I confess that I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes the League of Legends universe, but I will say this: they do seem to have a lot of variety in their Champions, having built up over a hundred and sixty of them by this point, and this means that there’s almost certainly a character and a story that goes with them for every different kind of audience. And this shows in Riot Forge’s various spin-offs of the franchise, such as the animated series Arcane or other games such asRuined Kingor Hextech Mayhem. And when it comes to the latter games, they notably come from different indie developers with different styles, and dabbling in different genres, with Ruined King being a turn-based RPG and Hextech Mayhem being a rhythm-based runner.
It’s a clever approach, letting both fans and newcomers experience the League of Legends world in various ways on various levels. So as someone who isn’t a big League of Legends fan, I was wondering if they could indeed win me over with their latest game, The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story. It already appealed to me with Digital Sun as its developer, having developed one successful Zelda-influenced game with Moonlighter, and bringing the same impressive pixel art style over as well to a similar game. What I didn’t expect, though, is that The Mageseeker also draws inspiration from another famous Nintendo series, one I didn’t expect at all: The Kirby games.
I’m guessing if you know more about the League of Legends champion at the heart of The Mageseeker already, the Kirby influence shouldn’t be that much of a shock. Our main character here is Sylas, a mage and a revolutionary leading a rebellion against the land of Demacia, whose titular Mageseekers prosecute any mages as criminals. Sylas was used by the Mageseekers to help sense other mages, but then an incident led to him being jailed for fifteen years. But to get to the part of the story relevant to the gameplay already, Sylas has the ability to absorb magic from others and thus copy their abilities, a la Kirby. And this is what helps give The Mageseeker a unique flavor.
Absorbing magic from others allows you to use certain attacks from them, like shots of fire or temporary electrical fields, each of which can be more powerful against certain enemies. On top of that, Sylas still has the massive chains they have from the time they were locked up, which gives him a way to hook himself to other enemies and launch themselves closer to them, or use certain posts to get them across various gaps. On paper, in may not sound that innovative, but in practice everything is nicely designed so far. The various groups of enemies so far put up a nice and meaty challenge with intense action, the various skills all come together nicely, the pixel art is gorgeous and the story seems intriguing so far.
But hey, why let mere words do all of the talking when we have actual video footage from the event? So please enjoy this 35-minute clip showcasing The Mageseeker (well, thirty minutes if you ignore the pointless run I had from 16:40 to 20:58 after an initial death, which you please should), which covers the introduction as well as one of the later chapters, including a particularly well-done boss battle.
The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story comes out on April 18 for all major platforms, and should be one for hardcore fans and newcomers alike.
