In addition to the turn-based RPG A Ruined King, Riot Forge has released a second title from its catalog: Hextech Mayhem : A League of Legends Story. No city of Bilgewater or corrupt spirits in this musical runner, since we evolve in the districts of Piltover... a name that should speak to you, since many champions come from this region, and that it is where the action of the animated series takes place Arcane.
Here, a duo is honored: Ziggs, a slightly crazy yordle who likes to blow everything up, and Heimerdinger, a renowned engineer from Piltover who wants to be more moderate than our Hexplosives expert. We will embody this raging little Yordle who will wander all over the city-state to blow everything up while escaping the forces of order. Yes, I grant you, it does not fly high, but the scenario is only a pretext in many runners, and Hextech Mayhem is no exception to the rule.
The studio chosen to work on the title - Choice Provisions - is not at its first attempt, since it is the studio known for its series BIT TRIP. Here, the inspiration comes mainly from BIT.TRIP RUNNER. There is indeed a character who runs on a horizontal axis and who will have to perform very specific actions modulo the obstacles present on the level. We jump with a key, we dive with another, then we drop a bomb with a 3rd command. Getting started is simple and the tutorial is enough to get started with the game without too much trouble. The background music will be enriched via the actions of our character and, if we are well in tempo, we end up with a rather well done music.
To make things worse, the game offers you to collect gears of different colors, essential to unlock 100% (and the challenger rank that goes with it!)... in other words, the challenge is completely different as soon as you want meet this challenge, especially as we move forward. Quite logically, the levels become more complex (there are around forty of them), and we quickly find ourselves with a screen overloaded with information everywhere which prevents perfect readability. This is a little less true on a PC monitor or TV, but on the small screen of the Nintendo Switch, the action quickly becomes unreadable and will make you lose your temper more than once! Hextech Mayhem indeed requires a lot of concentration to be covered from A to Z... Players wanting a demanding runner will be thrilled, the others will no doubt curse. It's all the more regrettable that we see that the studio has done a hell of a job on the environments. The backgrounds are very pretty, but it's almost impossible to enjoy them without seeing a failure screen appear very quickly.
Technically, unlike the RPG released on the same day, it's clean. No slowdown to note and, in addition to the overloaded side of certain levels (relating to the actions to be performed), we are faced with a rather pretty game. Just to add a little madness to the whole, we are entitled to cutscenes highlighting our two yordles, and to a high-flying French dubbing, which brings out the characteristic madness of these characters.
where I loved A Ruined King, I come away a little less enthusiastic about my experience on Hextech Mayhem. Not that it's bad, quite the contrary, but we're dealing with a style of play that I really don't hold in my heart, so it was a long way off! For a fan of League of Legends, discovering more about the characters and the universe is always good to take. However, I don't think it's a game to put in all hands, because it can be frustrating if you don't have "the rhythm in your skin", and the overload of visual information can be tiring in the long run, especially when you combine this with music that is certainly nice, but very repetitive over the long term.
