Maglam Lord

There’s a place for this kind of game, though, and thanks to the great sense of humour, Maglam Lord remains a delight from start right through to its end. It’s a kind of comfort food that operates within the expectations of the genre, and so, while someone who is not familiar with JRPGs will find it all confounding, if you do appreciate the nuances and of the genre it’s going to entertain you a great deal.

Maglam Lord uniquely combines an action role-playing game with heavy visual novel and dating sim elements to create an experience that stands out from the JRPG crowd. While the action combat portions of the game are underwhelming and the graphics are outdated, the beautiful art direction, engaging narrative, and excellent cast markedly make up for it. You might initially play for the artwork, but you’ll stay for the characters.

Maglam Lord had a lot of potential with its great character designs, music, and premise, but it is held back by lackluster combat and some poor design decisions.

Maglam Lord has a lot of potential, but you'll need to stick it out and try to squeeze some joy from its repetitive combat system and stale dungeon design. Along with its writing, an excellently drawn cast of characters — who can be recruited and romanced through the dating mechanic — offer shining moments in an otherwise unremarkable action-JRPG. The potential is certainly there for something special, and the game's visual cues for possible results of dialogue options removes much of the guesswork common in other games, but the execution falls flat in the combat department and holds back the enjoyable visual novel elements of this package from being as good as they could be.

When Maglam Lord is sticking to its visual novel elements, it’s rather enjoyable. You can choose your reactions and responses, building relationships and going on dates with the various other characters. The writing is decent, and the sense of humor is fun. Unfortunately, this is only half of the game. The other half is a somewhat dull action-RPG where you wander through uninteresting levels and engage in combat that turns out to be lacking in engagement. There’s an emphasis on grinding for materials to raise your strength, but nothing about the battles make this an enticing prospect. It’s not a very long game, but it feels absolutely interminable at times. Not without its charms, but hard to recommend on the whole.