The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story Review: A Succinct Slice of League

In The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story, Riot Games has found yet another way to carve out an anthill from League of Legends' mountain of lore. Partnering this time with developer Digital Sun, Riot invites players to revisit the story of Sylas, one of League's most conflicting and charismatic characters who dares to take on the oppression of the equally not-so-black-and-white kingdom of Demacia. All this is wrapped into a delightfully retro-looking, pixelated aesthetic that cleverly masks the speed, difficulty, and depth the game boasts to create an engaging branch League for both newcomers and lore buffs to enjoy.

Armed with Petricite chains able to absorb magic and a thirst for vengeance, Sylas in The Mageseeker is as brooding and grandstanding as his brief quips in League and his short stories imply. Tasking himself with starting a rebellion against Demacia and its oppressive attitude towards mages, the long-imprisoned and newly escaped Sylas looks to arm himself with magical powers and rebel forces capable of taking on Demacia. For players, this means stealing magic from others, recruiting allies wherever you can find them to grow your home base and your numbers, and between all of that, slapping enemies silly with combos from your Petricite chains.

The theft of enemies' magic powers is the most interesting aspect of The Mageseeker's combat and, beyond its obvious connections to League's lore, is where Sylas' playstyle is best realized. In League, for those unfamiliar, the champion's ultimate ability allows him to steal an enemy champion's ultimate, thus finally answering the question of what would happen if you mish-mashed different champions' abilities together.

That's obviously gated by longish cooldowns and other restrictions in League, but in The Mageseeker, players have a bit more room to play around. Sylas is able to equip himself with a number of spells to start a level off with and gains access to more throughout the game, and in each level, he can steal a magical enemy's ability to use it against his foes. A relatively simple iteration of rock, paper, scissors adds some more depth to the system and makes you plan your magic theft more carefully – steal a fire user's spell and use it against an ice enemy, for example, and you'll find that fight goes much quicker.

Couple those types of tactics with magical combos and dashes that essentially have no cooldowns and you've got a surprisingly difficult game that grows more complex as you play. The harder difficulty was more a challenge than expected, and just as you think you've exhausted one tree of resources to dump your money into, another one opens up to keep players invested. The Mageseeker pulls from mobile game tactics by doing things like sending leaders out to gather recruits during missions and building up a base of operations without feeling like a freemium game which is impressive on its own.

If there was one unmissable criticism to be levied against The Mageseeker, it's the performance on the Nintendo Switch version (on a Nintendo Switch Lite, specifically). Some of that deals with limitations of the console itself where other parts could be related to the console or the game overall, so it's harder to say. For the former, much of my early time playing The Mageseeker was spent wishing that it was on a different platform where I could use a controller that boasts extra inputs like paddles on the back. Dashes, chain hooks, and thieving enemy abilities would've been much simpler when trying to maneuver and plan out combos and type advantages with some extra inputs that kept me from darting around the Switch's layout so much.

As far as performance goes, the game simply doesn't run well at times with noticeable stuttering exhibited throughout most levels. Outside areas, in particular, are troublesome, and Sylas spends a lot of time outside. It's something your eyes will get accustomed to over time, but as soon as you get into a more controlled environment like a small indoor space or a boss arena and the framerate smooths itself out dramatically, it makes you wonder why this can't be the case all the time. Two things are true about The Mageseeker: I can't recommend it enough, but I also can't recommend it at all on the Switch.

Of course, there's the obvious caveat here that if you don't like Sylas from League, you're not going to be fully invested in The Mageseeker. Though it extrapolates on his story through new allies and gameplay, the character at his core is the same as he is in League with lines and motives pulled directly from the MOBA's larger narrative, so The Mageseeker is unlikely going to sway those who see Sylas as little more than a delusional killer convinced he's in the right. That's not to say you have to subscribe to Sylas' revolutionary ideas to enjoy The Mageseeker, but if you do, or at least find the character's whole persona agreeable or intriguing, you'll get plenty out of the game.

To zoom out on The Mageseeker a bit, this game is the first one in the Riot Forge library that I've actually been interested in. Riot Forge is Riot's publishing arm for these sorts of spinoffs where it partners with smaller developers to take on games spanning different genres, and though The Mageseeker isn't the first of these, it's the one that made Riot Forge click for me. As a longtime League player currently on hiatus, The Mageseeker is the perfect way to dip your toes back into League without signing up for 30-35-minute matches where you may win, may lose, and most likely will encounter some level of aggression from one of nine other people in the game. If I were active in League now, I probably would've gotten even more out of it.

But if The Mageseeker isn't the game that'll do that for you, perhaps it'll be Ruined King or Hextech Mayhem or any of Riot Forge's other upcoming League spinoffs. The point here is that while The Mageseeker is a supremely entertaining and deceptively challenging venture on its own, it's a mark of success for what I'd assume the point of Riot Forge is: to expose players to League's many stories that they wouldn't have experienced otherwise and to continually invest players through the gameplay experiences Riot's third-party partners specialize in.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch with a review code provided by the publisher. The game was released on April 18th for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch platforms.