『LACKGIRL I - "Astra inclinant, sed non obligant."』 Reviews

It happened to stop at the climax, and after the second installment, it was changed to a positive review.

satsuki and sui are a good enough reason to read but cool magic and yuri bait (for now) are good too

I just like Benio art and wanna support Dontsugel :) Cool concept too, weirdly underexplored as a genre in the VN space.

i remember hearing about this cause aokana artist did this too and interesting start we will see how it goes and not too long hopefully its nice

saw this twitter and brought it right away Short but i liked it a lot. hope future parts gets released in English on the same day too.

Magical girls that have have powers because they lack some critical facet of their psyche? Sign me up!

Lackgirl's amusing one-two punch banter is the meat on its bones and it relies heavily on the power of the VA's to deliver the humour in a way that makes up for the small scope of the world. Thankfully, I think they accomplished that, and though Lackgirl's world is a bit claustrophobic, it feels intentional; like we are slowly getting our bearings alongside Satsuki, with the introspective focus allowing for an interesting light to be shone on all the players we are introduced to so far. A few of the story beats are pretty good, but could've used more buildup. Tsumugi's story in particular felt like money cashed in just a touch too early, enjoyable for sure, but her dynamic with Kana and the Valiant squad deserved just a bit more imo. Similarly, the game cuts off super abruptly and right in the middle of a really intense part. This doesn't bother me too much as I'm invested enough to buy more, but players looking for a well rounded experience won't find it here with this part 1. Overall I quite enjoyed the first step in Satsuki's story to understand herself and the world around her, and I think if you like character focused stories with colourful players forced to clash with one another you will too. Be it the combative Mizuha, the unsteady Satsuki, or the unwilling Izumi, no one is ready for what the world has and will throw at them and I am excited to see what Lackgirl's plans are for the future of this cast and setting. See you again, Miss Reality.

Lackgirl seems to be tentatively titled after the main character who seems to be lacking in any sort of original story. This is the first release of a planned multipart series by Dontsugel, a new company in the visual novel sphere, who should start rethinking any further entries in this series. The story stars a young girl, Satsuki, who just wants to have a normal life with her normal friends going to a normal university. Then, reality hits, and she is now a magical girl in a magical school surrounded by (anime tropes) magical people. If you haven't played this game, then don't worry you already know all the characters. Since when did visual novels start putting anime on a pedestal? We are seeing more and more visual novels that can be fully explained by stating an anime name and calling it a day. Lackgirl seems to have an identity crisis. It starts off signaling Madoka, having traces of Little Witch Academia, but ends up beckoning My Hero Academia. The story feels like a Frankenstein of a plot sewn together from various parts of the aforementioned anime plots. The new kid that somehow has a power they shouldn't, characters pushing the kid to see how far till they break but still trying to keep it PG-13, all the while ignoring the logic that this sort of plot brings on to the world. I question the kind of family that just allows they're child to just go off and join a school in a single day after finding out they're wizards. The story mentions that not all people send their kids to this school, but the main character seems to be particularly close to her mother. So when months have passed when the game ends and only a single phone call exists as communication between them (not to mention the complete absence of any other parental figure in the story), we have to start questioning how much of a lackadaisical attitude do all these parents have towards their children. As if all parents were this homogenous entity that happily gave off their child for adoption and never thought to check up on them. It terms of parents though, we shouldn't be too hard on the plot as only mothers exist now. Fathers and the entire male gender are as alien to the game as good writing. The game doesn't even have any concern whether the player enjoys the story or not. It comes off as an afterthought of a larger marketing and business deal we are only seeing the beginning off. We could start seeing manga, anime adaptations, and toy-lines released soon before any other part of the series. Even though the series isn't marketed as a multimedia franchise, I wouldn't be surprised if a change of plans happened along the way. Lackgirl purposefully consists of all the cons of releasing an episodic series, and feels like it is just getting started. Characters that are superficial at best, all build-up with no execution, providing promises to be fulfilled in later releases at the cost of butchering the current one. Lackgirl starts off feeling like it's going to be great. An endless staircase with an assassin at the top waiting for the main character only for her to be thrown off it, and forcibly discovering her magic powers. She is scared when she finds a picture of her on the ground with no blood at all. The game promises more to come and then settles on endless exposition scenes for information and lore to be dealt with in future entries. There is even a fight scene where the villain is literally explaining to the character how they should go about beating them! This might come off as taunting, but when the character start monologuing what they are doing/about to do to make sure the audience understood and repeat the same thing again, the fight comes off as a lesson and the tension deflates faster than my interest in the story. Not to mention the blatant cheap production gone into making it. The vn recycles the same 3 cgs for every fight scene, and relegates the rest for yuri bait. Whoever wrote the villains in this game has only ever known one-dimensional characters. The writer decided that Hazel's character was complete when they gave her red eyes and hair. They all appear to function on anime logic: "No matter how evil you are, always keep a smile on your face, and speak as if you were a kid who never learned how to grow up. Remember, nothing good ever happens in life and you have always suffered the most." The villains, if we can even call them that, are the children who didn't get enough ketchup on their fries and swore vengeance upon the world and all its inhabitants. This is what got past the writing room and passes for story. When we arrive at that final showdown between the "villains" and "heroes", the formers have incapacitated the majority of the characters in that school, and all that are left are Satsuki and two of her friends. However, how many people are in this school exactly? The villains had someone working on the inside and could easily slip in (although a little suspension of disbelief is required), but there are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students here. Why is the game acting like the only people in this school are our main characters?! Where are all the rumored strong students? Where are the 3rd years? Did no one hear the trouble from the courtyard and call the magic police? Let's not get bogged down by logic and get back to our marketable cute main character. She is ready to let loose, aims at Hazel, and the game... JUST ENDS?! The cherry on top of all the issues this game has had is a cliffhanger ending, the bane of most stories and specifically episodic releases. Other multipart series like Higurashi and Umineko, although episodic, have always made sure to end the episode with some sort of conclusion or closure, enough to never force the player to feel like they are being dragged along with a carrot on a stick. We continued those series because we wanted to. People will continue Lackgirl because they have to. Lackgirl doesn't care for its own story. It's focus isn't on providing a worthwhile experience. It wants to build a foundation for whatever marketing plans the publisher has for its future. It hurts to see a visual novel look at anime and hold them to a standard while disregarding the strength of its own medium. The writer of the game also wrote part of Aokana (a classic VN in the medium), it's fandisc, and the Kururu series. I hope this VN is just making use of his name for advertising purposes because if this is his writing style then I should be glad I have been putting off reading those other VNs.

Highly recommended if you like girls, magic powers, and battles. Lackgirl is slow to start, but by the end when everything finally pops off with drama and magic battles, it gets so, so good. It ends on a big cliffhanger, but I'm still really excited for when part 2 comes out. It even has gay vibes, especially between the main character Satsuki and her best friend Subaru. I can't say I have faith it will get gayer in part 2 or part 3, but I can hope. I also think with how witches and magic works in this world, there can be neuro divergent (it even says this in the codex) and queer readings of the game. However, I feel conflicted about that, since that gets really weird and messy considering they basically have superpowers.

Mostly plot setup and character introduction, with only one character (the stoic one) having a significant resolution. Characters are brimming with personality (praise the voicework) while having depth. The combat is mostly mind games interspersed with abstract descriptions of energy gathering, a bit more stiff then i would've liked, but still interesting.A lot of emphasis is placed on the characters' emotions of apprehension and dread towards it with one description being especially visceral [spoiler] (poor Subaru) [/spoiler]. Lots of potential in character arcs (including romance with heavy yuri subtext). A good experience overall, albeit an incomplete one, with hopefully more to come.