MDF: Magical Defense Force
released on Mar 17, 2023
MDF: Magical Defense Force is a unique story focused Magical Girl Visual Novel, featuring a cast of strange and entertaining character, monster of the week action, comedy, a rocking soundtrack and artistically rendered fight scenes.
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As a disclosure, I’m friends with the devs, though I bought this with my own money and I will be quite honest that this doesn’t heavily color my takeaway. I just think that this is solid work that deserves more of a push.
MDF is the linear kind of VN, no branching paths or stats. It’s also not as flashy when it comes to some other indie VNs like say Scarlet Hollow or Necrobarista, it’s in Visual Novel Maker so it’s a rather humble endeavor after all. This humility is a strength though, because the game focuses on what it needs to and does so with polish. The game has a whole bunch more unique art than the usual indie VNs, having a good deal of scenes that aren’t just character portraits gabbing at each other in empty rooms. Fight scenes, for one, are mostly all drawn out and the requisite magical girl transformation sequences are actually animated. MDF also puts real effort in its backgrounds, giving a sense of place and having a bunch of background characters that gives its setting depth and charm. The music is quality too and it really adds well to the atmosphere.
Another of MDF’s strengths that makes it rather unique amongst VNs is that it has as a very serialized episodic structure. Each chapter is more akin to a TV show episode such as its influences of magical girl anime and tokusatsu than more common VN structures of traditional chapters, branching paths, character specific routes, etc. Reading through a chapter even takes around 15-20 minutes or so which lends to that episodic TV feel. It avoids one of my recurring issues with VNs that they fall into from time to time where their pacing is just an absolute slog of characters just constantly reiterating plot and character beats.
This game currently covers nine chapters which is around the halfway point of the “first season”, the last chapter ends on enough of a climax to feel like a good stopping point for now while the rest is still being worked on. I admit I’m in a position where I know where the game will go because the whole narrative has been worked on and finished for quite some time. The first arc is a bit of slow burn in a sense, it does all the setup and fleshes out characters well , and as I said its briskly paced, it’s just that some of the character arcs are spread out some so that the first nine chapters don’t cover them all, which is fine. I do genuinely think MDF deserves enough recognition to be a name in the indie game sphere because there’s real passion and dedication here and I would like to see it all play out because it deserves it.
MDF is the linear kind of VN, no branching paths or stats. It’s also not as flashy when it comes to some other indie VNs like say Scarlet Hollow or Necrobarista, it’s in Visual Novel Maker so it’s a rather humble endeavor after all. This humility is a strength though, because the game focuses on what it needs to and does so with polish. The game has a whole bunch more unique art than the usual indie VNs, having a good deal of scenes that aren’t just character portraits gabbing at each other in empty rooms. Fight scenes, for one, are mostly all drawn out and the requisite magical girl transformation sequences are actually animated. MDF also puts real effort in its backgrounds, giving a sense of place and having a bunch of background characters that gives its setting depth and charm. The music is quality too and it really adds well to the atmosphere.
Another of MDF’s strengths that makes it rather unique amongst VNs is that it has as a very serialized episodic structure. Each chapter is more akin to a TV show episode such as its influences of magical girl anime and tokusatsu than more common VN structures of traditional chapters, branching paths, character specific routes, etc. Reading through a chapter even takes around 15-20 minutes or so which lends to that episodic TV feel. It avoids one of my recurring issues with VNs that they fall into from time to time where their pacing is just an absolute slog of characters just constantly reiterating plot and character beats.
This game currently covers nine chapters which is around the halfway point of the “first season”, the last chapter ends on enough of a climax to feel like a good stopping point for now while the rest is still being worked on. I admit I’m in a position where I know where the game will go because the whole narrative has been worked on and finished for quite some time. The first arc is a bit of slow burn in a sense, it does all the setup and fleshes out characters well , and as I said its briskly paced, it’s just that some of the character arcs are spread out some so that the first nine chapters don’t cover them all, which is fine. I do genuinely think MDF deserves enough recognition to be a name in the indie game sphere because there’s real passion and dedication here and I would like to see it all play out because it deserves it.