Let Me Explain Why I Played A Magic: The Gathering Visual Novel In The First Place
Before we continue, I should say that I don't follow Magic: The Gathering religiously. I did at one point in my life, but after graduating college, I fell off of Magic and didn't look back. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not some grizzled old-timer that will go on and on about how the era of Magic I played during my younger years was "When the game was at its best!" Neither am I the type that will rattle off banned card pairings that I think should come back. It was a thing I played solidly for three to four years and caught me at the right time and place in my life. However, when factors changed, I just moved on, but I harbor no ill will to the game, Wizards of the Coast, and anyone that has maintained the game as a fixture in their life.
Nevertheless, there's no denying how I continue to have a passing interest in the game and persist in following it as a casual observer. Some of you know that I am a bit of a fixture when Mr. Rorie hosts Magic streams, and I should admit that I follow a Magic: The Gathering podcast or two. Likewise, when the latest Kamigawa set arrived, I did something I had not done in over ten years: I reviewed every card in the set one at a time. I think part of the reason is that the theme of Kamigawa is immediately appealing to me and what artwork I saw from early release images impressed me. However, in doing so, I quickly realized how out of the loop I was regarding the recent story and worldbuilding related to Magic. Scoff all you want, but I maintain, even as a filthy "casual," that the lore surrounding Magic: The Gathering is genuinely compelling. The backstories behind its many competing guilds, factions, and corporations are, at least in my opinion, ripe for a video game adaptation. There's good backstabby storytelling potential and player choices to ponder in a future game that faithfully tackles the world of Magic earnestly.
I was hoping that that last point would happen with Kamigawa: A Visual Novel, a recent tie-in to the newly released Magic set of the same name. I can imagine many of you are already typing away that me holding out for a spin-off for Magic: The Gathering not being terrible is foolish. However, it seemed like Kamigawa: A Visual Novel had all of the ingredients for success. The game was billed as a newbie-friendly on-ramp for those interested in exploring the world of Magic: The Gathering. It had a heavily advertised dictionary that front-loaded critical vocabulary and purported to have representatives from the major factions in Kamigawa. If you quickly scan the game's Steam page, you'll discover that Kamigawa: A Visual Novel is a choice-based experience. It claims, "Your choices influence not only your companions but also your bonded kami. Diplomacy or intimidation, sympathy or hostility – it's all up to you." Therefore, what could go wrong? I mean, I was in mood for a Magic refresher course after all! Well, for one thing, it's already THE WORST FUCKING THING I HAVE PLAYED IN 2022!
Yo, This Game Is Dog Dick UGLY!
Say what you will about the current state of Magic: The Gathering and its purported issues with "balance." Still, there's no denying that Wizards has a deft touch when making some cool-ass-looking cards. The names Wizards has tapped to illustrate for the franchise continue to impress. Even cards as innately dumb as the Street Fighter or Godzilla sets are at the very least interesting to look at and represent the IPs they are attached to well. On the other hand, Kamigawa: A Visual Novel looks like refried dogshit! Seriously, look at this character portrait! This is supposed to be an assassin Orochi!
The animation in the game is minimal, with the transitions between character portraits being so abrupt that I felt like I could count the frames. Also, there were times when I couldn't figure out what parts of the screen were the foreground, background, or character portraits. Some of the character work is passable, but other character designs left me aghast or wondering what the fuck I was looking at on my screen. The backgrounds have a blurry abstract neon aesthetic, whereas the character art has a flat bold aesthetic. Having these two diametrically opposed art styles never ceased to fuck with my brain. To highlight, when the game introduced what I assume was a Red Berserker, it wasn't until much later that I realized the giant cylinder on their back was their blaster. It took me a solid thirty seconds starring at their armor to be able to process what the game was displaying. And did I mention how some of the art assets are downright ugly? For example, the game "claims" these are rat ninjas!
More fundamentally, the game's art is a poor representation of the art found in the card game it is trying to represent. For example, here's a Magic: The Gathering card that depicts a Kitsune Diviner:
Here's what a Kitsune looks like in Kamigawa: A Visual Novel:
That's just ONE example of how the game cuts corners! The whole crux of the game involves your player character investigating why a merge gate in Sokenzanshi unleashed an army of demons. However, Kamigawa: A Visual Novel's cheapness repeats one of my least favorite visual novel tropes. The game will switch its filter to red or blue to signify an upcoming action sequence. Unfortunately, it shows you nothing but a paragraph of text describing your characters' actions. There are no flashy cutscenes or fun portrait animations to enjoy in this game. All you get is reams of questionably written text with an occasional typo to maintain your attention. I get the game is free, but HOT DAMN did Wizards not give a shit about making their opportunity to get newcomers on board a worthwhile experience.
Then we have the issue of the "Magic Influencers" and celebrities included in this game. To avoid sounding like a complete asshole, I want to clarify that I have nothing against Magic Twitch streamers getting cameos in this game. These streamers are busting their asses, providing content for a media property they genuinely love. To them, it's fucking rad they are in this game, and I don't want to take away from their joy. HOWEVER, if I was a Magic Twitch streamer providing endless content for a game that, by all metrics, is suffering a downward trend, and I looked like THIS, I would be pretty bummed.
The Story And Pacing Are Atrocious! And It's Only Two to Three Hours!
Kamigawa: A Visual Novel tops out at a paltry two hours on a good day. If you elect to read-aloud all of the text the game provides and even consult its almanac, you might be able to extend that to three hours. Nonetheless, as short as that might sound, this game honestly drags at times. Things start promisingly enough, with the player assuming the role of an Imperial Samurai aligned with the forces of white. When they and their partner, a no-nonsense war veteran, are assigned to a Podunk town with a portal to a magical realm, they meet with a liaison. This point of contact informs them that the "merge gate" is unstable. Almost on cue, the gate is attacked by forces aligned with the color green, and the portal erupts to unleash a brigade of demons. An army of red artificers come to the aid of the Imperials, and a temporary truce is called. The competing factions make a compromise to discover who sabotaged the gate and bring them to justice (spoilers: it was a bunch of blue ninjas). However, you are in charge of the investigation team and need to wrangle the different approaches each color would prefer when faced with a smattering of scenarios.
To inject some much-needed positivity to this blog, I want to say the game's premise is intriguing in concept. After the opening prologue, the team you work with showcases diverse competing philosophies and mindsets. For example, the Red Faction representative wishes to blow shit up, whereas the White Faction representative wants to go a more diplomatic route. Unfortunately, there's no need to think about your actions and the possible conflicts they may pose because none of your choices matter. For example, during the game's second act, my interest was temporarily piqued when the Green Faction-aligned Orochi expressed dissatisfaction with my decision to use technology for one of my dialogue prompts. As one typically would in a dialogue-focused video game, I was under the impression that they would leave my party if I were to select another "incorrect" input. So, knowing I was already on their shit list, I purposefully went the technology and brute-force route for everything and was disappointed to see they were still tagging along with my protagonist even after threatening to leave time and time again. Thus, I can confirm that the game's much-ballyhooed alignment and choice-based systems are complete and total bullshit!
Worse, in its attempt to try and emulate the cities and locations of Kamigawa, and in particular, Towashi, there's a real "anime filler episode" vibe to the story's structure. The game's second and third acts allow the player to explore a handful of locations as they attempt to investigate a mystery. The premise is that some areas have clues about where the player needs to go next, and others do not. While that's primarily the case, the game forces you to explore every location before progressing to the next chapter or act. To highlight how dumb this format is, I can recall correctly selecting all of the areas that furthered the storyline in the third act and STILL needing to exhaust the ancillary character-building locations. Again, this nonsense adds what amounts to twenty minutes to the game's overall playtime, but it does stress how lazily designed the entire game feels.
Part of the reason why the game is so insistent on you seeing everything it has to show you is that there are several celebrity cameos. The first of these involves the Magic influencers I mentioned earlier. Each time I interacted with these influencers, I wanted to eat out my eyeballs. In one case, you meet up with a Magic streamer, whose in-game name is their Twitch handle, and they teach your character how to play a card game that is NOT MAGIC! Your straight-laced samurai companion finds himself roped into participating in a cosplay contest in another scenario. The ultimate payoff is that a Magic influencer declares him the victor because the samurai, hilariously, "won't stop breaking character." It was the cringiest shit I have seen in a good long time. However, I want to clarify that I have nothing against the streamers featured in this game. They likely had no input on the story and are understandably psyched to be in an official Magic product.
Oh, and how could I forget about the Kero Kero Bonito cameo! Including the band and presenting its three members using their real-world names was undoubtedly a "choice." Having the characters swoon over the group and rattle off their studio albums and EPs like they are otherworldly experiences was another "choice." The character art for Jamie, including his keytar, was an additional "choice." But the oddest "choice" by far has to be the game's decision to have Kero Kero Bonito act as antagonists. The band doesn't perform a song, Sarah doesn't praise your exploratory efforts with a rhyming poem, nor does Gus rattle off an impressive drum solo. Instead, Kero Kero Bonito is in the game to provide a lazy-ass gear check to ensure you collected all of the story-required items before continuing to the game's final chapter. Whoever thought it was a good idea to take one of the most effusive and positive-minded pop groups in the world and make them evil will go down with the Zodiac Killer and D. B. Cooper as one of the world's greatest mysteries. It's such an idiotic decision and yet another page in the "What Could Have Been" novel you could write about this game.
Your Choices Don't Matter, And The Ending Is Fucking AWFUL!
Did I mention how NONE of your choices matter in this game despite its promises to the contrary? The absolute perfect exemplification of this problem has to be the game's ending. After your motley crew tracks down the source for the earlier sabotage, you discover the culprit to be none other than a team of ne'er-do-well ninjas. What ensues next is a series of action sequences in which you, the player, need to think of ways to beat these nefarious scoundrels. For example, in one such scenario, you are prompted to warn a friend of an incoming flurry of kunai or to use a summon to deflect them. Regrettably, no matter what you do, everyone survives, and no one ends up harmed. I understand the game desires to depict all choices as equally legitimate because it wants you to appreciate all of the various mindsets and factions as being equally engaging in their own right. However, none of your choices leading to consequences makes every scenario you face in the game lifeless and absent of any sense of stakes. As Jess would put it, "everyone fights, and no one dies."
But what about Kamigawa: A Visual Novel's ending? In what I can only describe as the dumbest shit I have seen this year, the game lines up each of your party members and asks whom you think is the best. You can choose between a gun-toting red artificer, nature-loving green Orochi, or white-robed samurai. In true Deus Ex Human Revolution-style, the game plops a dialogue tree to unlock one of three possible endings. Thus, the game confirms that none of your earlier exploratory choices or relationship building mattered because you can go with whatever you please at the end. Thematically, it makes no sense considering your character is a high-ranking Imperial Samurai. The idea that eating udon noodles with a snake person is enough to cause them to flip sides is utterly ridiculous. To make matters worse, none of the characters you can side with are especially memorable. Overall it's a dumb and lazy ending that immediately smash cuts to a full-page advertisement for the card game.
Part of me can squint my eyes and see what the game was going for with this particular misstep. Your party members try to "sell" you on the different Magic playstyles their respective personalities seek to represent. However, even in that regard, Kamigawa: A Visual Novel fails. There are not enough opportunities for the characters to show their personalities beyond a handful of trope-laden character quirks. For example, I understand that the green faction likes nature, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you green Magic players tend to play 5/4 creatures on turn two or burn every card in their deck by turn four. The white samurai liked to talk about always wanting to support the Imperial Palace. He sure as fuck didn't inform me that going mono-white in Magic tends to lead to battles of attrition. If all Kamigawa: A Visual Novel provided was a faux Magic: The Gathering sorting hat act, I could at least envision recommending it to a particular audience, but it doesn't even do that. For one thing, the colors blue and black are almost entirely non-factors throughout the story! Having TWO essential colors underrepresented seems like a colossal design blunder.
I understand that this blog might make me come across as someone who expected too much out of a visual novel tie-in with Magic: The Gathering. However, there are examples of visual novels serving as good to decent on-ramps for long-established multimedia properties. Check out my blog post about the visual novel tie-ins to Vampire the Masquerade for one such example. Had this game simply presented the various factions in Magic: The Gathering clearly and coherently, I would have had an easier time envisioning a possible audience for it. As things stand, it's a shiftless promotional piece that doesn't even represent its product well. The art is atrocious; the story is dull; the characters are flat and plodding. There are no redeeming qualities to Kamigawa: A Visual Novel worth exploring, and you should not play this game.
Log in to comment