Maglam Lord: Rough Action RPG Saved by Dumb Sense of Humor (PS4)

When you lose your once great powers and are forced into a world that seems too peaceful, you play the role of Killizerk, a demon lord. As a result, you end up developing relationships with a number of colourful warriors to maintain what remains of your godlike strength.

In Maglam Lord, plot twists are often presented as jokes, and characters routinely react in humorous ways to increasingly silly situations. In many ways, Maglam Lord shares the same sense of humour as Disgaea games. You can play out — at least to an extent — your ideal demon lord based on their flippant attitude and tons of dumb dialogue choices.

A romance component will appear in the game, but you’ll have to deal with rough gameplay first. When Maglam Lord isn’t being an entertaining visual novel, it throws you into top-down dungeons and requires you to complete quests. Your enemies are smashed with oversized weapons and easy combos as you move through side-scrolling stages.

Battles are a bit brainless, so you’ll have to endure a lot of them to craft better equipment. Combat is not bad, it just gets monotonous because the controls are clunky and you’ll need to smash enemies repeatedly. Some players will find the grind oddly addictive, others simply won’t stick around for long enough.

It has beautiful character art and beautifully drawn backdrops, which makes Maglam Lord a great visual novel. However, the 3D assets are ugly, as you’d expect from a low-budget mobile game. You are in a dungeon and there is a huge disparity in quality.

There’s a lot of heart behind Maglam Lord, but it’s covered in some shoddy design that disappoints.

Pros:

  • Characters and story are entertaining.

  • A good sense of humor.

  • Dialogue choices that are dumb.

  • It can be quite enjoyable to grind.

Cons:

  • Combat that is clunky.

  • Dungeons with only one exit.

  • The graphics in 3D are really bad.

Six out of ten is the score.

Author: Maricel Cuico