This review will contain no explicit spoilers about the storyline, but information about the game (e.g. type of & number of characters, personalities, core gameplay elements, story themes, etc.) will be present.
This is the first Android game I’m doing a full review for. I’ve been playing Mystic Messenger for almost two years now (I started on 9 September 2016), and I’m still playing it daily.
What Is It?
Mystic Messenger is, at its core, an otome game. This means that it’s targeted at women, and it features guys (and one girl) for the player to romance. Many otome games are presented in the form of a visual novel, and Mystic Messenger classifies itself as one too.
However, Mystic Messenger isn’t like your typical visual novel where you just click through pages consisting of images with text at the bottom. It instead features a unique gameplay system consisting of chatrooms, text messages, phone calls, and emails.
Mystic Messenger currently has seven different routes that you (often referred to as MC in the Mystic Messenger community) can choose to play. These routes focus on one character (the others are still present, just not the main focus) and lasts for 11 days. Each of these characters have their own personalities and backstories, making them feel very real. There are serious characters, innocent ones, pranksters, socially inept ones, and more. Throughout the course of the game, they’ll showcase their personalities, you’ll get to know them more, understand them more, and find out about their eccentricities.
Each route contains seven different endings. There is one good ending, one normal ending, three bad endings, and two bad relationship endings. These endings are obtained depending on how you treat the people in the route that you are currently in, as well as the number of guests you manage to invite to the party.
There are also two downloadable contents (DLCs) - a two day long Christmas DLC, and a one day long April Fool’s DLC. These DLCs are fun little additions, featuring more of the characters that us MCs love to interact with.
There is also an after story which is unlocked after each route that you complete. This after story tells the story of MC and the character long after the 11 days have ended. It’s a nice conclusion and closure for each of the routes that you play.
On top of that, there’s also a Valentine’s after story, which are relatively short visual novels of MC going out on dates with each of the characters.
By playing the game normally without skipping anything at all (more on that in the currency section), it can easily last you over two whole months. How awesome is that? If you are a completionist who wants to complete every single ending, then you can expect the game to last at least six months, or even more than a year (due to the difficulty of getting certain endings). I myself am still playing the game to complete the very last ending that I am missing.
Gameplay
Mystic Messenger is a semi-real-time game. Since it features chatrooms, you’ll have to join these chatrooms while they’re open. These chatrooms open at any time during the day, even when you’re trying to sleep at 3am. The chatrooms will be available for you to participate in until the next chatroom is open. For example, if chatroom 1 opens at 12pm, and chatroom 2 opens at 3pm, you can participate in chatroom 1 anytime from 12 to 3pm. If you miss a chatroom, you cannot participate actively in them, but you can still view them, and whoever is in the chatroom will just chat among themselves (or have a monologue). Their conversations can be very different depending on whether you’re inside or not.
At set points in the chatroom, you’ll be given the option to say something. These replies often favour certain characters in the chatroom, earning you “hearts” for that character. At certain points in the route, the number of hearts you have obtained, as well as the choices you have made, will determine whether you advance in the route, or end up with a bad ending.
After each chatroom, there is the possibility of someone calling you, and you are also able to call anyone at any point in time. Story mode also exists after certain chatrooms (as in the image above), and these take the form of the more traditional visual novels that most people are familiar with.
Occasionally, these characters will also send you a text message, and you are able to reply to most of them. You will not be able to send a message first though - you can only reply.
The email system exists for you to invite and manage guests for the party that happens on the last day of every route. These guests ask you three questions, and the likelihood of them going to the party depends on how many you answer correctly.
Music And Voice Acting
This is so good I’m giving it its own section.
Most of the story modes/visual novel modes are also fully voiced (in Korean), and I really have to say that the voice actors for Mystic Messenger did an amazing job. I don’t understand Korean at all, but I can feel the sadness, pain, and happiness in their words.
Mystic Messenger also has a great soundtrack. The main composer is called Flaming Heart, and he really did a great job making soundtracks and themes that match the personality of the characters. In one of the routes, he even made two themes that have the same melody, but with a different tone that matches the character. How amazing is that?
Currency
As with any free to play game, there needs to be some sort of real money currency available. In Mystic Messenger, that currency is the hourglass.
These hourglasses are required to make phone calls, load a saved game, unlocking more save slots (you get four for free), advance further into the route without waiting, participating in missed chats, and unlocking additional routes, DLCs, and after stories.
While that might sound extremely restrictive, rest assured that it is entirely possible to play the game without spending a single cent (proof is above - I have 1704 hourglasses and everything is unlocked). However, it will be a little difficult to make every single possible phone call present in the game, since doing that will cost a few thousand hourglasses. Another disclaimer is that I have been playing for almost two years. Cheritz (the developer) gave out a lot of free hourglasses in the past due to many game updates, and I benefited from that. A brand new play today will not have such a benefit.
There is another currency called “hearts”, which you will naturally obtain by playing the game. You can exchange 100 hearts for one hourglass. Also, every few hours, you’ll be able to collect anywhere from 0 to 500 hearts and 0 to 3 hourglasses by tapping on the spaceship at the bottom of the menu (see the screenshot above).
There are also two features in the game that can only be bought with cold hard cash. These are the max speed feature and the calling cards. The max speed feature allows you to make the chat bubbles in chatrooms appear extremely quickly. This saves you a lot of time, especially if you are replaying the route to unlock more endings. If you are a fast reader, this feature is very useful. The highest speed setting below max speed can still be rather slow at times - especially with certain characters who type longer, proper sentences instead of sending texts word by word.
The calling cards allow you to make phone calls without the hourglass cost.
About The Story
As visual novel games typically have simple gameplay and strong storylines, not mentioning anything about the story would be rather strange. After all, a visual novel game without a good story is just mindless eye candy. So, I thought I should share a little bit more about what makes Mystic Messenger so good.
No explicit spoilers here, but I will share what kind of themes the story contains, as well as some basic idea of what the story is about. Skip to the next section if you want a 100% pure, untainted experience.
Mystic Messenger features you, the MC, stumbling onto an application that opens the world of Rika’s Fundraising Association (RFA). The character routes that you play are members of the RFA.
In each route, you start to discover that each of the members of the RFA have some sort of problem in their lives. It’s up to you to save them, make them a better person, and make them fall in love with you.
But the story isn’t that simple. MC did not happen to just stumble onto the app, and she definitely did not just stumble into the RFA. There is an antagonist in the game, and he isn’t a simple, generic antagonist. There’s quite a history behind him, and there are many other characters along with him to build this history.
It’s hard to say more without going into spoiler territory, but the themes that the story explores include: depression, suicide, death, grief, mental illness, abuse, and self-esteem. Yes, it can be pretty dark. Of course, there’s the good side, which includes: love, romance, happiness, and reconciliation. Considering that quite a large percentage of players are still rather young, I believe that not everyone who plays the game can fully understand the pain and issues that some of the characters go through. But even then, the characters are fun enough to hang around with, so anyone can enjoy being with them.
I’m not going to say more than that, because I want to keep this as spoiler free as possible. But I think this is good enough tease to give you a rough sense of the depth and type of story Mystic Messenger features.
My Closing Words
Even if you’re not into guys, the characters in the game are a joy to chat with, and you’re guaranteed to get a few laughs here and there. You’ll feel happy for them, sad for them, and you’ll wish you had friends like them. At the end of the whole thing, you’ll understand these characters at such a deep level that you’ll be able to look or hear able an action, and immediately know who are the likely ones to do such a thing.
Go for it.
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Cheritz.MysticMessenger
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/mystic-messenger/id1116027365
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