Review: Bandle Tale - Riot's Cozy Game!

On February 21, Riot released its newest game for PC and Switch: Bandle Tale a League of Legends Story. This game was produced by Lazy Bear Games, the same studio that developed games known as Swag and Sorcery, Punch Club and Graveyard Keeper.

Escaping the competitiveness of League of Legends, Bandle Tale aims to be a Cozy Game, that is, a game completely focused on relaxing the player and spending hours and hours with light, less hectic activities.

For this review, we played its version on Nintendo Switch.

Synopsis

The game takes place in Bandle City, taking on the role of a shy Yordle. He spent 101 years of his life learning the most advanced knitting techniques from his grandfather.

Dreaming of being one of the biggest party organizers like your idol Ozzy, you will find yourself in a terrible situation. During your first party, something goes wrong and all the portals that connect the planes are destroyed, now only your ability to knit special wool can restore all the portals.

Along the journey, you will meet new friends and familiar League of Legends figures such as Tristana, Rumble, Veigar and even Yuumi! Exploring Bandle City, you will face some challenges and help solve the problems that the broken portals caused in each region.

Gameplay

In many places, it will be said that Bandle Tale follows the mold of Stardew Valley and Haverst Moon, which doesn't match reality. The game is focused on management, in which you will collect resources and use them to hold parties, make your portable restaurant functional, raise your insects to create items and even recycle trash.

For every activity you perform, you will receive Emotion points. Initially, you will only have 3 orbs to fill with these points. After sleeping, these collected points will be converted to unlock some skill in the Knitting, Engineering, Nature or Magic modes.

In addition to modifying your Backpack, customization is limited, as you must use constructions in specific spaces to function properly or gain aura bonuses.

An interesting factor in the game is that, as the main character uses a prosthesis on one of his legs, at certain times you will experience difficulty in moving around, with the character going to one side unintentionally.

When you start the game, you can edit your character by changing the coat color, ear type, hairstyle, scarf and other details. If you want to change something that you don't like, you can change everything by accessing the customization option on your bed.

Emotions

Emotions determine the number of activities that are possible before needing to sleep. In the tutorial, it seems like an interesting mechanic, but it becomes tiring as the game progresses.

It is said that doing different activities generates more Emotion points, however, to advance, it is necessary to repeat activities several times, receiving too few points, holding the player back due to the lack of varied activities.

Seeing a beautiful place for the first time, collecting items, making new friends, completing missions... All of these activities reward you with Emotion points, but if you don't rest, the extra points will not be counted and will slow down progress in certain parts of the game.

Resting every time the Emotions bar fills up may not appeal to most players. By improving your Backpack and the character himself, more orbs will be released, however, the beginning of the game can be tiring and slow.

Scenarios

You will explore the five islands that make up Bandle City, solving the problems caused by the unsuccessful party and the broken portals. In each of the plans, we will be able to learn a little more about the history of famous League of Legends characters, such as Teemo, Lulu or Rumble.

In each of the scenarios, new mechanics are presented, with new auras to be used with the expansions for your Backpack, making it necessary to change your strategy in organizing the structures in each of the planes for better results.

The Backpack

This is the most important item in the game and where we spend most of our time. The Backpack works as a mobile base where we can personalize it by changing the wall skin, bed style and, when you have upgrades, build more structures to create items needed to advance in the story, cosmetics or even food to be sold.

In addition to personalizing it on the inside, we use it more frequently on the outside. With the mats acquired throughout the game, you will have access to Backpack expansions. An example is the Food Stand to play a minigame where you have to make dishes for the residents within the time limit.

The main carpet is the Festival where you will make friends and bring joy to the residents of the plane wherever you are. When starting a festival, you must fulfill some requirements by selecting cards acquired throughout the campaign, customizing what your party will be like (they indicate which character will help you, how many guests will be present), selecting the type of lighting and even the music. Always make a suitable selection to please your guests and thus earn more Emotion points.

Although the idea of setting up your base in different places on each plane is cool, this can end up becoming a problem. Often times, it is necessary to collect the same resource, which will eventually fill your Emotion bar, forcing you to go to sleep so as not to lose the points. In addition to going back and forth to the same area, you will need to disassemble the Backpack and take it to an area where there is the necessary aura to create the item needed to progress in the story.

It is possible to teleport between small portals, which at first seems great for collecting distant items and returning to your base, but this is not possible. You can only use the portals while carrying the Backpack.

Skill Tree and Progression

For those who have played Graveyard Keeper or Punch Club, you will feel familiar with the skill tree present here.

There are four types of skills that must be improved little by little to progress in the campaign and allow the creation of new items and structures focused on their areas.

In the Knitting tree, we will unlock skills to create new knitting and woolen items and even improve our legs to run for longer using less stamina.

In Engineering, we free up assembly benches, making new raw materials and how to reuse them.

Nature is focused on resources and creating recipes using the fruits and other foods that we collect or grow.

Magic is the sector aimed at improving our Emotion orbs, creating potions and even releasing new minigames such as fishing (fishing in Bandle Tale is identical to that in Stardew Valley, we must press a button to keep a bar above the item we will receive), new auras and even improvements for festivals.

Riot Games selected an excellent studio to develop its game, focused on being something different from those previously released. Bandle Tale is a good Cozy Game, but it will hardly surpass those already established on the market.

With interesting mechanics, but poorly used, at various times the game ends up becoming very repetitive. By being forced to release certain skills to progress in the story, not having the possibility of going to other areas to perform different tasks, the progression ends up being tiring and monotonous, and for a game that was supposed to be relaxing, it creates many tedious moments.

The pixel art is wonderful, as is the soundtrack. Lazy Bear Games never makes mistakes on these points, and the care they took in creating the entire Bandle City and its inhabitants is remarkable. For players who already know the Yordles thanks to League of Legends, you will find new stories about some of your favorite characters here.

Those who haven't ventured into the MOBA and don't know the characters will be able to play without fear, after all, no prior knowledge of League of Legends is necessary to understand any detail of the narrative. They are introduced gradually.

To complete the game, prepare for approximately 40 hours, with a lot of collecting, resource management, upgrading skills and some areas to explore.

I give a 6.0/10 to Bandle Tale, which, despite having some qualities, made me feel frustrated and tired due to mechanics that end up slowing the player down and depriving them of the relaxing experience that a cozy game should provide.

Have you played Bandle Tale or any other game from Riot Forge, or Riot Games? Comment your experience with the games or even your favorite character! Which LoL character deserved their own game and what could it be like?

Also check out our Review of Mario vs Donkey Kong!