What is Solo Leveling: Arise

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On March 21, early access for Solo Leveling: Arise (hereinafter referred to as “solo”), a new multi-platform gacha game based on the light novel of the same name, Solo Leveling, which has already received a manhwa (completed) and anime adaptation, was launched in the Canadian and Taiwanese regions. In this article, we will look at what this new gacha is all about, analyze some of the problems, and conclude whether it is worth paying attention to.

Before moving on to the main part of the material, it is important to note the following:

  • Due to certain reasons, which we will discuss a little later, I was not able to fully study all the features of the game, but only most of them.
  • The global release will take place on May 8, at least that’s the date indicated in the Apple store.
  • There is a full-fledged PC client.
  • There is support for gamepads, and at least on the PC version, once one is connected, the main interface becomes console-like.
  • There is a P2W\P2P (Pay 2 Progress) element, which makes the gameplay much easier.
  • If you read the ranobe, manhwa and hoped to get a game where the main character will destroy opponents with his powers, as well as an army of strong shadows, you can stop reading. Here this aspect is not done quite as we would like.

Rerolling

Let’s start with perhaps the most important thing that some players do from the very start of any gacha project. The process of rerolling in solo, in my opinion, is the most convenient, stress-free, fast, and looks like this (it is worth noting that at the time of writing this article it works exclusively on mobile phones):

  • Before starting a new game, among the login options, select guest login.
  • We go through the training segment of the plot; its end will be announced by a long text in the middle of the screen.
  • We take gacha-spins from the plot, for login and spin the main banner 10 times (you won’t have enough for more).
  • If you are not satisfied with the result, go to the settings, go to the account section and reset the progress. After that, you will be thrown to the login page.
  • Again, select the guest login, wait for loading, after which a message will appear offering to skip the training, agree. At the moment, after skipping the training, you will be able to rotate the main banner 20 times.
  • We repeat the reset process until we catch the desired thing, after which we go into the account settings again and link the mail \ apple id \ google account.

World

At the moment, there is no world in solo due to the fact that the game is created according to the hub scheme, from which the player launches activities. And I do not quite understand why they decided to spend effort on creating a hub, since it performs only one single function: it is a place where the player can talk to NPCs and get a small amount of donation currency. Everything else is easily launched from the main menu.

Plot

We will look at this aspect of the game from two sides – the presentation and the gameplay. The plot is presented in several ways at once in the form of small regular game cutscenes, game cutscenes in the spirit of daisims, where 2D characters speak in turns, and finally, in the form of slightly animated and voiced manhwa panels. The process of plot development is almost identical to the manhwa, with the exception of the presence of side stories telling about the events that happened to certain secondary characters of Solo Leveling.

In terms of gameplay, the plot is presented as a very long line consisting of 15 main chapters, and judging by the preview image, the last one ends at the moment when Seong Jin-Woo in the castle, where it is necessary to kill demons, stumbles upon a lich (chapter 60-61 of the manhwa). Simply put, most likely, even in the global version you will not be able to go through the entire path of the main character, and based on the current structure and the total number of chapters in the manhwa, to complete the plot, it is necessary to add at least 15 more main chapters.

The structure of the line itself is as follows:

  • Some main chapters have side chapters attached to them. They are only unlocked after completing the main chapter, and the above-mentioned side stories are presented through them.
  • All regular and side chapters contain a certain number of tasks. Some of them are story-based, meaning you need to watch a cutscene, while others are combat-based.
  • Combat missions are divided into two types – normal and final boss.
  • Combat missions are built according to the following scheme: X arena with opponents + arena with the boss or immediately arena with the boss. Almost all combat missions are given 3 minutes to complete, if you do not have time, you will be automatically considered a failure.
  • All combat missions, and in principle all activities, have two windows with important information. The first one displays the recommended level of combat power and character level, rewards, additional conditions, and the second one displays information about the boss, if there is one. An example of additional conditions: complete within a certain time, receive damage no more than X times, the character’s HP should not fall below X percent, kill the final boss with the specified element, etc.
  • Some of the additional conditions are simple, others are more complex and very annoying, and others are completely dependent on the gacha. Fortunately, you do not have to complete all three conditions within one playthrough. That is, when you run a mission for the first time, you can complete one specific one, and on the second \ third \ hundredth – all the others.
  • As a reward for completing combat missions, you get Seong Jin-Woo experience (the reward in the main chapters is significantly greater than in the side ones), a small amount of gold (the main currency of the game), reagents for upgrading equipment, and a little bit of donation currency. In order not to write 100 times, I will note that, with the exception of donation currency, the reward in all activities increases with increasing difficulty.
  • As a reward for completing all missions of the chapter, you get 2 gacha-spins for the regular banner, and if you fulfill additional conditions in all combat missions – another 2 gacha-spins.

In my opinion, the game’s storyline has only three big downsides, some of which are quite standard and can be found in some Asian gacha projects.

  • The enemies’ level in each subsequent mission increases significantly faster than Seong Jin-Woo’s level.
  • Some battle missions can only be started once Seong Jin-Woo reaches a certain level, and by the time they open, you’re usually 3-4 levels below the required level. Both cons are closely related to the account development process, which we’ll talk about later.
  • Considering all the problems of the game, the penultimate mission of Chapter 8 is unreasonably difficult – you need to kill two bosses at once in 3 minutes. Many players (especially F2P without good SR\SSR gear) get stuck here for several days.

Account development

The account development process is mainly tied to leveling up Seong Jin-Woo, your main character. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, there are not many sources in the game that give experience, and some of them are one-time:

  • The combat missions of the plot – give a huge amount of experience one time, but as I wrote above, at a certain point you come across a stub.
  • Combat missions of the plot on increased difficulty – the difficulty is opened during the passage of Chapter 7. One-time give even more experience, but there is also a placeholder with the level.
  • Gates – give a small amount of experience, but to pass them you need keys and each day they give out only 10 of them.
  • Gate Bonus – Three times a day after a certain number of portals passed (3 \ 3 \ 4) you are given a huge amount of experience.
  • Funds – a passive system that automatically generates experience, gold and other useful things. When 100% full, it gives a huge amount of experience.

If after gaining experience from all the mentioned sources, Seong Jin-Woo has not reached the required level, you have only three options for further progression of the story:

  • We close the game and wait for the next day, in other words, the daily reset.
  • If you lack a little experience to reach the required level, you can spend the donation currency you receive and purchase additional portal keys (you can buy 30 of them every day).
  • If there is no donation currency, but there is free money, you can try to throw it into the monitor, in other words, donate.

Regarding the downsides: the whole system is one big minus, but there’s no getting away from it.

Characters

There are only 3 types of characters in the game that you will open, improve, upgrade, and equip. Since we have come to the main process of character development, in order not to write the same thing a hundred times, I will say: all improvements increase the combat power indicator. The first type is Son Jin-Woo – this is the main character, available from the very beginning.

Its development process revolves around the following:

  • Class changes – at the time of writing, there are 4 options available, unlocked after completing certain story chapters.
  • Leveling up – I have already described it above.
  • Improving a characteristic – each level gives a small amount of points that can be invested in one of five characteristics. Each one enhances certain combat indicators, such as critical chance, damage, defense, etc.
  • Weapon upgrades – more on that later.
  • Equipping artifacts.
  • Artifact improvements – more on that later.
  • Improving abilities – increasing their level and installing runes. Gold and a special reagent are required for the level. Damage increases with the level.

The second type are all sorts of characters from solo , they are divided by rank into SR and SSR (the higher the rank, the better). Some characters are given out immediately, others you get as a reward from various game systems or events, but mostly they are obtained through gacha.

The development process revolves around the following:

  • Leveling up – only gold is required for this. Characters cannot be higher in level than Seong Jin-Woo.
  • Increasing star rating – this requires a copy of the character and gold.
  • Weapon upgrades – more on that later.
  • Equipping artifacts .
  • Artifact improvements – more on that later.
  • Increasing the level of abilities – this requires gold and a special reagent. The damage increases with the level.
  • Increasing basic stats (HP, attack, defense) – this option is only available after the character reaches level 40. You can increase stats 9 times and this requires gold, as well as special reagents of various tiers.

The third type are shadows – unique characters that work according to the following scheme:

  • The system itself opens after completing Chapter 8.
  • Once unlocked, any activity will allow you to summon a shadow character along with several shadow soldiers for a short period of time.
  • Each shadow character provides different passive effects.
  • Summoning shadows requires a resource of the same name, which can be replenished by passing gates and story missions (for which the resource is given once).
  • There are a total of 5 shadow characters in the game: Igris, Tank, Iron, and Blades. The fifth shadow, an orc named Fang, is not yet available (the plot has not yet reached him), but his model is already in the system. Blades is the snow elf boss named Baruk, whom Seong Jin-Woo was unable to turn into a shadow in the ranobe and manhwa.
  • Initially, only Igris will be available from all the shadow characters, and the rest will only be unlocked after completing certain story chapters. To be precise, it will be possible to extract their shadow, for this you need a special reagent from the gate.

The development process revolves around the following:

  • Increasing the level of the army of shadows – increases the bonus to combat power and the maximum supply of shadows. This requires gold and a special reagent.
  • Increasing the level of shadow characters – increases the maximum possible level of the army of shadows, the consumption of shadows for summoning, enhances the main passive of the shadow, opens a new ability and changes the appearance of theine. This requires gold and a special reagent.
  • Strengthening shadow characters – increases the bonus to combat power. The process is identical to increasing the basic stats of characters, only the special reagent is different.

The problem with this point and in general with everything that is somehow related to the general process of character development is only one – at the moment, there is no game source in the game where the player could steadily farm gold. Most systems give out gold once and in much smaller quantities than necessary, and the costs of improving characters literally grow by leaps and bounds.

Weapon

In solo, all weapons are divided into 2 global types: weapons for Seong Jin-Woo and weapons for characters. They come in R, SR, SSR ranks and are mostly obtained from gacha, although certain options are given out as a reward for various game systems, as well as events. SSR weapons for characters stand apart, if I understand correctly, they can mainly be obtained only through crafting and events, they are named and are suitable only for the corresponding character.

The only difference between the global types is that Son Jin-Woo’s weapons have abilities, while the characters’ weapons do not. Their development process is almost identical and revolves around the following:

  • Level up – increases the main characteristics of the weapon. For this you only need gold, and the higher the level, the more, significantly more.
  • Level breakthrough – every X levels the weapon must be broken through, after which the level can be increased again. This requires special reagents and gold.
  • Increasing the level of abilities – increases their damage. This requires gold and a special reagent.
  • Increasing star rating (up to 5 stars) – this requires a copy of the weapon and gold.
    • Seong Jin-Woo’s weapons gain new passive weapon properties.
    • The main passive property of characters’ weapons is enhanced.
    • R characters’ weapons can definitely be strengthened above 5 stars by another 5 stars, that is 5 + 5. Along with this, the weapon gets a new additional property that increases the basic indicators – attack, HP, defense.

Artifacts

Artifacts act as character equipment, they are divided into 8 elements: helmet, body, gloves, boots, necklace, bracelet, ring and finally earrings. The first 4 elements are unlocked almost at the very beginning of the game, and the rest at a later stage of the game, after completing the 10th and 12th story chapters.

The principle of operation and development process is as follows:

  • The first and second 4 elements have their own special set properties for 2 and 4 equipped artifacts from the same set. What is most interesting is that for 4 artifacts from the same set they give a much greater increase to the combat power indicator than for 2 by 2.
  • The first 4 items are dropped from the Encore Missions activity, and the remaining 4 from the Instance Dungeons activity. Artifacts can also drop from gates.
  • Artifacts are divided by grade into white, blue, purple, yellow and can drop at a certain level, which does not exceed the level of the characters.
  • The grade affects the number of random additional properties, white has 0, gold has 4. As far as I understand, the maximum can be 4.
+1 image
  • Artifacts can be sharpened up to level +20. This requires gold and a special reagent, with the required amount increasing with each level, and the chance of successful sharpening decreasing.
  • If you fail to sharpen, you do not lose the item and gain +1% to your success chance.
  • With each sharpening the main property of the artifact is strengthened.
  • At certain levels of sharpening, a random additional property of the artifact is opened or strengthened. Here everything depends on the grade.
  • And finally, the dumbest thing is that when you change an already sharpened artifact to another one, you will be required to pay a good amount of gold. This is perhaps the only downside associated with artifacts.

Fight

Before moving directly to combat, you first need to assemble a group of 3-4 characters, and here everything depends on the activity, task. In some, you have to control Seong Jin-Woo, using three characters from solo as support, and in others – control three characters from solo. After completing Chapter 9, shadows are also added to the group.

As for the main combat system, it is action-oriented and revolves around the following:

  • Regardless of who you control, the basic moveset consists of a normal attack, a special attack, two abilities, an ult, a dash, and the ability to focus on a target.
    • The special attack is activated only after you activate the normal attack X times.
    • The ult can only be used after you have accumulated enough special energy. An example of an advanced ult is in the video below.
  • In addition to his basic moves, Seong Jin-Woo’s arsenal of moves includes two weapon abilities, two because he can be given two weapons at once after his first class change. The weapon change occurs after using their ability.
  • Mana is required to use normal abilities and weapon abilities.
  • If you press Dash before the enemy’s attack reaches the character, you will perform a perfect dodge.
  • Each solo character has their own set of unique abilities, including one special “Support” type and one “QTE” type. The first is activated when playing as Seong Jin-Woo you press the hotkeys on the right side of the interface, and the second when specially switching between characters while playing as them.
  • In addition to his normal abilities, Seong Jin-Woo has 3 special ones. You can only activate them when the specified condition is met: the enemy is in the air, the enemy is on the ground, perfect dodge.
  • There is a system of elemental weaknesses, and fortunately it does not apply to everyone. Simply put, certain enemies take more damage from a certain element and sometimes less from another. Accordingly, weapons also have elements.
  • Some enemies have an armor bar that reduces incoming damage. To remove it, you need to use abilities and support that deal damage to armor. After the armor is removed, the enemy is inactive for a short period of time.
  • Enemies have attacks that can and cannot be interrupted, and some cannot even be cancelled. Intermediate bosses have attacks that cannot be interrupted, marked by a blue glow on the model.

Well, yes, the game has an auto-combat system, but due to the way some opponents are designed, you shouldn’t rely on it too much, because in auto mode the character will very rarely dodge, which is fraught with receiving fatal damage (especially on bosses). As for the disadvantages of this point, I would highlight the following:

  • Focusing on a goal doesn’t achieve anything at all.
  • The target selection is quite strange, sometimes you want to deal damage in front of you, but the character deals damage to the enemy on the right.
  • Sometimes a character can activate an ability in the middle of nowhere.
  • Some ability animations cannot be interrupted.

Activities

In this section I will briefly describe the key solo gaming activities:

  • Story – story mode. Allows you to get various rewards once, including donation currency.
  • Hard story – a story mode on increased difficulty. Adds glowing opponents with various active effects to missions. Allows you to get various rewards once, including donation currency.

Here I would like to separately note that at the moment the story mode on normal and advanced difficulty has one big problem associated with side chapters. The tasks in them are arranged in such a way that your team will always have 1 or 2 pre-prepared characters with a certain level and SSR weapons, they cannot be removed.

So, if you pulled this fixed character out of the gacha, the system will add your character to the team, not the prepared version, and, accordingly, the task will be almost impossible to complete, unless you use this character on a permanent basis. Simply put, it will be level 1, and depending on the level of the side chapter, you will have to waste tens or hundreds of thousands of gold.

  • Gates – contains random missions, divided by rank into S, A, B, C, D, E. The higher the rank, the more experience and gold they bring, but other rewards are random.
    • Keys are required to activate the gate.
    • Every day 10 pieces are given out for free and another 30 can be purchased for donation currency. It is worth noting that with one click you buy 3 keys at once, and the price for each subsequent click increases.
    • The list of tasks can be updated every 10 minutes.
    • As Seong Jin-Woo levels up, the difficulty of the quests can increase.
    • In addition to the usual rank gates, there are also special ones – red, purple and gold. They differ in the presence of a special mode or conditions. For example, in some versions, on the final boss, the characters supporting Seong Jin-Woo come out onto the map and fight with you.
    • In the gate marked with one head, you control Seong Jin-Woo, and in the gate with three characters from solo.
    • Some gates can be completed instantly, which costs special energy from Seong Jin-Woo or characters (restored automatically after daily reset).
    • After passing the gate, you can send a build command to it and after a certain period of real time you will receive the specified reward.
  • Encore Missions – battle with various bosses.
    • To start, you need keys. Every day you get 3 for free, and you can buy 10 more for a donation.
    • When starting a boss, you can choose how many keys you want to spend at a time, from 1 to 4 keys (F2P players can only choose up to 2).
    • There are currently only 4 bosses available – the first two are unlocked early in the game, the last two – later in the game.
    • Each boss has 8 difficulty levels, which open one after another as you successfully complete the mission.
    • Each level has three additional conditions, and if they are met, the following effects are activated for that level: damage from you +50%, damage to you -50%.
    • The first two bosses drop artifacts with, so to speak, basic set properties, the last two – basic and with advanced properties.
  • Instance Dungeons – are structured in a similar way to Encore Missions, with the following exceptions:
    • Other keys are used.
    • The bosses are more difficult.
    • You can get a necklace and bracelets from the first boss.
    • From the second boss – rings and earrings.
  • Battlefield of Trials – contains 60 special missions with one single task that you complete on one map. As a reward for completing them, you are given various useful items, including spins for the regular gacha.
    • The 60 missions are divided into two paths – the first one has you controlling Seong Jin-Woo, the second one has you controlling the solo characters.
    • Each task has three additional conditions, for completing each you get a donation currency.
  • Battlefield of Time is a seasonal activity that opens immediately after completing Chapter 10 of the story. It contains a number of modes with a leaderboard and a standard rating system, in each of which the player will have to fight a boss. Provides various reagents for the development of Son Jin-Woo and the shadows, as well as a special currency that can be spent in a special store.
  • unter Archive – special missions that tell the story of certain characters in the solo world.
    • At the moment, it allows you to learn the story of two characters: the girl Lee Joo-Hee and the guy Kang Tae-Sik.
    • Each character has 5 fairly simple tasks, each of which requires a special key to activate, one of which is given out every day.
    • For completing each task you will receive 50 donation currency.
  • Power of Destruction is a seasonal endgame activity where you compete with other players to see who can get the most points in a battle against a huge boss.
  • The last two are untitled and not yet available.

Other systems

In this section I will briefly describe the key solo gaming activities:

  • Special Shop – allows you to exchange special game currency for various useful items.
  • Funds is a passive system that over time generates experience, gold, and a number of reagents to improve characters. The effectiveness of the system increases with Seong Jin-Woo’s level.
  • Challenges – a huge list of tasks, divided into 12 chapters, tasks are related to all sorts of aspects of the game. As a reward for tasks, you are given gold, various useful items, SR characters, SR weapons, SSR weapons, etc. After completing all the tasks, you complete the chapter and get 10 spins for the regular gacha.
  • Missions – daily and weekly tasks, mainly necessary for increasing the reputation level. Affects how many keys for activities you receive each day and their maximum stock.
  • Battle Class – when a certain level of combat power is reached, it gives out donation currency and gold.
  • Craft is a simple crafting system. With its help, you can create various reagents for character development, certain event items and, most importantly, named SSR weapons for characters.
  • Fuse – Allows you to create random blessing stones/runes for Seong Jin-Woo’s abilities or convert several unnecessary stones/runes into one random one.
  • Armory – Here you can place Seong Jin-Woo’s weapon and get a bonus to the Combat Power indicator. To be precise, the system converts part of the weapon’s power into Armory and then adds it to Combat.
    • The higher the rank of the weapon, the greater the bonus.
    • Initially, you can only place 3 weapons, but for a donation or a special reagent you can unlock 3 additional slots.
    • For a special reagent, each cell can be upgraded (up to 7 times), increasing the conversion rate. For example, at level 7, the initial 30% for a weapon’s SSR turns into 182%.
  • Codex is an encyclopedia where you can see detailed information about all weapons, characters, shadows, artifacts, runes, memorable items and blessing stones available in the game. After receiving any item from the encyclopedia, you receive a small, sometimes extremely useful reward.
  • Achievements are standard achievements, for which you get various small, sometimes extremely useful rewards.

Gacha and donut

And now we’ve reached the most important part. We’ll start with the gacha, it’s built according to a fairly standard and sometimes inconvenient scheme:

  • There are two banners – an event one and a regular one. Both have their own spins, which can be purchased for a donation or obtained in-game. Both contain weapons for both Seong Jin-Woo and characters.
  • The probability of dropping a regular SSR weapon/character in an event banner is 0.043%, and an event SSR character is 0.600%.
  • The drop rate of a regular SSR weapon/character in a regular banner is – 0.060%, however you can select up to 5 desired SSR variants and increase their chance to 0.150%.
  • There is a guarantee to receive SSR weapons or characters after 80 spins, unfortunately, after receiving SSR weapons or characters it is reset.

At the moment, only a few characters from the solo world are available in the game, 9 SSR and 13 SR variants can be pulled out of the gacha. In the video below, you can see their game model and the animation of ult activation.

Donation in the game unfortunately greatly simplifies the process of general development, and from the most interesting for money you can buy the following:

  • Of course, donate currency. The process itself is implemented according to the standard scheme: buy crystals for real and then donate currency for them.
  • Premium and deluxe battle pass strip.
  • Monthly growth subscription , every day gives the following:
    • 1 ticket for regular gacha.
    • Allows you to automatically complete any gate and gives you three free completions.
    • In activities where keys are used, it allows you to use 3-4 keys at once instead of 1-2.
    • Activates a 30% increase to experience and gold of the “Funds” system. Also allows you to instantly receive rewards equal to 6 hours of collection once a day.
  • With a monthly essence subscription , you get the following every day:
    • 200 donation currency.
    • 50000 gold.
    • A chest that can be used to obtain an SSR weapon for Seong Jin-Woo.
  • 6 boards with a very small number of tasks related to the passage of various game activities. As a reward for them, they give a huge amount of gold, 10 spins for a regular gacha, chests with a random reward, etc.
  • Disposable sets with crystals, twists for regular gacha, gold and reagents for crafting ability runes. After purchasing one set, you can buy a more advanced version of it.
  • Sets with spins for regular gacha, gold and reagents for character improvement.
  • Kits with reagents for upgrading equipment, some can only be purchased 1\2\10 times a week.
  • Upon reaching a certain level in the store, you can pick up a free set with extremely useful items, after which a paid set will appear for reaching the same level, but with much more pleasant items.

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