Look out, Shadow the Hedgehog and Jak, Sung Jinwoo of the hit webtoon series “Solo Leveling” finally has his own PC (and consoles soon) game and he’s just roaring to be the edgiest protagonist I’ve taken the reigns of in quite a while.
This is developer Netmarble Neo and publisher Netmarble’s ‘Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE’, a singleplayer and cooperative action role-playing game where players take on that afformentioned edgelord as they quite literally level him up from E-ranked dork to some… triple-ess ranked god who can annihilate entire hordes of scum and anything that stand in his way all the while letting you know that he is death incarnate and that “it’s no use”. And just like grinding in any old MMORPG, Solo Leveling recreates that similar feeling of auto-comboing demons and other baddies away—with some fun twists to the whole deal.
(Netmarble)
But I’m getting a tad ahead of myself. I first want to emphasise that I do not like Solo Leveling’s story. I read the webtoon many moons ago and I found it to be a hyper speed narrative that disregards new and returning characters at the whims of the author or whatever advanced the plot so the next (admittedly awesome and well-drawn) fights would happen. Jinwoo’s character development starts and stops right after the prologue when this E-ranked hunter experiences a near-death encounter with a Dungeon Gate that had a nasty surprise waiting for the team that ventured in to close it. See, in Solo Leveling, the world is actively being assaulted by these Gates that open up that are full of monsters you’ll know plenty about if you’ve experienced a single western fantasy work in your life.
By sending in teams of hunters into these Gates and defeating the dungeon boss within, these doors of hellscapes close up and the human beans of the world get to live with a bit less fear in their day-to-day lives. And naturally, human beans have found a way to capitalise on these terrifying dungeons and there’s a whole business ring that goes around them—scavenging the resources within and bringing out what you can often means whether you and your family can eat for the month for some hunters. You can’t just run into these Gates, however, as you’ll need to experience an “awakening” to have the powers to even challenge the simplest of mob scum. Now, I’m not quite sure how power levels are determined in this world per se (there is a letter-grade system from E to S based on strength, I suppose?), but Jinwoo seems to be of a different breed as he can “level up” and go further beyond his current power ranking.
Anyway, Solo Leveling’s story is only as entertaining as its visuals, fights, and Sung Jinwoo’s hearty edgy quips as he transforms from dweeb to sigma overnight. Storytelling is told through in-engine dialogues, cutscenes, and webtoon animates in the game’s specific story mission segments. There are ten chapters in the game that covers Sung’s antics beyond where he becomes a Necromancer—but thankfully, we’re here to play as him, not follow along his boring origins.
Though before we delve into that, know that I actually love how much of an edgelord Sung is. His voice actor especially absolutely nails the monotone, indifferent creature the protagonist becomes as the game’s story progresses.
(Netmarble)
Solo Leveling’s gameplay loop has players level up Jinwoo, build new weapons across quite a variety of types, strengthen the heroes you recruit (and build them weapons, too), and level up his little shadow army that you get further in the game’s story. As a number of functions are locked, including stages, I highly suggest you jump in and clear the main story as soon as possible. The campaign has a difficulty slider, but honestly, you’re better off just breezing through it on easy so you can begin working on building your weapons. Weapons dictate elemental damage and significantly increase your stats, never mind the bonuses you get by building a hunter’s signature weapon. Like the Monster Hunter series, those weapons are built based on their trees, so unlocking the required resources should be your top priority. In addition, the story mode levels you up very quickly, despite being the lengthy chapters they are!
When a story chapter is cleared, bits and pieces of the chapter’s dungeon are cut off and made into their own missions. These missions can be solo’d or taken on cooperatively with other players online and their difficulties range from one to ten stars, which scales the levels of the mobs within those dungeons but also nets you the rewards you need for higher rarity weapons and other materials. Playing with other players is fun! But if you’re the soloing type, just about every mission in the game can be taken on “alone”. Weapons you equip will be your guiding hand, yes, but the hunters you recruit (characters from the Solo Leveling universe) will also lend a hand when you slot them into your party, popping in to deal damage/heal/stagger when necessary.
In some stages, you can actually play as these hunters and they have their own unique movesets. I personally loved playing as Amamiya Mirei as she does an insane amount of damage and uptime with her ultimate skill, so long as you can remember to dodge and hop over to a healer for a few buffs. Sure, you can unga-bunga through fights just by trying to slash ’em to death, but eventually you’ll cave or miss a dodge and take a bunch of damage in the process.
Oh, look at me, getting ahead of myself again. I’ve not even talked about how the game plays!
Right, so Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE plays like a hack ‘n slash action RPG. Though as the chapters progress, I’d liken it more to the musou-style of action games like those ‘Dynasty Warrior’ titles. Sung Jinwoo can master four classes—of those I’ve forgotten beyond the Assassin one, but he can use all sorts of weapons from hammers and daggers to guns if the job calls for it. He’s your one-man army and knowing your weapon’s gimmick is only half the battle. Sung and company can jump, dodge multiple times, block and parry oncoming attacks, and retaliate if either a perfect parry or an “extreme evasion” is executed. These retaliations aren’t automatic, however, and you can save these special attacks for a brief moment to follow up with your skills or Ultimate actions.
When you’re not doing that, you’re holding the X-button to perform auto combos and fill up those Ultimates while your skills recharge. You can swap to your other weapon, too, to extend damage uptime, but your positioning is really important in ARISE OVERDRIVE. See, back attacks are always ideal but the baddies will always flip their orientation to face you whenever possible. This leads to somewhat frantic battles where you’ll try to clear the small fry as fast as possible to target the head honchos that occupy the zone you’re fighting in and, in turn, prevent the lesser mobs from interrupting your attacks and launching you halfway across the battle arena. This is also important to note as many enemies have no natural turning animations and will immediately switch positions to attack you especially mid-combo.
Major enemies have massive health pools, and you’ll be whaling on them a whole bunch. In higher level quests, some mistakes can cost you half your health and many of those might not even be your fault. See, Solo Leveling’s combat is fun but clumsy. The game puts an emphasis on movement, positioning, and proper timing to attack and counter—and when it works, it feels quite nice. But you’ll likely run into frustrations when the camera fights you (especially against large targets), attacks that should connect end up missing or hit enemies you weren’t targetting, so on and so forth. My favourite is prepping a block only for the baddy’s attack to clip through the block and wasting a good chance to stagger.
The core of Solo Leveling is rather flawed and that extends to the level design and some quality-of-life issues. Maps in ARISE OVERDRIVE are small and that’s not a bad thing! But they are awkwardly designed in such a way that zones that are clearly visible and should be walkable from one point to the other have invisible walls placed in-between, forcing you to follow the developer’s specified path to explore dungeons. Besides boss mechanics, the only time the environment is factored into gameplay is when you need to destroy a statue which isn’t all that interesting. Enemy design is bog-standard, but some bosses feature enticing attack patterns you need to keep an eye out for. And while we’re on combat, it also isn’t entirely obvious when retaliation attacks will expire and becomes a bit of a chore to mentally keep track amongst the other bars and enemy attacks.
Don’t even get me started on the main menu, which skips and stutters and gets stuck on the most random things. Weapon creation started to feel like a chore when I started to dread opening up and selecting menus within menus because going back on all those would likely not even work. I had to pull out my mouse more times than I would have liked when I have a perfectly good controller in my hands.
Now as I’m writing this review, the Director of the game actually put out a bit of a blog post regarding upcoming changes and quality-of-life features. Some complaints I currently have will be addressed in the future, such as receiving the rewards of lower tier Dungeon Gates when you clear the topmost one and visibility issues. In addition, they’re actually working on an offline mode, which I appreciate as ARISE OVERDRIVE currently requires a constant internet connection just to play.
The developer has been listening to feedback since the game launched and I do appreciate that—I just wish I didn’t have to be the one grinding away the same dungeons multiple times to get some stinking recordings and materials, but alas.
(Netmarble)
I didn’t hate grinding through Solo Leveling though, perish the thought, I actually enjoyed the combat system to a degree and Sung’s wanton desire to grow grow grow. Playing with other players was quite fun and I made a few friends taking on the same stinkin’ snake and bears. The other hunters have unique fighting styles and that’s not even including Jinwoo’s available arsenal and skills (they’re cool “characters”, too, plus Amamiya Mirei leaves me a bit smitten). Plus, once you unlock the “Monarch of Shadows” ability, just watching the enemies you’ve absorbed from prior chapters swarm on field baddies as you slice, stab, and shank is oddly cathartic.
At Solo Leveling’s best, you really feel like the Solo Leveller himself—a unequivocal badass that leaves blood, guts, and edge in his growing shadow. Here’s a recommendation for Sung Jinwoo’s sheer hubris and longform level grinding. ∎
Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Fun base combat with expanded weapon options.
- Hunters have their own combat styles and are fun to play.
- Core gameplay loop and progression is enjoyable.
- Sung Jinwoo is too cool for school.
CONS
- Combat is jank incarnate.
- Quality-of-life issues, including with the main menu.
- Level design is poor and generally uninteresting.
- Solo Leveling's narrative is quite bland and uninteresting.
