Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story Review

Take a breath and imagine you’re sitting in a whimsical forest with spring-time trees, purple crystal stalagmites, and butterflies flitting through the air. In the background, you hear gears grinding, somehow enhancing the peaceful feeling, and you smell fresh banana bread. If I could sum up how I felt playing Bandle Tale, that’s exactly how I would describe it.

Bandle Tale, the last game from Riot Forge expanding the League of Legends universe is a cozy crafting sim where the player, a young knitting yordle, is tasked with saving Bandle City. It’s the first deep dive into yordles and Bandle City, and developers Lazy Bear Games did the adorable little creatures justice.

Between an enchanting story, engaging gameplay, and an endearing aesthetic, Bandle Tale delivers a great game that lives up to its yordle legacy.

Restoring Bandle City in Style

After a small disaster, the player goes on a journey around the various areas of Bandle City to try and restore it. Throughout this adventure, the player is constantly helping other yordles by solving their problems. To do this, players have to craft everything, run their own food stall, sell items, and even throw parties. 

No matter what you’re doing in Bandle Tale, nearly everything feels like a fetch quest, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s calming, which fits everything else the game has to offer. While you start out crafting knitting supplies, you quickly learn how to cook, smelt things, use magic, and grow plants. 

The aesthetics of Bandle Tale add to this. Each area of Bandle City has its unique look and feel, and it’s all so detailed. The pixel art graphics of the game are perfectly executed in terms of style, and everything from the food you can create to the little creatures in the background of the game is adorable.

Additionally, the game is pretty straightforward. Bandle Tale is paced so that you’re never too far behind (or ahead) of where you need to be in terms of the four skill trees and what you can craft.

If you need to know how to craft anything, you can easily find the information in the quests menu, and helpful hyperlinks take you exactly to the skills you need, too. It's all very cohesive and works well together.

This interconnectivity is also present in the areas around Bandle City. The four main areas all have their own quest lines and (basically) their own skill trees. However, the quests overlap, and completing things in one area unlocks things in another.

Without getting too far into spoilers, this plays into the rest of Bandle Tale's themes beautifully, and it feels like a complete experience to play. 

Additionally, the dialogue is both entertaining and fitting for a land of small, magical creatures. There are tons of easter eggs for League of Legends fans, like a K/DA artifact or even Rumble’s crush on Tristana. The witty dialogue is enough to stop the game from feeling too repetitive.

Partying is Hard Work in Bandle Tale

The only negative gameplay aspect that I ran into was the parties. It's oddly satisfying to decorate and choose the music/lights. However, actually starting the party launches a countdown, and during that time, you have to collect things from happy attendees and drop them off at your house.

More often than not, this time limit feels too short, and I had to restart some of the parties multiple times. Unfortunately, throwing a party uses up the stats in the area you threw it in. Failing one means you have to collect those stats again, which means selling food – and waiting for people to get hungry.

These parties are stressful and that clashes with literally everything else. Luckily, you don't have to throw too many parties, and saving/loading takes some of the pressure off. 

Overall, Bandle Tale feels like a great ode to League of Legends while also being a stellar cozy game to play on its own. Between a wholesome story, calming gameplay, and a magical setting, it’s a must-play crafting sim for anyone who loves cozy games or LoL.

Bandle Tale was reviewed on PC with a copy provided by Lazy Bear Games over the course of 30 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.