Hello all! I’m back with something slightly different (again). I wanted to write up a piece on Twisted Wonderland – a mobile game where you attend a magic school with students based off of Disney villains. Though honestly sometimes you feel more like a therapist than a student (if you know, you know). I’ve been playing this game for about 5 months now and felt like that’s a good enough amount of time to become familiar with the game, right? Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I would organize this post but I wanted to share my opinions and thoughts on the game since I actually don’t talk about it at all anywhere else (e.g. Twitter). Then let me start with the basics for those that don’t know.
The Story
Summoned by a magic mirror to Twisted Wonderland, a world altogether unlike your own, you arrive at Night Raven College, a prestigious arcane academy. With nowhere else to go, you accept the masked headmage’s hospitality and begin searching for a way home. You quickly find that the students of this school are as talented as they are dysfunctional – bickering and competition are the perpetual order of the day.
Will you be able to work with them and eventually return from whence you came? And what secrets lie within the villainous hearts of these students?
Disney Twisted Wonderland Official English Website
So just as the above says, you’re transported into the world of Twisted Wonderland and after crashing the new student ceremony amongst causing other misunderstandings, you have little choice but to accept headmage Crowley’s offer to stay at Night Raven College until he can find a way to send you home (a responsibility I quickly learn he slacks off on constantly). Along with your newfound and reluctant cat-like demon (?), Grim, the two of you live in Ramshackle Dorm (yes, it’s has run down as it sounds) and quickly get dragged into the messes of the student body.
And let’s not forget that you’re dealing with all these messes and troubles without any magic of your own. It’s a wonder that you, as the protagonist, aren’t dead the first day of classes. But you know, plot armor.
Anyways, the main story is divided into books with each book having you become more familiar with the students of Night Raven College starting with Heartslabyul, a dorm inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Quickly you realize that these students, specifically the housewardens, have major issues they need to work out to the benefit of all. For instance, the housewarden of Heartslabyul is Riddle Rosehearts, a character based on the Red Queen, who is just as a stickler for the rules, no matter as silly or trite, as the queen of hearts herself. Due to having such a narrow-sighted nature when it comes to the rules, Riddle runs the dorm like a tyrant until you step in with the help of Grim and two other Heartslabyul students you met on the first day, Ace and Deuce.
However, sorting out a dorm’s problems is not an easy task when overblotting is an ever present danger. What is overblotting? Overblotting is when a one overuses their magic and lets their negative emotions take over that sullies their wand/magic. Usually when a student overblots, their form can change and they lose control, lashing out at those around them. It is pertinent to quickly help the student return to normal or face grave repercussions.
And with that, you now know what each book in the main story is about. You, usually unwillingly, get wrapped up in another dorm’s business, have to help sort out what the deal is with the housewarden, and somehow defeat them when they overblot where afterwards, they calm down enough to reflect on themselves and their actions.
It sounds simple but so far, I’m really liking the story and each housewarden and dorm is so unique that following the same template doesn’t ever feel boring or trite to me. Well, of course, since the stories are Disney-inspired after all.
Speaking of the houses…
The Houses
There are 7 houses or dorms (whatever you choose to call them) total at Night’s Raven College. They’re as followed:
Heartslabyul
Housewarden: Riddle (CV: Hanae Natsuki)
Vice Housewarden: Trey (CV: Suzuki Ryota)
Other Notable Students: Deuce (CV: Kobayashi Chiaki), Ace (Yamashita Seiichiro), and Cater (Kobayashi Tatsuyuki)
Twisted From: Alice in Wonderland
The dorm based off of Alice in Wonderland is the first dorm you become acquainted with after a rather disastrous run in with Ace and Deuce that lands you in hot water with the headmage on the very first day of classes. I’m talking expel-worthy trouble.
First Impressions: As someone who loves the story of Alice in Wonderland, I thought Heartlabyul would be one of my favorite dorms and its housewarden, Riddle, also intrigued me from the jump. In fact, Riddle turned out to be my first two SSRs I received in the game. I got his dorm uniform from the tutorial gacha pull and my second was his birthday card. So yes, I like Riddle but perhaps only because he was one of the few I vaguely was familiar with when I started playing. I mean, I still like him a lot but I’ve found other characters that grew on me, too.
Speaking of, I do enjoy all the boys in this dorm. At first, I was wary of Ace since that boy was pretty rude at the start making fun of our lack of magic. Though truthfully, I didn’t mind that much. On the other hand, I was also sort of meh towards Cater’s personality and influencer speech considering he uses the Twisted Wonderland equivalent of Instagram – magicam, but he grew on me, too.
All in all, the boys’ alright!
Savanaclaw
Housewarden: Leona (CV: Yuuchirou Umehara)
Other Notable Students: Ruggie (CV: Ichikawa Aoi) and Jack (CV: Ban Taito)
Twisted From: The Lion King
First Impressions: Uh, I think in general we can all agree that the first impression of the boys in this dorm is not that…great. Then again, the first time we meet Leona, we accidentally step on his tail while he’s trying to take a peaceful nap in the gardens so I guess we don’t make a great first impression either. When I was playing the Savanaclaw story, I was kind of wondering how these guys had fans considering how dastardly they were being though if I’m being honest it was quite fun to read through.
But past me, did you forget what game you’re playing? How naive I still was back then. However, not anymore! I’ve learned that most of the students suck when you first meet them. The game’s description was not lying when it said these students have ISSUES.
Anyways, Savanaclaw is cool. I recently started on the Japanese server and picked Leona’s SSR in the tutorial pull cause I’ve grown to like him and his seiyuu is pretty neat too! Like, I’m serious when it comes to his seiyuu. Recently heard him in Romantic Killer (reviewed here) and imagine my surprise hearing Leona’s voice in an anime like that. The man, no, beast (?) would never.
Octavinelle
Housewarden: Azul (CV: Tamaru Atsushi)
Other Notable Students: Floyd (CV: Okamoto Nobuhiko) and Jade (CV: Komada Wataru)
Twisted From: The Little Mermaid
First Impressions: I think when I first saw Octavinelle, it felt very classy. The theme song for the dorm also felt quite fitting in allowing a surprisingly calming vibe reflecting the sea. Although I now know there is more to Octavinelle and honestly seeing the students above should set off any warning bells (especially dear Floyd up there). Really, these people know how to be disarmingly pleasing for their own benefits and it’s kind of scary just how easily you can be suckered by them.
Classy at its finest if I do say so myself. Jokes aside, I can say I also enjoy the Octavinelle trio especially after doing the story chapter for the dorm, I especially grew to like Azul a lot more than before (I mean, I liked him before but more so now). I also just enjoy the the allure of the ocean and the classy vibes of the Monstro Lounge (plus the twistunes in this chapter were great!).
Oh, as I write this, the twins’ birthdays just passed and with birthdays come birthday banners in the gacha, so to those who are still pulling for the both of them – I wish you all the luck!
Scarabia
Housewarden: Kalim (CV: Furuta Kazuki)
Vice Housewarden: Jamil (CV: Futaba Kaname)
Twisted From: Aladdin
First Impressions: I’m not completely sure what I thought of these two at first honestly. I noticed Scarabia had a desert theme going on and as someone who prefers things like water, snow, fall and winter, etc. you can see how Scarabia is the exact opposite of all of those. Thus, wasn’t too sure how I’d feel about the dorm especially considering I’m not sure if I’ve ever properly watched Aladdin.
So would you be surprised if I said I actually picked Kalim as my free SR of choice in the beginning of the game? Why? When he along with the dorm was the exact opposite of my usual tastes? Because if you didn’t know, Kalim is kind of the black sheep of Nights Raven College. This boy is the bright talkative sunshine in messy blackhole of negativity and disdain for your fellow human beings. He can be so nicely dense to the point of annoyance (especially on Jamil’s part), but he always means well. Always. There doesn’t seem to a malicious bone in this boy’s body. Is…is he truly in the right school?
Anyways, can you tell I like Kalim? I actually momentarily forgot I was supposed to explain why I picked him instead of describing him. Ahem, actually I picked him cause of what I just mentioned – he was different. Initially, I was thinking of picking Riddle’s SR but wanted to choose someone I normally would never have thought of picking and Kalim was my choice. It was more of a whim than anything but history was made as Kalim grew to be my favorite of the Night Raven boys.
I also really like Jamil, too, especially after finishing the Scarabia book and seeing the baggage he had to carry all his life. So I guess it’s Scarabia for the win?
Pomefiore
Housewarden: Vil (CV: Aiba Hiroki)
Vice Housewarden: Rook (CV: Itakawa Yojiro)
Other Notable Student: Epel (CV: Tsuchiya Shimba)
Twisted From: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
First Impressions: Well, this dorm is something else. I can’t say much besides I do know that it’s based off Snow White and that to be in Pomefiore one must place taking care of one’s beauty and health first and foremost. If you don’t, you will be chewed out by the housewarden if you like it or not. I only just finished the Scarabia story and so I saw a preview of what the next book, Pomefiore, will be like, and I got to say, Vil looks like he’ll be a major handful to deal with. He kind of reminds me of Riddle except instead of the king of rules, we’re dealing with the queen king of beauty. I have no idea what Vil did to Epel, but in the preview the poor boy was in near tears after apparently escaping from Vil’s clutches.
I’ll admit, I do have a soft spot for Epel because when I first started playing, he had his own personal banner up which I highly admired (he was a beauty) and Epel coincidentally became my first special event SR as the Phantom Bride event had just started. He’s an endearing little thing (but he’d probably not appreciate the coddling).
As for Rook…I’m pretty neutral. I don’t know much about him and he’s not my type style-wise.
Ignihyde
Housewarden: Idia (CV: Uchiyama Kouki)
Other Notable Student: Ortho (CV: Aoi Shouta)
Twisted From: Hercules
First Impressions: Well, considering I like Uchiyama a lot, it’s kind of a wonder I didn’t pick Idia in the beginning as my free SR. I do like Idia though. His personality and appearance is surely relatable, if not a bit intense at times. It’s quite interesting that his personality is offset by his brother’s, Ortho’s, more bright and cheery personality. Yes, I love Ortho a lot as well. He also seems to be an outlier in this school full of selfish jerks and competition-hungry lions, but I’m digressing a bit.
Ignihyde, I feel, should be the dorm for me but according to the many dorm quizzes I’ve taken, it’s probably not considering I only got it one time. Oh well, I look forward to doing the story once I’m able to. So far, the Ignihyde book is only available on the Japanese server and I’m not sure if it’s finished or not (look, I don’t pay attention to these things. I’m still newish).
Diasomnia
Housewarden: Malleus (CV: Kato Kazuki)
Vice Housewarden: Lilia (CV: Midorikawa Hikaru)
Other Notable Students: Sebek (CV: Ishiya Haruki) and Silver (CV: Shimazaki Nobunaga)
Twisted From: Sleeping Beauty
First Impressions: And here comes the infamous Diasomnia quartet. Every single character in this dorm has such intense personalities that they all intimidate me somewhat…except for Silver who seems to be the only “normal” one of the lot. I say this, but the heavy almost unapproachable aura Malleus seems to carry is much less than it should be considering this dude likes to hang out around the Ramshackle Dorm on late nights as if he owns the place (which he surely wishes, I’m sure). He honestly seems pleasant but everyone, even his own dorm mates/guards, tend to forget to invite him to things. It’s a wonder he wasn’t forgotten about and successfully participated in the school exchange in the latest event in the Japanese server, Glorious Masquerade. Anyways, I like him. Wary of him cause I suspect he may be the one to overblot in this dorm…or it could be Sebek…I mean, it’s Sebek.
Speaking of the overzealous Malleus worshipper, he was probably the one student in the game I couldn’t gel with. His Malleus-centric personality causes him to come across as rather callous and rude to those around him if one does not respect, worship, and breath Malleus. Yet, I’m actually somehow slowly growing to understand where he’s coming from and now I’m finding the amusing side of his personality but PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, do NOT lock me in a room with him. I’d never survive.
Anyways, let’s look at the father-son duo next, Lilia and Silver. I was really surprised to find out that Lilia is Silver’s father – a fact that Silver appears to want to keep secret considering he never calls him father in front of others and when he is about to, he instantly corrects himself. Actually, I’m not sure if they’re trying to actively keep it a secret or it’s just not worth the trouble of mentioning. Either way, I was neutral on Silver, but I do like my sleepy boys and I like his seiyuu, Shimazaki, as well so there’s a plus. On the other hand, Lilia is a special case. I really like his personality and enjoy hearing a bit about his background here and there although I feel as if we won’t ever know everything about Lilia and that’s his charm. But what is he? A bat? A dragon? A vampire?? He’s definitely lived for hundreds of years so what’s his story? And why take in Silver? Are they blood-related? So many questions yet to be answered.
If you’ve read this far, then here is a brilliant dorm meme I found on reddit. Credit to: InfernalNightmare333
Game Mechanics
Okay, so the Dorm section was way longer than I thought it would be, so I’ll try to keep this section brief.
Lessons
Besides the story, the other game modes you’ll be visiting frequently are lessons. Lessons consists of 3 classes: history, flying, and alchemy. These classes are pertinent to making your cards stronger and learning about the characters. You pick a study partner, so a student that has a higher chance of scoring higher at the end of a lesson, and 4 other students to join him.
History helps level up your characters and provides level up items per lesson.
Flying helps increase a character’s vignette level. Vignettes are just personal stories each character card has which helps you learn more about the character and other tidbits of Twisted Wonderland. You also get vignette level up items here as well.
Alchemy classes help collect items that increase the power level of your spells. They are also important to take when increasing the buddy level between two characters. Buddy level is really important for combat as it can help you cast stronger spells especially when it comes to duo magic (when another character helps one character cast a spell that usually attacks 3 times in a row over just 2).
It’s up to you to figure out the best use of you energy as you only have 10/10 energy points to use before having to wait for the gauge to refill again. Of course, there are items to refill energy as well, but they’re a bit tougher to collect (ex: store, events, etc.).
Exams
Now, exams are where you can test your team against different spell types which are: water, flora, fire, cosmic, and omni (all the types). It’s great for collecting exam tokens to spend in the store. It’s also a good way to see how your team fares and what you can work on to make them stronger.
However! It’s important to note that exams are only available after you finish book one of the main story. So hurry on up and go help those Heartslabyul boys out, okay?
Twistunes
So, you’ve probably heard about this mechanic as it’s a major part of Twisted Wonderland since it’s present in the main story and events. Twistunes are basically rhythm minigames that you have to complete in order to advance the story. Thankfully, they actually aren’t too difficult and this is coming from someone who sucks at rhythm games (and I took band – the shame). Even if you dislike the rhythm aspect of the game, Twistunes are worth going back to because some of the achievements you can get from completing a certain twistune so many times or getting a high score can led to getting gems for the gacha.
Gacha
Ah, the gacha. Another aspect we can’t overlook when it comes to Twisted Wonderland. It’s the bane of every fangirl and boy’s existence to face the dread of pulling and pulling for their favorite character only to be spooked by another character that they may or may not begin to hate forever.
Anyways, you use gems as currency to pull in the gacha which takes the form of the Mirror you encounter in the beginning of the game. The gacha in Twisted Wonderland has a 100 pull SSR guarantee which sounds like a lot and is especially given how little the game gives you in gems outside the main story and events. It sucks, but must of the time it seems as if you have to save 100 pulls to guarantee pulling an SSR and even then you can and will get another character besides the one you’re trying to pull for. The ONLY banners in Twisted Wonderland where you’re guaranteed the banner character is birthday banners (like the Floyd and Jade one mentioned above). On the other hand, birthdays also provide another form of gacha currency – keys, a bundle of 10 keys for a 10 pull. This Leech banner gave use 2 bundles – bless them.
A lot of people recommend waiting to pull when you have enough gems and/or keys to guarantee an SSR but it’s ultimately up to you and what you feel your luck is. The first time I tried actively going for an SSR was Birthday Riddle back in August and I had to scramble to scrap up enough to hit 100 because he was refusing to come home – the little rascal. I felt my gacha luck in Twisted Wonderland was worse than Genshin Impact.
Yet, during the Halloween Part 1 event, I wanted to pull for Azul’s SR, so I did. Did just one 10 pull on that banner and lo and behold, SSR vampire Vil comes out along with Azul. Now, there were 3 Halloween SSR banners in this event and I had pulled on the previous one (Vil’s was second), but my pity was only around 30-40 before Vil came out. Shockingly, I also pulled SSR Dorm Trey from Cater’s Halloween banner while trying to go for SR Jack.
So kids, the lesson here is that the characters you don’t want will always….always find a way to you, while the characters you really do want will not care for you. Got it? Good. Moving on.
Events
I should’ve have out this after the story but figured that would be a bit messy. This feels better after the gacha because I wanted to talk about something more positive. I have to say that so far, each event in the game I’ve experienced is a gem. As mentioned before, my first event I experienced was the Phantom Bride event where a ghost bride forcefully tries to take Idia as he groom-to-be. Poor guy surely suffered through the event.
But can you imagine a new player like me who knows next to nothing about these guys being introduced to them in an event like that? No one was really willing to help Idia. The jerks had to be kind of coerced into doing it and all failed quite miserably (until Ace had some words to say to the phantom bride). Anyways, it was an amusing jaunt through the story and learning more about how messed up this school is.
Currently, I just started on the Japanese server. I didn’t have to but I wanted a fresh start. I knew more about the game and understood how things worked so starting on the Japanese server would be both a new and old experience if that makes sense. Plus, as a Japanese language learner I have to at least try it out for the learning experience.
The current event that is taking place is called, “The Glorious Masquerade.” And oh boy, is it truly glorious. I’m glad I didn’t miss this one as it appears to be their biggest event of the year (in Twisted Wonderland, Halloween time is a big deal). I’m still working my way through the story but it seems like a really interesting one and I’m looking forward to reaching the end with my rudimentary Japanese literacy skills. I know they’re translators, but I’ll look at that later.
But the main part of these events are, of course, the cards! What SSRs are coming out in Glorious Masquerade, for instance…?
Sweet Jesus…God…why didn’t I start sooner?? I’m so broke still as a new player. Oh well, I still think I’ll try to cautiously throw a 10 pull on Malleus’s banner to try and get Jamil at least (feels like that boy should’ve more SRs). Time to save up for this event on the English server!
Final Thoughts and Wrap-up
That mark’s the end of this abundantly long post on Twisted Wonderland. I hope someone out there took a bit of joy in reading this. I’ve been enjoying Twisted Wonderland immensely lately so I wanted to write about it and my thoughts on almost half a year into playing this game. I’m quite a latecomer since a lot of international players first started playing the game on the Japanese server before the game finally came to English servers back in January of this year.
Truth be told, I did try to get into the game back in February, but the amount of storage the game took up was not enough for me to properly play the game. At the time, I was too lazy and tired to clear up my storage (to be fair, this was around midnight), so I just left the game for another time. That time was June. Now we in November and it’s really hitting me how I enjoy playing Twisted Wonderland and now I’m slowly learning other lore and tidbits of the characters and the world that I just find so interesting and fulfilling to know.
I really really hope I can continue to enjoy this game on both servers and somehow contribute in my own way to the Twisted Wonderland fandom. Here’s to many more months to come as a student at Night Raven College!
Bonus Content: Yana Toboso and Awesome Cosplayers
Okay, this post is long enough as it is but let’s appreciate the art of Twisted Wonderland. The illustrator and character designer of the game is Yana Toboso who is most famous for the manga, Black Butler, which is a series I was a fan of back in the day and something I need to get back to since I never finished! But I digress. Toboso also is the one who also conceptualized the main scenario and ideas of the game which is also really cool.
Some time ago, I found this really great video of Twisted Wonderland cosplayers dancing to a pretty neat song. Seeing the characters come to life through cosplay really is a hell of a thing. Not to mention that the cosplayers stay in character even outside the shoot it seems when you look at the extra footage. I found the video from the twitter account, YuuRei20 who I highly recommend following for all your Twisted Wonderland lore and fun tidbits. And thanks for reading!