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• overall: C-. enjoyment: D.
• how to date a magical girl a VN/simulation game where you play as a new student in a magical girl academy, surrounded by new friends and potential love interests. behind the surface of the cutesy appearance, this is actually more 'psychological horror' than dating sim. in fact, very little of the story even changes based on which girl you pursue. despite the unexpected turn the game takes, though, it could still be enjoyable -- but frankly, the writing is unimpressive, the gameplay starts to drag on fast, and while the CG art is very good the majority of character art you'll see in the game is nothing like it. i came into this game expecting to love it unconditionally, but i found very little about it to be redeeming.
• plot: C. you play as a recent high school graduate who has no ambition, a serious case of unaddressed depression, and a passion for magical girl anime. so, when you discover you've been registered to be a new student in an academy for training magical girls along with your childhood best friend, well -- things sure seem to be looking up! but as you go about your school life, struggling to learn magic when you can't get a handle on what your powers even are, things don't seem to be adding up around you. and when a girl at your school winds up murdered... it becomes rapidly clear that this is not going to go well for you. overall, it's a pretty solid premise for a dating sim(/psychological horror) about magical girls. ...unfortunately, it's not remotely executed well. and there's a fairly huge twist ending at the end that kind of makes a lot of the buildup feel worthless. but in someone else's hands, it could be pretty good.
• characters: B. the characters are, for the most part, okay. the designs are very basic, but cute. the magical girl outfits are pretty par for the course. from a personality standpoint, the cast is about what you'd expect; some grating ones, some good. an unexpected saving grace, however, is the monster design. every so often, a truly horrifying creature will appear for the girls to defeat. these monsters are absolutely flawlessly designed, and i can't at all give this game a bad score while it has them.
• writing: F. it was hard to tell, while playing, if this was a very ambitious game that was poorly executed or someone just absolutely fucking around. there are some very heavy topics covered -- from abuse, to suicide, to murder, to -- at least three more of each. however, it feels like it's all just piled on. the excessive amount of death is, at least, clearly meant to drag on and be desensitizing, but i can't for the life of me figure out why that decision was made. it doesn't make an enjoyable story. as for the rest, in particularly the personal backstories the girls reveal to you, none are really executed very well. it's disappointing. the dialogue and general plot execution are not much better, either. the story is full of "justified" contrivances, but the baffling twist ending doesn't exactly retcon the experience beforehand into being enjoyable.
• routes: miyu > rei >>> hikari > yui > kaori
• gameplay: D. i went into it ready to be impressed. i like stat raising and time management, and this game has a good amount of that. but... it winds up being more tedious than anything. there's no indication how close you are to raising your skills, and there are no real penalties for failing to -- though if you put any effort in at all, you'll do it pretty easily anyway. the gifts matter very little; though you'll need to buy a good 40+ of them to finish a girl's storyline, only a small handful give more than 1-2 points; so you can just stock up on the cheapest item and have the same effect as if you saved up. the game also winds up dragging on horribly. you will run out of things to do very quickly, especially on a second playthrough; but there's no fast way to skip to the end past spamming the sleep button repeatedly. the game has very little replay value, too, since the endings do not change and the only difference will be a few short events with each girl and 2 CG each.
• art: C. this is a hard one to answer, and for one very obvious reason. while the CGs were commissioned from a professional artist, and are fantastic quality, the character art itself was drawn by the writer and is very visibly amateur in comparison. its a jarring and unfortunate contrast. but its not impossible to enjoy, still, and there are a good amount of CGs to begin with. the UI itself is nicely designed, and the game doesn't look half bad overall.