When it comes to Riot Games, most gamers around the world know them for their worldwide game League of Legends. Over the last five years, Riot Games has become known for more than just League of Legends; during those five years, Riot Games alongside Riot Forge released Team Fight Tactics, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Legends of Runeterra, Valorant, Ruined King, Hextech Mayhem, Convergence, and The Mage Seeker. After ten years of having only one game, Riot Games released eight games. Now, a new game is set to join the League of Legends family. Today, we look at Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story and review it.
As a League of Legends fan, I decided that I wanted to go into Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story blindly. Going in, I expected that the game would be about Nunu and Willump’s adventures through the Freljord. What I didn’t expect was that the game would be a 3D third-person adventure game with platforming. In base League of Legends, Nunu never gets off Willump; in Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story, Nunu will get off Willump to explore the area and help solve puzzles. In dire situations or when something is out of reach, the two are reunited. Rather than having the game solely focus on the pair, it breaks them up and makes Nunu feel like his own person without the help of Willump, the last Yeti. Yes, Willump is still important to Nunu, but the game shows that Nunu isn’t helpless when alone.
Gameplay
The gameplay for Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story is closer to an action-adventure platformer than any other genre. Yes, there are times when you will focus on solving puzzles or throwing snowballs/kicking the enemy but traversing the terrain is more important. Riot Forge has done a great job of polishing the world so that Nunu and Willump’s movements feel natural. The only thing that does not feel natural is combat within the game at times.
Enemies early on are rather easy to beat and feel like pushovers; in fact, some can literally be pushed over due to them hovering in the air after a combo. What makes combat within the game so fun is that depending on the enemy there are a variety of finishers that you can see when executing an enemy. These executions restore Nunu and Willump’s health and can feature either character finishing the foes off.
The game’s puzzle-solving and platforming could have a bit more to it, but it still provides a bit of a challenge; the game could provide players with a bit more help through context clues or on-screen prompts. During our time with the game, there were times we got stuck but puzzles were not impossible. Nunu and Willump must work as a cohesive unit in order to solve the puzzles and save the Freljord. Just make sure to make time for a snowball fight or two. The game’s story is an emotional tale that will make you fall in love with the characters even more.
Graphics
Song of Nunu: A League of Legends story utilizes a beautifully designed 3D world that shows off what many League of Legends fans would love to explore. The array of colors used to bring life to the environment and the creatures within the world can be captivating. The game offers a decent variety of graphical options; players can modify the refresh rate, turn off Antialiasing or V-Sync, postprocessing, effect, texture, shadow, and rendering quality. Even on a 3080, we were able to run the game on very high for the majority of our playthrough. With those settings, the game looked beautiful and in fact, made me want to build a snowman.
Song of Nunu: A League of Legends story visually is almost everything that I could ask for from a League of Legends game. If Riot can design an MMO or an open-world game using the same style of graphics, it will be a massive success. Thankfully, the game’s camera gives a good field of view that will make most player’s lives easy. The game does feature settings to turn on subtitles, adjust the subtitle color, eliminate screen shake, and turn on colorblind mode.
Controls
On Steam, Song of Nunu: A League of Legends gives players the option to use either a control or a keyboard and mouse. For our playthrough of the game, we used a controller rather than a keyboard and mouse; this made the gameplay familiar since the game utilizes similar controls as other platformers. Most of the controls are fairly easy to use; the only difficult gameplay mechanic on the controller is Nunu’s flute Svellsongur; for this gameplay element, you will need to equip the flute and use the back buttons on the controller to play different notes.
With controllers, the player can adjust the layout to fit their needs. On mouse and keyboard, the player can remap the bindings to whatever they see fit or find most helpful. Beyond adjusting the controls, Song of Nunu allows players to modify the field of view, and turn on QTE and Jump Assist. Players can also have the game assist them with creating iceballs.
Audio/SFX
Out of all of the settings, Audio and SFX offer the least accessibility options in the game. The player can adjust the Master, Music, Dialog, and SFX Volume levels. Players can turn on subtitles, but these audio settings feel rather limited. Outside of accessibility options, Song of Nunu has a great musical composition between its in-game sound effects, voice acting, and musical score. Each moment within the game is accompanied by music in some way and helps set the mood throughout the game. With Nunu’s ability focusing on his flute, Song of Nunu needed a great musical score and thankfully the development team knocked it out of the park. Hopefully, Riot will take what they learned from this game and apply it to future projects.
Replayability
When it comes to replayability, Song of Nunu: A League of Legends story is a hand with two sides. On one hand, you can experience the emotional story and enjoy the beautiful music all over again while collecting and experiencing things you might have missed the first time around. one the other side, it is the same story no matter how you play the game. The game does have a story mode setting, so if you want to experience the story without dying or failing a fight you can. Once done, you can try to play the game as it was originally created. Ultimately it comes down to you on how you want to experience Song of Nunu: A League of Legends story.
Verdict
When I look back at my time with Song of Nunu: A League of Legends story, I feel that the game has let me form a deeper connection with the characters within the universe. For many fans of League of Legends, Nunu’s lore has sort of fallen to the wayside behind lore updates, skin lore, and trying to keep up with the game’s mechanics. Song of Nunu allows the player to connect with the character on a deeper and more emotional level. The game’s use of music not only helps push the narrative along but also sets the mode perfectly. The game’s soundtrack and voice acting will immerse most players into the world to the point that you might forget that you are playing a League of Legends-inspired game and enjoying a fun action-adventure platformer.
If you have enjoyed some of the previous Riot Forge games like Mage Seeker or Ruined King then it is definitely worth picking up. The game could use a bit more but is still a rather solid game. Song of Nunu is a great family friend game to introduce someone to the Lore of League of Legends without all the toxicity.
A review code for Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story was granted by Riot Games.
