Of course, being that this world is magical, there's more to it than the sort of usual life-simmy things. At certain times, known as "Mystery Time," the magical world and the spirit world cross over, and the world is flooded with mysterious creatures, plants, and events. And in order to become a really great wizard, you'll also have to help the various magical creatures who cross into the "real" world with their various problems.
This game has two sequels released in Japan, both of them in which you have to run a shop as well as do your schooling duties. They released a 3DS version that combines all features of the game and its sequels into one game, also only available in Japan.
This game features examples of:
- Ambiguously Human: Daisy at the flower shop. Unlike Roley, who has "proof" of being nonhuman (his sister is a dressmaker's dummy with wheels instead of legs), the most nonhuman thing about her is that her head resembles a watering can... but it could just be an elaborate hat. Some of your classmates are this as well, such as Grace, who has bluish skin but otherwise appears normal, and the "sundae girls," who are either regular girls with crazy costumes, or anthropomorphic ice cream.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: There are 12 houses in your town, but generally only 11 residents.
- Animate Inanimate Object: As mentioned under Cartoon Creature, some of the students and townsfolk are these.
- Artificial Atmospheric Actions: You can sometimes tell what they're talking about by reading the small bubbles over their head.
- Artificial Stupidity:
- Some NPCs will comment about warm weather/sunny days at night.
- While A.I.s will move out of a player's way if they will collide on stairs, they will refuse to budge if you try to get through the stairs when the player character is behind them. Then they get angry at YOU for shoving them, even though they were supposed to move out of the way.
- NPCs will always greet you, even seconds after you finished talking to them.
- Attract Mode: If left on the title screen, screen blanks out and shows what random townsfolk do while you are away.
- Camp Gay: Roley the hairdresser.
- Cartoon Creature: Some of your fellow students and townspeople are Funny Animals, such as bears, cats, and sheep. Others are... other things, like plants, fruit, desserts, and goodness knows what else. One of the standard NPCs, Piquard, is a light bulb.
- Chasing Your Tail: The "Captain Dot" mini-game requires you to attack him from behind after he tries to attack you.
- Chastity Couple: Played literally. In spite of a boyfriend/girlfriend being an aspect in the game, the player character will never hug OR kiss their beloved in the game. In fact, all a relationship does is make the new lover talk to you more frequently, ask to play more, and say loving things to you.
- Combinatorial Explosion: Your chances of figuring out a spell on your own without looking in a guide or going to class are very, very tiny given the amount of magic runes available.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: There is a limit of 2 Best Friends and 2 boyfriends or girlfriends in the game. This is a problem, as a title can be given if 10 people confess to you through this way. This forces the player to break up with fellow NPCs in order to get 100% completion in the game. Ten times. In order to break up with a boyfriend/girlfriend/Best friend, friendship must be at a negative value. This means that one would have to constantly cast prank magic or openly "cheat" on them by playing with other NPCs in front of them. There is no other way to break up with them.
- Cute Monster Girl: Some villagers, inspite of not being human, can look human quite well, even the males. Demi-human NPC villagers are especially this.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: When you fight Captain Dot, you defeat him with an enormous lightning bolt spell you can't use anywhere else. Even the "lightning" spell you eventually get is fairly tame in comparison. Justified in that Mr. Oakley explains that the more evil the target is the more powerful the lighting spell becomes.
- Drop the Washtub: The Metal Basin spell, which drops one onto the affected NPC/player, making NPCs forget what they were doing.
- An Entrepreneur Is You: The
Japan only sequels added a shopkeeping element. The 3DS installment lets you build an entire mall, even! - "Far Side" Island: The Island. Although it is larger than usual, having enough room to comfortably run around, there's still only one tree there. It is where Captain Dot hides out, though.
- Fartillery: Yes, you can learn a spell to make people fart. It also makes ghosts fart and launch themselves into the air, never to be seen again.
- Flying Broomstick: Broomsticks are the transportation du jour in this world, of course. Or at the very least, staves with one flared end are. Amusingly, even the "Taxi Cab" that takes you to the Island is shaped like an enormous "broom."
- Fungus Humongous: Fungi Forest.
- Gay Option: Sort of, since it is possible to have a "bound by a strong connection" relationship with a same-sex classmate. Other students treat this relationship as romantic.
- Green Aesop: The "Mokele-Mbembe" mystery has the titular creature become a sludgy, frightening beast because people were dumping trash in the river. After it's over, all your classmates discuss how they should take better care of the environment.
- 100% Completion: Two variations, one for completing all mysteries and another for collecting all wizard titles
- Idol Singer:
- Some types of your classmates want to become them. Or even believe they are!
- Is actually name of a personality for female students. The male variation is called narcissistic.
- An Interior Designer Is You: Not only can you decorate all the dorms, but you can also furnish the garden on the roof with plants and furniture.
- Interspecies Romance: Unless your town has one of the rare "human-looking" NPCs (it's never outright stated exactly what they are), this will probably be the fate of the PC and whoever they end up with. It happens between the other townspeople, too.
- Kappa: One mystery has you befriending one.
- Life Simulation Game: It's even more pronounced than Animal Crossing as this game allows dating.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Some of your classmates actually look like they could be human, just with Impossibly Cool Clothes. Some of them are definitely animals, though.
- Mad Libs Dialogue: Text-based, but still essentially the same idea. It's a bit imperfect, too, leading to your townpeople occasionally spouting gibberish like "I heard that Troper and Freya a hero."
- Mook Bouncer: The ghosts in the Haunted House.
- My Local: Limelight. Although they mostly serve juice.
- Offscreen Teleportation: In some areas, leaving and entering will make NPCs teleport back to their home, only to exit the home and walk back.
- Planet Heck: The Hellhound mystery has you going to Hades, who is located in the underworld, to escort the creature to.
- Princesses Prefer Pink: A variant, as the "Princess" themed furniture is all pink.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Most of the overworld music riffs on classical pieces, such as "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies," "Beautiful Dreamer," and others. Most of the original compositions are available as music for you to play in your room or on an instrument... but there's a lot of those.
- Reality Warper: The Mystery door in the dorm room.
- Relationship Values: You can get both "best friends" as well as a "boyfriend/girlfriend," though some contexts will treat both best friends and boyfriends/girlfriends the same way.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Kesaranpasaran, a pink puffball creature found only in Mystery Time.
- Save Scumming:
- Lampshaded and averted. You're warned the first time by Reginard that closing the game without saving goes against rule 99 in school regulation (even if the game freezes). If you do reset the game (by means mentioned above) without saving, expect said NPC to force you into cleaning. At least it is less annoying than a certain NPC that rants on for a long time for not saving.
- This might also be in effect due to one mystery that involves guessing which one of 3 gnomes are telling the truth. If you miss, you'll have to wait until you go through ALL of the mysteries to try again.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: And you can talk to him! He seems disgruntled, and he has an Evil Laugh.
- Sewer Gator: Tom the white alligator lives in the sewers.
- Shout-Out: The "Human-Faced Fish" found only in Mystery Time looks like a Super-Deformed version of a fish boss of the same name from Contra: Shattered Solider.
- Speaking Simlish: Everything that talks speaks this, even non-animal NPCs.
- Stalking Mission: The Ogre's minigame requires you to catch him without being seen yourself.
- Stop Poking Me!: Slightly subverted, as talking to an NPC too many times will make them create an excuse to stop talking to you for a little while.
- Talk to Everyone: You actually get a reward if you talk to everyone, every day, for a set number of days.
- Tsundere: The Dullahan mystery has you dealing with a Tsun head. As you tutor it more, it warms up to the player character.
- Token Human: Every NPC is a Funny Animal, inanimate object, or mythological creature. Only player characters are human. There are a few demi-human NPC villagers in the game, though.
- Verbal Tic: All NPC villagers have their own one-liners during conversations.
- Videogame Caring Potential: It's hard not to dote on some of the classmates. And they can dote on you back, too!
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Shock 'em, embarrass 'em, hit them with giant metal basins from god knows where, you can do it all!
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Pranking more than one person at a time per week will cause rumors about you "troubling everyone by always pulling pranks," causing a slight decrease in everyone's friendship upon questioning.
- Violation of Common Sense: Shade's sidequest. "Hello. I am a former Evil Overlord who was imprisoned here by a good wizard! But, uh, I wanna be good now, so please help resurrect me!" ...Rrrrright. And you can do it more than once.
- Virtual Paper Doll: Different hairstyles, accessories, hats, shirts, pants, skirts, coats, and dresses are all available.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: The player character can become this as skirts and dresses can be worn by any gender and haircuts are available for any gender, whether its male or female.
- What the Hell, Player?:
- Not only does it get on you for resetting, if you use certain spells (such as the "lightning" spell) outside of the contexts they're supposed to be used in (in that case, punishing people who use mischievous spells on you), you get in trouble.
- In a hilarious subversion, the PRINCIPAL of the boarding school you're attending will actually award you for using "prank" style magic (lightning, farts) 100 times in the same way he awards academic achievements. Paraphrased:Here is your reward. NOW DON'T DO IT AGAIN.
- Subverted again in order to get the title Forgetful Wizard (forget to save four times), which is needed for 100% Completion.
