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It's almost impossible to judge Magia Record properly.

Just the simple fact that it's part of the Madoka Magica franchise made and makes the expectations extremely high, and needless to say Magia Record is nowhere close to meet these expectations. If you're looking for something to fill the hole the original series left in you, then do yourself a favor and don't watch Magia Record. But that doesn't mean it's a bad anime. If you just look at it as a small extension to the universe you love, then this anime, won't be a memorable experience, but at least a positive one.

First, it's very important ... to mention that the anime's "souce material" is a gacha game. This in itself guarantees that, no, we shouldn't expect a flawless plot or a small but very complex cast of characters. We all know how gacha games work, the story and the characters, the things that make an anime great, are just secondary after something we all know too well, the money. That being said, for a gacha game, Magia Record has a decent story, and can be adapted into a decent anime.


Story:
Honestly, the story in itself is quite good. I was definitely expecting something worse. I'm definitely not a fan of this new, more lighthearted approach they took, but there are more than enough mysteries and secrets to make the setting interesting. However, the problem lies in the writing and in the pacing. Sticking to the anime here, the pacing is just painfully bad. There were episodes where literally nothing meaningful happened and then there were some where they completely rushed the pacing. Without prior knowledge from the game, many things are hard to understand and can confuse the viewers because the anime doesn't take the time to explain these. It almost feels like they expected everybody to play the game before watching the series.

Characters:
Inconsistency is probably the best word to describe the cast of Magia Record. Certain characters, like Yachiyo or Mifuyu are, complex and well written participants of the story, but the majority of the cast is just extremely uninteresting, including our MC, and an uninteresting main character almost always forshadows the quality of the rest of the characters. That being said, there are very amusing and well designed characters, even if they aren't too deep. I have to bring it up again, "gacha game adaption"....

Art:
Now we're getting to the interesting part. We all know that SHAFT, more specifically Akiyuki Shinbo's legendary drug trip animation team was the one working on Magia Record so we're getting the signature trippy style of Madoka Magica. But that's not everything, SHAFT more or less left behind their bad habit and they made the background images unbelievably pretty, I'd even say, the backgrounds are more detailed than the characters or the things we notice first in the scenes. And have no illusions, those are very pretty as well. My personal favourites are the few extremely detailed close shots of the characters faces. One of the disappointing things was the very minimalistic and most of the times short battles but, without spoiling anything, you'll forgive those unmemorable fights because they saved like 90% of the budget for the last episode, where I can confidently say, I've witnessed one of the best animations from recent memory. Overally, the visuals of Magia Record astounding.

Sound:
It's almost impossible to live up to Yuki kajiura's legacy. The soundtrack she made for the og series is one of the finest works in anime. But even with that, the music of the anime is surprsingly good. The use of the tracks get quite repetative after some time but it doesn't change the fact that some of them are very memorable, and for the last third of the anime, it's almost like we got an entirely new soundtrack with even more memorable tracks being played. And just like the visuals, the music is also at it's peak during the last, 13th episode. It's obvious that they went all-out on that one.
I'm personally not a fan of the opening, but I have no reason to hate it. It just wasn't really memorable.
The ending on the other hand is great, both the song and the animation. There are quite a lot of hidden meanings in it, and the combination of real life shots and animation works surprsingly well.
The voice acting is good, nothing outstanding but definitely one of the better voice actings we heard in recent memory. But I can't just leave the voice acting behind without mentioning Alina. She gets introduced in the last third of the anime, but her first scene is definitely one of the finest moments of the show, mostly because of Ayana Taketatsu's beyond perfect voice acting.

Enjoyment:
And that's the point I think is impossible to judge. I'm trying to be as objective as possible, but the experience is just so different, based on the mindset you had when you started watching Magia Record.
Do you expect Magia Record to be the same emotional rollercoaster as Madoka Magica? To have the same heavy atmosphere? To be a more mature mahou shoujo anime? In general, do you expect it to be like Madoka Magica? If yes, you'll be extremely disappointed.
The less you try to connect it to the original Madoka Magica, the better the experience will be. Magia Record has serious flaws but if you have no expectations, it's still an enjoyable anime.

Final verdict:
Magia Record is a perfect example what happens if a sequel/spin-off can't deal with the expectations, because of the legacy of the og show. It's not close as great as the diehard Madoka Magica fans (such as myself) wanted it to be, but not as bad as these disappointed fans say. I was also very disappointed in the beginning, but soon I had to realise, there is no point in comparing a tasty subway sandwich (Magia Record) to one of the finest restaurant dishes (Madoka Magica), and as soon as a I changed my mindset to a neutral one, it became a much better experience. The best way to watch the show is ignoring the "Madoka Magica" name in the title.