Have you tried the mobile version of League Of Legends yet? There are times when you’re surprised by a concept that doesn’t quite fit your style. So you always have to try to give opportunities. And the truth is that Wild Rift, the mobile version of the legendary League of Legends, is a discovery.
The Riot Games MOBA, one of the most played competitive games and one of the most notable titles on the eSports scene, if not the king at all, released its mobile version in October 2020. With every sacrilege intended for the purity of the original version of this strategy game, so far it has garnered fans and detractors in equal measure. Because it’s an adaptation you either love or hate. Let’s see what this portable version of Summoner’s Rift has to offer.
Game Story
Let’s face it: League of Legends is the maximum reduction of an MMORPG game. Character growth is reduced from infinite hours of play to just a few minutes. All the tedious missions are done away with, to concentrate on the sheer confrontation of players that used to be the final phase of these games.
And, of course, all the surrounding story is removed to focus on the foundation of a MOBA: throwing yourself into the arena to fight. Without further ado.
League of Legends, and therefore Wild Rift, don’t need a story for their game system. That’s true. But it’s also true that most of their fans come from the role, and they want to know the background of these champions they control.
Riot Games has done everything to try and develop an unforeseen universe, from individual biographies to regional descriptions, in addition to publishing books, series, and other video games that expand the world of Runeterra.
But so far, all these attempts have led only to an informative chaos that leaves nothing clear beyond small notes on each character, which, of course, are absolutely irrelevant in a rift where brothers fight and bitter enemies, according to the lore from the same team.
In this sense, Wild Rift specifically contributes to the creation of the world through its temporary events, whether with comics, trivia, or interactive mini-games… But it suffers from the feeling of trying to offer a lot of unrelated and irrelevant information in a world that doesn’t end up curdling or having any impact on the player’s imagination. It also doesn’t help that the character skins don’t have an argumentative rationale behind them either.
Gameplay
The magic of Wild Rift is that, despite the pursuit of this acceleration to create more casual games, it doesn’t compromise the essence of the game. Once you get used to this fast pace, everything is kept under strict, logical control, making them faster games, not at all more chaotic.
Another of the most significant elements is the automatism of certain abilities, an element much criticized because, in the absence of a mouse, they are directed by default at the rival without the need to aim. This leads many to condemn the game as being much easier than the original version.
Do these automatisms make the game easier to learn? Yes, they do. Your attacks will be more successful. But that’s an advantage for all players, allies, and rivals alike, so … Yes, it’s easier to learn how to play, but it’s just as difficult to achieve victory because a level playing field is maintained. Above all, in the higher ranks, with players who know how to dodge skills, automatic aiming is no longer useful, and manual mechanisms will have to be used.
Otherwise, the dynamic is similar to the original game, although it must be borne in mind that the values of champions and items are different, so strategies from one game may not work in another. Not all League of Legends champions appear in Wild Rift either, although their numbers have been growing steadily since its release.
In short, Wild Rift offers a faster style of play and easier-to-learn dynamics than League of Legends, but they’ll also force you to tighten up your skills as you work your way up the competitive rankings. For those who don’t want to be under pressure to be competitive, there are also a variety of permanent non-competitive modes that complement each other.
Game System
The foundation of Wild Rift, like LOL, is already known: two teams of 5 players each fight in a closed scenario, with the aim of destroying the enemy core, after attacking the turrets defending them on three lines.
The main difference is that, in its adaptation for mobile, everything happens more quickly, with the aim of creating games that can be resolved in half an hour at most. You level up faster, acquire skills sooner, character development is faster and you move forward faster on a map that’s slightly different from the desktop version (the inhibitors are part of the last turret and not independent, and the jungle has a different design).
One advantage of this new map is that all players can view it from the lower zone, unlike the red team in the tabletop game, which suffers from poorer vision from the upper zone due to the distribution of the interface.
Graphics
In its release, Wild Rift improved the graphics of League of Legends, which, in its quest to be accessible and not compromise gameplay, has always lagged far behind cutting-edge technology.
The mobile version offered more stylized designs for the champions, moving away a little from those polygonal shapes typical of Warcraft, and although its overall graphical potential doesn’t reach levels as high as the games that compress mobile technology the most, it has pretty advanced graphics for this type of device.
All this, together with the fantastic representational images of each character and the multitude of skins and lighting effects for the skills that provide a very colorful and colorful environment, which solves with great ease anything that can be shown on a phone screen.
Sound
The music that accompanies the game maintains the level of the original version. From the epic opening tunes and champion selection to the raucous sounds of the auditory-level enticement abilities to hit enemies, Wild Rift’s sound package is an aural spectacle.
Not to mention the mythical phrases of champions during gameplay, with some of them recorded exclusively for this portable version.
Difficulty
Learning to play is relatively straightforward. At least, in terms of knowing their basic movement dynamics, skill usage, and how the stage works in relation to defensive towers, lines, and neutral jungle monster foundations. It has already been commented that automating certain skills for their mobile adaptation also makes this task easier.
But mastering the game and climbing the competitive ladder, the desire of every PVP player is not easy. You have to familiarize yourself with all the champions to know how to counter them and choose the most appropriate one according to the companions’ choices, and learn the properties of all the items and their synergies (although you can always copy-build some, which never guarantees that it’s the most optimal for your play style), know how to read games to adapt to changing situations…
Come on, everything a good League of Legends player needs to learn, is also reproduced here. And it’s not easy: it requires a lot of experience and hours of play.
For more difficulty, as in the after-dinner version, the updates, in their eagerness to create a constant balance where there are no champions who excel or built winners, from time to time the parameters of items and characters change, forcing you to relearn again, in an infinite difficulty curve that makes everything more complicated, but allows you to continue enjoying these types of titles until eternity in search of that winning formula that does not exist, and if it does exist, it is for a short time.
Yes, it’s indeed easier to move up the rankings. In my case, as a casual player, I barely reached Gold in the original version, whereas in Wild Rift, I managed to reach Diamond. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, because of its format and accessibility, there is a greater mass of casual players to stand out from the crowd. It’s worth noting that integrated purchases don’t make winning any easier, as they’re dedicated to cosmetics, in a monetization format that’s always appreciated for maintaining equality.
League of Legends: Wild Rift – A mobile version of a legendary PC Game
Wild Rift is a very good mobile adaptation of League of Legends. It doesn’t replace the original game, as the proposition is a more agile, casual style of play. But it does replicate the experience in a very meaningful way for an audience that has less time for this type of game, or even for those who enjoy tabletop League of Legends and want to continue enjoying it, in an adapted approach, away from their usual platform.
So there’s no question of which version is better. There’s no room for debate. It’s not the same game. Riot Games has managed to focus very well. It has created a more accessible version, suitable for more casual players, without compromising the essence of the original game. Incidentally, with less toxicity, since players make less use of chat due to the difficulty of writing on cell phones, a chat that can also be easily ignored.
