Name: Septem Charm - Majigaru Kanan (77.50% in 4 votes)
Type: ADV
Platform: WINDOWS
Company: Terios
Release date: 1998
Reviewed by: Kyubi Fox
When I first clicked on "start new game" for Septem Charm and saw the opening, I was stunned. What I saw is a 56MB clip (no big deal) that features a very cute little girl running around with her pink little magic pet...then she transforms into an older girl with magic power...then I see even more little cute girls and cool-looking guys... "Is this an h-game?" I asked. "This looks more like a clip from yet another standard monster-of-the-day shoujo (young girl) anime. What good can come out of this?" I turned out to be very wrong.
In this game you happened to be that pink little animal. You have been sent by the queen of the magic kingdom where you came from to look for a magical seed, the things where animal like you were born. One day you were injured by an enemy and CHIHAYA, the main girl, picked you up from the street. A day later your magic power begin to recover and you unknowingly turned into your human form. CHIHAYA found out. You told her everything, and she becomes your helper in your quest and in turn you work at her mom's resturant.
All seems to be fine until one day a man with a seed attacked one of the waitresses in the resturant. You suddenly kissed CHIHAYA and...she turned into a magic warrior! She beat the man and cleaned off the memories of everybody involved. To look for more of those seeds you went to CHIHAYA's school and wander around. You start to notice some strange things...
This is only the very beginning of the game. Even when you finish the good ending once, you have only seen around thirty percent of the whole story. So where did the rest go? In this game, after you go through the story once, new choices and scenerios will unlock for you to explore. Those side scenerios are probably the best part of the story. You will find out that EVERYONE has a part in the main story. You will say "O! So this is why he's here!" and things like that in those side scenerios. And only after you have beaten every one of those scenerios can you get the final perfect ending. This is pretty strange but it does add a lot to the replay value of this game.
RATINGS:
Gameplay: 5/10 - This is a standard click click click adventure game. You get to certain points and pick certain choices. Personally I am not a big fan of this but people looking for simplicity should be happy.
Story: 8/10 - The setting of magic girl story is pretty fresh in the h-game genre. The side scenerios, as said before, are very good and fill up a lot of holes in the main scenerio which, sadly, is quite weak. You won't feel totally cool after you finish the main story but you will feel full after you finish the side stories. This game is actually quite long, so you are sure you will get your money's worth of gametime.
Graphics: 9+1/10 - The CG's are just gorgeous. Those are very refined and detailed pictures, and there are quite a lot of them (about 3 or 4 times more than Alicesoft Pastel Chime). You can look at the samples.
The spirtes on the other hand are...a lot less satisfying. Sometimes they look like doujin (fan-made) pictures. But the spirtes have a lot of different expressions which makes the game more vivid and lively. This is basically where I take off the 1 from a perfect 10.
The +1 is from the opening clip and the character design. The opening clip is absolutely amazing just like some anime openings. On the side of character design...don't you think CHIHAYA looks just like Card Captor Sakura...
Music/Sound: 4/10 - The voice and music are the weakest part of this game. Except the voice actress for CHIHAYA, the voice actors really need some work. At the ending credit you will see that every voice actor has at least two roles, which is indeed less than encouraging...
The background music is MIDI, which can be good or bad depending on your soundcard. But usually it gets repetitive at times. It would be better if they put some nice CD tracks on the second CD instead of all those voices...
Overall: 8/10 - This is definitely one of the better (maybe best) adventure games of 1998. If you are into adventure games, this is the one you won't want to miss. Even if you are not into adventure games (like me), the story might just impress you enough also.
Japanese Level: High - The story is way complicated for people without enough Japanese knowledge.
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