Maglam Lord (PlayStation 4) Review

By Eric Ace 21.06.2022

Review for Maglam Lord on PlayStation 4

Developed by Felistella, a small Japan company that is most noted for the Summon Night series of games, Maglam Lord tells the tale of a demon lord who once gained a weapon that could destroy everything and as a result the world teamed up against him to bring about his fall. Set years and years later, players take the role of this demon lord, but instead of naturally going on a 'kill them all' type of quest, it turns into a small dating sim mixed with visual novel elements.

The Summon Night series never got insanely popular, but always had a pretty good cult following even though many of the games were not initially released outside of Japan. Following the general split between half visual novel/light dating sim and action RPG, they ranged from side-scrolling to full on tactical grid-battles. While not a true or direct sequel, it is obvious both from being by the same developer and the style of gameplay that Magnum Lord is a spiritual successor to those games.

The problem is that there is not that much here that is interesting to recommend. While the initial premise starts strong it falls flat soon after. It opens with the story that there was a battle between the gods, demons, and humans, and the former could not be killed, short of special human weapons. Somehow the main character, named 'Killizerk', gets a weapon and forces the whole world to ally up to stop him. Waking up in the future, no one knows or really cares about the past, and he (or she as you can choose) now goes on their merry way with equally 'endangered' heroes to have some light-hearted adventures.

Characters are the strongest point of this game, not that they ever achieve a status more than mildly interesting. Ranging from the 'hero in training' Darius who hates the demon lord to the big-hearted and bigger-chested Onee-san 'Charme', there is some humour which provides entertainment while going through the story. It would have been better to have more dialogue, but the little present is often buried too deep in endless dungeon grinding.

Screenshot for Maglam Lord on PlayStation 4

The dungeons and fights are so lacking it ruins what might have been at least a passable story. Graphically it is so bad it looks like the game could be home on the original PlayStation. A horrendously low polygon count, simple colours, and abysmal level design all stand together to reduce Magnum Lord's integrity. The dungeons are uninspired, repetitious and wholly uninvolved. At least a few hours are spent running around in the same brown hill dungeon which is a couple of large squares linked together. The crafting is completely forgettable, and on each turn it is obvious that the game is not good. It is not terrible, after all it is playable and there are some occasional laughs in the story, it just there is so many easy criticisms to point out.

It does not take long to realize there is little to the combat system. There are three weapon categories, the sword, the spear and the axe which all engage the opponent slightly differently, with combat best summed up with the word 'random'. Often a battle can literally finish in a few seconds if it is the correct weapon and simply perma-stuns the enemies to death. Other times the enemies get the player in a stun lock until they themselves die or take a huge beating. Regardless of all of this, even though there are some different moves it never turns into any cool type of combo game: simply find one or two attacks that work and stick with those.

Screenshot for Maglam Lord on PlayStation 4

Cubed3 Rating

5/10
Rated 5 out of 10

Average

There is little in Magnum Lord that stands out as good or interesting. The story segments are mildly amusing, as well as a few of the characters, but the plot goes nowhere fast, and the rest of the game is hard to enjoy. Combat oscillates between two second stomps to five minute plus long slogs, all the while being far more boring than it might look. The entire other 'half' beyond the visual novel segments is laughably bad in the design and the game does little to separate itself from either better or more unique JRPGs currently out.

Developer

FELISTELLA

Publisher

D3 Publisher

Genre

Real Time RPG

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  5/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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