All I heard about Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven before it launched was the focus on the fanservice elements – an entire game full of controllable maids? Some further digging mentioned the “bowling” battle system, which sounded like it would be fun to play – and it was. But I think I got through the game TOO fast, since my clock is only at 20 hours and I felt like I was being railroaded through a lot of it.

Lord of Magna is a very aesthetically pleasing game. The environments are very lush, the character portraits are very attractive while not being too risqué, and the super-deformed models work well on the smaller 3DS screen than it would on a console. The battle themes provide the right level of dramatic punch for the battles as well, and although the game isn’t fully voice-acted, the key phrases are acted well. The story and characters tend to stick to traditional tropes – there’s the clingy girl, the mad scientist, the ice queen, and ALL of the playable female characters have some degree of amnesia – so if you’re looking for the next groundbreaking RPG story, look elsewhere.

The key to enjoying the game is the battle system, which works very well and sticks to its own logic. Since your main character is a humble innkeeper who doesn’t have a lot of combat prowess, the girls have to carry the load. This is initially frustrating, but you get to a full 4-member party pretty quickly so it’s not as noticeable. The ability to knock weak enemies into each other and build up a combo is quite fun, though I do wish knocking enemies into the larger, summoning foes would do more damage. The key issue with the battle system is that it puts a lot of enemies on the screen at once, and if there are too many enemies on the screen in an enclosed area, the framerate drops down dramatically. This is especially notable in late game fights, where you fight in a single round room and there are 6-8 enemies summoning 10+ weaker enemies – even running on the New 3DS, it slowed to a crawl at points when attacking. There is a way to get around it – beat up everything – but it can be a real sore spot. Relationship events where you build rapport with the girls and battle a small amount of monsters to unlock new skills thankfully aren't as affected by this.

The other struggle I had with the game was actually self-inflicted, but it is something to look out for. Although there’s a crafting system in the game and a store near your base, I actually managed to lose track of where to do the shopping and crafting. It took about eight hours and a full party before I realized I could buy healing items and new skills before a battle, and I didn’t actually make use of the store near the inn until pretty much the endgame. Luckily, I was able to muddle through most of the game on the default difficulty before finally dropping to Easy in about chapter 10. I also found that I didn’t get a chance to do as many of the relationship building events as I needed, which left me with a huge power problem at the end of the game as back-to-back fights had me pulling in characters 10-15 levels below the rest of the party. In a way, this is going to help the game’s replay value as I definitely want to go back and see the other optional events, but I suspect not everyone will have that patience.

This was the game that Neverland was working on as they were folded, and although Marvelous brought them in-house to finish the game I don't think they'll get to revisit it. Which is a shame, as I suspect a sequel would refine the game’s good parts and smooth out the rough patches. I doubt we’ll ever see it, though. What you do get is a rough but loveable action RPG and a reminder: For the love of Trixie, SAVE OFTEN.