Mahou Senshi Cosplay Club: The Battle of the Cutest
Behold’s latest TRPG is a rough ride, but one with plenty of charm
It’s an old story — a girl finds a magical sentient backpack belonging to her mother that can turn an ordinary cosplayer into a genuine superhero.
Thus begins Cosplay Club, a spiritual sequel of sorts to the Power Rangers-themed TRPG Chroma Squad. Cosplay Club is taking the same approach to magical girl anime, and anyone familiar with Chroma Squad can guess that there’s more going on here than dressing up and going to conventions.
As with its precursor, Cosplay Club is a TRPG, though the style is very different. The gameplay loop consists of going to conventions, interacting with fans, joining competitions and doing favors for vendors and others in the scene.
Both competitions and quests are conducted through play fights which take place on a gridless field. Special abilities operate on cooldowns that reset after using a standard attack and the turn order is determined by a timeline which many characters can manipulate.
Naturally for a game built around cosplay, designing costumes is a key mechanic. The player can buy, find or earn both patterns and materials to make new costumes. The designer is quite robust, and it’s not purely about aesthetics. The overall design affects how NPCs interact with the protagonist, while the materials determine her combat stats and abilities. For those not interested in the design process, the game offers several templates as well as the ability to download other player’s designs.
Cosplay Club has plenty of potential, but it’s worth noting that the game is in Early Access and has its fair share of bugs as of this recording. There’s plenty of charm here if you’re willing to deal with the occasional problem, but anyone looking for a smoother experience might want to wait for a few months to see how development progresses.
Watch some of the gameplay here:
