I've now run through this game twice and I think my second run has really cemented my opinion of this game: a great concept with a pretty flawed execution. Starting out both times I thought to myself "this isn't as bad as I remembered" but it's the back half of this game that is the real bastard. The twin stick control, while odd, isn't the problem. The problem is the challenge modifiers, that's where, to use a British phrase here, the game really starts to take the piss. An example is a room where the game is asking me to find a key hidden in the room, another key guarded by an enemy and to not kill any skeletons. The problem arises where the key is guarded by a vampire who hides in her coffin and can't be damaged until she opens the lid but just refuses to do so. My solution then was to find and kill the skeleton, prompting the game to spawn the one hit kill Grim Reaper as it always does when a challenge is failed, and kite him to the vampire, killing her and releasing the key. There are many such instances in this game and rather than being fun challenges to keep things fresh they just become annoyances that turn the game into a slog. Telling the player what to do but then hindering their means of doing it isn't my idea of fun. This is, in my opinion, another instance of Rare coming up with a fun conciet but absolutely fumbling just about everything else.

The enemy design is fun at least?

After I spent a couple of months absolutely addicted to Marvel Snap, once that phase wore off, I decided that I might actually like Card games, so I wondered how I would feel about LoR now.

And so I reinstalled after not playing for a couple of years and I was greeted by all of my decks not being part of the "Standard" format now, bummer, thats not a very nice thing to return to. However, as I was making my way to the uninstall button, the Path of Champions roguelite game mode caught my eye, and it was an absolute game changer, it fucking did wonders to make this game live rent free in my head while offering me at the same time a nice way of gathering resources to craft a deck so I could hit the PvP modes again.

Legends of Runeterra is the best way to experience the Runeterra IP without the overwhelming pain of playing League of Legends, now I'm sure thats something you've heard once or twice, but it wouldnt be a common saying if it wasnt absolutely true. This game just feels good to play, you have a lot of control on the things that happen throughout the games, the champions spice things up in very fun ways, the art and animations are fantastic and have gotten better over time, the voice acting is as good as it is on League, and it's remarkably generous compared to other card games in the market.

All in all, I don't think I can sing enough praises for this game, and if you have drifted away from League like I did, but still enjoy its ever growing IP (because I'm extremely sure that if you played League, at some point you watched and loved Arcane as well), I highly encourage you to give this one a shot, if not for the PvP, do it for the PvE Roguelite mode.