The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story is a hack-and-slash RPG developed by Digital Sun.
You play as Sylas, a mage who breaks out of prison and joins a band of mage rebels to slay his captors and save other imprisoned mages. The story takes place in Demacia, a kingdom familiar to players of League of Legends, with appearances by several characters from that game.
Players familiar with the setting and characters might feel differently, but I found the story unengaging. The plot is silly in a shallow and underdeveloped way rather than a fun and lighthearted one. Characters feel like references more than complete beings. Sylas isn’t sympathetic or likable, which makes it difficult to root for him and his “burn the city and kill its rulers” attitude since the true intentions of the villainous ruling class aren’t clear until much later in the game.
Melee combat is basic with a heavy and light attack, a dash, and a chain that either pulls you to an enemy or pulls them toward you. You can equip up to four spells. Each spell costs mana to cast, but performing melee attacks regenerates mana. You have the power to steal a spell from an enemy, which you can cast for no mana, but you can’t cast any other spell until you use it. You unlock new spells by stealing them from an enemy and then paying an NPC in town to teach them to you. There are six types of magic, and enemies who use one type have a weakness to the corresponding spell type.
You find and recruit notable NPCs in the levels. Once recruited, you can either send them on missions to gain resources or followers or take them with you. The two NPCs you take on missions don’t show up in the level, but each allows you to use a unique combo during combat, though you only have the combos of the NPCs you currently have with you.
Combat has a lot of neat ideas but never clicked for me. For example: stealing spells is cool, but you either have to look away from the visual chaos of combat to see what spell you stole and remember what it does to use it properly or use it without looking and risk dropping a pool of fire around you when you need a projectile. The only time combat felt good was during boss fights since they managed to utilize mechanics like grappling and dashing to make memorable encounters.
The RPG elements are extremely light, amounting mostly to passively increasing stats like health, damage, and the number of spells you can equip. Taking NPCs with you on missions has similar passive effects, all of which I barely noticed.
It took eight-and-a-half hours to finish the main quests. The story never captured my interest, the characters never grew on me, and combat felt too repetitive to enjoy. While others may find something I couldn’t, there isn’t much I can recommend.
The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story is available now for $29.99 on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S.
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