Netmarble is all set to expand the universe ofSolo Levelingthrough their ActionRPG title, Solo Leveling: Arise. The studio promises to expand the already vast universe of thepopular manhwaseries, and I was fortunate enough to experience Netmarble’s reimagining of the Solo Leveling universe early through the preview build.
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As someone who’s read the Solo Leveling manhwa in its entirety, I was already excited about Solo Leveling: Arise when it was initially announced. The manhwa was insanely popular on its own, and now, A-1 Pictures has been knocking it out of the park with the anime adaptation. So, all that’s left for Solo Leveling to become an even more popular IP in 2024 is a good video game adaptation. Well, after playing Solo Leveling: Arise for several hours, I must say that Netmarble has us covered in that regard.
Solo Leveling:ARISE
Stays Faithful To The Source Material While Offering A Fresh Perspective
The best part about Solo Leveling: Arise is that its story follows the same path as the source material and features the same characters and bosses. As expected, the game begins with you entering the E-Rank Dungeons, but your journey as Sung Jin-Woo truly begins when you enter the Double Dungeon.
The in-game cinematics beautifully capture the main story, and I absolutely love how the cutscenes keep on switching to the manhwa panels. In a way, Solo Leveling Arise pays homage to the legendary Webtoon by bringing its panels back to life.
Solo Leveling Arise pays homage to the legendary Webtoon by bringing its panels back to life.
Even if it tells the same events that you’ve seen transpiring in the manhwa, the game throws in just the right pinch of original content. When you enter the Dungeons, you’ll come across several types of enemies that you haven’t seen in the manhwa or the anime. The beauty of Solo Leveling: Arise is that it actually lets you experience the hardships of Jin-Woo each time he enters a Dungeon.
I’ve heard of the “System” in anime and webtoons, and I’ve seen Jin-Woo switching between unlocked items and weapons during battles, but it’s Arise that gave me a look at the System from the inside. The RPG title also takes you to the Hunter Association’s lobby, where you may talk to different Hunters, shop for items, check your Ranking, and do a lot more stuff to just pass some time.
In anime or manhwa, we often see Jin-Woo’s struggle against the Bosses, but Arise also puts the right amount of focus on smaller enemies without making the gameplay tedious or boring. When fighting waves of enemies, I actually felt more connected to Jin-Woo’s leveling-up journey when compared to the Webtoon or anime. Clear the smaller stages in a Dungeon before getting to the Boss — I understood this part of the Solo Leveling universe in its true sense by playing Arise.
The Chaotic Gameplay That Shines Bright
I don’t fancyHack-and-slash gamesbecause, at certain points, the gameplay inevitably starts to feel repetitive. It’s almost like I can beat an enemy by bashing one or two combinations of keys without actually paying attention to small details. However, I was actually surprised by how challenging Arise’s gameplay became. In short, Solo Leveling: Arise captures the essence of the manhwa through its intense gameplay.
Netmarble’s Arise captures the essence of the manhwa through its intense gameplay.
It’s still a hack-and-slash title, but the gameplay actually forces you to pay attention to the enemy’s movements, especially during boss fights. Each Boss is different, and while the attack mechanism doesn’t change much during battles, you have to change your movement depending on the situation.
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For instance, I had more trouble defending myself from Giant Arachnid as compared to Blue Venom-Fanged Kasaka. While Kasaka’s attacks were much faster, it was easier for me to get away from harm’s way using the Dash ability. Arachnid, however, made it difficult for me to dodge its fangs and webs if I was too close. In fact, I had to get Song Chi-Yul’s help multiple times to maintain a healthy distance from the enemy and get healing from Joohee.
As we are talking about help, I must say that Solo Leveling Arise does an incredible job with side characters. In the game, you can create a Hunter team and recruit unlocked characters based on your preference. While playing the main story, I can call for my squad members' help to do additional damage to enemies or get healing. I was even able to complete several low-level side quests, or Gates, by playing as Song Chi-Yul and Joo-Hee, which made me better understand the role of their abilities.
Players can unlock different abilities for Jin-Woo as they level up and earn ability points as they play, and they can use these Stat points to work their way up with Strength, Vitality, Agility, Intelligence, or Perception.
While several attack techniques, including finishers, can be unlocked, the game only has a few dodging techniques. Honestly, I could have used more than just Dash and Extreme Evasion to dodge attacks; nevertheless, the range of attacking techniques does make up for that.
Each boss in Arise gets more challenging to beat as you level up, and what makes the dungeon more difficult is the timer. Interestingly, you have to defeat a Dungeon Boss within a certain time limit, and you’ll have to retry from the beginning if you fail to do so. Honestly, it was the time-limit features that were preventing me from defeating a Level 20 Boss while being a Level 12 player.
In a sense, that’s a good thing, because if not for this feature, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to the side quests or cared much about leveling up. That being said, the compulsion to complete side quests doesn’t exactly work in the game’s favor.
Compulsion To Complete Gates Hinders The Otherwise Great Experience
I was happy with the gameplay when playing the main storyline, mainly because it kept on introducing new types of enemies and bosses. That wasn’t true with the side quests, though. Even though I was able to play as side characters, the side quests did feel tedious and repetitive after a while. It basically resulted in fighting the same enemies in similar dungeons, but on a higher difficulty. What frustrated me a little was that I had to go through several side quests to get back to the main story.
No matter how hard you try, you can’t defeat a higher-level boss, which means you can’t progress in the story unless you’ve reached the minimum required level for that chapter. You can indeed launch the next Story chapter, but you won’t be able to beat the Ultimate Boss until you’ve reached the required level.
You have to complete these side quests, which, at one point, don’t offer anything fresh, just to level up and experience the main storyline. I so badly wanted to get back to the main story that I was ready to go through like 10 side quests in a single sitting, but oftentimes, I lost interest because of the repetitive nature of these quests.
Netmarble tries to make the side quests enjoyable by letting us play with other characters, but the fun doesn’t stick for too long. I would have enjoyed the quests much more if they contributed to the story.
The Progression System Wants You To Go Outside And Touch Grass
Solo Leveling: Arise is not a title that you can play for many hours in a single sitting. The Story is level-gated, which means you can’t complete the story if you haven’t leveled up. Leveling up isn’t that easy either, as you have to gain XP to unlock different skills and weapons. In Arise, when you beat a Gate, you can leave your team for Mining and earn XP, like how we see things happening in the Webtoon. However, the mining of Gates will take some real-time hours to finish. So, you’ll have to wait a few hours to gain that sweet XP and use that to unlock weapons or higher-rank Hunters for your team.
When you’ve garnered enough resources, you go back to clearing Gates — which, at some point, gets difficult to beat because they are time-gated — so you can level up to get back to the main story. In short, there were moments when I had to actually get off the game because I couldn’t do anything besides wait for the Mining to finish. I could certainly try higher-leveled Gates or missions, but I wasn’t able to beat the Bosses on time because the game is designed in such a way. Netmarble wants you to launch the game, do some stuff to level up, and then come back later when you’ve gained enough XP.
There’s so much to do in Solo Leveling: Arise, and the game is structured in such a way that youhaveto experience it all.
The progression system in Arise is super slow, which, of course, some players might not like, but in a sense, it is very faithful to the Solo Leveling universe. I mean, leveling up from an E-Rank Hunter to a godly entity does take a lot of time, and while I didn’t actually feel that in the manhwa or anime, the game does make me realize that. There’s so much to do in Solo Leveling: Arise, and the game is structured in such a way that youhaveto experience it all. I mean, what good is a game based on a story about an RPG system if it doesn’t take “leveling up” seriously?
Final Verdict
Despite having repetitive Side Quests, all in all, Solo Leveling: Arise is a great Action RPG that every fan of the franchise should look forward to playing. The title provides great insight into the Solo Leveling universe, and it made me fall in love with Sung Jin-Woo all over again. The gameplay is engaging and incredibly fun, the visuals are great, and the voice acting is phenomenal.
I played the PC version of Arise, and the performance was great for the most part. There were some minor glitches, and sometimes, the game was stuck on loading screens, but I assume stuff like this will be sorted with the Global launch.
DualShockers was provided with a Preview Build for Solo Leveling: Arise from the developer.
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