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A solid Metroidvania that expands the League of Legends universe in fun ways - Convergence Quick

9K View2023-05-29

CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story™

8.0

LinearAdventureFantasyTime ManipulationSingleplayerPlatformer

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it! As the fourth game in the A League of Legends Story series of spin-offs, Convergence continues the trend of extremely polished single-player games that greatly build up the characters and lore of Riot’s eternally popular League of Legends. This time the genre being experimented with is Metroidvania, and the star of the show is Ekko, League’s resident genius inventor-slash-time traveler. As it turns out, these are also the perfect focuses to showcase the industrial city of Zaun, a steampunk dystopia that’s one of the most fascinating locales in League of Legends lore.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played four hours of Convergence: A League of Legends Story. That’s included completing the prologue and first two chapters of the game, making it a good way into chapter three, surviving several boss battles, accessing all of the game’s major systems, and unlocking quite a few traversal, combat, and puzzle-solving abilities for Ekko. The game reportedly features seven chapters in total and takes between five to ten hours to finish depending on how much you explore; I’m obviously going to land on the higher end of that estimate.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Tight controls. For any 2D game that emphasizes combat and platforming, responsive controls are a must. Convergence clearly gets that, and controlling Ekko feels great. Whether I was wall-jumping, dodging out of the way of enemy blows, or skating across a zip line, I always felt fully in control. When I screwed up a complicated platforming sequence and had to try over, I was always totally certain that I had made a mistake rather than something being unpredictable or unreliable within the game mechanics.

• Saturday morning cartoon visuals. Zaun might be a grimy city, full of corrupt chem-barons and run-down slums, but Convergence manages to present it in such a way that I grew to really enjoy spending time there. Ekko and his cast of supporting characters add to this, with an infectiously energetic attitude marked by positivity even in the face of danger and despair. The colorful aesthetic painted over this world and its characters feels like something I would have been obsessed with watching on TV as a kid.

• Fixing the mistakes of the (immediate) past. Convergence’s time travel-driven storyline is all about Ekko coming face-to-face with a future version of himself who is trying to prevent a great catastrophe that he may or may not have been the cause of. It’s heady sci-fi stuff, but the game finds an incredibly elegant way to work those temporal themes into the mechanics. Early in the game, Ekko reveals one of his many inventions, and this one allows him to travel backward in time—but just a teensy bit. Like five seconds or so. An annoying limitation for a scientist, but for the sake of the game it’s great. Thanks to this power, any time I mistimed a tricky jump or took a stray shot from an enemy when my health was already drained, I could rewind time back to a point where I was safe and try again. The game limits how often you can do this with a power meter you need to refill, but it was generous enough that I still made very liberal use of this ability.

• Customization. Sometimes playing as a set character, especially one as well-designed as Ekko, means that you don’t get to do much customization of your own. Well, that’s not the case here. One of the rewards I gained by exploring off the beaten path were “chromas,” the League of Legends equivalent of new skins. By turning these in to an NPC, I was able to unlock and equip new color variants for Ekko, as well as changing the look of his weapons and his shadow trail. There’s a bit of mechanical customization as well, with Ekko able to craft special tools to augment his powers, but I really appreciated being able to switch up how my Ekko looked.

WHAT SUCKS

• Ekko’s shadow (and other graphical distractions). This is a very minor complaint, but for as much as I love the design and look of Convergence, the visuals can sometimes become a little overwhelming. Characters and animals can often be seen in the background and foreground, with the latter even covering up the action at times. And because Ekko has an ultimate ability that warps him back to where he was standing several seconds ago, the game has a “shadow” version of Ekko that constantly trails behind him. There’s a strict mechanical purpose for this effect, but several of the more difficult combat encounters in the game became harder due to my eyes not being able to keep up with which Ekko was the live one and which was the shadow.

💬 Will you be jumping into the time machine and journeying to the dirty city of Zaun, or do you prefer sticking to League of Legends in multiplayer form? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Mentioned games

CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story™

8.0

LinearAdventureFantasyTime ManipulationSingleplayerPlatformer

Get

Comments

Sheppard

I NEED to give convergence a try! It's been on my radar for so long. I love how they crafted an art style of Zuan that doesn't deter you from playing the game 😄

2023-05-29

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CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story Review (PC) - Gaming with Joy

I'm still a bit sick at the moment, but I hope you will enjoy my review of CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story for the PC. A very enjoyable metroidvania that is based around Ekko, one of the most annoying champions to play against in League of Legends, but his fun playstyle really comes to fruition in this game. I tried to keep it as short as possible, but hopefully you will still get the full picture. Thanks for watching!

Gaming with Joy2K2023-05-31

CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story - It's Rewind Time!

CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story is a very linear metroidvania with fun combat, amazing visuals and creative level design. Understanding the story is not going to be a problem, even if you haven't played League of Legends and know nothing about the lore and the characters. This game is very narrative driven, but luckily it's pretty straightforward, you only miss some backstory of certain League of Legends characters, but it's not a big deal. Anyways you play as Ekko, a young inventor who can rewind time with his Zero Drive device and it's up to him to keep his city safe.

Gaming with Joy8452023-05-31