While perusing the “Mostly Positive” rating that Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive currently has on Steam, a common theme, especially in the positive reviews, is how it could be improved. If only there were an offline mode, rather than serving as a half-baked always-online title with co-op. If only it had a better weapon upgrade system. If only there was party chat, free exploration, less lagging and stuttering, more organic ways to bond with its cast and so on.
Sadly, it doesn’t have all that. And as you’ve probably guessed already, it’s just not very good in general.
Netmarble Neo, who you’ll recognize for developing the awful (for different reasons) Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, said this is separate from Solo Leveling: Arise. They’re correct: That one is free-to-play and launched in such a predatory fashion that it made hoYoVerse look like saints. This one costs $40, which might as well be a king’s ransom for what’s on offer. However, they’re otherwise the same game. The same combat, the same presentation issues, the same characters – it even has the same Destiny-style hub.
Yes, there are some differences in how certain sequences are seen in the opening (hilariously, one fight is now a simple cutscene). But if you didn’t like Arise, you probably won’t like this, and if you’re in the market for any anime action title, you, like me, will keep finding reasons to hate Overdrive.
“Other times, you’ll have to control those same companions, with Jinwoo nowhere to be seen, and things take a turn for the clunky. Don’t want to? Too bad, but at least those Encore missions are few and far between. Once you’ve completed enough meaningless, repetitive, no-frills side missions, you can progress through the main story.”
Solo Leveling follows Sung Jinwoo, the weakest Hunter in a world where Gates to other realms pop up and require slaying fantasy creatures. Sometimes, they’ll lead to a Dungeon, or even a Dungeon within a Dungeon, which can be bad news if you go in unprepared…which is exactly what happens to Jinwoo (not for any fault of his own, mind you). Left for dead, he gets a new lease on life by the System and begins augmenting his strength.
Why him? What is his purpose? How did he gain a mad eight-pack so quickly? Having read the entire manhwa, I can’t answer all of these questions without delving into spoilers, but Arise Overdrive does a passable job adapting the script, even blatantly inserting panels from the manhwa to advance the story.
But following its pacing? Not quite. After the eight-pack reveal, suddenly, you choose a skill tree for Jinwoo, who then joins the Hunter’s Association for his own wicked control room to partake in missions, complete with characters mindlessly walking around, a blacksmith to craft things, and strike teams to send on missions.
I’m sorry, do you not remember that part of the manhwa? Well, you shouldn’t. You’re not exploring the world, as it were, but simply travelling to isolated instances which barely qualify as “missions.” It’s not like other games haven’t had the same approach throughout history. But when the original Arise launched, most of its contemporaries had begun moving past it. It was the worst kind of throwback more than a year ago, and it hasn’t changed one bit.
Some of these missions will be small Gates with enemies and a boss to clear out. Others will be Dungeon Breaks with…enemies and a boss to defeat. First-time rewards, options to increase the level of each mission – which confers better rewards but also takes forever if you’re nowhere near the required level – and the option to tackle everything in co-op await. You can go solo in most missions, taking companions who provide support abilities but also sometimes fight alongside you.
Other times, you’ll have to control those same companions, with Jinwoo nowhere to be seen, and things take a turn for the clunky. Don’t want to? Too bad, but at least those Encore missions are few and far between. Once you’ve completed enough meaningless, repetitive, no-frills side missions, you can progress through the main story.
“But when you first try out the combat system, one thing is going to stick with you for hours and hours. When using a weapon, unleash the abilities equipped in that slot, and then the weapon ability, then swap to the other. Repeat.”
For all its criticisms, Solo Leveling has excellent pacing and top-notch presentation. It gets to the fights that matter most, and they look great. Translating that can be challenging, so Netmarble Neo took the easy way out: Stretching levels past the point of credulity or enjoyment.
You’ll fight the same waves of enemies and mini-bosses, again and again, in the same corridor-like levels. Story missions tend to link several such stages together, which can sometimes result in fighting the same boss types multiple times in a row. One mission, I kid you not, involved slaying the same Goblin mage mini-boss five times. Even Booker T. would call it quits by that point.
If you happen to die at any point in that particular stage, have fun replaying it from the beginning. At least you still retain any levels gained, but the sheer tedium of going through the same encounters, whether it’s on Normal or Hard difficulty, is simply mind-numbing.
Now, you’ve probably seen enough of the combat by now to think that there’s something there, right? Sort of, but as with everything in this confounded game, there are caveats galore.
Once you get over the fact that Jinwoo can use guns, katanas, halberds, bows and crossbows, you’ll notice that the overall movement feels good. Dodging is responsive, and the parrying, despite the overtly generous window, is on point. Several of the attacks have neat animations and effects, from the “We’re not calling it Judgment Cut, but it is 100 percent Judgment Cut” to gathering enemies together and then detonating the area. Some neat elemental effects can trigger, and even though I didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of what they all did, watching Scorch or Freeze become amplified while a target was also afflicted with Nightmare felt pretty cool.
But when you first try out the combat system, one thing is going to stick with you for hours and hours. When using a weapon, unleash the abilities equipped in that slot, and then the weapon ability, then swap to the other. Repeat. Over and over, and over and over, until you’re begging, pleading for something different (which is usually when you throw in a QTE attack or decide to unleash your Ultimate).
“As cool as Overdrive abilities and the Ultimate look, I might as well be tickling a boss if they’re even one level higher, despite leveraging damage bonuses from back attacks and whatnot. It’s a good thing almost all of them apply damage-over-time effects that take forever to go away and can stack multiple times.”
Boss fights, both big and small, are very rarely the exception to that rule. Being able to unleash a powerful kick to temporarily stun a foe (which is different from the Crash effect) is neat. Mashing Shift to unleash it? Less intuitive. Otherwise, aside from several bosses constantly being recycled, they have such an annoying amount of health that you’re endlessly swiping your weapon and swapping between abilities.
As cool as Overdrive abilities and the Ultimate look, I might as well be tickling a boss if they’re even one level higher, despite leveraging damage bonuses from back attacks and whatnot. It’s a good thing almost all of them apply damage-over-time effects that take forever to go away and can stack multiple times.
If all that sounds like a dull time, well, too bad – you’re going to be doing a lot of it. That’s because the weapon crafting system takes a page out of Monster Hunter. Each weapon “type” has multiple options, and upon crafting the base type, you can upgrade it further into stronger versions. Sometimes you’ll branch off and make something different, and the whole idea is to refight certain foes for parts. Except the drop rates are somehow even more horrendous than Monster Hunter.
By the way, there’s almost no point to crafting unless you’re in the late or end-game. Loot drops, pitifully at that, from completing missions and follows the Destiny rule of higher rarities and tiers, which will most often be better than what you currently have from a stats point of view. The result is that you’ll pretty much equip whatever and then discard it just as regularly. As a result, you’ll probably replay missions or engage with the boring side content to raise your level. Yay.
The rest is just a laundry list of things I absolutely hate about Arise Overdrive. The need to level your companions and craft separate weapons for them, which have their own upgrade trees (and of course, your resources are limited). The game “loading” every time I speak to someone to gain Hunter Coins. The input lag in the menus and the overall awful UI design. The rendering distance, which causes anything beyond 20 meters or so to become blurry. The frame rate dropping massively in certain environments with any foliage. Everything on Jinwoo’s model, except for his head and weapons, disappearing during his Ultimate in one of the more bizarre bugs.
“Regardless of whether you enjoy the flashy combat or witnessing certain scenes fully animated, Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is just too repetitive, soulless and grindy to really warrant much of your appreciation. Go re-read the manhwa or rewatch the anime rather than wasting your time on this mess.”
The camera freaking out while fighting those Shadow Trials Mages, to the point where I didn’t lock on to avoid hurling mid-fight. The targeting in general which can make running away from an enemy’s AoE difficult. The game suddenly giving me dozens and dozens of the same Halberd as a quest reward, because imagine if those were all different weapons and gear instead of the same damn Halberd? Negative points to whoever decided the scrolling should be more like a touchscreen rather than simply using the mouse wheel. I also especially hate how low-quality some of the cutscenes look, but is that worse than the real-time scenes that stutter? Hard to say. At least you can pause during the action, something which I wouldn’t have thought to appreciate until Black Ops 7.
Perhaps the most egregious sin of this game is how boring it makes Solo Leveling. We could argue about cliches all day, but with each manhwa chapter, I wanted to know what Jinwoo would discover and face off against next. With Arise Overdrive, I dread each new connecting portal. My knowledge of the story is effectively a curse, since I know a mission won’t end until after defeating a specific boss, and it could stretch as long as possible before that happens.
Even worse is the fact that it takes massive creative liberties with the source material for no positive gain. The lead-up to the fight against Igris, for example, feels like just another trawl through some enemies rather than a battle of attrition. Despite Arise Overdrive prominently featuring panels about how Jinwoo can’t heal and that potions do nothing, they work just fine. Scavenging equipment from slain enemies to stand a better chance? That’s now just a cosmetic formality – like you’re acting out a sequence rather than actually being part of the story. Don’t even get me started on how you don’t even control some of the coolest moments, with the game simply defaulting to the manhwa.
Regardless of whether you enjoy the flashy combat or witnessing certain scenes fully animated, Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is just too repetitive, soulless and grindy to really warrant much of your appreciation. Go re-read the manhwa or rewatch the anime rather than wasting your time on this mess. Barely worth playing if it were free; for $40, you can do so much better.
This game was reviewed on PC.
