Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy Review
Serviceable Silliness
Comedy is extremely subjective; what makes one person laugh may make another person groan. Some RPGs have comedic characters, but it is rare that this distinction is spread out over an entire title. Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy, an action dungeon crawler from developers Compile Heart and Sting, looks to find a way to tickle many funny bones. Every character feels like they are in on the joke and can repeat their own brand of recognizable humour to more successful laughs throughout. That’s an overall benefit, as dungeon exploration and combat are bland, which will lead to players to wish for the next hilarious story scene.
Fia starts late to her first semester at the Ancient Magic Artes Academy. She immediately bumps into the principal, and luckily gets special accommodation to avoid taking the entrance exam. Scrambling to the opening assembly, she and her pet Carbuncle set off a chain reaction of events that leads to herself and four others — Will, Leena, Eska, and Totto — being labeled as problem students. They are shuffled into the same class so the professors can keep an eye on them. Hijinks ensue during every character introduction, leading to many comedic situations with a side of magical knowledge. Serious and tender moments pop in as well, but the charismatic cast hinges on its comedic charms.
This comedic charm in Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy comes from a place of repetition. While the characters grow together, their comedic traits stay the same, which leaves a lot of running jokes mixed in with the evolving plot. This runs the risk of a character quirk that grates on a player’s nerves, but luckily there’s fun ways that these characters get to play with their punchlines to set up new and different funny situations. While many titles have a character or two for comic relief, Mado Monogatori revels in having its entire cast deliver hilarious moments throughout.
Heroes are good and villains do only bad things right?
Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is broken down into chapters, with each one generally consisting of the completion of a dungeon. Fia’s class is also given school assignments to complete, which are a separate element of progression. Assignments provide tasks that reward new skills for Fia’s grimoire that progress the story or unlock side quests that involve diving into previously explored dungeons. Every character gains experience to level up, with everybody but Fia obtaining skills by leveling up, which can lead to her feeling weaker in comparison. Side assignments cannot be ignored, as a chunk of them are needed for a promotion exam, which is another requirement to progress the story. The big issue is that the main story and side quest assignments aren’t handed out in regular intervals, leading to Fia gaining skills much later than the rest of the party.
Additional side adventures can be taken on by accepting requests from a mailbox on school grounds. These have Fia exploring enemy-filled special dungeons, revisiting regular dungeons, checking in with other characters, or searching the academy. After completing an assignment or request in a dungeon, a warp leading back to the academy appears. However, it is more beneficial to accept every available quest and push through to the end of the dungeon to complete multiple at once. These quests have a reward at the time of completion and often a second one that is sent to Fia’s own mailbox located in the library.
Dungeons are a series of randomly generated floors with a small amount of rooms and enemies, treasure, destructible objects, and a warp to the next floor all strewn about. Destructible objects like barrels or overgrown weeds often hide items or small consumables that can boost VT, health, or magic. Every action in the dungeon saps a small portion of Fia’s VT. When VT is brought to zero, the party’s max HP starts to dwindle until either they escape or run out and become “Ouchie’d”, the adorable term for injury and death used in the game, which just sends them back to the academy. Eating curry replenishes vitality, and can be purchased from an infrequently-appearing in-dungeon merchant or by combining ingredients through cooking. There’s little worry on running out of currency as collecting money is as simple as catching a few fish, which sell for a decent amount and can be obtained from a not-too-difficult mini-game.
One of the Great Magic Artes that ends combat even quicker.
Because VT can deplete fast, and curry can be difficult to keep stock of, fully exploring each dungeon floor feels like a waste of time. This is compounded by a lack of variety in the items that can be collected as well. All there is to collect are healing consumables, seeds to grow ingredients for cooking, and materials to make equipment. Since every seed is easily purchased from the beginning of the game and there are only four tiers of equipment, even a cursory search yields enough rewards to deal with the enemies in each dungeon.
Fighting enemies yields diminishing returns as dungeons grow longer. There are only a few enemy designs, as each introduction expands later on to include every elemental variant. In addition, combat is just incredibly basic. The party begins on one side of a circular arena with enemies on the other. The timed-action bar fills based on the speed attribute, allowing players to use the equipped magic called Magic Artes, this bar begins filled if players strike enemies in the dungeon first. Every elemental Magic Arte spell has the same maddening radius — in a rather small circle slightly forward from Fia’s field of vision — that is hard to judge and often sees attacks miss. Skills obtained from weapons are therefore more appealing as they attack targets in a straight line, but Fia’s weak magical strength and enemy resistances means they don’t hit particularly hard.
Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is painfully easy. Most fights don’t last longer than an attack or two, and even many bosses can be downed in a less-than-half-a-minute flurry. With every fight over so quickly, there is no need for strategic variety. There are magical elemental orbs that can be collected a few seconds after each Magic Arte, which can create powerful finishing moves that are rarely used because of how fast fights end. Instead, strategy comes from managing MP and VT levels outside of combat.
Has not the door wanted to hug everybody at one time or another?
Running around dungeons dodging traps and enemies while nabbing resources leads to some good moments, it is when fights see enemies become Ouchie’d in seconds, that makes combat feel too passive. Fighting an enemy per floor provides enough experience to be able take down entire groups quickly, but completely avoiding combat is practically impossible without losing some VT and MP. This is because there are traps that need to be avoided, both in the environment as well as pesky enemies that can drain MP or currency. The copious amounts of experience means that, even accidentally, players can gain multiple levels per run, making it even easier to avoid everything in subsequent dungeon dives.
Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is charming, and each enemy design gets a comedic moment to shine. From common enemies to bosses, everybody jumps in on the fun, and there are moments where they set up jokes where they themselves are the punchline. Everything is colourful and playful, and even spooky areas the player must brave are stylized more like a kid’s cartoon than anything actually scary. The capable Japanese voice cast never misses a beat, combining with a whimsical soundtrack that constantly evokes the feeling of magic, matching the tone that captures a constant comedic playfulness of childhood. This wonderful soundtrack can also shift, when appropriate, to feelings of tenderness and tension from the serious moments that evokes memories of being a curious child reprimanded by a stern yet doting parent.
There’s an undertone of frustration within Mado Monogatori: Fia and the Wondrous Academy. It is a colourful, magical world, with a charismatic cast of characters who have some of the best comedic situations in an RPG. Unfortunately, combat is just so basic and quick that it feels better to avoid it to just experience more of the world. Luckily, this group of colourful comedians’ antics are funny and charming enough that there’s still a fun adventure to be had.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
True potential to be a great comedy
Colourful and playful visuals
Soundtrack always matches the playful tone
Combat is both dull and over quickly
The playable character is often the weakest link on the team
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