Riot Forge, a publishing division of Riot Games has released an orchestrated mayhem called Hextech Mayhem that hits the bell and whistles for those who love music which is developed by Choice Provisions. I haven’t tapped so much into a game in years, and Hextech Mayhem: A League of Legends Story gave me that experience again with an explosive touch of action-packed-musical fix. The story might not be that good of an addition to the League of Legends universe, but it is worth paying attention to as there are a lot of possibilities ahead. Well, other than Ziggs and Heimerdinger playing cat and mouse with their tech. You’ll be in for a few surprises as we dive into the game (if you’re a big fan of League of Legends).
As you begin, the game will notify you that it is “Best played with a controller” and “Music is an important element of the Hextech Mayhem experience. Headphones are highly encouraged.” Without any second thought, I pulled out the in-ear headphones that I regularly use to listen to my audiophile album collections. A quick tip before you start is to set your audio levels to your desired output to give your ears a safe musical experience.
The game brings you to a map with locked levels, and you get a skins menu that you need to purchase using silver cogs. Some of the skins from the League of Legends are in the game and you can switch to them as long as you have collected enough cogs to unlock each of them. Moving on to the options menu, the game is quite limited when it comes to its difficulty. Unlike any other rhythm game which you can choose from easy, medium, hard, and very hard. This one gives you the difficulty experience by default as you reach further stages and levels in-game. You have the option to bind the desired keys to your preference, I chose the default to give myself a bit of a challenge.
Each level indicates how you can unlock the next one. Starting with the tutorial, you need to jump, slam and bomb away to get your rhythm. The gameplay is exciting and fun. As you hit a perfect streak, you’ll notice that the music improves and gives you more bonus points. There were frustrating times where the combos were a bit off and difficult but a few practices will get you through in preparation for much more difficult combos. I also notice that there were times that I had to go back to a previous level as I couldn’t unlock the next stage due to a lack of points or I haven’t collected as many cogs required for the next stage.
As the gameplay progresses, certain visual effects will get you distracted as you get better with the rhythm of the game. There was a part that I noticed every time I hit a perfect streak combo, Ziggs dishes out more exploding effects, and also the Piltover officers trying to stop him. The visual graphics are great, with a touch of League of Legends feels. A colleague also mentioned that the game was quite demanding at first when it comes to the PC system requirements but I believe this was sorted out with a recent patch that has optimized the game. I can say that it is a graphics-intensive game, fortunately, my 10-year-old system was able to handle it very well without any hiccups.
The only part I think that needs more improvement or more of a gameplay fix, is during the boss fights with Heimerdinger. I felt that it was out of sync while Ziggs is using his mechanical bomb contraption to maneuver from Heimer’s missiles and other surprises. It kind of felt heavy for the combos during boss fight stages. Maybe they are also trying to fit it in as Ziggs was usually on his robot bomb. As you finish the game, you can unlock more challenges from it but I think I had my fill of the bomb actions. This rhythm game was an ice breaker, there haven’t been many musical games released lately and with this installment from Riot Games, this one definitely got my ears and I have enjoyed the quick musical quarrel with Ziggs and Heimerdinger.