Netmarble’s Solo Leveling: ARISE honors the Solo Leveling webtoon and the new anime series by giving players an addictive and feature-rich action RPG. Solo Leveling: ARISE is a great addition to the franchise, as it allows players to experience the world and story of Solo Leveling: ARISE from multiple perspectives, with Sung Jinwoo as the lead. I was impressed with the preview build, and the review build of Solo Leveling: ARISE is just as great with a compelling amount of content to experience right now.
Those wanting a head start before Solo Leveling Season 2 arrives will get just that in Solo Leveling: ARISE. Like the anime series, players will begin their journey as the boyish Jinwoo, getting a deeper look into the events that turn him into one of the strongest and most versatile hunters of all time. As mentioned in the Solo Leveling: ARISE preview, Jinwoo’s strengths are emphasized correctly in the game, and the review build displays even more promise for its future.
Solo Leveling: ARISE Offers an In-Depth Experience at Launch
At launch, the story mode of Solo Leveling: ARISE delves deep into the story of Sung Jinwoo with more than a dozen chapters to play through. Each chapter has a number of scenes and battles to play through, with great voice acting from the anime’s cast as well. This includes the likes of Aleks Le as Jinwoo, which is a real treat to listen to. The rest of the cast is just as great, with voice acting for scenes that aren’t animated yet.
In Solo Leveling: ARISE, players also gain access to side stories that offer perspectives from other hunters, including Lee Joohee and Song Chiyul. Playing the side chapters fills in the gaps for certain events not directly pertaining to Jinwoo, such as the dungeon break that occurs during Jinwoo’s first instanced dungeon. This approach lets players experience the game in a similar order to the events of the anime, except certain cutscenes play out in an aesthetically pleasing webtoon form. The game also provides original stories involving characters that don’t have much screentime in the anime yet, such as Hwang Dongsoo.
Those wanting a single player action game with a low skill ceiling will find it in Solo Leveling: ARISE. Moreover, the Hunter’s Association headquarters in Korea is introduced early on as the hub for all of the game’s activities and content. From here, players have access to hunter draws, the farmable Gates activities, limited-time events, daily check-in, hunter and weapon upgrades, and so much more. Essentially, players will want to do all their preparation from the Hunter’s Association and its menus before diving into missions.
Yes, It’s a Gacha Game
Unsurprisingly, Solo Leveling: ARISE operates like a typical gacha game with players requiring draw tickets or an equivalent amount of in-game currency, free and paid. Many of the hunters, including Choi Jong-In and Baek Yoonho, may be acquired from draws in the Hunter’s Association. Players may choose the hunters they would want to receive a rate-up in, which increases the chances of pulling a desired SSR after several draws.
For a gacha title, Solo Leveling: ARISE is quite rewarding with its in-game currency, draw tickets, and other items that tend to be useful for becoming stronger. Playing through the story chapters and completing in-game challenges/achievements will grant these rewards in spades. What’s more, players may acquire hunters for free, including Yoo Jinho, by progressing through the game.
Overall, Solo Leveling: ARISE is very rewarding and forgiving, but the gacha pull rates will likely annoy people. At the very least, there’s a wealth of story missions, free activities, and limited-time events to complete. F2P players should have a great time, since the login bonuses are generous and even offer SSR hunters like Woo Jinchul for free.
Becoming a Hunter in Solo Leveling: ARISE
At its core, Solo Leveling: ARISE is a great action game that’s paired with RPG elements, similarly to games like Honkai Impact 3rd (to an extent). Jinwoo is unremarkable at the start of the game, but the game introduces parts of his move set as he approaches his first job change. Solo Leveling: ARISE’s tutorial doesn’t feel tacked on either, since the in-game mechanics are easy to learn with the most pressing information being presented. In just an hour or so, players should have a great feel for Solo Leveling: ARISE and its core systems.
Jinwoo truly becomes a menace in combat with abilities like Shadow Step, allowing him to become invisible to the enemy briefly with a window for additional attacks. Of course, each hunter also has their own set of skills, Ultimates, techniques, and more that makes them just as compelling. The game is quite balanced, with hunters like Song Chiyul still proving to be useful and effective in later stages as a support character.
Solo Leveling: ARISE certainly evolves as Jinwoo’s level and the player’s level increase, and it’s also felt in gameplay with Jinwoo’s job changes. Similarly to the webtoon and anime, player may allocate attribute stats to Jinwoo, letting them focus on specific stats like Strength and Precision for their specific needs. The customization features allow players to tailor Jinwoo toward specific roles for gear or a specific playstyle. Customization for the other hunters is limited, but they can still be enhanced and given gear that will help them take on powerful bosses and end-game challenges.
Improvements to be Made
Solo Leveling: ARISE was polished greatly from its preview build, and the review build is just as polished and smooth. Once more, the scale of the UI is nearly perfect, and controllers are detected quickly in the PC version. Once paired, the game will detect the controller and match its inputs with that of a Xbox Series X|S controller, essentially.
However, I would prefer some adjustments, especially since a cursor is still needed in the game. Using a cursor on a controller for dialogue and other menus is not ideal, but future updates can fix this. Solo Leveling: ARISE is expected to receive many post-launch updates, so fans won’t have to worry about the flow of content either.
The voice acting of Solo Leveling: ARISE is great, but there instances where dialogue is not entirely voiced, or there are localization errors like typos. Strangely enough, the amount of voice acting in the first few chapters appears to be more prevalent per line. When compared to chapter 5 and beyond, it appears that some of the voice acting is cut back. This isn’t too much of an issue, but I enjoy the English dub of Solo Leveling enough to wish for more voiced dialogue in the game.
Solo Leveling: ARISE is Built for Fans
It’s clear that Solo Leveling: ARISE was developed as a love letter to Solo Leveling, and fans will absolutely enjoy the content that’s available here. The game offers many hours of content on day one, and the free updates and events have the opportunity to propel the game as a great outlier in the gacha market. While waiting for season 2 of the anime, Solo Leveling: ARISE is the next obvious step for fans wanting to delve further into the world of Solo Leveling.
Lastly, Solo Leveling: ARISE is available now for Android, iOS, and PC via Windows.
Disclaimer: Netmarble sent over a pre-release build of Solo Leveling: ARISE to Final Weapon for review purposes.
