Magical Girl Witch Trials

Magical Girl Witch Trials
Title art
Developer(s)Re,AER
Artist(s)Umemaro[1]
Writer(s)Acacia[1]
Composer(s)SLAVE.V-V-R[1]
Platform(s)
ReleaseJuly 18, 2025[1]
Genre(s)Mystery Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player[1]

Magical Girl Witch Trials (Japanese: 魔法少女ノ魔女裁判, Hepburn: Mahō Shōjo no Majo Saiban) is a 2025 mystery adventure[2] game by Re,AER, a scenario writing company. The game is currently available on Steam, and a Nintendo Switch version is releasing in Spring 2026.[3] In Japanese, the game is also abbreviated as "Manosaba".[1]

Gameplay

The Witch Trial phase, where there is an option to object to a claim made

Magical Girl Witch Trials is a mystery adventure game in which players first see events in the perspective of Sakuraba Ema, and then a different character in the second part of the story. The gameplay is similar to Danganronpa in flow.[4]

The gameplay comes in cycles of four phases. In the first phase, the story continues with the magical girls interacting with each other. The character the player controls can choose rooms to go to, where a set of stories will play. During the dialogues, the controlled character may be prompted to choose an action to take out of two or more choices, in which all but one of the choices leads to a bad ending. In the second phase, one of the magical girls is found murdered by another, and the player searches for clues and collects testimonies. In the third phase, a Witch Trial is held to identify the murderer. There is a time limit on how many times dialogues can be repeated, and taking too much time results in an automatic game over. During this phase, the player has to actively interact with the trial to point out lies and inaccuracies, or the wrong magical girl will be executed, and the protagonist will die in various ways after the wrongful execution. The magical girl found guilty will be executed, and the gameplay reaches phase four, which directly connects with the first phase. The gameplay repeats until the scripted story reaches an end.[1][2]

Synopsis

Sakuraba Ema, a supposed-to-be high school student, finds herself waking up in a prison cell, sharing the same room with Nikaido Hiro, who was one of her friends but the relationship soured. A total of 13 girls are jailed, and the warden informs them that they are jailed because they have elements of witch, posing threats to the public. The prison would galvanize them into actual immortal witches, who would be unable to withhold the impulse of murder and kill others. A witch trial will be held to determine the culprit and the identified girl would be executed and become immortal remains. The warden directs the prison guard to behead Nikaido Hiro, who dares to contradict them. The remaining 12 girls live on but murders happen nonetheless. By the end of the game only Sakuraba Ema and Hikami Meruru survive. Meruru reveals that she is in fact the executive party of the prison pretending to be a prisoner, whose goal is to seek out the great witch among the people. Meruru shows Ema the photograph of the great witch, which Ema surprisingly discovers to be Tsukishiro Yuki, a deceased friend of hers. Remembering her mental trauma, Ema awakens her magic power of killing witches and destroys the world.

At the end of the ending credits the game suddenly rewinds. Nikaido Hiro wakes up in the jail. Hiro’s magic is death rewinding. After being beheaded, she rewinds herself to the morning of her death. Hiro used to have close relationships with Ema and Yuki, but her relationship with Ema deteriorated after finding out that Ema was pretending to care for Yuki, even betrayed Yuki when she was abused by classmates, forcing Yuki to suicide. The second run features Nikaido Hiro as the protagonist, but murders still happen; Hikami Meruru even becomes the first murder victim. Hiro gradually becomes a witch under pressure, but also finds out that Yuki is not merely an abuse victim; she had been actively spreading the witch elements among humans with a conspiracy to kill all people. Hiro plans to apologize to Ema but Ema is murdered first. Hiro later learns from an arcane book that in order to summon the great witch, all 13 witches should hold a ceremony. She overcomes her mental trauma and commits suicide, returning to the very first day of confinement.

Nikaido Hiro wakes up in the jail as a witch barely withholding her desire to kill. She demands an immediate witch trial. During the trial Hiro manages to uncover everyone’s mental trauma and turns everyone into witches. The ceremony is held and the great witch Tsukishiro Yuki is summoned from the ashes. Yuki reveals herself as the only surviving native witch after humans’ active prosecution of the witches. She seeks revenge by spreading witch elements to all humans and activating the witch-killing magic to eliminate everyone. The girls persuade Yuki to give up her revenge plan and retract all witch elements. Yuki later commits suicide herself, with Meruru willingly dies with her. The girls and immortal remains of previous intakes gradually recovers and are finally allowed to leave the prison on their free wills.

Development

The development of the game was partially funded by crowdfunding via CAMPFIRE, which aimed to increase the quality of the game.[5] The crowdfunding began on April 19, 2024 and lasted until the end of June.[6] The crowdfunding reached approximately 33.4 times the amount needed, and the game received full voice acting as a result.[7][8] Among the voice actors for the characters is Ryūsei Nakao, who has voiced Frieza.[9]

Reception

Reviewers for the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu positively noted the unique characteristics of the girls, which made it easy to remember them. They also noted the guiltiness and satisfaction from the gameplay.[2] On Steam, 95% of the players rated the game positively, with reviews praising the characters' designs and the quality of artworks in the game.[10] A reviewer for Dengeki Online noted that the game properly reveals the details of characters who die early into the game, which is rare for death game scenarios. They also praised the emotional storyline and noted that they were immersed in the gameplay.[11]

The Steam version of the game was the best-selling game in Japan on July 25.[12][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "魔法少女ノ魔女裁判 公式". 魔法少女ノ魔女裁判 公式 (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2025-07-25. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  2. ^ a b c "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』レビュー。13人のうち誰かを指名して処刑しなければ全員処刑の魔女裁判で、少女たちの罪を暴くミステリーアドベンチャー | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com". ファミ通.com (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2025-07-30. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  3. ^ "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』Switch版が2026年春に発売決定。"魔女"を炙り出すために処刑対象を選定していく議論アドベンチャー（ファミ通.com）". Yahoo!ニュース (in Japanese). Retrieved 2025-08-06.
  4. ^ "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』は、「かわいそうはかわいい」だけでは終わらない―"圧倒的に好評"も頷ける高品質なデスゲーム系ADV【プレイレポ】（Game Spark）". Yahoo!ニュース (in Japanese). Retrieved 2025-08-18.
  5. ^ "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』魔法少女たちに紛れる殺人犯（魔女）を炙り出す魔法議論アドベンチャー、Steamストアページ公開。2025年発売予定 | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com". ファミ通.com (in Japanese). Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  6. ^ "初報2週間で2万フォローを達成したADVゲーム「魔法少女ノ魔女裁判」のクラウドファンディングが本日19時よりスタート！". Gamer (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2024-12-23. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  7. ^ "魔法議論ミステリ×ADVデスゲーム『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』を、最高の形で届けたい！". camp-fire.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  8. ^ "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』13人の少女たちから1人ずつ"処刑対象"を見つけ出す残酷ミステリー、発売日が7月18日に決定 | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com". ファミ通.com (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2025-07-27. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  9. ^ ヨシムネ (2025-05-05). "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』Steam版の発売日が「7月18日」に決定。仲間のなかから"魔女"をあぶり出して「残酷に処刑」する不穏な推理ゲーム注目作、発売に先駆けてタワレコ・アニメイトでのグッズ物販イベントも開催予定". 電ファミニコゲーマー – ゲームの面白い記事読んでみない？ (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2025-05-30. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  10. ^ "Steam最高評価ランク達成の魔女裁判ミステリーADV『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』リリースから約3日で販売本数3万本". Game*Spark - 国内・海外ゲーム情報サイト (in Japanese). 2025-07-23. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  11. ^ "『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』レビュー。魔女処刑の"共犯者"になってみませんか？ 疑心暗鬼、嫉妬、極限状態で魔法少女たちの闇を暴く". 電撃オンライン (in Japanese). Retrieved 2025-07-28.
  12. ^ @13witch_Trials (July 26, 2025). "昨日、魔法少女ノ魔女裁判が、Steamランキングにおいて日本国内ランキング１位を達成しました。" (Tweet). Retrieved July 26, 2025 – via Twitter.
  13. ^ "CF6600万円、Xフォロワー14万人超の話題作『魔法少女ノ魔女裁判』が大ヒット…国内Steamセールスランキングで2位に登場 | gamebiz". gamebiz【ゲームビズ】 (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2025-07-23. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
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