Maglam Lord Review – Daily Life of a Demon Lord

Playing the bad guy can be an enjoyable change of pace! These kinds of stories give a neat alternate perspective and even the opportunity to write a strong redemption arc. Of course, this is assuming the villain you’re playing is all-powerful at the start of their story, but what happens when they’re put out of their element and stripped of their powers? In other words: Maglam Lord has you staring in an isekai story!

Maglam Lord is a JRPG developed by Felistella and published by PQube. This title aims to tell a unique story about a demon lord falling from grace and being brought to the modern-day. Does it hold up to that rather unique premise and is it fun to play too?

Story

Players assume the role of a powerful demon lord named Killizerk; a name you could easily mistake for a username from the mid-2000s. After being sealed away, you wake up many years later to find that society has completely changed and an age of peace has prospered. What’s more, you find out that Killizerk is the last of their kind and is now classified as an endangered species by a group called The Administration. With all of your former power completely gone, it’s up to you to meet a variety of characters and reclaim your lost power to become the feared demon lord you once were!

First off, kudos to the unique premise! While this is technically an isekai story, Maglam Lord‘s premise and setting has fun with melding some of the more classic elements from JRPGs with a modern society that doesn’t see their actions as normal. It’s a shame then that everything else outside of the general premise failed to engage me. The game has this strange laid-back tone to it, in part due to the premise. While I appreciate the different direction, it has the effect of not really motivating me to get through the story. Sure, some sections of the story do a decent job of building tension, but the overall plot failed to do so.

The characters are sadly not that much better. We’ve seen every one of these character archetypes in countess games and anime series for decades! We’ve got the heated young man who is distrustful towards people he perceives as evil, a soft-spoken woman who is seen as a voice of reason, the old parent who questions the protagonist’s methods for not being what the family would do, and so on. It says quite a bit when I found an emotionless robot that joins your party more than the rest of the cast! Actually… that’s not entirely true.

The main character, Killizerk is technically played by you. At the very start of the game, you’re given the choice to have Killizerk be either a man or a woman, though this choice is mostly an aesthetic one. Quite frequently, you’ll be asked to pick between three different dialogue choices, so you can portray Zillizerk how you want to see them. I quite liked this, as it harkens back to franchises like Persona; it helps add a personal touch to the protagonist! While a vast majority of your choices have no bearing on the plot, certain choices will grant you specific titles to boost your characters’ attributes or allow you to deepen your relationship with one of the characters.

One final note on the game’s writing. I found the game to be somewhat funny at times. Outside of the wacky premise, there were a few times when I cracked a smile or let out a brief laugh. I mean, there’s a moment early on where you come across an old tanned muscleman known as the Love Guru who teaches you the secrets of romance… how could you not love that?! In short, there’s a decent premise here and brief moments of humor at times, but it’s not enough to elevate this unengaging story.

Gameplay

Maglam Lord advertises itself as being a mix of both a visual novel and action RPG, though the RPG side is definitely more prevalent. Whether it be the main story mission or a side quest, you select a mission from a list and are transported to a multi-zoned area. You control your character from an isometric perspective; from there, you can attack free-roaming monsters, find hidden items or treasure chests, and find your way to your objective. It’s a shame that there isn’t much mission variety though, as you’ll regularly find yourself having to defeat a unique monster or find a certain item. This lack of mission types caused me to almost completely ignore completing side quests.

Before you can even go out into that big, wide world, you’ve got to prepare for battle, and this is where the game truly shines! Kiilizerk can’t be controlled on their own and must be paired with another person to be wielded as a weapon. Each party member you recruit has their own set of skills, both passive and ones you activate. By leveling up, you acquire skill points to unlock new skills, but inactive party members also gain experience, so you’re free to experiment with a character and skillset that works best for you.

But it gets better! There are three weapon types you can swap between in battle: swords, axes, and spears. You don’t simply acquire new weapons though; rather, you must forge them yourself. Maglam Lord removes a lot of the guesswork to improve your character, as each new weapon displays all the materials you need to create them. If you have higher quality items, you can even craft higher quality weapons that yield more powerful results. If you’re looking for certain materials, the game thankfully breaks down each item you can get on the mission briefing screen, which I greatly appreciated!

However, crafting a weapon is just the beginning! You’re also able to augment your newly created weapon with cosmetic items. They can range from simple decals or accessories that completely change the appearance of a weapon. These aren’t just simple cosmetic changes either; these add-ons can add abilities to make them more effective to certain monster types or grant you other bonuses. The weapon forging system is easily the game’s best feature, as it gives you the freedom to create and customize an arsenal that’s wholly unique to your playthrough!

But what about combat? Well, that’s where things get a bit mixed. After engaging in battle with an enemy, you’re placed into a 2D combat environment similar to some of the older games in the Tales Of series. You can jump, block, and dash, so you have a decent amount of movement in battle. Each enemy is weak to a certain weapon type and you can freely swap between the three weapons you’ve equipped to gain a strategic advantage. It’s a shame the game outright tells you which weapon is best against each enemy as soon as you encounter them, but that information can be useful when formulating a battle strategy.

Attacks are performed with a simple button press, or rather a multitude of simple button presses. Depending on which direction you hold the analog stick in when attacking, your attack will change slightly and the game even offers a combo list you can work off. I ended up just mashing the attack button while occasionally holding a direction. Skills and items can be used in battle, but if a battle ends up being too challenging, building up a gauge next to your health bar lets you briefly use an awakened Killizerk to inflict massive damage with powerful skills. I’ll be honest, the combat is very button mashy at times, but it can be fun at times! This is thanks to the addition of a combo meter; the more hits you perform in succession, the larger amounts of experience points you’ll receive at the end of the battle. I regularly strategized how to get the largest combos for the biggest rewards, and that’s when the combat system is at its best!

This is all well and good, but the game is almost ruined by one major problem: the camera. The angle when exploring is too zoomed in and doesn’t show enough of your environment, so you’ll often find yourself running into enemies when you didn’t want to. Combat is arguably worse, as the camera will regularly be the source of your deaths. When you’re not attacking, you get a wide view of the entire battlefield, but as soon as you start attacking, the camera zooms into the action, and this is where the problems come in. There are no markers to indicate any off-screen enemies, so you’ll regularly get attacked by cheap shots from enemies you can’t see. The enemies you face aren’t pushovers either, with them regularly outputting impressively high damage. This, compounded with the poor camera implementation will regularly lead to your downfall! At least you can retry the fight from the start, so the sting of death isn’t too harsh.

As I previously mentioned, there is another side to the game outside of combat, and those are the visual novel elements. A lot of these segments come off as set dressing, but there is a bigger problem when it comes to this aspect of Maglam Lord. Almost every choice in the game has absolutely no bearing on the game’s plot! The appeal of visual novels is their replayability and how your decisions greatly change how the story is made. I understand that trying to change the story of a JRPG is a much taller ordeal, but this really hampers how replayable the game will be. There are only a few scant decisions that matter, but the only things they change are the titles you can equip to your character and increasing the relationships with certain party members. The game makes it very clear which options are the ones that matter with small icons next to them, so if you’re aiming for certain titles or building a relationship with a certain character, you’ll greatly appreciate this addition.

Speaking of, there is a menu allowing you to interact with your party members and when their relationship level increases to a certain level, you’ll be able to take them out on dates. Depending on who you choose to deepen your bonds with, this will affect the game’s ending. Some may find this a good way to increase replay value, but the game is around 18-20 hours long, so others may find multiple playthroughs of a game this long very taxing.

Presentation

It’s obvious right from the get-go that Maglam Lord isn’t trying to wow players with a technical showcase. Instead, it goes for more of a stylistic approach, and there are times it works, and other times when it doesn’t. The character cast was designed by Lack; an artist who’s had experience designing Hololive characters, but this is their first time creating designs for an entire character cast. I’ve got to say, for their first attempt, Lack’s done a fantastic job! Each design is very distinct, memorable, includes tons of small details, and most importantly, they’re aesthetically pleasing. Even if they only have one standing pose, they have a wide range of expressions, which makes some of the humorous segments even more impactful. The background illustrations also look beautiful, really helping convey the depth of each location each scene takes place in.

When it comes to the in-engine segments, they aren’t as strong. Despite these fantastic character designs, the game instead opts to have playable sections use chibified versions of them instead. This is fine while traveling the map, but it feels like such a missed opportunity to not have properly proportioned characters when in battle. The environments are also nowhere near as strong as their 2D counterparts, looking quite flat by comparison.

When it comes to Maglam Lord’s performance on the Nintendo Switch, all the dialogue segments play at a smooth framerate throughout, which is to be expected with cutscenes involving 2D art. When exploring and battling, it maintains a mostly solid 30fps frame rate, though if things get too hectic in combat, it can dip from time to time.

There is only a Japanese dub available, but if you’ve been watching anime for a while, you’re sure to recognize some of the cast. Despite me not speaking the language, the performances sounded compelling and there wasn’t a weak link in the cast. As for the soundtrack, outside of the opening theme tune and the music in the main menu, I honestly couldn’t remember most of the other tracks.

Verdict

Maglam Lord is a game I really want to like. It has strong aesthetics, a cute premise, and a deep weapon customization system. It’s the elements around them that I’m not that fond of. A good JRPG needs a good story to encourage you to see it through to the end, but its plot and characters are sadly not that great. The camera issues during combat also didn’t help matters much. Don’t get me wrong, this game isn’t a poor showing and I’m sure there’s someone out there who will gel with this title and have a great time, but I can’t say I’m among them.

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If you enjoy JRPGs, perhaps you’d like to take a look at Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist & The Mysterious Dream?

Many thanks goes to PQube for a Nintendo Switch review code for this title.