Final month, Riot Video games introduced a considerable variety of layoffs inside the firm, and one of many casualties was the Riot Forge publishing arm. Over the previous few years, Riot Forge partnered with numerous indie builders to supply a various lineup of single-player video games set on the planet of Runeterra, and these video games all proved to be fairly good whereas being utterly totally different from one another. Presumably, no matter initiatives it had within the works for the remainder of this 12 months have all been cancelled, making the most recent launch—a comfy RPG referred to as Bandle Story: A League of Legends Story—the final hurrah of Riot Forge. Bandle Story gives an honest, gratifying tackle a Stardew Valley-esque life sim, and although it has its points, it seems like a great send-off for considered one of Riot’s most attention-grabbing initiatives.
Bandle Story is ready within the mystical realm of Bandle Metropolis, which is linked to the expansive land of Runeterra by way of magical portals. You play the position of a humble yordle residing with their grandpa within the quiet area of Yarnville, which is usually disconnected from different yordle settlements. Occasions kick off if you sneak out along with your finest buddy to attend a celebration, the place you inadvertently trigger an unlimited magical incident with a close-by portal that destroys the whole portal community and throws the whole lot of Bandle Metropolis into disarray. Fortunately, your character has been coaching for the previous century in a magical type of knitting, so that they got down to restore the harm carried out to the portal community and discover the opposite yordle settlements that they by no means obtained to see.
It is a easy story made a little bit extra digestible by every yordle island having its personal arc that it’s important to resolve. For instance, if you get to Bandle Heart—house to a prestigious college—you might want to assist calm a brewing warfare between the humanities and science departments whereas fulfilling numerous quests to get them to simply accept you as a pupil. Every arc is stuffed with memorable, larger-than-life characters, and followers of League of Legends will probably be glad to see the presence of characters like Veigar, Tristana, and Yuumi right here—although we’ll add that gamers who know nothing about League received’t really feel like they’re lacking out on any context right here.
The actual power of the story is within the glorious writing discovered all through. Regardless of the considerably dire stakes, Bandle Story barely ever takes itself severely and there are jokes throughout that remind us fairly a little bit of the early Mario & Luigi video games. There are sometimes complete quests devoted to a central gag, like a memorable early encounter the place you try to assist a married rock crab couple resolve a lovers’ quarrel. Suffice it to say, the goofy writing goes a great distance in making Bandle Story such an interesting expertise; it’s the form of sport that makes you need to preserve taking part in simply to see what sort of absurd issues will occur subsequent.
Bandle Story’s gameplay may be most carefully likened to that of a life sim, though right here the main target is fairly distinctive in comparison with its style friends. Certain, you’ll spend a variety of your time farming supplies, foraging, fishing, cooking, and crafting, however the total construction of it’s much less about socializing or increasing your empire by being profitable and extra about increasing your talent tree and thus, your out there checklist of supplies you could construct or farm to meet quests.
Crafting is the first technique of development, as you achieve a little bit little bit of Inspiration from every factor you create. New gadgets will grant you far more Inspiration factors than issues your yordle is already acquainted with, and you’ll solely accumulate so many Inspiration factors at a time earlier than you’re capped and want to fall asleep so the Inspiration can flip into usable talent factors. It’s a cute and thoughtfully designed means of measuring progress, provided that it pushes the participant to repeatedly pursue new initiatives and recipes to accumulate extra talent factors.
When you’ve constructed up an honest financial institution of talent factors, you possibly can make investments them in a couple of talent timber. Every tree makes a speciality of a special space, akin to ‘engineering’ or ‘nature’, and every node you unlock grants you issues like a couple of new gadgets you may make or a brand new crafting bench on which to make them. To maintain you from having too many potential crafting supplies and recipes to juggle directly, extra superior nodes are sometimes gated by badges that may solely be bypassed by finishing sure story and aspect quests. We appreciated this as even with the badges, it was usually form of overwhelming having so many interconnected crafting choices directly, significantly provided that Bandle Story not often tells you the way to accomplish the assorted targets set earlier than you.
Quests are the bread and butter of progressing via this 40+ hour epic; these are often so simple as speaking to the appropriate folks and delivering one thing they want in alternate for some progress on a badge and talent factors. Nonetheless, the search design might transform probably the most divisive factor of Bandle Story—in sensible phrases, you’re basically finishing the world’s longest chain of fetch quests for a couple of dozen hours. That’s a little bit of an oversimplification, nevertheless it’s indeniable that the steps it’s important to take to complete even probably the most primary requests usually take a lot extra thought and planning than you’d anticipate.
For instance, an early quest requires you to cook dinner and ship a dish containing a plant referred to as yolkbud. To acquire a yolkbud, it’s important to develop some in your backyard, however your seed maker can solely produce the seeds you probably have floor salt. Even you probably have the talent unlocked that allows you to flip rock salt into floor salt, you continue to must have constructed a crusher workbench, which additionally can’t be constructed except you’ve unlocked its node on the talent tree. When you’ve unlocked the crusher workbench node, you then want stone and wooden to construct it, which you’ll be able to solely acquire when you’ve unlocked one other node that allows you to construct a junk upcycler so you possibly can convert junk into the mandatory supplies.
As you possibly can see, even an goal so simple as cooking a primary dish usually sends you down an extended rabbit gap of getting to finish a number of errands and correctly plan out all of the steps you might want to get your authentic aim fulfilled. Typically it might probably really feel like a bit a lot if you’re having to undergo a string of more and more tangential steps simply to get a singular easy useful resource made, nevertheless it’s actually gratifying to untangle the virtually puzzle-like technique of determining every part you might want to do. Plus, you’ll usually discover that progress you’re making towards the ultimate product of 1 quest can be partially serving to you alongside in a handful of different quests, too. This offers you some alternate options to pursue after you’re carried out or if you wish to distract your self with one other process as a substitute.
Past fulfilling quests, you possibly can take part in different social actions akin to cooking meals or throwing events. Meals kick off an Overcooked-esque minigame the place you’re tasked with filling orders as locals come as much as the counter, sending you into a relentless scramble to make deliveries on prime and get meals out earlier than it spoils or burns. Events are comparable, the place you’re first tasked with establishing an setting with the appropriate vibes, after which spend the remainder of the occasion dashing round between teams of friends gathering “Celebration Yarn” from them earlier than it spoils. Occasions like these clearly aren’t the central focus of the gameplay loop, however we appreciated how they provide a pleasant break from the nonstop crafting and gathering by providing up a special expertise.
Bandle Story definitely has lots going for it, however the largest subject with its gameplay is that it typically feels a little bit too sophisticated for its personal good. It may be irritating if you neglect which of the dozen workbenches in your own home permits you to craft a sure materials, which leads you to verify each solely to find that the fabric requires one other workbench that you simply haven’t constructed but. Additionally, there comes some extent the place you’ve spent fifteen to twenty minutes going via all of the hoops simply to get a primary materials and may’t assist however marvel why every part must be so padded. Bandle Story is a splendidly cozy expertise, nevertheless it’s additionally the form of sport that feels prefer it might’ve simply been half as lengthy and been a a lot tighter and extra gratifying expertise for it.
Associated to this abundance of tedium, Bandle Story feels fairly inconsistent in the way it makes use of quality-of-life options and the way it guides the participant. Your yordle’s home may be packed up in a backpack and carried round with you to clearings the place you possibly can unravel it, which theoretically cuts down all of the trekking again to your base each time you need to craft one thing else. Nonetheless, it may be very simple to neglect the home in the event you place it on the opposite aspect of an island whilst you’re caught up in numerous errands, and you’ll’t use a quick journey portal with out the backpack on you, that means that it’s important to run again on foot to retrieve it.
Equally, the sport will inform you if a quest wants you to unlock a selected talent to perform its process, nevertheless it received’t inform you in the event you first want to finish one other quest or two earlier than you possibly can even try this. This makes Bandle Story really feel like a really uneven expertise, because it’s typically very useful in streamlining its gameplay, whereas different occasions it seems like your time isn’t being revered in any respect as you’re pressured to go about issues in what seems like an deliberately roundabout means.
Fortunately, one space by which Bandle Story definitely doesn’t stumble is in its presentation. The weird, dreamlike worlds of Bandle Metropolis are a sight to behold, with every of the 5 predominant islands having a singular motif to distinguish it from the following. Gadgeton has a way more industrial vibe to it, whereas Greensprout is as verdant as you’d anticipate with all its flora. The spritework is the true star of the present right here, as all characters and environments are filled with an exciting quantity of quirky element that does an incredible job of highlighting the strengths of a hi-bit artwork fashion.
That is equally matched by a soundtrack that captures a really playful and eccentric vibe, completely matching the easygoing yordle way of life. Typically the music can really feel a little bit bit one-note in its portrayal of this cozy environment, nevertheless it’s powerful to argue that it doesn’t masterfully match the power and tone that the builders had been going for with Bandle Story