Life After Magic is a charming sapphic visual novel, with beautiful pixel presentation, lively music, and lovable characters. There's really a trope for every sapphic out there, from the leather-jacket wearing KJ, to the rival ARA, to my favorite, the sweet jock Jackie. Each character is lovable and with such a short game, it's easy to imagine re-playing it multiple times to see different character's arcs.

I also really appreciated how every member of the cast was affected in different ways by their magical girl group falling apart. All of it felt emotionally real, drawing on experiences many of us have with trying to reconnect with former close friends.

I appreciate that you can play this game non-romantically, and that even if you play out a romantic scenario, that doesn't mean the characters will end up together forever.

A small negative is that I really don't know what I missed to get Jackie's romantic ending, so when I didn't trigger it at the end it was a little frustrating. Overall, though, I was so happy with how her storyline came together that I could overlook this problem.

All in all, a no-brainer for lovers of other sapphic visual novels. I'm so excited to see what this team puts out next!

The 2020 indie game Hero Hours Contract fills a sort of broad "cozy" idea about magical girls existing under late stage capitalism. Magical girls have no trouble unionizing, characters spend time between missions building up social links, the levels work as sort of basic puzzle gameplay loop. The story's not particularly in-depth, with successes coming easy and the conflict being fairly effortless. Its a perfectly fine journey, just a bit easy wish fulfillment.

Life After Magic struck me with its similarities early on. Much like Hero Hours Contract, it focuses on magical girls in their 20s figuring out their lives both socially and financially. There's vague references to generic monsters of the past. Broad genre comedy. Things like that.

Its not particularly fair to make those comparisons, given how different they are beyond that.

Life After Magic centers primarily on retired magical girls. The journey is over. They've moved their separated ways. Lost connections, struggling to make rent. Life struggles. The game generally keeps a light tone, but there's a real sense of the weight of time. How these disparate personalities do try to maintain contact, but things just don't work out. Everyone has a complicated relationship with each other and how that dynamic plays out is always fascinating to unpack.

The two most interesting of the dating routes are ARA and KJ. ARA offers more than a little resentment to how Akiko the MC lead the Sentinels. She likes to think of herself as the Cool Big Sis of the group, but at this point the cast can only remember all the bickering she instigated. She can't play Big Sis to full grown adults. So, she outs herself as a magical girl. She goes corporate idol, figuring she can market herself and donate the proceeds to charity. Being a magical girl is too important for her to really let go of, but its that same desperation to be useful that ends up driving away the other Sentinels. Her friendship ending where she becomes a mentor to young idols is probably the best fate she can get after everything.

KJ was my favorite for a lot of reasons, many of them obvious. Formerly the "shy computer geek", KJ's got a lot of issues with their old identity. They've found enormous euphoria in a punk nb lifestyle, rocking tattoos and motorcycles and the whole she-bang. But it also builds this intense dysphoria when confronted with the magical girl life. Being a "magical girl" shoves them back in the closet, shoves them back into a gendered identity they want nothing to with. That's coupled with messy family drama, bouncing aimlessly between different jobs, and the general fear that the work for their identity will never be complete. KJ and ARA butt heads so frequently because their feelings fundamentally cannot work together. ARA needs her magical girl identity to feel a purpose. KJ needs to avoid that identity to feel like themselves. ARA strutting around as an idol adds this intense fear that KJ's past could get outed, while ARA sees KJ's aggression as a sign that she's not allowed to reinvent herself either. They have perhaps the most in common out of the team, but they have no possible route of reconciliation. Its a great character dynamic.

The broader story works well as a companion to this mini stories because it fits the game's themes. A purposeless former hero lashing out and struggling to find new connects in the adult world. Relying on the corrupt modern institutions they've surrounded themselves with rather than employing their powers for positive means. The powers can't do much against the wider problems of the universe. You just have to sit and stew in what to make of your own circumstances and hope for the best.

Neat little thing.

i still can't believe this beat psychonauts 2 for game of the year. like i don't give a shit in the long run but like, really? this was a good game, don't get me wrong, but i just didn't fall in love with it. i think the romance between cody and may is so poorly written, handled, and built upon that i genuinely thought for a majority of the game they were going to get the divorce. it only really seemed different during the very last few sections where they finally started to connect with each other... for some reason. idk, i understand the main appeal of this game for a lot of people was the gameplay, and while that's great, the game also REALLY wants you to care about its story and i just couldn't get into it. there were so many cutscenes where i would just be waiting with my friend for it to end so we could finally get back to the fun gameplay parts. so yea, the game is far from bad and i'd even recommend it, but don't go in expecting a really engaging story or any interesting characters.

I really tried to love this game, to even just like it.
The graphics were lovely, character creation was really nice. Scenes, themes, controls- all great.
But it just. kept. going.
I played this with a friend through their account and by the time we got to some icey place- we were both miserable and bailed.
We both lamented how it could have really been good if it wasn't so long and there was actual progression in the story line.
Honestly I have no idea how long the game goes on before there's evidence that the couple might start to get along.
I was also heavily against the message that forcing two people who are old enough to make their own choices stay together against their will might just in fact be a fix for them.
I was frustrated and felt terrible for both of them the entire playthrough.
If someone would ask me if I'd recommend this game- I'd grimace at them and turn away to leave them to their own devices.

Really, me and my SO dropped this several months back, but that's neither here nor there. Just reminded to talk about my thoughts on this, Uhm,

I appreciate the spirit of this moreso than the end nature of it. My partner and I had a blast playing it, and the whole Honey I Shrunk the Kids aesthetic is perfect. I loved all the little minigames, the cutesy charm, all the cooperative puzzles. It's a return to this form of gameplay style from what feels like very yesteryear. If any lesson is learned from this game's acclaim, it's that there should absolutely be more of this.

I just wish the end result here was something I could champion. We ended up dropping it largely from its surrounding noxious energy. The main conceit of this couple being entrapped together fantastically to just reignite their fire for, largely implied, the kids' sake, just made us lose all of the vibes at once. Every attempt to reopen the game was spent on trying to ignore that, but it didn't really go very far. We got about a couple hours in before it became too much to tolerate, especially since the absolutely brutal incompatibilities regarding one of the two just reminded one of us of our ex. It feels like a useless story to me? It's definitely not coming from a bad state of mind, and like, it's genuine, it's earnest! But it feels almost shaming to partners who aren't working out together. All for more people going to couples therapy to see if their issues truly aren't fixable but I don't like this general idea at all, it's so "makes up a couple". Couldn't help but doctor out a story in my head that starts with this same idea but ends up taking it in a direction that commentates that maybe at the end of it some things aren't fixable and requires splitting, a far more realistic notion to takeaway that finishes off with a note that has them separating after all, with a bittersweet understanding of what they've learned from their incompatibility, rather than some, to be blunt, sickening notion of THINK OF THE KID!! GOTTA FORCE YOUR TOTAL SPARK OF LOVE (that for most people in this situation, won't be there anymore) BY MAKING UP COOP STYLE.

Honestly it's worse than the writing. We laughed together at a couple jokes, my partner found the two much much more obnoxious from sentence to sentence than me, but I'm used to it. The smarmy totally shouty couple vibe isn't like a complete mismatch for what everything here is going for. That's the most charitable I'll get with it though haha.

I'll say it takes two is good when we get the much more ambitious polycule sequel it takes three.