Solo Leveling: Arise is out now on mobile, and Netmarble’s new action-adventure is aiming to delight fans of this wildly popular series.
The publisher behind the Lineage Revolution series, Ni No Kuni: Crossed Worlds, and Seven Deadly Sins adaptations just brought a new otaku favorite to the small screen. Available right now across Android, iOS, and PC, Solo Leveling: Arise is a free-to-play action title that takes a webtoon, turned hit anime, and attempts to show players exactly what it’s like to step into the world of this wildly popular IP.
Picking up the mantle of Sung Jinwoo, players entering the alternate reality of a rather ravaged world will find themselves in an all too familiar situation. A lowly monster hunter in a modern dystopia quickly has a rather gruesome accident. The impending introduction of flesh to an unstoppable object doesn’t end how our hero expects, or this would be one short game. Providing Sung Jinwoo with a Soulslike reprieve, this underrated E-Class hero obtains the ability to gain EXP, level up, and take on new challenges. Whether it’s the backdrop of a modern-day dystopia, torn apart by rifts in reality, or the monster of the week encounters, this version of Arise is clearly an outing that draws on other iterations of the franchise.
Aesthetics
Spend just a few minutes in the dungeons or leap into the central story arc, and that inspiration is clear. Solo Leveling: Arise is a spectacle. Rather than lean entirely into the animated TV show, this title borrows a cell style that feels like it lives on the page. Monsters are delicately drawn and 3D character designs pick color tones that don’t feel overly animated. Sung Jinwoo even begins his rebirth in a series of comic book stills that embody the subtle malevolence that seeps through the cels of the webcomic. These nods to the original source material do gracefully avoid having to get too grizzly, yet the mix of animated in-game action, voice acting, and comic book stills works wonderfully throughout the main story arc. Monsters feel authentic, voice acting gives the main cast agency, and even the musical score borrows the rock riffs that are appropriate for any high-end Shonen hit.
Once you get past the initial introduction and ingenious use of visual references to put players firmly in their place, you’ll need to fight to survive. This is a dangerous and unforgiving environment. For seemingly no reason, protagonist Sung begins as the weakest Hunter in the world. An occupation that has him hunting low-level monsters, dying almost immediately, and being derided by almost everyone in sight. If it all sounds like a twist on One Punch Manor the subversive Go Go Loser Ranger, then that’s not the last time you’ll feel a sense of de ja vu.
Prepare To Run and Re Run
An action combat system and a slew of dungeons sit at the core of this Solo Leveling. These instanced encounters are introduced as gates. Portals that spawn across a cityscape appear as points on a map and seem more than a little similar to the encounters in similar otaku-leaning Netmarble offerings. Offering up a varying degree of increasingly high-level dungeon encounters, players will find a reactive rinse-and-repeat mix of trash mobs and big bads that are geared to get you geared up. Loot, EXP, and materials are all dangled as a carrot to get Sung and a team of Hunters into action. This, unfortunately, does little to differentiate itself from any other 3D dungeon runner. Whether you’re in a temple full of ghouls or a cavern riddled with werewolves, all the creative shine in the world still leaves the majority of these core encounters feeling underwhelming. New quests, missions, and side quests beyond this core set of repeatable Gates will unlock if your Hunters keep on keeping on, but the core of the content never escapes this core cliche.
Grind seems to be driven by an unwieldy mix of character leveling, premium currencies, weapon options, gear, skills, and crafting enhancements that all require more time in the game to obtain and level. In almost every menu, subsystem, and slot, something can be improved or upgraded. Crafting goes as far as adding in an enhancement system, a mainstay of endgame grind in almost every case. This is compounded by the gacha system, which allows players to add a range of new characters to their party. Each of these companions, of course, comes with their own gear and weapons. Mix in a premium currency event that, during our review process, amalgamated characters and weapons into a single banner and rolled pity at 80 pulls. For those not versed in gacha, that’s uncomfortably high. While I have no doubt, that all these choices can add s deep and meaningful customization system, they also lead back to repeatable dungeon runs.
Combat
Despite the need for a bit more grind, an enjoyable combat system can make this task much more bearable. Solo Leveling, however, has a combat system that’s good enough to be frustratingly imperfect. Playing as a range of recognizable faces, heroic types can wield a standard attack and a small selection of skills that align with a character’s intended playstyle. Whether you’re out to set a dungeon full of werewolves alight or slice through a dragon, all the action seems incredibly flashy. Movement is catered for by a basic touchscreen pad and plenty of intuitive modern 3D concepts slotted into the action. Dodge rolls, bullet time invincibility, and break bars all make Solo Levelling seem like Devil May Cry on a small screen, but some odd camera movement and targeting make atrocious companions to this system.
Rather than provide full control over the camera movement and use a free-form flow of combos, Solo Leveling: Arise adorns the action buttons with an itty bitty target icon. Tapping the tiny crosshair allows Sung and co to switch targets and lock their attacks. This likely works well on a desktop, where a controller can cycle through incoming cannon fodder. On the small screen, an inconsistent target lock couples with an unhelpfully narrow field of view and unbreakable combat animations that send players fleeing across the screen after the wrong enemy or dashing after thin air, while fully unaware of what’s going on feet behind them.
Between the repetitive content format and combat issues, it makes the auto-play option a tempting possibility. Yes, the dreaded autoplay option also makes an appearance, as if to reinforce the concept that this spin-off of Solo Levelling is in it just to get buff.
One For The Fans
This isn’t to say that the latest outing for Sung isn’t without its merits. As I’ve noted, this is a genuinely wonderful-looking title. When it lands the look and feel of the source, it really nails it. There’s a story arc for players who haven’t experienced this tale before, and the leveling system is deep and meaningful. New weapons, skills, and level stats should provide plenty of ways to play. There are even mini-games on offer and tons of distracting activities in the central lobby. The gacha system and premium currency rewards feel sufficiently fair and certainly aren’t necessary for your own personal power creep.
However, Solo Leveling: Arise seems so focused on this grind that it misses the mark in so many places. Combat should feel great, but it seems to sabotage itself and ends up being clunky. The tone of character interactions is wildly inconsistent, with the story arc producing the best sections and heroes reciting a few select lines, making them feel flatter than the very first drawings from creator Chu-Gong. You can get strong now, for free, over on the Solo Leveling: Arise website.
