Is the player character a boy or a girl?

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Just cause I like Yuri more than playing as my own gender.

[rincewind]

Being invited to an academy of Magical Girls seems to imply that you're a female.

Which I absolutely prefer, because Yuri is my thing. And Magical Girls and Yuri are a good synergy.

[Palatine Katinka]

According to the curator Hella Yuri you can play a girl.

[Tommy]

You can pick your own gender at the start of the game.

Though I wouldn't be so hype about it. Even if you can pick to be a girl the dialogue is cleary written with a male protagonist in mind. Actually, I would even prefer going for a boy since you're going to be facepalming super hard when you adress people as "..dude" or "..man" every fifth sentence as a girl. Even though the general idea should imply that girl is a more fitting of a choice, the dialogue cleary isn't. So far it seems like the change of the gender is basically just a filler choice for the sake of it. I bet the dialogue is basically the same both ways.

[infellune]

Originally posted by Tommy:

You can pick your own gender at the start of the game.

Though I wouldn't be so hype about it. Even if you can pick to be a girl the dialogue is cleary written with a male protagonist in mind. Actually, I would even prefer going for a boy since you're going to be facepalming super hard when you adress people as "..dude" or "..man" every fifth sentence as a girl. Even though the general idea should imply that girl is a more fitting of a choice, the dialogue cleary isn't. So far it seems like the change of the gender is basically just a filler choice for the sake of it. I bet the dialogue is basically the same both ways.

Actually, the dialogue is a bit different when you a playing as a girl. Like in the beginning they say for the boy how it's weird for them to be going to a magical girls school and if you're the girl, they don't mention this and even the friend sees you as a girl. But, and this is a big but, it doesn't make me feel like I'm playing a girl. I think they only changed a few lines because when I'm playing as a girl I just feel like the boy. The way it's written is clearly now for a girl. I'm upset by this. Honestly, just wished they stuck with the boy and not fake us out. Another game did this as well, but they did a better job when you play as a girl, making you feel like you're a girl. Oh well...

But yeah, ,if you buy it for the Yuri, you may want to skip it. I don't consider it a yuri game

[rincewind]

That's what I was afraid of. And why I usually avoid games with chooseable gender.
A shame, because looked really nice.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by rincewind:

That's what I was afraid of. And why I usually avoid games with chooseable gender.
A shame, because looked really nice. :sarah5:

Considering you have Kikitama and Ooi as your profile pic, I'm not surprised.

[Shade Desir]

Originally posted by infellune:

Originally posted by Tommy:

You can pick your own gender at the start of the game.

Though I wouldn't be so hype about it. Even if you can pick to be a girl the dialogue is cleary written with a male protagonist in mind. Actually, I would even prefer going for a boy since you're going to be facepalming super hard when you adress people as "..dude" or "..man" every fifth sentence as a girl. Even though the general idea should imply that girl is a more fitting of a choice, the dialogue cleary isn't. So far it seems like the change of the gender is basically just a filler choice for the sake of it. I bet the dialogue is basically the same both ways.

Actually, the dialogue is a bit different when you a playing as a girl. Like in the beginning they say for the boy how it's weird for them to be going to a magical girls school and if you're the girl, they don't mention this and even the friend sees you as a girl. But, and this is a big but, it doesn't make me feel like I'm playing a girl. I think they only changed a few lines because when I'm playing as a girl I just feel like the boy. The way it's written is clearly now for a girl. I'm upset by this. Honestly, just wished they stuck with the boy and not fake us out. Another game did this as well, but they did a better job when you play as a girl, making you feel like you're a girl. Oh well...

But yeah, ,if you buy it for the Yuri, you may want to skip it. I don't consider it a yuri game

yes..... not even simple dating sim this game is remind me ofdoki doki

[PocketYoda]

Both, at the start you get to choose a male or a female..

Originally posted by rincewind:

That's what I was afraid of. And why I usually avoid games with chooseable gender.
A shame, because looked really nice. :sarah5:

That's funny because i tend to avoid Yuri..

[FieryJack65]

I played it as a girl and the dialogue didn't bother me too much at the time but, thinking back, the reactions of the girls during the beach scene in particular were obviously aimed at a male protagonist and didn't make a lot of sense when directed at a female MC unless she had already established some sort of unsavoury reputation as a voyeuse. Which she hadn't.

[niniusnunius]

I chose the "girl" appearance but still in a Yui event I got called a "gentleman friend" and in Hikari event the MC thought to themselves "we have a BROTHER and sister relationship"... And the dialogue with Shin implies I'm a male all the time. It's quite bothersome. Why make the option for a female MC when it apparently isn't the case?

Plus, it's a bit awkward that even tho I'm supposed to be as female as others, they call me a perv/creep all the time...

[FunkyBacon]

Eugh... the poorly (un)edited 'girl' dialogs really break the immersion when it is so obviously written for a male character. Truly dissapointing.
Not even thinking of her as a trans character helps enough to get past the lack of edits in some scenes and events. >.<

[Nicea]

Honestly fact that dialogue and events were designed for a male makes most seance. There are usually no powerful male characters in these worlds for female players to lust over and lesbians are so small demographic it's not profitable to market towards them. Most profitable target audience for this type of setting and game is males anyway. MC female choice given in the game may not be good but I have seen way worse. Just be glad what you got or find another game.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Nicea:

Honestly fact that dialogue and events were designed for a male makes most seance. There are usually no powerful male characters in these worlds for female players to lust over and lesbians are so small demographic it's not profitable to market towards them. Most profitable target audience for this type of setting and game is males anyway. MC female choice given in the game may not be good but I have seen way worse. Just be glad what you got or find another game.

The problem is that usually, when a boy appears in a Magical Girl work, they're either a love interest for the main heroine (e.g. Tuxedo Kamen), a genderbent super mode (e.g. Tailred), or both (e.g. La Pucelle). Having a faceless male as the protagonist is a VN trope, and lazy male-to-female writing drags the game down and PREVENTS immersion, not enables it. Hyperdevotion Noire is another game that had a serious problem with that. Most modern Magical Girl works have an all-female cast with explicit or implied yuri, both anime (e.g. Madoka Magica, Yuki Yuna) and video games (e.g. Neptunia, Senran Kagura).

Basically, this game isn't 'Magical Girls in a VN', it's 'A VN with Magical Girls'. I'd rather play Date A Live Rio with it's better characters.

[Nicea]

Madoka is a bad example because it is a lightning in a bottle creation. Perfect visuals, perfect characters, perfect plot. Have you watched Magia records. I actually got bored during Mami fight somehow. We live in a world where boring Mami fight actually exists. That requires actual talent to fail so completely. I think only one director in the project actually knows what hes doing. Rest should have been fired after first episode they made.
Cannot comment on Yuki Yuna never watched it but it is now on my lists to watch next.
Never played Neptunia or heard about it. I know about Senran Kagura it is on my list to play at some point.
It is obvious I know less about Magical girl shows than you so I'm not going to debate what is popular and what is not on larger scale. I'm just approaching from practical stand point that if you are going to make a magical girl game and most of the audience for these games are males. Why not insert MC as a male in to the story so largest portion of the audience can interact with girls in the game as a self insert.
Also after my long history of playing RPG's I think we should not have options in game to play with gender of our choosing. Simple reason is more variation you have in MC more it is going to flood game developments work load with pointless repetition that serves nobody and makes producing the game more expensive and harder to pull off. Considering this game is really dry on visual content that has MC interacting with NPC's. Pulling off decent female character with minor cost would have been possible maybe. Even then if they botched it. I guess it was too much to ask. What a shock who would have seen that coming.
Am I saying don't make games with any specific gender? No. I'm saying when you are making mc gender needs to support mc's role in the story. If you make genders interchangeable in the story you also make them irrelevant. Not to mention if you pick one you can do more with the gender you are choosing because you don't need to remake every visual asset or scene for both genders.
Are there games where both gender options are decently made? Yes. They also usually have entire army's of game creators behind them and budgets that easily rival modern blockbuster movies. Not something feasible for a small to medium company.

[Winged Archon]

Originally posted by Nicea:

Honestly fact that dialogue and events were designed for a male makes most seance. There are usually no powerful male characters in these worlds for female players to lust over and lesbians are so small demographic it's not profitable to market towards them. Most profitable target audience for this type of setting and game is males anyway. MC female choice given in the game may not be good but I have seen way worse. Just be glad what you got or find another game.

I largely agree with you.
Even though there's some full scenes that stand out, such as the aforementioned Beach Scene, I'm still fully capable to overlook the dialogue where its targeting a boy, eventhough one might play as a girl. There's been games out there where it was far worse and more precisely in very obnoxious and blantant ways. HTDAMG is still quite subtle with a lot of scenes in such way where it can be overlooked, or is left sufficiently ambiguous.
Outside of the dialogue with Shin or the Beach Vacation (which was a little cringy), it was really detracting me from 'enjoying' the story and advancement of it.