REVIEW: ‘Ulala: Idle Adventures’ (Android)

Ulala: Idle Adventures is an idle RPG published by X.D. Global. Ulala’s premise is simple, make it to the top of the mountain and become an Adventurer of Legend. To start off, you choose a “Season” (server), a role: Attack, Support, or Survival, a sub-class, Hunter, Shaman, Mage, Druid, Assassin, Gladiator, Warrior, or Warlock, and then start.  Seasons last for 15 days and once it ends, you’re transported to the main server.

Upon beginning your journey, you start on a team with 3 AI-controlled teammates. You have the option to either lead a team or join someone else’s. I would recommend you do one or the other as quickly as possible because the AI teammates can only get you so far especially as you move up in the ranks.

The idle, or non-active aspect of Ulala: Idle Adventures is hunting. While you’re away from the game, your character will level up, earn Shell (in-game currency), skills (to attack), food (which can be eaten for buffs or used to capture pets), pet skills, gear, and gems. All these items are necessary to make you more viable in the later stages. Ulala has 36 maps across 4 continents, but as of right now only 9 maps are accessible. Each map has specific unlocks associated with them, such as class-based skills, recipes, and pets. Skills are automatically earned via idle grinding, recipes have to be cooked and pets have to be captured.

Each map has a gear check system in place in the form of boss fights, which you trigger either through manually clicking the “CHALLENGE” icon on your screen, or through the use of the “Quick Battle” system which you get one free use of every day. Quick Battle allows you to cram 2 hours of grinding into a short 5-minute spurt. You also gain a 10% ATK bonus for 5 minutes, and 10 auto challenge attempts to fight bosses (once you’re level 46). After using the daily free “Quick Battle,” extra uses need Pearls (premium currency) and each use increases the Pearl requirement. Defeating a boss will allow your team to move to the next increment on the map. Losing to the boss resets you back on the current increment to grind more to become stronger before your next encounter. Adventuring through maps gets longer as you move up.

Though this is an idle game, there’s a lot to do in the game. You can cook food to capture pets or boost your team’s stats. Capturing pets allows you have one accompany you on your adventure or even be sent out on their own missions once you hit the level threshold. Pets have 4 archetypes (Attack, Symbiosis, Assist, and Guardian). They also have affinities to 2 of the 4 elements, Fire, Lightning, Earth, and Frost, with one major and one minor. These elemental affinities do contribute greatly in battles, especially in the later game, as each element shares a strength/weakness towards one another in the order of Fire>Lighting>Earth>Frost>Fire. Also, having enough pets will allow you at higher levels to send them on adventures for various items of varying rarities.

If you feel like you have enough pets, then you can eat your cooked food.  Eating food is best to do before going into a challenging battle, and different food buffs stack. Another thing you can do while you idle is to check out the black market. Here you will be able to purchase a variety of items from food to high ranked skills and gear. Items can be purchased with Shells, Pearls, or Starfish (a Pearl substitute). The stock refreshes every 24 hours, with one item refreshing every hour. However, if you don’t like anything in the inventory or you bought all you wanted, you can force a restock by spending either Pearls or Starfish.

Next we have the “Mystic Realm”, a boss rush mode. In the Mystic Realm, your team challenges bosses to earn Enchanting Books, which are needed to upgrade your gear later in the game. The bosses here have much more health than their adventuring counterparts, so team coordination, gear, and pet management are key to being successful. You can also craft gear, summon skills, upgrade gems, and once your season ends, you can join a clan and also enter into arena battles. So, although it’s marketed as an idle game, there’s a lot of active things to do in Ulala.

Ulala’s art style is really beautiful and vibrant for a Stone Age-themed game. I enjoy the fact that the character models are light and colorful. The environments vary from locale to locale. The music in Ulala is chipper, upbeat, and slightly whimsical, which fits well with the bright color palette to help players understand that this game isn’t to be taken that seriously.

I do have one complaint with Ulala and that’s the fact the game does have some things in place that can be deemed pay to win. I say this because you can buy Legendary skills from the Black Market, you can spam Quick Battle for several hours, and if your team is willing to spend money, your team will definitely make it into the 1% in a matter of hours compared to the free-to-play players making it there in days/weeks.

Overall, Ulala: Idle Adventures is quite a fun game and has been my go-to game every day since its release. If you like a more interactive idle game, then I would highly suggest that you download Ulala today!