Check out the full game review: My Magical Demon Lover – BL Game Review
Fuck a demon gain his powers, I shit you not, this is the premise of Yaoi Press‘s upcoming 18+ BL fantasy visual novel, Magical Demon Lover. The game follows Tristan, a young man who must take on a powerful demon lover in order to gain amazing magic powers and become a fabulous wizard! If you’ll remember, I covered the Indiegogo campaign for this game a little while ago and now it’s finally time to test out the goods!! Magical Demon Lover will be a commercial release available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android!
I’m always down for a good romp into the wonderful world of BL/Yaoi, so when Yaoi Press hit me up, I happily clicked that download faster than you could say ‘Power Bottom’. Because, who doesn’t like a good BL supernatural fantasy?!
Synopsis
Tristan dreamed of being a wizard his entire life. He’s the great grandson of the wizard who protects his village and the first one to show any affinity for magic in three generations.
After waiting fiveever for his great grandfather to take him as his apprentice it’s finally happened! He’s been summoned up to the tower where his great grandfather watches over the village. But it’s not what he expects…
Percival has no intention of mentoring him. He’s eager to leave for a smutty vacation from his village-protecting duties. Tristan needs to take over, and that means picking a mentor from three demons Percival lined up for him.
The demons will give Tristan the magic he needs to become a wizard, but for a price! …His butt.
Fortunately these demons love humans and really want to connect with one. Tristan has a chance to fall in love with one of three demons, but which one will he chose?
First, this demo is really short, you can get through the whole thing in about 30 minutes give or take, it basically introduces players to Tristan, his motivations, the three demon lovers albeit briefly. Usually, I’d complain about the short run time, but for a game like this, less is more, the story is pretty straightforward, Tristan wants to be a wizard, the only way for him to do that involves the guy playing power bottom to three magical demons. The demo ends just after Tristan chooses one of the three demon lovers for his wizarding masters, there is a brief smutty scene with each demon, with an equally hot CG. The credits roll. The End.
Mind you, this is not the first visual novel I’ve played with demons/incubi as the main love interests, there’s Seduce Me 1 & 2 and My Cute Demon Crashers for that… so, this is not a new premise, however, this is the first BL game I’ve played with this premise. I’ve said this before, but BL games tend to fall into one of two camps, either they are angsty drama llamas with just a hint of tragedy for taste OR they’re campy lighthearted fare, Magical Demon Lover falls into the latter category. I mean the opening lines of the game are,
“One Morning…as I was fapping in my bedroom…”
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but that is how you kick off a BL game *slow clap* roll credits! Hell, the first choice in the game is whether or not Tristan should continue beating his morning wood or put it away and kick start his magical journey and it is this level of humor that made this demo rather entertaining. It knows what it is and rather than trying to play it straight, it has a lot of fun with the source material.
By their very definition, demos are a work in progress, some assets just aren’t ready by the time the demo is released, so there are always a few inconsistencies here and there… CGs that don’t fit in with the scene or dialogue that leads nowhere. And don’t get me wrong, the demo of Magical Demon Lover has more than a few, but, rather than just explaining them away, the demo actually pokes fun at them, with a bit of fourth wall breaking and it works, so props for creativity!
The characters are pretty by the book, Tristan is an everyman protagonist whose mundane life is flip turned upside down when his powerful wizard great grandpa, Percival, asks him to house sit while he goes on a 100 year sexcapade in the Pleasure Realm. Tristan plays the straight man (quite literally) to his eccentric great grandpa, who is probably the strongest member of the cast. The demons are only around very briefly, but you get a fairly good idea what kinds of characters they are without having to spend much time with them. Harse is a kind hearted demon, who just wants to lavish affection on a human lover; Karn is a Do-S looking for a human to tease; and Soren… has a clothing fetish (?) They each offer up some interesting storytelling opportunities, especially Soren, I’m really curious to see how his route goes given his unusual sexual tastes…
Stylistically the game is appealing, since it takes place in a fantasy setting, many of the character designs reflect that style; tunics, slacks, wizard robes, capes… etc. The demons have the most interesting designs, or rather, the most “eye catching” as their clothing or lack there of serves to show off their rather toned physiques… trust I am not complaining, because homeboys are fine.
The music was probably the weakest part of the demo for me, because it sounds like someone took rave music and ran it through the blender a few times. When I first started the game, the music scared the shit out of me, so I highly recommend turning the volume down a bit. It’s definitely different from the music in other games I’ve played, but it does grow on you after awhile…
My Magical Demon Lover is a standard visual novel, so there aren’t any special features to talk about, the gameplay mostly focuses on Tristan’s interactions with the demons. While I like games with additional features, I will say that the less is more approach to this game is appreciated, since some BL games have been known to rely on gimmicks and whatnot to supplement weak storytelling, which isn’t the case here.
The final version of the game promises some steamy scenes between Tristan and the demons, and if the few scenes we got in the demo are any indication of what’s to come, they are bound to hot.
My Magical Demon Lover isn’t the first game I’ve played with supernatural elements, but it’s still a rather enjoyable demo. The characters are likable and the premise is interesting: fuck a demon become a wizard, it doesn’t get simpler than that. This is a BL game so most folks are going into this expecting it to be a lot of fanservice and sex, and the demo definitely has that in spades, but, rather than shying away from that, My Demon Lover embraces it. It’s a very self aware, and that is what made this demo so much fun for me, it doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t, everything is pretty much laid out in the open and perhaps that’s what we need… I dunno, maybe I’m just talking out of my ass again, but for what it’s worth, the demo is definitely worth a playthrough if you are a diehard BL/yaoi fan.
With an opening like that, I can only imagine what the writers/developers meetings must have been like!
“This is very important, team: how should we kick off the game?”
“MORNING WOOD!!!!”