Divergent Expectations

I may not be into League of Legends, but I was into the worldbuilding in Arcane -- and so a Metroidvania set in that world, with Sands of Time-style rewinds!, seemed right up my alley. Convergence: A League of Legends Story didn't ... go down that alley, though.

For one thing, Convergence doesn't line up much with Arcane's story threads or key settings, nor does it "build" a coherent world of its own. Its opening chapter is overflowing with casual references to people and places and concepts that I don't know or care about; I can only guess that the references will mean something to a League diehard, but as an outsider I didn't get anything out of all the lore-babble.

I did get something out of Convergence's parkour-ey traversal, which (at least in the early game) includes a pleasant variety of Prince of Persia-esque acrobatics, pole-jumping and wall-running and et cetera. Although I don't know if more gameplay hours might change that opinion, since I've read that there's no fast-travel.

But what really put me off Convergence was the combat, which simply has too many enemies. Even when turning the Battle Compositions difficulty down to "Light" - and, I do have to give the game kudos for discrete difficulty settings - the amount of fodder thugs and annoying fliers that keep showing up just feels like a chore.

Enemy volume also works frustratingly against Ekko's battle tactics, as dodge- and parry-able tells become impossible to see when two guys are visually overlapping, and then rewinding to undo one of their attacks will frequently result in another enemy hitting you anyway.

I gave up on Convergence fairly early, but with the distinct impression that it was made for LoL devotees who don't mind repetitive combat, and for whom Metroidvania and PoP influences could be neat surprises. As a fan of those latter ideas, but not the former, this game doesn't seem like it's for me.