Solo Leveling Arise: Early Impressions - Is the Game Good?

Solo Leveling: ARISE released into Early Access, or Open Beta if you will, in Canada today on March 21st. For those living outside of Canada we have been able to try out the game using a VPN and having played for several hours we have a good grasp of what the game is and what we think of it.

This article will go over our opinion of the game starting from its main points such as combat, story, characters, and gacha system. As well as give some thoughts about some of the other systems the game has to offer.

Solo Leveling: ARISE Early Impressions

To give our impressions on the game we will split our thoughts on 4 of the game’s major points - Story / Combat / Characters & Weapons / Gacha System.

After going over all four we’ll give a quick summary of our thoughts, finishing off with our verdict on if the game is good or not.

Let’s get started.

Story

First off let’s talk about the story of Solo Leveling: ARISE. To keep it short, the story of Solo Leveling: ARISE is *drumroll* good. This was to be expected given that the game follows the Solo Leveling manhwa to a t.

Yes, we could’ve gotten a spin-off of the story, or maybe a whole new story, but we’re actually glad the developers decided to keep the appeal of Solo Leveling and present it in a great way.

Speaking of presenting, Solo Leveling: ARISE does a great job at picking out the most important pieces from the Solo Leveling manhwa and introducing them to the players in the form of Main and Side Chapters.

The story is also fully voice-acted and strikes a good balance between game-generated cutscenes and using panes from the manhwa that they’ve brought to life.

Overall, the story feels great and the way it's presented is enjoyable and will help you relive a ton of the manhwa’s story.

It’s worth noting that netmarble has also added custom story content to get you more familiar with some of the side characters in the series and best of all - there’s a SKIP button for those wanting to get straight to the action.

Speaking of action, let’s get right to it.

Combat

When it comes to ARPG gacha games then we honestly believe that combat makes or breaks the game. After all, it’s the thing that you’ll be doing most of the time.

Well good for us, Solo Leveling: ARISE has a good combat system that is both enjoyable and has a ton of room for unique builds and playstyles.

The combat in Solo Leveling: ARISE is certainly fast and incorporates a ton of mechanics from other games such as normal attack combos, various skills, perfect dodge mechanic, and unique skill enhancements that completely change how a skill looks and feels similar to how Lost Ark does it.

NOTE that this is only for the main character Jinwoo

However, while the combat is fun and offers a ton of variety the further in you get it can feel a bit clucky at times. What we mean by that is that some skills completely lock you out of dodging, which for an action-style combat just doesn’t feel intuitive. 

Additionally, the aim of some attacks is just terrible. One moment you’ll be hitting an enemy, and the next you’ll be doing shadow boxing. 

It’s all over the place. Though you may also take this with a grain of salt as we may have just been bad at the game, so do experience it on your own and make your opinion. 

Also worth noting is that the game features Semi and Full-auto modes for those of you who wish to experience it in that way.

Overall, combat is for most parts fluid, and the unique variety of weapons that you can equip on Jinwoo to completely change his playstyle, coupled with the various Hunters you can play with during some of the Gates will have you entertained for a long time.

Speaking of Hunters and weapons let’s talk about them.

Characters / Hunters & Weapons

Characters, or Hunters as they’re called in Solo Leveling: ARISE, are always the biggest selling point in any gacha game, and for Solo Leveling: ARISE that’s no different.

You’ll be drawing for your favorite characters from the franchise and will probably be pulling out your hair if you don’t get them.

Hunters in Solo Leveling: ARISE looks amazing. The art style of the game does a great job of bringing Solo Leveling to life and it’s great to be able to look at the characters and interact with them.

Sadly, there isn’t an open world, and although the game has an interactive hub area, you can only use Jinwoo in it.

It would’ve been great to be able to do more with the Hunters rather than just have them as supports for Jinwoo or get the opportunity to play with them from time to time and some of the Gates.

All in all, the characters look great, but it would’ve been nice if we were given the chance to do more with them, rather than the whole focus being shifted to Jinwoo, who even gets his own personal character page.

When it comes to weapons this is where Solo Leveling: ARISE takes a slightly different approach than most gacha games.

To start there are two kinds of weapons in Solo Leveling: ARISE. There are Sung Jinwoo weapons, also known as Player Weapons, and there are weapons for the other Hunters, also known as Hunter Weapons.

The Player Weapons are weapons that you can only equip in Sung Jinwoo. You see the visual difference when using these weapons and each weapon comes with a different set of attack patterns and weapon skills that completely change the way you play with Sung Jinwoo.

Hunter Weapons, on the other hand, can only be equipped on Hunters as their name implies. These weapons, unlike the Player Weapons, do not offer any new playstyle but are simple stat sticks with special effects. 

Some of these Hunter Weapons are exclusive for certain Hunters and give them bonus effects.

All in all, Hunter Weapons are a nice way to make your Hunters stronger but do not do much when compared to the Player Weapons.

The good thing about them though is that you can craft any of them if you play the game long enough, so that’s certainly a good F2P aspect to it.

Speaking of F2P it’s time we look at the most intriguing part in any gacha game, namely the gacha system.

Gacha System

The dreadful gacha, when it comes to gacha games is the part that players either love or more often than not, hate the most.

Solo Leveling: ARISE has definitely not reinvented the wheel with its gacha system. In its current form the gacha system in Solo Leveling: ARISE is similar to other big gacha games such as Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.

• Does it have a pity system? Yes. The pity is 80 with a soft pity starting at 64
• Does it have a 50/50 system? Unfortunately, yes. You have a chance of losing the 50/50 of the character you like and getting something you cannot stand. Though you’ll get it on the other try, good enough right?
• Does pity carry over? No clue. We’ll update you when we find more information about this.

All in all, there is not much to say about the gacha system. It’s normal. Rates aren’t half bad, pity is reasonable, though it can always be lower.

The amount of free wish currency, albeit standard, that they give out when you first start out is great and is sure to get you an SSR item pretty quickly.

Is Solo Leveling: ARISE Good?

With everything out of the way, it’s time to wrap this article up. Is Solo Leveling: ARISE Good? The short answer is, yes. Solo Leveling: ARISE is a good game.

It does a great job of bringing the characters of Solo Leveling to life while also offering a good combat system with a ton of build depth and different playstyles to keep people entertained.

The story is presented in an interesting way and does justice to the original work.

Characters, or Hunters, are well made with good models and smooth animations that live up to their counterparts in the webtoon.

The gacha system is decent, and can definitely be more generous, but isn’t that the case for every gacha game?

All in all, we think that Solo Leveling: ARISE is a good adaptation of the Solo Leveling IP and will definitely have you playing for some time when it officially launches.