When Queen Karen of the Amazons disappears, Loren sets off on a journey to find her. On the way, she discovers her destiny and is in the middle of a huge conflict that only she can bring to an end.

You might think you’d play Loren in this game, but you don’t. The character you play is her sidekick. When the game begins, you have a choice of playing as Saren (a human male slave) or Elenor (a female elf servant). When being presented to Loren, you can choose your character’s background.

You also have a choice of romance partners for each character. Both Saren and Elenor can romance Loren and the reserved Nomad Amukiki. Saren can also romance the half-elf fire mage Draco and the enchanting druid Myrth. Elenor can romance the bad boy elf Rei and the miserable Queen Karen. There are some graphic scenes in the game, but you can choose whether to view or skip them. You can also choose to have your characters wear more or less of their outfits.

This game might seem like just another dating sim, but you couldn’t be more wrong. The battle system in Loren is unique. Instead of a 2D battle, as I’ve come to expect from most independent RPGs, you have this.

Not only do you gain experience points through battle, you also gain them through completing quests. If you gain enough points, you can level up your characters. You do so by giving each character a number of attribute points for their strength, will and skill. You can also pick a new talent for them to learn. How many points you get while leveling up depends entirely on what time of game play you choose. You also have choices throughout the game that affect your relationship with the characters. During the game, you can retreat to camp to recover your health. It’s also a chance for you to build up your relationship with certain characters. There’s also achievements you can collect throughout the story.

The story and characters have their own charm. The game is not only about the war that’s brewing in the world of the game, it’s also about prejudice. Not only is there prejudice between the humans and the elves, there’s also prejudice within their own groups and a prejudice Amazons hold for men and the rest of the world. It’s because of this that the demons find it so easily to manipulate everyone. There’s also prejudice between the characters that fades over time as each of them get to know one another. Princess Loren is the one selected by a mythical sword to lead everyone to the demons, a role she is reluctant to take due to her belief that the Amazons should remain neutral. Her relationship with Saren or Elenor is also quite special as she starts to view her slave as an actual person and starts to become friends or more with them. Her romance with Saren is the most character developing story arc out of all of Saren’s romances because she actually has to take a good look at her culture and how they enslave men much like women were little more than slaves in Earth’s history. My favorite romance path of Elenor’s would have to be Rei because she truly gets to explore her Elvin heritage. I can’t say more about the game without giving it away, but at the end one of the characters sacrifices themselves and I choked up a bit during it.

This game has an amazing story, intriguing characters and is nonstop fun. I give it 9 out of 10, can’t wait for the expansion and it promises a sequel.