Review – Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive

I only discovered Solo Leveling this year, watching the two seasons of the anime based on the South Korean web novel, originally called Only I Level Up. The story plays with the concept of real life, where humans with magical abilities face dungeons, accessed through interdimensional portals that open randomly throughout the city of Seoul. Once inside, the hunters face all types of enemies and collect essence stones for a contracting company. Basically a job like any other, except in this one people put their lives in danger.

In this scenario we have Sung Jin-woo, a young man known for being the weakest hunter in all of humanity. But his motivation is noble: to save his sick mother, paying for the hospital expenses. After an event in a double dungeon, with very strong enemies, the protagonist is on the verge of death. Then a program called “System” chooses you to grant the ability to level up alone. Waking up unharmed, without knowing what the hell happened, he begins his journey in search of strength and special loot.

Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is an adaptation of the mobile game, but without the gacha and auto battle mechanics. The presentation of the game in this version for PC and Xbox Series is much more complete, including graphical and gameplay improvements (with the addition of parry, for example). Would this be enough to charge for the game or would it be better to stay on the free cell phone version?

Play solo or co-op?

Technically, this game should only offer the option of a solo campaign, to do justice to the original concept. Due to the gradually increasing difficulty, there is the option to play in online co-op. But, unlike the mobile version, in Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive the multiplayer mode is much broader, perfect for those who want to enjoy it as a team and grind. Playing solo is an arduous and sometimes frustrating task. Especially if you are going to repeat the same dungeons at higher levels, thinking about completing challenges, getting a lot of XP and better rewards.

The game opens in the midst of war, with Sung Jin-woo heavily equipped and surrounded by dozens of his shadows. I didn’t follow anything outside of the anime, so I was totally lost. This war works as a brief tutorial, later playing the story to the beginning of everything, as if it were just the protagonist’s vision of the future. Devoid of everything, you start at Rank E having to prove yourself in front of successful hunters. At this point you choose a type of skill tree, representing 4 styles (Assassin, Duelist, Elementalist and Ruler) with different weapons and starting attributes.

After the first events, we are introduced to the lobby that brings together everything you need: world map, stores to buy things, recruiting new hunters (which works like a betting house, as some of them are difficult to negotiate), creating weapons for Sung Jin-woo and the other hunters on your team (using collected resources), managing Yoo Jin-Ho’s Hunters’ Association attack team, among many other options. In the main menu, you distribute experience points to attributes, unlock improvements in the skill tree, change your outfits, evolve other hunters, customize your emojis and online multiplayer card (profile, frame, background), collect your rewards by completing challenges, and much more.

Frantic action, chaos and repetitions

Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive promotes the same combat chaos seen in the mobile game, almost as if it were a musou. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand what the hell is happening on the screen, given the number of enemies and visual effects scrolling on the screen. The cool side of leveling is building builds, according to the player’s taste. There really are a lot of options to explore and test. In fact, the progression becomes more challenging and with better loot if you play the game on Difficult. But if you are struggling a lot on Normal difficulty, the game will automatically offer you Easy difficulty – an option that is not given at the beginning of the game. A way to balance things out if you prefer a more casual adventure.

In total there are 10 chapters, which represent areas on the map to complete portals, dungeons and ruptures. You can repeat everything at high levels (ranging from 0 to 10 difficulty stars), if you want to grind and extend the game’s duration. You can do 100% in the chapters, but this is not mandatory. The campaign allows you to advance in the story by completing at least 20% of the current chapter, although everything becomes more difficult. Between one dungeon and another, there is a lot of repetition of scenarios and enemies, such as goblins, golems, lizardmen, spiders and giant ants. What changes are the objectives, such as investigating clues, sneaking past enemies, destroying specific targets, etc.

To expand gameplay and possibilities, Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive allows hired hunters to join Sung Jin-woo’s team as helpers, in addition to also participating directly in specific raids in which you control three of them, being able to switch at any time. The variety is immense, making combat much more fun.

It turns out that co-op, with up to 4 players, is a very valid alternative for grinding, looting and testing different things with your hunters, as Sung Jin-woo’s NPC helpers perform random actions on their own, not always helping you when you need it most (with healing, for example). Fortunately, there are a lot of people playing online and it’s very easy to assemble a team. In the multiplayer lobby, you can also invite another player to a duel.

Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive pleased me more than I expected, in several aspects. The cel shading look is great, the great soundtrack adds to the excitement of the fast gameplay, and the last update improved the rewards in coins and items, as well as the lock on enemies, the hud reading, among other important fixes.

I certainly got the game in a better state than when it was launched in November, although there were still problems such as softlock caused by interaction bugs, incomplete PT-BR translation (much remains in English), among other examples. Now what really bothered me was the strange hierarchy of menus, complicating what should be simple with the press of a few buttons.

If you are a fan of the anime and/or web novel, you can be sure that you will find here a game that is faithful to the original story, reproducing all of its most important events. Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive still takes some poetic licenses to promote new dialogues, including an extra dash of humor. It’s expensive for a mobile adaptation, but the content lives up to it.