There have been many creature-collector games that innovate or utilize the mechanics of Pokémon; Yaoling Mythical Journey is a game that aims to innovate on them. It was released in early access last year, and now it is finally time for the full game launch of Yaoling Mythical Journey.
Game Name: Yaoling Mythical Journey
Platform(s): PC (Reviewed)
Developer(s): Rayka Studio
Publisher(s): Rayka Studio, NPC Entertainment
Release Date: June 19th
Price: $19.99
In Yaoling Mythical Journey, you play as a yaoling keeper. You keep Yaolings but also train them to protect your village, and attack demons and other entities you come across. The goal isn’t just to get to all the schools of Yaolings’ keepers and prove your superiority, but also to make a haven from the darkness.
The Good
Combat in Yaoling Mythical Journey was not at all what I was expecting, with the description of it being an eastern RPG with creature collecting added into the mix. You have an initial party of seven Yaolings, but that number can become bigger when you rank up. Rather than having them fight one at a time, you have an allotted number of Yaolings fighting all at once as you take on a rather large party of enemies. You get to decide their placement and then let them fight. Fighting takes place as an autobattler, but you are given charms that you can pause the combat to activate. These charms range from dealing damage to enemy Yaolings, distracting them, sealing them in a charm for you to use, or even buffs or debuffs on the field of battle. After acclimating myself to the combat, I was addicted. I wanted to create a bunch of different party layouts and see how well they worked together.
The combat in Yaoling Mythical Journey would not have been as interesting if it weren’t for the Yaolings you can capture and seal. There is a good variety of combat types in the game, they range from debuffers, front line attackers, front line defenders, back line attackers, healers, and even the assassin Yaolings that can use their ability to teleport behind enemy backlines and deal damage to the ranged Yaolings of the enemy.
Exploring the land of the ancients is a fun experience. There are a ton of things you can collect and then use those resources to craft charms or other materials. There are also dark head icons on the map that show where a demon is located. Defeating these demons can help you progress in the map or even help you find villagers to take with you to your village. The more villagers you rescue out in the world, the more stations you have access to in your village.
I played this game mainly on the Steam Deck. On my OLED model, I got 80-90 FPS during combat and 70-90 FPS during exploration. That may seem like a large change in frames, but it felt extremely smooth. On my PC I let the game choose the best settings, and it decided on locking it to 60 FPS and 1440p. I didn’t mind as it ran smoothly, and it looks clean at that resolution. The screenshots don’t do this game justice. Yaoling Mythical Journey may have some small sprites, but they look so clean. This is a beautiful game.
The Bad
If you are not a fan of a game playing itself at times, nor micromanaging, then Yaoling Mythical Journey’s combat might not be the one for you. You can get frustrated if you are not sure why you are losing a fight when there is so much going on the screen. There are numbers and life bars, but not necessarily logs that help you see what’s going on through text you can review.
You will be grinding fights a lot if you want to get to the next section. If you are like me and try to catch a good number of creatures during these games to min-max your setup, you won’t need to grind a lot. If you are not like me and try to just optimize your team and then go straight to the next story battle, you will have a hard time. These fights scale pretty difficultly without grinding your Yaolings up.
Combat is mostly an autobattler, and it can be addicting, but it can also feel super slow. I wish there was a way to speed up combat. When I have a sound strategy and I know I can handle a bit of grinding, it would be nice to let me speed up twice to maybe even four times the normal speed and just grind away on enemies and breeding if I want to.
The Verdict
Yaoling Mythical Journey is an addictive experience. I spent so much time working on my party lineup and how to best utilize my Yaolings’ abilities. There is a lot of content and side stuff in this game, and it can be satisfying to clear out the demon marks on the map. If you want to see a new take on a creature-collector game, then this is the one to get.
Yaoling Mythical Journey is available today on Steam.
Review Disclosure Statement: Yaoling Mythical Journey was provided to us by Rayka Studio for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
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Summary
Yaoling Mythical Journey is a fun creature-collector with a battle system that is centered on party building.
Pros
- A large variety of Yaolings you can add to your party
- As you rank up your Yaoling Keeper level, you can have more Yaolings in your party
- A fantastic Steam Deck game with lots to grind
- Satisfying to defeat demons
Cons
- No speed up can make grinding feel long
- Combat is mostly an autobattler
- Grinding does feel necessary for advancing through story
