The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story | a Review
originally published on 20/05/2023;
Hello everyone, I am the League of Legends addict G.E.M.Simov, a goon who has developed a resistance to copium and is now face-to-face with the fact that it all just sucks, here to tell you about the one aspect of League of Legends that doesn’t suck - the stuff that isn’t League of Legends, and more specifically - The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
This is a top-down beat ‘em up kind of game with a heavy emphasis on combat, exploration and platforming. It’s essentially an action adventure game. It features a ‘dodge roll’ in the form of a dash, many means of attacking, spells and an upgrade system that relies on the collection of a currency (resources) and its utilization at a dedicated hub level.
The game is split into missions, following the tutorial, and the gameplay loop is relatively simple. The Player starts off at the Hub level, they pick a mission, having the option to pursue Main Missions (which progress the story) and Secondary Missions (which might provide some additional lore and definitely provide additional resources for use). The Player plays through the mission, finishes it, and returns to the Hub level, having the opportunity to use the newly acquired resources from the mission to obtain upgrades. Rinse and repeat.
Simplicity, in this situation, is not a problem, because the Player has a very engaging opportunity to experience the game’s features - combat, exploration and platforming - in the missions, which could be described as bite-sized, being navigable over around 30 minutes, if not less, on average.
Those are the main reasons to want to play this game - with all three of them being heavily reliant on movement - because the movement is good. Just moving about feels good, it feels right. Sylas - the Player Character (PC) - is incredibly responsive. He immediately changes direction when issued that command, he starts moving immediately, he stops moving immediately. That precision is very valuable - as it is something that allows the Player to feel in complete control of their character.
So, movement - it occurs via using the W,A,S and D keys, with each moving the PC Up, Left, Down and Right, respectively. Due to the fact that the game is viewed from a top-down perspective, that is as much as is needed. There is no jump button, as there is no verticality in the game, but that is not a problem, due to the fact that Sylas has two other means of navigating.
One of those is the aforementioned dash - it is performed via pressing the Spacebar, and it moves Sylas in the direction he is facing (which is determined by the direction in which he was last moving). The dash makes Sylas cover about 1/5th of the screen, which is quite the generous amount of movement, and there is a very low interlude between dashes (at most half a second), allowing the Player to essentially dash constantly. Not only that, but during the dash, Sylas becomes temporarily invincible (while dashing), allowing him to go through enemy attacks without taking damage… Or so it seems. It allows him to go through SOME enemy attacks, but others still damage him. That’s problematic.
Even so, the dash is one of the most essential tools for playing the game, and it feels good to use, which is incredibly important. I must also point out that the speed at which the PC moves whilst dashing is very high, but not high enough to cause spatial confusion within the Player, which further emphasizes that the movement in this game is top-notch. And when a game’s movement is top-notch, the sheer act of playing the game becomes pleasant in and of itself.
Lastly, the other movement option Sylas has is the ‘chain-hook’, which is accessed via pressing and holding down the Shift key, which enters ‘chain’ targeting mode, during which Sylas can press the Left Mouse Button (LMB) to hook onto a target - be it an enemy or a special object in the game world - and dash towards the target. Again - the movement of the Player Character is incredibly smooth and very swift. Unfortunately, due to its resemblance to the normal dash, it might mislead the Player into thinking it also provides temporary invincibility. That’s an issue with the Presentation of the game that affects Gameplay negatively, but it is likely to only occur once or twice.
Overall? Movement in this game is phenomenal. That’s 1 out of the 2 basics that have been perfectly nailed down, and if the other basic thing is as well executed, this game might be fantastic purely off of that. The Shift targeting system is wonky, and sometimes really messes with what the Player wants to do, but it manages to work just enough of the time to be good.
Surprisingly, it is. The combat - that being the other basic thing - is also very good, although it might have some issues that draw it back.
First, Sylas has two ‘ordinary’ modes of attack. He can perform light attacks by pressing the LMB, and by pressing the Right Mouse Button (RMB) he can perform heavy attacks. Light attacks are faster, but do less damage and do not pierce armor. Heavy attacks are slower, but they do more damage and pierce armor. Additionally, special combinations can be performed - as an example, if the Player presses LMB three times in rapid succession and then the RMB once, Sylas will perform a special attack - a combo (though there’s more to that than just clicking the buttons).
That introduces a second layer of complexity, with the first layer being the presence of heavy and light attacks. Not only that, but there is another means of chaining combos together - by performing a hook dash (Shift+LMB) and clicking either the LMB or the RMB to perform special attacks. Now, it must be noted that here appears one of the clunky aspects of this game’s combat.
*Important - certain combos do not work more than 50% of the time. The reasons for that are esoteric - completely indiscernible, that is - but some button combinations just refuse to cooperate, it appears.
Some enemies can be staggered - which occurs when they are stricken by an attack - and when that happens, they are momentarily stunned. Staggering an enemy is most useful when they are performing an attack, as that stops their attack, or prevents them from at all launching it, and thus allows the Player to avoid damage by doing damage. Unfortunately, this does not always seem to be the case - and there is no rhyme or reason to it.
An example would be hitting an enemy with a combo - which combo features an attack that has a far greater Area of Effect (AoE) than usual attacks, and so it strikes more enemies and ones that are further away - while that enemy is performing an attack. That enemy can be staggered, but then that same enemy, in that situation, does not get staggered. Then there are also enemies who appear as though they are getting staggered, who get pushed back by hits and let out sound cues indicating that they are being staggered, but then they just wind up not being staggered.
With that said, let’s get on to the unusual means of attacking. Sylas can steal a spell from an enemy that has access to spells by using Shift+RMB. Doing that deals a small amount of damage, so it can be counted as an ordinary attack, but it can not be done over and over again, due to the fact that there is a short amount of time that must pass before an enemy can be attacked with that button combination again.
However, it is important to note that stealing a spell restores 1 hit point. That, by itself, does not seem like a very impressive feat, but when one considers that Sylas has 100 hit points (on Hard Difficulty), and can upgrade them to about twice that much, 1 hit point is still something, and that doubled with the fact that an enemy can generally be stolen from quite a number of times before they die from the theft, means that the Player can finish up a combat encounter and leave one spell-casting enemy alive, to then constantly interrupt their spells and steal said spells, healing Sylas for a value between 10 and 20, which is quite a nice chunk.
One other thing that should be mentioned - stealing a spell counts as staggering the enemy, meaning that if they were in the middle of casting a spell, or performing an action, they will stop.
A few issues that plague the game - as mentioned, some attacks somewhat work, somewhat don’t. The same applies to enemy attacks - some work, some don’t. An example would be the ‘dashing attack’ of the enemies who can apply a silence - whenever they dash, they can hit Sylas and do damage to him, while also silencing, they can also dash and only silence, or they can dash and neither silence nor do damage.
Then there are some attacks that by no means should strike more than once, but for some reason have the capacity to strike twice or thrice - such as the wave of force, or so it appears, projected by Dauntless Vanguard soldiers whenever they shield themselves. Then there are attacks that go through terrain without being meant to go through terrain - such as most spells that are based on projectiles - even though they should not go through terrain. Lastly, there’s an issue of goons throwing spells at the Player without being visible on the screen - which is more than a little problematic.
THEN there are attacks that are too accurate. The automatic aim that is utilized by the computer controlled characters is SO good at predicting where Sylas is going to be that some spells can not be dodged without use of the dash - and even then they just hit regardless of whether or not the dash is or is not used. IN fact, some projectiles predict where one will be as they’re dashing, so even dashing does not work when it comes to dodging them!
Simply put, this occurs when the projectiles fly too quickly, have too wonky a hit-box (collision detection is bad in this game) and are too accurate. Not a fun experience to have one’s movements predicted constantly; if it were a gimmick with only one kind of enemy, then it would not be a problem, but when every enemy always perfectly targets where the Player is going to be after half a second of moving in that direction - that’s not nice. It is especially not nice when Melee Attacks do that, rather than projectiles.
Now, onto the interesting part - stealing a spell. Whenever Sylas steals a spell from an enemy, the Player gets the option to use that spell once, by pressing the Q button. The spell is generally the same as the ones that are used by the enemy from whom they get stolen, so the Player might know what to expect before even getting to use it once, which is a neat design choice. After using a stolen spell, Sylas can not use it again unless he steals it.
How, then, does Sylas use magic without stealing spells? There is a mechanic that allows him to equip Spells that have been unlocked (and they get unlocked at the Hub level, along with additional slots for those Spells) at bonfires. Did I say bonfires? I meant Shrines to the Veiled Lady. Those Shrines, when first encountered, heal Sylas to full and restore any charges of his health potion (which is used by pressing the R key and has, by default, 3 charges, restoring 30 hit points per charge).
There are 6 elements and 4 spells per element, at least that can be unlocked, and that makes for a total of 24 spells. The elemental aspect of those spells is neat, because the elements are aligned in such a manner that they counter each other. As an example, using a Fire spell will deal more damage (than normal) to an enemy that uses Ice spells, and less damage (than normal) to an enemy that uses Fire spells, while using an Ice spell will do less damage (than normal) to an enemy that uses Ice spells, but will do more damage (than normal) to an enemy that uses Fire spells.
That creates an incentive for the Player to not rely on a single spell that solves every issue, because there is no such spell. It goes hand in hand with stealing a spell from a certain enemy and using it to deal with another enemy. It provides a neat opportunity for experimentation and problem-solving, and it is cool in concept… Though unless the enemies are resistant to physical damage, it’s much easier to just pummel them with RMB and/or LMB combos.
So what happens when the Player does not have access to stolen spells? Or if the spell is un-stealable for the moment? Well, Sylas gets access to a set of Spell Slots (initially only 1) that can be filled up with spells (initially only 1 option). Those require Mana - and Sylas has 1 Mana (initially). After using a Spell, Sylas can replenish his mana by doing damage with his normal attacks (which would be RMB and LMB combos).
The Player gets the opportunity to unlock more Spell Slots (up to 4 total) via characters in the Hub level, whilst also being able to unlock more Spells and Mana (up to 4 total) via a specific character in the Hub level. All of those unlocks require Resources. As previously mentioned, the Player can pick which Spells are going to be in the Spell Slots at a Shrine to the Veiled Lady.
Now, it is important to note that a Spell Slot must first be selected, before being used, otherwise only the Spell from the first Spell Slot will be accessible. To select a Spell Slot, the Player needs to press the number key corresponding to the Slot they desire - 1 for the first Spell Slot, 2 for the second and so on.
However, when I said there were only so many spells, and only so many slots, I was not being entirely honest. There are 5 more Spells, and there is a particular means of using them (which means they do not take up a Spell Slot). Those Spells are called Ultimates, and as can be guessed, they are quite powerful. Again, those are unlocked - but not with resources. They require boss relics - which means the Player always gets a cool new power-up after beating a boss.
Now, Ultimates are bound to a funky mechanic called “Unchained Mode”, which is really just the “Spartan Rage” from the newer God Of War games. Sylas builds up a bar(circle) depicting how much “Unchained Mode” he has by hitting enemies, and, when the bar is full, the Player can press the F button to enter “Unchained Mode”. Sylas becomes stronger in that mode, and he also gains access to Ultimates.
Those can be used by pressing the Q key. I never unlocked more than 1 of those, so I can’t say anything about whether one can have more than 1 ultimate prepared at a time (but the Player can’t have more than 1 at a time).
Why did I not unlock more Spell Slots? Because this game features difficulties - 3 of them. However, it also features options regarding those difficulties. Whenever picking one, the Player will be presented with a number of settings that can be changed - such as how much damage Sylas does, how much damage Sylas takes, how much health enemies have and how much health Sylas has. Those can be lowered or increased to best accommodate what the Player wants.
This is good. What’s even better is that this game rewards getting better at it. And, seeing as I am an incredible Player, I immediately, on my first play-through, picked the highest difficulty - Kingslayer - and played through the entire thing without purchasing anything - no upgrades, no spell slots or spells, no nothing.
And it was easy, if a bit annoying at times. Thus, the game is either easy, regardless of the difficulty selected, or I am too good at it. Which one it is, I do not know, so I am presenting both options to the reader.
Now, we come to another aspect of the game - exploration. The Player is first made to go through a level, after which they reach the Hub level, from which they can start going on missions and exploring. Initially, the game makes it look as though there will come a time when the Player can pick from between 4 or more missions at a given time, but, in truth, they only get to pick from 2 - a main mission and a side mission, as previously mentioned. There are also additional ‘pseudo’ missions, but more on that later.
So, the Player goes on these missions and enters a level, which level they have to get through. Typically, levels end with one big fight - be it against a boss or a large set of enemies that come at the Player in waves. While on their way to that big fight, the Player might get to find chests containing resources - some hidden, others not - they might find a Silverwing (1 per level), which is a collectible that does something when the Player collects them all, or notes/logs, which simply add to the story.
Interspersed are Shrines to the Veiled Lady, which do their thing - heal Sylas and replenish potion charges - as well as many combat encounters. There are also platforming sections, but they can hardly be called such, yet there’s really no other means of describing them. Those include gaps in terrain, off of which Sylas can only fall if he dashes towards them while standing near the ledge, which are overcome via special objects that can be hooked to. There are also other gaps in terrain which Sylas can only fall off of if he dashes while being too far away from the ledge, which are overcome by dashing from an appropriate distance. And that’s all. Maybe I was too generous when I said this was a platformer?
Regardless, there is one thing I did not mention that the Player can find while exploring. People. Not just any people, but mages. Some of those mages are special - referred to as Outlaws by the game - and they act as equipment, while also being the means of upgrading the stores in the Hub level.
The way an Outlaw is equipped is by selecting them as one’s accompanying Outlaw, as a support, when starting a mission. They provide some static bonuses - increasing a certain element’s damage - and some active bonuses in the form of a neat new combo that does magic damage.
These Outlaws also come in use with those aforementioned pseudo-missions. Those are small pop-ups that appear on the mission selection screen, which pop-ups present a small “mission” that can be relegated to one of the Outlaws (currently not on a mission with Sylas) to do. It can provide resources or Recruits.
Recruits are the other type of mage that can be found. They are just statistical units that increase the power of Outlaws - joining their teams, up to 15 per Outlaw - and they also open up new areas in the Hub level, which generally means a new bit of text and a pair of chests. The best part of getting new Recruits is seeing the pretty hub level change and improve. That’s it.
This game does one very annoying thing - it fails to convey what the critical path is. The critical path, ladies, gentlemen and N-bees, is the path that furthers the story, or the path that leads to a completion of the level. In a game like this, which features exploration and platforming, there are more than one path… And there is no means of telling which one is which.
That is not a problem, inherently. Going on an adventure and finding things, or even finding the correct road to follow, are all parts of the adventure. However, due to the fact that most additional routes that can be followed result in the discovery of a resource cache or, better yet, a Silverwing (which acts as a collectible), the fact that the critical path is indistinguishable from the non-critical paths becomes a problem. Namely, because there are many spots all over the levels (missions) that prevent returning to their access points.
There are ledges off of which Sylas can drop (and back up which he can not climb) there are pits he can go over by hooking to a specific object situated on the other side of the pit, but on this side of the pit there is no such object, thus taking away the Player’s ability to return. That’s a problem, especially on higher difficulties, because the more resources one has, the more spells and statistical improvements one can obtain in the Hub level - and whenever one is prevented from being able to fully explore a level because of such cut-off points, one fails to get all the resources available, thus making the game even harder.
That’s a problem, as the game winds up punishing the Player for exploring - which is something the Player should feel free to do and should be encouraged to do.
Now, this problem gets solved - supposedly - by a character that gets recruited by the Player, which character allows for the replaying of missions. The issue is that all the cutscenes are still there, and they can not be skipped, and so instead of only focusing on gameplay, the Player is forced to sit through minutes of cutscenes, hitting the E key rapidly enough to give themselves RSI. But it is a half-hearted solution.
This game does something that I frankly despise. It introduces ‘perks’, which are small modifications to spells that Sylas has collected via Leilani. These perks are really interesting and, if they could be collected, mixed and matched, they could provide a whole layer of customization and potentially complexity. Alas, they exist only within the confines of a single mission, and when the mission is completed they are destroyed and are no longer available.
Giving the Player something that beneficially affects gameplay, only to then take that something away without providing the Player with a substitute, is bad game design. It makes me feel bad when I know that I’m not going to get to use this particular perk again, it takes away from the experience because it’s a potential addition to the game, which addition could affect the way the Player plays the game, which addition is then subtracted and no alternative addition is made, thus leaving the Player feeling as though they have lost power for progressing their character (Sylas).
That’s… That’s almost a rogue-like mechanic. Almost, because it’s so impermanent and meaningless that I’m finding it difficult to believe that this is why some people were led to believe this game would be a rogue-like. BUT it’s even worse than you might have thought at first, ladies and gentlemen, because the perks are conflicting! That’s because the perks come in the form of spells - spells which take up a slot - and when the Player does not have more than 1 slot, the Player is going to be forced to pick a perk+spell that they might not want. That’s just horrible. Don’t force the Player into doing something.
Then, there’s an issue surrounding the checkpoint mechanic. Whenever the Player reaches a big checkpoint (Shrine to the Veiled Lady), their progress is automatically saved and their hit points, as well as their healing potion charges, are refilled. However, if the Player goes on to die before another autosave goes off, they will be returned at the checkpoint, with their hit points full (which indicates the Shrine to the Veiled Lady has been activated, as happens when a checkpoint is reached) but their health potion charges will be unchanged from what they were prior to reaching the checkpoint. That actually means the Shrine to the Veiled Lady has not been activated, but “go figure”. There is, supposedly, a difference in the visuals of an activated and a deactivated Shrine to the Veiled Lady, but the sheer existence of this is problematic, as it simply implies that checkpoints are not actually checkpoints - whenever the Player is beaten, they get healed, no matter how many hit points they had when they reached the checkpoint.
That’s not very good - especially if the Player does not learn to distinguish activated from deactivated Veiled Lady Shrines, because usually the activation of one coincides with the creation of a checkpoint, thus creating the assumption that activating a Shrine saves one’s progress.
One other issue with checkpoints - as stated, they are not actual checkpoints. If I were to steal a spell, go through a checkpoint with that stolen spell still on me, die (regardless of whether I’ve used the spell or not), I will be brought back to the checkpoint WITHOUT the stolen spell. This is not a checkpoint system, nor is it a save system, because it does not properly save the state of the game. This is an esoteric ‘honk honk’ system that clowns on the Player for no good reason at all.
Another issue surrounds bosses - whenever the player dies while fighting a boss, they respawn at the most recent checkpoint. That checkpoint is usually before the cutscene preceding the boss, thus every failed attempt means the player needs to sit through about a minute of cutscene, even while trying to skip through it, to get to the fight. That’s just not good, as it wastes the Player’s time, which is one of, if not the worst thing that can be done by a game.
More problems with fighting bosses - some of them just straight up do not work. Others do certain things that do not get done in next boss fights. Such as healing the PC when a new boss phase begins - when fighting Garen, there are two phases. When the second phase begins Sylas is healed to full. However, the next boss, who also has phases, and there are three of them, does NOT heal Sylas to full health at either phase.
This is inconsistency. Now, an entirely different matter is why that second boss fight does not work at all - because whenever the Player depletes the health bar of the boss in the second phase, the boss just keeps going and requires an esoteric amount of additional damage to be dealt to it, otherwise it just will not go into the next phase, which is just splendid.
Now, this thing I mentioned about skipping through a cutscene - and it not really working - is both a Presentation issue and a Gameplay issue. It is a Gameplay issue, because it prevents the Player from getting into the Gameplay at their behest, whilst also preventing them from getting back to the Gameplay if they have already seen the cutscene. It is a Presentation issue, because, well, there is a button that indicates “fast forward” on the top right corner of the screen (when looked at by a Player), which does not actually fast forward. It simply simulates the press of the E key to instantly finish text scrolling in dialogue and to instantly go on to the next line of dialogue.
Unfortunately, almost all of the cutscenes feature more than just dialogue - animations of characters moving or things happening - and those do not get fast forwarded. That’s bad denotation, in any case, and it directly misleads the Player into thinking that they might get to skip a cutscene they have already seen.
That’s a problem, because even when the Player manually saves the game after a cutscene has played, and then reloads their save, the cutscene, if it precedes the saving of the game, but nothing else has happened, will go on to play regardless of whether or not it has played. That is more time wasted for the Player, and it is not good.
More funny business to be mentioned - if the Player accidentally presses the “Return to Hideout” button while in the game menu, or in the death screen (which appears when Sylas drops down to 0 health and is beaten) THERE IS NO PROMPT asking if they are sure. It just goes and throws the Player out - instantly saving progress, by the way, thus removing any chances the Player might have of quitting out of the game before it loads into the Hideout and removes an hour of progress because of bad design.
This is such a ludicrous oversight it’s unreal. The Player will only die in situations where they are trying to avoid an attack - thus pressing the movement keys. The movement keys ALSO navigate menus (instead of the arrow keys) and so the Player can just wind up pressing the S key after dying (because that’s what Players do, they sometimes react too late) and that will move the selection to the “Return to Hideout” button. If the Player is stuck on a boss fight, they will no doubt be in a hurry to quickly get back to the fight - because 10 seconds of loading every time one dies, followed by unskippable cutscenes are not fun and are more infuriating than the fight itself ever could be - and they could easily fail to notice, in time, that they have accidentally selected the “remove my progress” button.
Games with an autosave feature need to be better. Especially when their autosaves occur so haphazardly - such as before the game even loads in. This is a massive oversight. And it is GAME RUINING when it occurs on the mission that features 2 bosses, because there is no interlude in the ‘Hideout’ between those 2 bosses, there is a temporary ‘Hideout’ that does not get recognized as a ‘Hideout’ for the purposes of the “Delete Progress” button.
As a result of this, I feel compelled to dock this game's score even more, but I do realize that those are issues barely affecting the main dish. The main dish, of course, being the game as is, with all its features. Seeing as it is meant to be a large collection of things - all the upgrades, the spells and mechanics - the issues I have with the game, a decent chunk of them at least, are not truly problematic.
If one were to make use of them all, there are few issues, which issues take a point away. If one were to attempt to strain the mechanics and forgo the combination of them all - by avoiding the use of a number of mechanics. Not upgrading one's character, or one's potions, is such a means of avoiding the mechanics.
That creates a need for the basics to be as solid as possible. However, due to the fact they are not as solid as they need to be, the cracks that would otherwise be covered up by upgrades, are left bare. Collision detection, impossibilities to cancel an attack with the dash button, the dash not providing invulnerability frames - all issues that lead into the Player Character taking a hit. With upgrades, this is far lesser an issue than without, and so it is not as bothersome.
But for a Player seeking to challenge themselves and the game's systems, it is a problem. Seeing as I attempted to challenge myself, I was nearly stumped by these problems, and so my enjoyment of the game was vastly diminished. However, that is not the intended or the normal approach - this is a challenge run. Thus, it does not dock additional points.
Also, the Extras were just broken. I beat the game, 100%, and I accessed the extras window (all DLC ought to be available), but no. Nada. Still, that just goes to show that buying day 1 DLCs is a stupid idea and it should not be done under any circumstances. 2/3
Presentation
This game simultaneously looks good and also looks somewhat off.
First, why it looks good: For starters, it features a very wonderful, pixel-based graphical style, with everything being presented in good enough detail for it to be recognizable and appreciable, while still maintaining a relatively unique, by comparison to most AAA titles, stylized appearance. As is always the case, a stylized game will age like fine wine - potentially eternally looking good - whereas a game that strives to look as realistic as possible will end up ugly a few years down the line.
Thus, the game looks good and the presentation, in that aspect, is very satisfactory. Not only that, but when the game window is made smaller, or the resolution is increased, everything becomes astoundingly crispy. Now, I said that this game has pixel-art graphics (I at least alluded to it) but the folks at Digital Sun have done something very interesting…
And that’s the fact that most effects look as though they are not pixelated like the rest of the game. Whereas the environments and the characters, perhaps due to the fact they are more solid and static than the effects, clearly have this roughness to their outlines and features, the effects look as though they are done differently. The main-menu screen is an example of that, with the main character’s hand - the outlines of which are very clearly made up of a large number of squares - is enveloped in a flame that does not possess that squareness.
Very interesting choice, and also a very good one, as most of the effects in the game are either magic - which is something supernatural - or things related to the User Interface, which is something that is completely outside of the game world and transitions into being a META thing. This gives the effects a sense of oddness, almost makes them clash with the rest of the visuals, turning them into something unusual and visually striking.
Whenever things such as this - effects - are visually striking, we can have two outcomes. Either the Player is disoriented by the effects, as they are purely visual, or the Player’s attention is drawn to the effects and thus objects in the game world, or other things in it, are highlighted. As this is a combat-focused game, most of the effects are related to magical spells cast by enemies or environmental effects that have some bearing on the gameplay…
So this is actually a good thing. While I’m making an elephant out of a housefly, it is a very interesting thing, and I think that it was used very cleverly to accent the important bits of the gameplay.
Now, let me tell you how this good thing is turned into a bad thing. There are too many effects! They are too intense! They hide other effects! Whenever Sylas enters “Unchained Mode”, his sprite starts taking up 2 times as much space on the screen because of the amount of effects applied on him. His attacks start taking up 2, maybe even 3 times more space on the screen, and they hide enemy projectiles. That’s HORRIBLE. It has a negative bearing on Gameplay, too, because it makes the Player get hit by stuff that would have otherwise been clearly visible and would not have resulted in the Player getting hit.
Let me also reiterate that this game - the pixel-art sprites of the environments and objects - are absolutely gorgeous. Truly nothing captures the imagination and activates the neurons like good pixel art!
Onto more good stuff regarding the Presentation of this game - the musical score is fantastic. Now, while there are some pieces that stick out as somewhat unfitting - considering that a decent chunk of the music accompanying the game is instrumental and leaning towards the ‘classical’ descriptor, and then there’s a piece that’s straight up instrumental rock(or heavy metal0, there’s a bit of dissonance, but none of the pieces are unpleasant or bad by themselves.
In addition to that, the sound design and sound effects are also very good, but there’s little to be said about them, other than the fact that when there’s nothing to be said about them, they’re generally more than passable.
The voice-acting - what little of it there is - is actually quite reasonable as well, though some of the things that are said induce cringe. They sound somewhat wrong - such as the intonation of some statements that are translated from League of Legends into this, or that some statements are repeated for no good reason, but it is a relatively minor issue. With that said, let’s get onto the bad sides of this.
In the cutscenes of this game - which are not that many, but they are present, and the very first thing the Player sees is a cutscene - the artstyle does a very odd thing and becomes unpleasant to behold. I would not go so far as to call it ugly, as the environmental aspect of the sights on display is very good, and the characters who are not in focus look decent, but it is definitely uncanny.
The human characters - their faces, mostly - are unsightly. I can’t put my finger on it, but in the cutscenes, the visages of mankind are square, long and unnerving to behold - almost ugly, but not quite. It’s probably got something to do with the pixelated nature of the visuals, and the square essence of pixels, but there’s a resounding amount of unease within me as I observe these faces.
Which is the weirdest thing, because as soon as the gameplay starts, the visuals shift. There are sections during which sprites of the characters - detailed ones - show up on screen, and in them the characters look very human and very plausible… Well, some of them. Others look a bit odd. It seems as though there’s a slight aspect of caricature, if it was intentional, and if not, there’s some failing somewhere along the line that just makes the characters unpleasant to look at.
And I don’t like that. I’d say it’s a problem. Another thing that shows up as a bit of an issue regarding the game’s Presentation would have to be the tutorials. While this is a rogue-like game, which indicates that it is going to be more challenging in some way, the tutorials are incredibly ‘intense’, if that can be used as a means to describe it.
Not only do they stop the game entirely, they over-explain things that could easily be gleaned and learned through gameplay. An example would be the fact that Sylas can not steal a spell from the same enemy as soon as he has stolen it once already, and needs to wait a bit to steal it. That is told to the Player through the tutorial’s text, even though the Player would have been able to pick up on that fact by playing the game - even playing through the tutorial - and attempting to steal the spell of an enemy more than once in a given time-frame, only to find out that it can not be done.
Then the Player would see the META effect of the ‘semi-circle’ filling up as the cooldown expires and the Player would understand what is going on. Unfortunately, there are both good things and bad things here. On the one hand, the good things come from the fact that this game gives the Player some really good and helpful information, while the bad things come from the fact that the game wastes the Player’s time and treats them like an imbecile.
In truth, treating the Player like an imbecile is a good approach to doing tutorials for games, especially if the game is expected to attract an audience that has never played a similar game like that before, but the intrusive nature of the tutorials is bothersome.
Not only that, but the tutorial almost defeats itself. It starts off with a pop-up that stops the game, displays a video of the thing being explained and presents the Player with quite a bit of text explaining the thing. THEN, the Player is allowed back into the game, though the User Interface is suddenly amplified with a set of widgets to the side of the screen, each indicating what needs to be done - showcasing an order and a set of button combinations/activities - which, if followed, explicitly showcases to the Player what they can and need to do, whilst also letting them do it.
There’s a lot of redundancy here - either have one or the other, but both are too much. The solution would be to provide a widget that prompt the Player to open the pop-up for more information, if the developers want to provide more information, instead of stopping the game in its tracks.
That brings up another very problematic thing. Whenever Sylas steals a spell, the screen flashes and shakes. That kind of thing also happens whenever Sylas takes damage, and the way the screen shakes and flashes is almost identical, with the only exception being the fact that Sylas grunts in a certain way and there is a red tint to the screen flash, whereas when a spell is stolen the flash is orange… Which is not too far away from red.
This is bad, because it provides the opportunity for the Player to get confused off of doing the right thing. The Player needs to steal spells, but when doing so, the feedback provided by the game is almost the exact same as the feedback provided when taking damage. In a high-octane situation, which are plentiful and intended in this hack-and-slash game, it is easy to get those two events mixed up… And that creates room for panic, loss of focus and, overall, doing things that do not need to be done because the reason for doing them is not present.
Whenever the Player takes damage, the feedback must be unique. MARKEDLY unique, not slightly different. When it is not, we have another problem.
Another problem that affects Gameplay is one relating to collision boxes. A collision box is an invisible frame (a box) surrounding an object (say, a fireball) and any other object in the game world (say, Syals and a tree) also has a collision box. That invisible frame serves as a means of checking whether or not there is a collision between the two collision boxes whenever the fireball moves past Sylas - if their collision boxes meet, there is a collision, and Sylas is hit.
Well, the collision boxes need to be precisely scaled and fitted to whatever they are being a collision box for - in the case of a projectile, it needs to be very carefully framed so that it does not mislead the Player that they will not get hit, only for them to get hit. In the case of this game, collision boxes are mostly okay, with the exception of cases when they are atrociously bad. An example would be some exploding plants, which have a radius around their sprites, which radius is painted red to indicate danger. When Sylas is not standing in that red radius, he should be outside of the explosion range of that plant… But then half the time he is not.
The visual indicator is faulty and misleading, which leads into the Player thinking something is, let’s say, safe, but it actually is not safe and leads into the Player getting beaten, thus losing progress and time cheaply. This is both a Gameplay and Presentation issue, but I have decreed that it has more to do with Presentation, and so it is here.
In other news, the way the story is presented is as expected. This game, due to the fact it has very little voice acting, and only in the big, important cutscenes, is text based. That, in part, allows it to do a lot of exposition - the characters talk lots, and they do so in the usual JRPG style of:
One large sprite (as I will refer to the detailed sprites) on the left side of the screen, a speech bubble underneath them when they are the one talking, and another large sprite on the right side of the screen, a speech bubble underneath them when they are the one talking. The unfortunate part pertaining to this aspect of presentation is that when selecting a conversation to have with a character, the screen that presents them only features three at a time, even though there could be far more than that. The issue is not that there are only three options on screen at a time, but, rather, that there is no indication how many options are present overall, or that there are more options than three. That’s a relatively minor issue, though it is one nonetheless.
There are also some instances of speech bubbles appearing over the small sprites (the ones used in gameplay) when the scene on display is more cinematic. During those, everything appears as it does during normal gameplay, but the Player does not have control of their character.
Then there’s, frankly, the most amusing and maybe entertaining manner of presenting information in this kind of game - the ‘audio log’, but it’s not an audio log since there’s no voice acting, so instead there are pages strewn about the world. The Player can walk up to them and read them - which is how they get exposition and world-building, aside from the obvious looking at the fantastic locations the Player gets to visit.
Alas, there is a problem with those. Whenever the Player accesses their ‘audio log’ tab in the menu, they will have all obtained logs shown in a line, in the order in which they can be obtained. That indicates to the Player that any logs they have not obtained will simply be shown in between obtained logs, and they will be able to track things that way. Unfortunately, that is not the case - there is no good indication of which log is obtained where, nor how many other logs can be obtained in that area (mission).
There is something that shows up later in the game - when the Player is allowed to replay missions - but the Interface for replaying missions is the only bit of User Interface that shows how many logs are at a certain location and how many of them have been collected. That’s not nice.
Another funky Interface failure is that the save slots can not display more than 24 hours, so when a Player’s game-time goes over 24 hours, the clock resets and it starts from 0. 2/3
Story
The story is interesting, almost good, but then there are some very odd points that show up.
As an example - Sylas loudly proclaims he will have his revenge on literally everyone of the Mageseekers, which revenge entails killing them. Another character - Killan - states that Sylas has better morals than him, even though up to that point Sylas has set fire to the capital city, caused incredible destruction (which has hurt countless people and cost many people, many of whom innocent, not only their homes but their lives), killed at least 14 people and has expressed remorse over NOT being the one to kill the king. Killan, on the other hand, has informed Sylas that he has students that he can not abandon.
This is a very, very problematic thing. It is one thing to have the character committing atrocities believe themselves moral, it is an entirely different thing to have another character observing this performance of evil and comparing themselves to the one CLEARLY doing immoral things… Whilst winding up LESS moral. That’s just wrong.
Then again, at that point in the story there are mostly assumptions to be made about how morally reprehensible Killan is, though due to the fact he was a Mageseeker, and still is, one can deduce a decent amount of information. Still, this is a red flag that occurs in the very beginning of the game. Not only that, but it is not the only one.
Even so, the story itself is neat. It follows Sylas after the events of that one League of Legends comic about Lux, which comic features the story of Sylas and Lux, and ends with the two going their separate ways, leading bands of mages out of the capital of Demacia. This story is about Sylas properly starting his rebellion with the help of some rebellious country folk.
I must inform the reader that this is not an RPG. Whatever anyone has said, whatever the tags in Steam say, whatever the game’s description is - this is not an RPG. The story is set in stone. There is nothing that the Player can do to change it.
Other problematic aspects include Sylas fighting a character, beating them in gameplay thanks to the Player controlling properly, and then a cutscene appears wherein the character winds up beating Sylas. That’s always been quite weak.
There are occasional issues, such as whenever a character is just invincible for the sake of some silly mechanic - namely one of the villains being invincible the first time around, forcing Sylas to beat up a door instead. If there was an explanation as to why that was the case, which explanation made sense, it would be passable. However, when the explanation is literally: “Too strong” and “You can not harm me!” - that’s when it is not passable.
This kinda keeps happening. Bits of nonsense here and there - such as when the whole gang is assaulting Demacia (the city), they’ve got their target right where they want him to be, and then a boss fight ensues but it’s not between the target and Sylas, but some other goon and Sylas. Meanwhile, the target flees and does not get pursued, following which Sylas and the gang just leave. They leave Demacia, having assaulted it, and then they go back to assault Demacia again.
And that bit of nonsense is followed by… Well, exactly what one might expect would follow it. There’s Chekhov’s gun - Sylas’ teacher, shown to the Player at the very beginning of the game when said teacher saves Sylas from Garen’s Ultimate - and there’s Chekhov’s gun firing - Sylas’ teacher being turned into a horrific abomination via ‘magic-mutation potion injection’ by one of the villains and being killed as a result. Who could have thought that this would happen?
It feels predictable. The entirety of the story feels, simultaneously, predictable and also somewhat unpredictable. The beats are readable - oh, this character does not want to do that thing; they’ve got a big spell that kills the user, boy-oh-boy is that another one of Chekhov’s guns? Wonder what will happen to that character, it’s such a mystery!
So the routes presented by the game’s story, for its characters, are painfully simple and obvious. Oh, this character is angry - there’s going to be a moment where their anger contributes to a great misfortune and they’ll change. Oh, this character is not trusted by the others - that means he’s going to do something to make them trust him completely!
It’s obvious what will happen, but on a micro scale.
What will happen with the story overall, how will the geo-politics of the country change, how will the rebellion go - that’s somewhat unclear. It’s not obvious. Perhaps that’s owed up to the fact that there are fewer stories about rebellions, or maybe because my experience is a bit more limited in that area, but the macro manages to remain interesting throughout the entire duration of the story.
For the most part, stuff is competently done, and the world-building is very good. Demacia, as a region, is almost immaculately developed and it’s given outstanding amounts of life. The characters themselves are reasonably interesting, and those that are directly from League Of Legends are provided with a lot of characterization that could have been gleaned off of just reading their lore pages, with the exception of Sylas.
He almost becomes a likable character. Almost is the key word, and the other is likable. From his depictions in the comics, the lore at large and League of Legends, he is a horrible, unpleasant person. This game really puts in the effort to maintain that, but to also make him almost likable - after all, he is the protagonist.
In any case, the game really does well with making and setting up unlikable villains, whereas those who are already known to the Player - Jarvan and Garen - are sympathetic. Even the final boss is a sympathetic villain. In fact, almost all the bosses are sympathetic villains who see themselves as heroes.
The ending is quite vague, as though it sets up a sequel, and Sylas’ motivations to keep going are somewhat weak, as his shtick was almost entirely based around being anti-mageseeker, and yet he suddenly pivots to anti-monarchist/anti-aristocracy. Those are present, but said presence is far weaker, and it almost comes out of nowhere. It does make sense, though!
All in all, a neat enough story. It had a few issues that kick it down a bit, but other than that it was very pleasant. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? On the one hand, I want to say yes. I want to do so because of the fantastic additions to the world of Runeterra (League of Legends’ setting). I want to do so because of the incredible sights that were presented in this game. I want to do so because I think it’s a very enjoyable ride.
But then I also do not want to give it the point. It was monstrously buggy for a product being sold. It was unpolished and allowed a surface-level involvement with it, as any attempts to delve deep into the mechanics was met with disappointment. The way the characters look is odd.
And then I had a lot of wrath-filled moments owed up to this game during my adventure with it, what with beating it without purchasing any upgrades. It did not feel right, and so I can not, in good conscience, give it the Legendary Point. It almost won me over, but it’ll have to do better than that.
One other reason. First, I wanted to give it the point - because I really enjoyed all the 'Easter eggs' and references relating to League of Legends' universe, the multiple mentions and expansions of the world itself. There was mention of Katarina, there was mention of Fiddlesticks, there was the active presence of Nocturne, there was mention of Noxus, of Ixtal, of Shurima, of the Freljord - so many things, all of them impressively intriguing… But then there is a problem.
It could be considered a Story problem, but it does not quite fit in there. However, it is a problem for me, and it is a great enough issue to affect my perception of the game. So, the story is set in Demacia during the mage rebellion. The characters in Demacia, affected by the Mageseekers and the rebellion, are all present, with one exception.
The character of Sona Buvelle, who is a mage, whose story was left with an inconclusive conclusion that ended with her being chased away by Mageseekers. She is mentioned to have been asked to join Sylas' rebellion a number of times. She SHOULD have been in this game, even if without playing an important role. But, alas, she was not present, and so I shout a resounding: No! There is no legendary point for this game! 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. A slightly above average game, which winds up meaning that it is a good game. I’d recommend it to fans of action-adventure games and League of Legends. I’d also recommend it to people filled with a seething hatred for League of Legends, as it features all the good things about League of Legends, without the bad.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display. It is a bit dusty, as if truly destined for the bag of mediocrity, but my time with it was pleasant enough… And yet it could have been more!