Previous entry: Fantasy Life Online

I dove into my backlog of mobile games for this next entry of Mobile Game of the Week. MGOTW? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue smoothly. Anyway, I've discovered a few things. The first is that a bunch of the games I've played have now been discontinued, meaning I'm unsure if I can still mention them here. They've made a lot of cool stuff out there and then axed that same stuff. Secondly, given my tastes in service games, I've been stuck playing a loop of several daily features. I forgot that these numbers don't get themselves up. It's a full time job.

I think, in that light, the game with the least psychological hooks in me is League of Legends: Wild Rift, the mobile version of the popular multiplayer giant. Yup, developer Riot Games just put that game on phones, after a successful campaign of making portable versions of their other clones, Not Hearthstone and Not Dota Underlords. Their development cycle is, let's just say, transparent. For Wild Rift, specifically, the adaptation might be the best thing that's happened to their flagship. In essence, it's just that game you know, except it's been distilled into a streamlined experience that's more easily digestible in every way.

So, to recap, the game has that classic multiplayer structure. And no, I won't be calling the genre by its ridiculous acronym. Here's the skinny: Five heroes with abilities face five others on a fairly symmetric map, which also has some monsters and defense towers on both ends. The goal is to destroy the enemy base, by growing that hero and unlocking more skills, as well as buying enhancing gear with the spoils of your labor. There are monsters that boost power or break down towers, heroes can hide in bushes for an ambush attempt or plants can be destroyed for special effects. A second layer to the game is understanding the three lanes and the space in between, called the jungle. League is very insistent in what behavior it expects in each section, for better or worse.

In the mobile game, some of the above is stripped down, so that the map is more viewable on a small screen. Moreover, by condensing this experience, a standard round will take closer to twenty minutes or less. In that genre, that's not a lot of time. It's totally possible to just pick up and play, though that's in essence. In reality, this sort of game still requires a lot of literacy to do anything other than playing against artificial intelligence (AI). Every hero has a specific skill set, which they can also amplify with a range of gear. The map has different objectives at certain times, but that also takes into account the current play and where everyone is located. Every simultaneous factor creates a wildly malleable monster of a game, completely fluid and open in how it's going to unfold, though equally set in its ways. Sure, you can just press buttons, which Wild Rift definitely facilitates, but playing blindly is easily exploited.

People have been playing League of Legends for many years, so even in the lowest barrier matches, anyone who overextends is essentially dead every time. You will need to learn what a laning phase is. What's an ADC and why do people get so mad at it? There's a whole compendium of stuff that everyone, except you, has internalized already. That sucks and has always sucked, in every single one of these games. There's too much stuff and too much expectancy around that stuff. Some heroes are told to stay in a certain lane or leave killing minions to their colleagues. Others need to be everywhere at once and have infinite power. Do anything wrong and it feels like an uphill battle, even if the game really doesn't work like that. One good team fight can turn any tide.

Personally, I manage this huge stress factor by primarily focusing on the map. Enemies will run into the jungle and that puts them in a prime location to get overwhelmed. That is, if they're not baiting you, which is where using a lot of vision tools around you can help. Once an advantage presents itself, it's pivotal to capitalize on it immediately, by slaying large monsters that grant boons to the whole team. If that's not possible, even just destroying camps that are on the enemy side means more resources for you and less for them. Navigating the map and being swift about removing the enemy's choices is just as effective as taking the fight head-on. Don't worry, someone on the team is always looking to be the one that makes the highlight reels. I've gotten just as many Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards by destroying turrets that the opponent ignored as I have from just jumping into a full brawl. As long as you keep your brain on, you'll make it out okay, considering an ambush can happen at any time.

It is not feasible to play Wild Rift while spaced out. It ain't that kind of phone game. You will die. The upside is that rounds are relatively short, so the small bursts allow you to dip out when you've expended your brain capacity for the day. On top of that, the game itself is a lot more straightforward than the main product. There's one route, one split and even items can be built automatically. Wild Rift takes away any burden that it can and squeezes it into a diamond that is the best of its elements. Truly, that is this mobile version's biggest accomplishment. This game is League of Legends, but just the good parts, faster and easier to parse. Wild Rift is, frankly, just plain better than PC League. Play it whenever, get as good as you want at it, then leave when you're done. It's all so simple.

Obviously, as a live service, there's still an element to it that tries very hard to sell expensive cosmetics. To be fair, Riot has had a lot of experience in creating some damn good skins, even if their model is predatory. Wow, these designs are some of the best in all of video games. There are some enchanting outfits in there, even if the most alluring are often more costly than they should be. See, it's virtually impossible to buy a skin without having to buy a higher tier of currency. Every time, a purchase will just fall a few gems short of what a tier grants you. You want this skin for 340 magic beans? Well, you can buy 320 beans for ten bucks or get 650 for twenty. It's a scummy practice, no matter how you look at it. To somewhat deflect that, there's a system that will eventually grant players a free random skin. It won't be a skin for any character and it takes hundreds of games to get, but it's something.

Luckily, Wild Rift is a game built on replayability, so rounds will speed on by. Somehow, I've already amassed a thousand matches and I don't think I play that much? I'm definitely still learning every day. I just found out that a skill I was using habitually could go through walls, which opened up a whole new world. There are constant updates, clans, other battle modes, the whole nine. Will this be everyone's cup of tea? Probably not, as that initial knowledge barrier will always be an issue. Anyone willing to get over this dozen hour hump, however, may find one of the best apps out there. Wild Rift is a video game, not just a mobile game, down to expertly implemented controls that feel natural. It's telling that this product was years in the making, because the result is the best it could've been. Hopefully, Wild Rift is an evolution as to what is possible for mobile games. It certainly is currently at the top of its League, umm, league.