Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Yes, Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, the release from Marvelous that had some Neverland (Rune Factory 4) veterans work on it, has and it features a bit of fanservice. Thankfully, it’s forced by a character who that you’re supposed to roll your eyes at, and the extent of the blatant skin is some low-cut tops from later characters, and one “well-placed” camera angle that results in a lot of leg. The characters are drawn in the main screen in a super-deformed style, so the costuming choices only show up when the characters are speaking and their larger portrait appears. It’s nothing too blatant, which pretty much explains how the game stayed down to a Teen rating in North America.

Lord of Magna places you in the role of (insert name here) Eduard, an innkeeper of an inn who doesn't have a lot of customers. At the start of the game, you stumble into a cave while looking for crystals - the game's currency - and meet a girl who has amnesia. And six sisters, who unlock each other's memories as you come across them. Your subordinate at the inn gets the idea to put all of the girls into maid uniforms, though the girls do transform into battle-appropriate clothing during the battle sequences.

The basics of Lord of Magna are that It’s a strategy/action-RPG hybrid. While it does earn some comparisons to the PlayStation 3 game Valkyria Chronicles and the recent 3DS game Code Name S.T.E.A.M, it features some key differences. Instead of limiting your movement by an energy meter, you have unlimited movement within a circle around the character’s starting point, letting you fine-tune their position before locking in the attack. This positioning is very important as the game features a combo system. By attacking the weak fodder, you knock themit back in a fashion that takes out others and builds up a combo, with an extra turn awarded if you manage to take out 10 or more enemies in one swing. The enemies do respawn their weak helpers at a hit point cost to them (if those lesser enemies are doing more than one hit point of damage in their attacks, you likely need to level up a bit). The right side of the screen shows a time bar so you know which friend or foe will attack next. One thing to keep in mind is that the male character you play as is more of a support role in battle – he’ll provide a lot of your stat buffs – because his attack radius is miniscule compared to the girls without a buff.

Outside of battle, there are a few events for each of the maidens that give them a chance to level up and unlock new abilities in each battle. However, you’ll have to be careful with how you get to the events as the game tends to railroad you into following the story at least in the early going – at the 10 hour mark, I’ve got all but one of the maidens on my team and have only been able to complete four out of a possible 18 quests. It’s possible that I’ll have more time to do these events after I get past the “first disc final dungeon” coming up, so I’m hopeful that I’ll get to see more of the personality. The events are well localized, and each of the girls has their own quirks that the localization did a good job of bringing out – I suspect someone on the localization team has a good grasp of German. There is a StreetPass function, but aside from knowing that some Story of Seasons-style farming is involved, I haven’t had a chance to see what sort of in-game benefits it’ll provide.

Lord of Magna is available today and we hope to have a full review as soon as the credits roll.