Adventurer League Review

Deep in the eastern forests of Auhert a fearsome bear lurked. My party and I had been tasked with killing the beast. We spent days out there in the wilderness, slowly running out of supplies and resolve. A hail storm had rolled in forcing us to seek shelter. We lost many bundles of supplies in this storm, causing our archer to rebel against us. He took the remaining supplies and ran off with it, leaving us hungry and broken. Finally, we found the fearsome bear and decided to sneak up on it. Little did we know that the bear had seen us and was ready for the fight. We tried our best, but it is much to my dismay that I must inform you that everyone died in this encounter.

Adventurer League is a roguelike, 8-bit mobile game that you will love! Produced by AXFN, Adventurer League drops you into the land of Auhert, a bandit filled, religious cult controlled Medieval province on the edge of the Western Sea. You can choose your class to claim your riches from this torn land. You have the choice of a fencer, a man who uses quick double attacks to kill multiple enemies, an archer, the range of the fight, and a man at arms who has an armor ability. After you make this decision you will be met with another one. This one will make you choose between backstories for your character. Will you be a dashing young lieutenant who is looking for a chance to prove himself, or will you be a warrior monk who fights for his religion? After these hard decisions you have the opportunity to do some minor customization with your guild name and crest, but after this you are off to seek your riches!

This game has a large amount of strengths to it. The 8-bit art style fits the theme and is well done, the sounds are high quality, and the world has been crafted to a level that I don’t expect out of mobile games. My party and I were roaming in the wilderness looking for bandits that a nearby town had tasked us to kill when a storm suddenly rolls in. Luckily enough I had a hunter in my party that had the knowledge to build a shelter to protect us from the storm. We only lost a small amount of gear and we walked away from it with a decent amount of bruises. During your travels throughout Auhert you must be careful on how you battle with the other roaming parties because of the brutal permadeath system. One wrong move when forming your battle line and you can lose your entire clan in seconds. If you have a medic in your party you have a small chance of saving men that are struck down in combat. This skill makes him an incredibly viable part of your team. You can purchase better arms and upgrades at the shops in town, making your party even stronger. I love how in battles archers have sight lines to fire upon and how obstacles obstruct arrows. The battle system is a basic turn-based, hexagonal movement pattern that doesn’t do anything too special, but this system suited the style of the game well. This system could be made better by adding flanking bonuses and a more precise health counts to make battles more dynamic but even this isn’t a large issue.

The main problem I have with this game is the lack of original quests inside of it. At the beginning of the game I was tasked with killing a bear that was terrorizing nearby farms. I went and took care of it, then continued on to the next major city. Upon my arrival I was met with the exact same scenario that I took care of in the previous city. I once again killed the bear and kept on moving. This is a reoccurring theme within the game’s questing system and in my opinion the biggest downfall that it has. Even the cities and town are repetitive. They’re inherently the same with little splashes of personality here and there which isn’t enough to make them feel different. Music isn’t in the game yet so it feels empty when exploring. Keep in mind though that this game is relatively new and more updates could bring these areas to life.

Overall, Adventurer League was a great use of time. I spent hours in this game without even realizing it. All of the issues I mentioned can be easily overlooked, and what you see after that is an incredible free mobile game that immerses you in its world without hesitation. I would easily pay for this game because it definitely deserves it. AXFN did a great job here and I can’t wait to see more from them. Adventurer League has a great base platform that it has established, but the negatives leave much to be desired.