Les Contes Magiques ~ Marie Lévesque ~ is an upcoming fantasy otome game.

"You play as Marie Lévesque, a 2nd-year student at the prestigious Institut de Sorcellerie. Since the beginning of civilization, this institute was built as one of many other guardian towers, meant to both train and employ defenders.

At first, Marie found her experience there to be rather easy-going. However, something ominous appears over the horizon. A female student goes missing and then is found dead... and subsequently, others fall to the same horrifying fate. What exactly is going on here?"

French is actually my new language learning goal at the moment, so the title immediately caught my eye. (Eh? C'est francais, n'est-ce pas? C'est semble très intéressant!) Okay, I have no idea if my French grammar made any sense there. Hahaha. I wholeheartedly apologize, as I am currently in an awkward stage where I can understand most things that I read, but I cannot produce any words of my own yet. Yeah, I'm like a baby learning her first language. :)

But, anyway! Although that's my main reason for checking out this game, the real reason why I downloaded the demo is because... oh my gosh, just look at that intriguing description! I knew I had found a game meant for me when I read that summary.

First impressions aside, let's see if it'll live up to [my] expectations, alright?

Now, I know I'm not the best writer around... heck, I'm actually just a decent (at least, I hope?) one, hahaha, but I just wanted to say that my honest-to-goodness first impression on the writing in this game is that it's quite... awkward, to say the least.

This is the first sentence of the game: "I jumped onto the soft, fluffy bed and sighed. It wasn't quite as comfortable as the one back home, but it suited well enough." Suited what? Suited who? The next one is, "As I rolled around on the bed, my thoughts quickly turned towards imagining about the future." I can't pinpoint it exactly, but I know that there's something that needs to be revised in that sentence. Okay, maybe it's not a need, per se, but it could sound a lot better if only it was edited.

So, basically, what I'm saying is, though the writing's not bad (no, really, I quite enjoyed it), I do think it would benefit from further proofreading and revisions. :)

Story-wise, though, I just love this visual novel! Even though I'm already getting pretty old (hahaha), I still do enjoy a good story in a school setting, just like this one. In here, the protagonist, Marie Lévesque, is a transferee at a new school, the Institut de Sorcellerie. See, this visual novel is set in a school, AND it has magic. Perfect for me! I am such a fan of magical stuff, it's almost crazy. If you notice, most of my favorite visual novels are actually fantasy. =)

As for the characters, they were all pretty likeable to me! I quite liked the protagonist, Marie. She doesn't come across as too strong, yet she's not a weak character either. I say she's a good balance with her personality. Anyway, there are only two romanceable options in this game, so it's quite hard for me to pick which one I like better. They are both so crush-worthy!

Antoine leBlanc is absolutely adorable, even though he's hopeless at alchemy. He sounds super sweet, as well, and I'd love to spend more time with him! Errrr... in-game time, of course! He does have his creepy moments, though, like when he asks to visit Marie in her dormitory! Lady, you just met the guy. Can you please not give him so much information about yourself? "You wouldn't last a minute in the real world with that kind of careless attitude, my dear," my father always tells me, and I'd like to say the same thing to Marie. Then again, Antoine is a guy you'd feel instantly comfortable with, I think. I just love the scene where he and Marie [insert spoiler here]. That was such a cute scene. <3

Meanwhile, Corentin Chevalier is also quite a cutie! For his introduction, we see him tending to baby hummingbirds, which is really sweet of him, in my opinion. Even though, of course, a grown-up dude like him would never admit that they actually like cute things. =) But I guess, as an animal lover, it's a guy like Corentin that truly captures my hea-- whoops, sorry for being so cheesy! Hahaha. Anyway, as of now, I think it's Corentin that I like better, believe it or not. He's kind of like my type, now that I think about it.

Art-wise, I'd let you guys decide for yourself, with the screenshots above. However, personally, I find this game's art to be really beautiful! <3 They're simply gorgeous, at least for me. And oh, look at that GUI! It's polished and it fits the theme of this game (kinda magic-y, kinda royal) perfectly.

Even the soundtracks are quite nice! Overall, the music reminds me of the older Pokemon games, which made my playthrough a pretty nostalgic experience. =) I'm not sure, but I think they're custom music, though. I do hope these tracks will make it to the final release!

Surprisingly, I also liked the stat-raising aspect, even though I usually dislike it on most other games. :) Here, it was handled pretty nicely, I think? Or perhaps it was the nice graphics that got to me. Nevertheless, I do wish there was a hover text over the choices so that the players would know what exactly they're clicking. :) 

As for other features, this game will also include battles although it's not yet implemented in the demo. Another feature is the ability to cook, which I actually liked!  For my first time cooking, I got to make a Toasted Bun. Yippie! For my second try, though, I failed to make anything, so I suppose my Toasted Bun was just Beginner's Luck. Hahaha.