously.

Writing: This is really a very fun story with quick, snappy writing and punchlines. It has excellent pacing and storytelling. Nothing as far as bad grammar seriously catches my attention. I must point out that this is a rather trope filled game that specifically follows the harem type of story. That is where the lead is a male and his traveling companions are exclusively women. Take that as you will. My favorite character is easily Rosa, while Verak is probably my least favorite due to his absolute obliviousness coupled with a self-confident ego that at times ventures slightly into narcissism. It would be one be one thing if the girls were sending out subtle signals, but they're not. They're blaring klaxons. Their signals are as subtle as a sledgehammer.



Gameplay: I have a serious issue with this. It's made for mobile, which is fine, but no effort was made to optimize this for desktop, even though Yanfly has all of the essential plugins on their main page for it. As a result, this lags terribly. If you're wondering, lagging stacks so that very near the end of the demo, the game is running so slowly it's almost unplayable. Fortunately, you've finished the demo by this time. This should be a very basic thing. It adds very little to the program, takes five minutes and makes sure everyone can play, instead of sending the message that this game is only for mobile players and for everyone else, too bad!

Combat and onscreen interaction are RTP with a few plugins to make it interesting. A rudimentary bounty system has been added. I like the fights and the stat balancing but I feel that giving everyone except Marophe magic might be a bit on the overpowered side.

Graphics: Graphics are "RTP style" because I'm pretty sure those sprites and face chips come from a pack. I THINK I recognize the pack, too but I can't think of the name. The game looks RTP, right down to the poor mapping choices and the lack of shift mapping. I know shift mappings a little screwy in MV, but it's not cripplingly broken. The dev should at least be able to get carpet and borders to lay in a way that makes visual sense.

Conclusion: The game is actually fun as is. With all of the problems in this demo, it's actually already decent. It's fun enough for most people to overlook the most egregious problems but I think liberal amounts of polish can make this game truly great. If this weren't a demo, it'd get a 3-star rating as it is.