I Read Games reviews are me reading games when I have nothing better to do, like read a module or write or play a game. I don’t seriously believe that I can judge a game without playing it, usually a lot, so I don’t take these very seriously. But I can talk about its choices and whether or not it gets me excited about bringing it to the table.

I was going to prepare for a meeting, but I am horribly anxious so instead I read Daisy Chainsaw. Daisy Chainsaw is a magical girl game by Charlotte Laskowsi and only by Charlotte Laskowski, her doing writing, art and layout, and features a striking gory 16-bit aesthetic (at least to my eye). It’s only 74 pages long, and the character sheets have pixelated blood spattered on them.

One of my largest pop culture knowledge gaps are JRPGs (a controversial term I understand, but I don’t know a better one) and this is appears inspired by SNES era games such as Chrono Trigger, as well as magical girl shows of the era such as Sailor Moon, with a good dose of splatter horror. I imagine there’s a source for that as well, but there — another pop culture knowledge gap. Irregardless, this particular melange of influences is a really compelling one, for me at least.

Your characters all have a mundane form of a normal high school girl and their magical form, which was given to them by a mascot, which is a randomly generated NPC that may help drive the action. The game is pretty uninterested in the mundane form, and character creation is a pretty straightforward process of selecting aspects (called weapons, quirks, spells and powers) from a list. These lists are manageably comprehensive, and are broken up by tier, so you get cooler weapon actions as you level up. I get strong impressions is more interested in weapon fights than magic, just from the space spent.

This is a technical combat RPG, and is an interesting one. Manoeuvres and afflictions are flavourful and not cribbed from other games, and play is on a grid. The rules are mainly in the weapons and ability descriptions, which is the way I like it. The main flashy rule is Pushing Your Limits, which means that when you’re suffering from specific dangers you can choose to gain certain buffs. It’s a deadly combat with crowds of mooks where status effects and controlling the battlefield are more important than manipulating it, which feels appropriate to the anime inspiration. I really look forward to figuring out fun combos with these flavourful powers.

But that’s more or less it! Which is my reflection and criticism. I really like what there is of Daisy Chainsaw especially the engaging and compelling combat, and I love games that are brief, but for me this would have benefited from being less brief. I don’t want this book to breeze over the teen angst that is core to the anime and focus solely on the combat. I don’t want only three examples foes. I want either a starting scenario so I can get playing, or some kind of session zero guide so I can do guided collaborative world building as we choose our mascots. I love a good tactical RPG, but for me it needs to be backed up by a little more RPG than this provides.

Oh shoot I didn’t talk about layout yet! It’s basic, single column, aesthetically striking. I like it a lot but it’s not flashy or usable. I really like the art when it’s there but I wish there was more of it. I think pulling in more artists and a layout artist would pay dividends but this’ll do, pig, this’ll do (this is a Babe reference, I’m not calling anyone pig).

That said, what is here is a cool, compelling vehicle for a fun tactical combat magical girls game, that’s flavourful in a way unique to the tactical combat games out there. If you’re the kind of referee that loves building a world out this will suit you fine, and if you’ve a game who naturally collaborates on world building you’ll probably do fine too. But I’m a time poor mother of two, a module lover for a reason. I want there to be punch and vibes from the moment I sit down to the moment we leave the table, with minimal prep, and this game shabby attempt to fill those gaps that I want filled.

For me, this is a really compelling little combat system that’s not strapped to a compelling RPG yet, but the first person to strap this to the personas of DIE RPG, or to a hack of the session one of Apocalypse World but for high school with mascots instead of psychic maelstroms, or just to some basic but solid lore or a starter module, and I’ll be back on Daisy Chainsaw like peanut butter on jelly. And a lot of it is available for free, if you want to check it out before you pony up the cash.

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