Wand of Fortune – first playthrough

When it rains, it pours…I just got Wand of Fortune, just a couple days after receiving Arco Baleno, Kazeiro Surf, and Himehibi 2. I thought it would probably be easy to get into so I started it up, and it’s pretty fun so far. It’s a sim, not just a visual novel, so it’s taking longer than, say, Will o’ Wisp did. But it’s not difficult, or at least I don’t think it is – I’ll find out when I get to end and see if I got Ragi ^_^.

After the introduction, where you meet all the characters and the school staff, as well as get the goal explained to you (to raise your magic stats, as well as get high enough in one element), you start on a regular weekly schedule. You choose where to go in the morning and evening (thankfully you can see where people are before you commit), and you’ll encounter someone on the way to and from school. You can only choose to raise your magic stats in the daytime, since that’s when the instructors are available, but you can raise your elements anytime by choosing one of the guys. Once you meet the guy, you then choose to either raise the element (by studying with them), or talking to them and raising their affection level.

That’s the weekday progression – on Saturday you stay in and rest, and can see your memories and cards, and on Sunday you can go to town as well as wander the campus.

Also, at certain points in the game, there will be special date events which I think are required to complete the guys’ routes.

There are a few other features to the game to enjoy as well:

• Memories – you find these coloured jewels in certain places depending on the guy, and they show you little snippets of his memories
• Card game – a simple card game where, if you beat a character three times, you get a special card that will make them say ‘things they would normally never say’.
• Missions – I’m not sure if these make much difference to the story, but if you choose someone on the map that has a star beside them, you’ll start a mini storyline that will culminate in a ‘mission’ that you do on the weekend, and has a chance to raise the affection of one the guys involved (usually two on each mission).

It seems the game goes through about 20 weeks, and since you have to choose where to go everyday, it takes a bit of time to get through everything. I’m only about halfway through, and I’m going for Ragi. So far there hasn’t been any major angst, but it’s quite fun, and I think once you go through once, other playthroughs will be pretty straightforward.  

So in short, Wand of Fortune is a fun, fairly simple sim otome game that has enough sidequests and events to keep me interested for now, though I’m not sure I want to try doing more than one or two routes in a row.  I’m going to try and finish Ragi’s route tonight, so then I can finally try Himehibi 2!

One Response to “Wand of Fortune – first playthrough”

1. Yamialexa says:

   July 15, 2009 at 3:44 pm

   I know what you mean about it taking some time to play, I just got it a few days ago too. I’m going for Albaro, but I’m only in week 5 or 6 right now.
   I think the missions don’t do anything for the story except stat raising. I didn’t do many of them yet, but some of them are soo funny, I really recommend doing them.