The New Solo Leveling Game Is...
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🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00I've spent last week playing the new Solo Leveling game every day, and even though there
00:04are a lot of things I like about this game, I couldn't help but feeling like the whole
00:07thing was a big waste of time.
00:09Now I was late to the party, I discovered Solo Leveling was out on PC about a week after
00:13its initial release, but I still gave you guys my first impressions, and as promised
00:17I have stuck with the game for a while, but to be honest it wasn't long before I decided
00:20to fully abandon it.
00:21I realize that might come as a disappointment to a lot of you, I saw some hope in the comments
00:25that after a while I would find exactly what I was looking for, but then again, if you've
00:29been around this channel for a while, you probably saw this coming.
00:32As far as I could tell, this is a good one of those games, the problem is, it's one
00:37of those games.
00:38And I honestly feel like I've played this exact game many times before.
00:41I'll explain exactly what made me drop it, but I'll try not to be too negative, cause
00:45there are actually a lot of things I like about this game, so let's start there, let's
00:49be positive, let's celebrate video games.
00:52First I have to highlight the overall look of this game, I love the character models,
00:55the attack animations, the game is so flashy and attacks are so satisfying to land.
01:01It's what drew a lot of people to this game in the first place, and I guess I'm no exception
01:05here.
01:06I also love the look of it's cutscenes during story mode, whenever something a bit more
01:09action heavy happens, it goes full cinematic, and then it blends the action cutscenes with
01:14manga panels better than any game I've seen do this before, oh sorry, it's Korean, it's
01:19not manga, it's manhwa, it's manhwa, manhwa, manhwa.
01:27Look at this transition, how it goes from the game into the original work, it's flawless.
01:31And they animated a lot of these manhwa panels, which make them stand out even more.
01:36Honestly it's a really great way to retell the story, this is what drove me through,
01:40this is what I wanted to see more of, and the main reason why I kept playing this game
01:44for a while.
01:45Also, after you beat a main mission, more side missions appear, and a really cool thing
01:48about this is that you can sometimes get the perspective of the villains, like, if the
01:52villains are playable characters, very often on the side chapter, you will play as if they
01:56were the protagonist, and I like that a lot.
01:59Speaking of playable characters, I like that each character has a somewhat unique moveset,
02:03I think they could have definitely gone further here.
02:05But this is a downside of it being a mobile game, it's designed for people with less
02:08than half of a brain, so if you just press all of your abilities as soon as the cooldown
02:12ends, things usually work out just fine, and more often than not, that's actually the
02:16optimal way of playing.
02:18But from the characters I played, I wish they could be a little bit more unique.
02:21That's not to say there aren't unique characters, I kinda don't know, because
02:25the game gave me the same SSR character 3 times in a row, and that's okay, I mean,
02:29thanks to that, every time this character lands an ultimate, one of his skills turns
02:33into a big meteor, and it's such a powerful nuke that I just love using it, it's a really
02:38good power fantasy.
02:40But if I didn't read about that skill, I would probably just press the abilities on
02:43cooldown anyway, and it would have still happened.
02:45So that's what I mean, cool gimmicks, but could have definitely gone further, gone beyond
02:49just pressing abilities on a cooldown.
02:51Enemy design is also cool, there's a good number of enemies and boss fights with unique
02:55mechanics, once things become a bit more challenging, you actually have to pay attention, and there's
02:59a good number of enemies, so the variety is also good.
03:01I think there's a very talented team behind this game that has developed some fun gameplay
03:05challenges, and then the business ruined the whole thing.
03:08And as a gotcha mechanic, the gates are actually genius, they work as these random dungeons
03:13that pop out and you can choose which one to tackle, and after you clear the dungeon,
03:17you send a crew to mine it and you can collect its resources after a timer ends.
03:21Now, I'm not a big fan of these timer mechanics, it's gotcha games manipulating you, trying
03:26to make sure that the game becomes a part of your daily life.
03:29This is one of the many ways they manipulate you into logging in every few minutes or every
03:34few hours, but I have to admit, it's a clever way of doing it because it makes a lot of
03:38sense in-universe.
03:40And I think I'm done, I think I've run out of good things, but those were a lot of good
03:44things, right?
03:45Now, what exactly happened, what made me quit the game?
03:48Long story short, Chapter 6 happened.
03:50That's what made me quit.
03:51Main story, Chapter 6.
03:53Now, story mode was the main reason why I was playing this game, as many of you realized,
03:57I said so during my first impressions, because I have zero interest in pulling for new characters,
04:02I don't care about increased rates, I don't care about free gems or events that boost
04:07my coins, I really don't care about the gotcha side of this.
04:10And it's not about the monetization, I just kinda don't care about the progression either,
04:14because it's typical gotcha progression, meaning that there's too much of it.
04:19Your character levels up, which is cool, because it references the original show with the stats
04:23that the protagonist himself levels up during the show.
04:26But then, your weapon also has to be leveled up, and he has two weapons, so double that.
04:30Then you have skills, which also have to be leveled up.
04:33Then you have companions, which you should also level up at least three of them, because
04:37that's how many you can take on a mission.
04:39Then you have artifacts, which are these gear slots, there are four pieces in total,
04:43and that's for each character, so that's at least sixteen artifacts that you should be
04:48leveling up.
04:49And every time you level up an artifact, by the way, there's a chance that the upgrade
04:52just fails.
04:53All of this takes different resources, and it's designed like this, so no normal human
04:58being can keep track of it all.
05:00This is a fact, this has been studied time and time again, this is why these games do
05:04it like this.
05:05They have all of these different currencies and different resources, so players lose track
05:08of what everything means, and just focus on the grind, not the materials.
05:12And I didn't want any of that, I just wanted to play a cool solo leveling story mode, and
05:16you might say, well, it's the kind of game this is, why'd you even play it?
05:20Cause you keep asking.
05:22I know I don't like this stuff, but there's usually a cool story mode that I can latch
05:26myself onto.
05:27There's usually stuff in these games that I do appreciate that I wish console games
05:30were also doing, but I also think pretty graphics often lead the community astray.
05:35I think too often people see pretty graphics and say, oh that's a good game.
05:38And the gameplay just isn't there to support it, and I don't think this game is an exception.
05:42I just wanted to play a cool solo leveling story mode, and as I progressed, the game
05:46unlocked a few more game modes.
05:48And my opinion didn't change, because not a single game mode that I unlocked was fun.
05:52It was all too grindy for me, it wasn't offering new challenges or new content, it
05:57was just more of the same.
05:58And granted, there are still more game modes to unlock, but if so far I haven't liked
06:02any of them, do I really want to grind more to unlock more game modes that I potentially
06:07won't like?
06:08If this game gets good after 20 hours of playtime, I kinda don't care.
06:11So at this point, story mode was the only thing keeping me going, and that was until
06:16I reached chapter 6.
06:18This is the chapter where the party goes into a dungeon with a B-rank hunter that likes
06:22to murder everyone.
06:23It's episode 9 of the anime, I believe.
06:25Now everyone remembers what happens in the dungeon, right?
06:28It's a big turning point for the protagonist.
06:30But do you remember what types of enemies did the dungeon have?
06:33Most people will answer no, because the focus in the story wasn't on the enemies of the
06:37dungeon, it was on the B-rank hunter.
06:40But I will never forget that this was a goblin dungeon, because the game made me play through
06:456 different missions that looked exactly the same, killing goblin after goblin after goblin
06:51for absolutely no reason.
06:54This chapter had so much padding, so much filler, that all of a sudden I wasn't enjoying
06:59story mode anymore.
07:00Now, I didn't stop on chapter 6, I'm currently on chapter 8.
07:03I needed to see if chapter 6 was an exception, but I'm sad to report that no.
07:09I guess this is what story mode is now.
07:11You could say that that's hours of content.
07:13This game is so content rich, but it really isn't.
07:15Can you really tell the difference between these two missions?
07:19This isn't more content, this is recycled content, it's making you play the same stuff,
07:24and this is why I don't think this game respects my time at all.
07:27You're killing the same enemies in the same stage, and I wish it was only these two missions,
07:32but it does this 6 times in a row.
07:34If this was side mission content, I would get it.
07:37But the thing is, the side mission content is also this.
07:40So you've just been through a grindy main mission, and then it asks you to do it again
07:44for the side missions.
07:45The amount of recycling done to this story mode is beyond reasonable, and since this
07:50was the one game mode that kept me motivated, this was the moment that it all came crumbling
07:54down.
07:55Suddenly, I'm not having fun with the one game mode that kept me going, and that means
07:58that unfortunately, I won't get to see many of the boss fights this game has to offer,
08:02because I quit.
08:03And I actually tried at some point to just power through the main story.
08:07I mean, the main missions have enough filler, it's not like I want to do the side chapters
08:11or the gacha game modes with the gates and everything else that unlocked in the meantime,
08:15but you can't even do that.
08:16A lot of these main missions actually have a level requirement, which means you have
08:20to play the filler, you have to engage with these gacha activities.
08:24And so I kinda gained a routine playing this game, where I would log in, I would spend
08:28close to one hour using every key on gates and the other game modes that have a limited
08:33time use, because every different game mode has this limited number of keys that you gotta
08:38spend.
08:39Once you spend them, they work like a stamina system, you come back tomorrow and you can
08:41do it again.
08:42And this was the best way to level up your character.
08:45So I'd spend an hour doing that, and claiming all my free rewards, all my free stuff, be
08:49it dailies or battle pass or whatever event is going on.
08:52And then I would spend another one to two hours clearing a single story chapter plus
08:57side missions.
08:58And that's about three hours a day of doing something that mostly felt like a grind.
09:03So instead of doing that, one day I decided I'm gonna play Animal World instead, because
09:07that's a very good video game.
09:08And then the next day I went, I'm gonna lab Dragon Ball FighterZ instead of playing more
09:12solo leveling.
09:13And guess what?
09:14That was a lot more fun, even though that's a six year old game.
09:17Because the truth is, even though this game just came out, it might even be older than
09:21six years.
09:22I feel like I have played this exact same game many times before.
09:26Night Hero Academia's strongest hero, One Piece Fighting Pad, even Bleach Brave Souls,
09:32with a different camera angle, doesn't play too differently from this.
09:35This is the whole reason why I didn't cover One Punch Man World.
09:39I was so sick of playing the same game that everyone keeps making with a different anime
09:44skin.
09:45I'm not convinced that One Piece Ambition is any different.
09:48They just moved the camera again.
09:50The skeleton behind these anime action mobile games feels like it's the same thing, they
09:54just put a different skin on top.
09:56So as usual, in a Globku vs mobile games video, I have failed to not get triggered.
10:02But I want to end on a positive note, and this game did do something for me, which is
10:05to make me start reading solo leveling.
10:08I liked season 1 of the anime, but I had no idea the art on the manhua was this good.
10:13I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it in game, so yeah, I'm reading that now.
10:18Which means that as a marketing tool, this game did its job, and that's very often what
10:21anime games are.
10:22But that's going to do it for another episode of Globku vs mobile games, goodbye solo leveling,
10:32see you never again.
10:33I gotta stop falling for this over and over, it's such a waste of time.
10:37Oh, the comment section usually gets pretty toxic for these videos, so if you don't have
10:41the energy, just don't scroll down.
10:43I'm just gonna give a general reply right now, if you like this game, I don't care.
10:50I didn't like it, it's my opinion, and that's why people subscribe.
10:53That said, if you want more anime games, you're already in the right place, check out this
10:56video right here.
10:57Thank you so much for watching, bye.