Arise!

In a world where the endless conflict between humans and monsters is the rule, a weak hunter takes on his role as the protagonist. Sung Jinwoo, alongside his companions, must bring order to chaos and put an end to this endless war. From manhwas to anime, and now to the game, Solo Leveling arrives to show how a beautiful adaptation is done.

With a release date scheduled for May 8, Solo Leveling: Arise will come to us through the App Store, Google play, and PC. Help Sung Jinwoo bring peace to the land, if you can...

Honoring the manhwas

If you've watched the anime that gives name (and purpose) to the game, this will certainly be a super interesting experience. Opting for an original aesthetic but still quite coherent with the origin of the manhwa, the developers managed to retell the story of Solo Leveling in a completely new way.  

By combining in-game created cutscenes with cinematic framings and camera work with various sequence plans, the devs found a new format for retelling the story. For me, this was a work of great attention and recognition of the original work, but above all of technical skill, which reconstructs a work of very high level without falling short.

Although I always delve into the lore of games in my reviews, this time, especially, I won't go down that path to avoid spoilers from the anime. See... Your writer can be a nice guy... sometimes.

Furthermore, I would like to say that I was quite impressed with the narrative quality in general. Both the way of telling the story and the chosen aesthetic to make it meaningful hit the mark and were able to shape a truly captivating product. Give it a chance. You won't regret it.

A combat to teach how it's done

Similar to games like Honkai Impact, Solo Leveling: Arise delivers a frenetic and very fluid experience. With combat in stages, where, at the end, there will always be a boss to be faced, you will experience different combat modes in a really short cadence.

For some, this isn't a problem, as the experience will always be refreshing; but for others, perhaps this model will become repetitive quickly. For me, the second option started to become a reality, until I got used to it and started to enjoy the format.

In the game, you will progress your main character and your companions, more or less like in Genshin Impact. But here, the protagonist, Sung Jinwoo, will always be your flagship. Although you can't change the main character, this proves favorable, especially for the development of the story. In the manhwa, Jinwoo is the guy. Why wouldn't he be in the game?! Wouldn't it be weird to play Dragon Ball Z and have Krillin as the protagonist?! (Funny, but weird...).

You will have at your disposal a kit of skills and weapons that can change your combat style. The weapons have unique abilities, which make the combat more personalized and technical, if that's your goal.

The weapon and player skills are divided into two categories: Break and non-break. Break skills cause a little less damage, but have the additional property of destroying the boss's Guard bar. When the Guard bar is broken, the boss will be stunned for a few moments and also receive extra damage from all sources.

The gameplay is very fluid and technical, especially when it comes to dodging. Dodging an attack at the right time will cause a slow-motion effect called Extreme Evasion, which will activate special abilities that can be used as a counterattack or tactically.

There are also other status effects that you can cause with other skills you equip, which in turn can also activate other special moves. This variety of moves and effects impressed me, since in games of this genre this level of variety and customization is not common. Especially when we also consider the skill kit of our allied characters.

Depending on the game mode, you will have a certain number of allied characters available to play. They can contribute directly in combat, with damage, healing, or other special effects. At times, it will be possible to play with them, which makes the combat more unique and the experience quite enjoyable. This particularity reminded me a bit of Genshin Impact, but with a greater fluidity in character swapping and synergy.

The other game modes that do not include Sung Jinwoo will require you to control each member of your team one at a time and you can switch between them like in those more popular gacha games.

On one hand, it's really cool to see Netmarble actually create a progression system where you eventually become a super powerful main character, just like in the manhwa. On the other hand, they didn't want to diminish the importance of their gacha, so they just created a bunch of other mandatory systems completely to exclude Sung Jinwoo.

That's a shame, as Jinwoo's progression is one of the most fun parts of the game, for me. Although quite traditional, the experience of advancing with a character is always rewarding.

Being able to distribute attribute points as you wish to build your main character the way you want is really cool. In relation to the original manhwa, this was a really good move, as Sung Jinwoo gains "5 statistic points" per level in the story, and you can assign 5 statistic points per account level.

The allied character system, on the other hand, is that typical progression system of gacha games. Leveling up is free, however, to really advance, you will need to invest your hard-earned money to see things progress for real.

To mitigate the situation, all allies have unique animations and fighting styles, showing that Netmarble dedicated itself to the game and that it makes sense to invest in Solo Leveling.

During gameplay, I went through several loadings, especially between the lobby menus, which broke the immersion and pace of the game. I hope Netmarble fixes this soon because, in my view, it's a really important negative point.

It's also worth considering that the game presents a large amount of point accumulation and mission systems, which can leave the player a bit lost until fully getting used to the game.

Stylized and frenetic

Solo Leveling: Arise delivers a visual experience that corresponds to the entire context from which it comes. You will see giant and terrifying creatures, jaw-dropping visual effects, and super captivating characters. In addition, the narrative points, which intersperse cinematics with manhwa cutouts, are presented in memorable and very high-level artistic sequences. I was enchanted by what I saw and got very excited about the experience. The game brings some concept elements that remind, for example, of Hi-fi Rush, but in its own way. This corresponds quite well with the original proposal of retelling the manhwa from another perspective.

The soundtrack is also very exciting and fits the battles very well. The effects are also convincing and quite pleasing for being very coherent. The dubbing, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired in some languages, like English. Not that it's completely bad, but in comparison to other languages, like Japanese, it's hard not to look down on it. 

For this review, Solo Leveling: Arise was played on PC, through Netmarble.