i adore this game with my whole heart. I think this concept and project comes from very authenticate and genuine spaces of the experience of growing up on magical girl shows. It’s a beautiful art piece and a cry of where to go next because none of our media growing up of our main protagonist girls ever fought a villain as sickening as growing up.
The art direction is both tailored but suited to the exact time period it’s set in but also the shoujo and cute characters that people who grew up with games at the time. I say this while also believing that it works still incredibly in current contemporary pieces, I don’t think it dates the project or makes it too niche. I think the art direction is made with intention and the overall approach is extremely contemporary.
The characters are beautiful women and enbys. There’s a perfect balance of both direct and spoken representation with KJ’s transition of being non-binary and the cast being sapphic on some level. But also a lot of give for the player to self insert head cannons for characters. When I played, I had perceived Miranda to be neurodivergent, mostly that they were on the spectrum. There’s plenty of times where I had head cannoned Leez to also be asexual / on the grayscale. These examples are important for stories about characters of representation because it’s also important to write characters to both state their representation but allow players/viewers to relate to in ways they can. Also as a fellow writer who cares about representation, sometimes it’s also better to focus on fine tuning how characters present themselves without having to doing a checklist of keywords they have to say.
spoilers below
I think having the villain to end up being also a retired magical girl also adds another level of dilemma of the narrative already. an example of where it could have all gone wrong, but also how can you reach out to someone who’s so far gone. Questioning the ethics of being a hero and when can helping someone can even be achievable.
And maybe this is a cheesy final thought, but if asked to have any critique, it’s that I want more. I love the world they reside in and I think the characters are extremely well crafted. But I say that with an asterisk because I don’t believe it should be doubled in workload, I think the gameplay is a comfortable length, but maybe more exploration of the villainess and her story at the end? Or more Main Character(MC) delving into what they’ll do with their own job afterwords and their goals/dreams. (But to be fair I had a neutral/bad ending so there’s a huge chance I just didn’t unlock it LMFAO)
Over all, I think this game is made with lots and lots of love with the team and I had the absolute most fun being able to delve into their world and falling in love with these gays.
Thank you, Team Starlight, to help me coming to terms and finding comfort of knowing that there are others who experienced this hard truth growing up.