Ah, this year's Elden Ring. Of course, it sold close to 20 million for various other reasons, one of them being major demand over Mainland China. But people couldn't help but fall for the huge hype of a game that is sort of falling short. Maybe a tad bit overhyped.
To put it in a way, Black Myth Wukong was a highly ambitious project by Game Science, years of endeavors, constant teasing the crazy choreography, breathtaking visuals, intense fighting gameplay we all saw, and thought "man, GOTY". It led us to ridiculously high expectations of a game made in China. The real question is how much of it did it deliver somehow?
May I remind you, how many action games are out there with Souls-like and RPG mechanics? If you take off the visual wonder goggles, this game can easily be seen as a little bit derivative. But there's a lot going that has kept me on my toes, especially the boss battles.
I'm going to preface one thing, I played this game on two settings, one is with ray-tracing, and later on without it. I have my reasons for that, and it more has to do with how choppy the game runs. Chalk it up to me owning an AMD GPU, it ran horribly at first.
But hold up, this sequence of Sun Wukong battling against the celestial lords, is epic. Armies, giant walking statues, a sword that is possessed by a wolf, and the frenetic battle between me and Erlang Shen. It sets in stone for what's to come, like the constant ability spamming, light and heavy attacks, the dodge shadow cast, and most of these abilities are neat, but they aren't available till later.
No, a newly chosen warrior is set on a path to bring balance back to Black Wind mountain. So, presumably I'm Wukong's resurrection, and that my journey is to defeat a bunch of deities, and finding the five split relics of Sun Wukong after his defeat centuries ago.
If you haven't read Journey to the West, this will be a big head scratcher, for someone who hasn't gotten around it, but can understand mythologies, it was a little too much to take at first before realizing its narrative takes place after. The main story really doesn't seem to offer anything earth-shattering, outside the familiar hero's journey, which is kind of a cliché. But the vistas, location based on real life places from the Shanxi provinces, like the Yungang Grottoes and Guangsheng temples.
A huge homage to Chinese culture and history, intertwined with the fantasy setting based around the book. It's taking a crazy sort of ambition to make all of this come to life in a game. But Wukong successfully does so, and it showcases why, from a visual standpoint, the game oozes with the highest fidelity an UE5 game can make. That being said, it's also a big PC hog.
Combat is easy to learn, not hard to master, as everything is well explained, and the inputs are easy to get around. Easy game? Don't be so sure, some of the enemies do give a hard time, and for good reasons. They're either sponges, hard to break poise, or insane levels of damage.
You have your light attacks, and heavy attacks, heavy attacks come with 3 different stances, changed using the d-pad. Smash, Pillar, and Thrust. See me fighting this beast boss? Holding the Y button increases damage while maxing out focus point. Through the advancement screen, earning Sparks also awaken upgrades like light attack finisher, with heavy attacks costing focus.
There are so many moves to unlock, and try out. Though, I wish they added light and heavy attack combos with the focus finishers. Even if it's more simplified here. Yet, just how vast the tree is, it offers so much to experiment with. Some reducing stamina, others allowing health stealing, easy focus generation, and so on. And then there are the spells, transformations, and ultimates.
Holding the right trigger brings out the potions and spells that can be used. Pressing d-pad for potions, and face button for the spells. One in particular can freeze can enemy for a short period of time, the other one I had to use was a transformation spell.
Our monkey here also can do ultimates, like being able to change to a form where I can tolerate fire and increase focus gains, while also pressing both trigger together for an ultimate attack like the giant head bashing. Both of these can be changed, and unlock after defeating the bosses.
Exploration in here is kind of limited, though, chef's kiss to the environment design, that one really holds up so well. Chests to find, meditation spots, offering pots, and so on. It is an RPG action game, with some souls-like elements like the shrine. Where resting will respawn enemies, but also able to upgrade weapons, armor, brew potions, ultimates, spells, and do buy & selling.
The gourd that replenishes my health can also be upgraded in various ways, though this involves meeting a Shen Monkey who brews stuff. Probably more NPCs like him to interact with for other upgrades and shopkeeping. Teleporting to old areas for some backtracking is also possible.
That part of the game isn't its main draw combat is, despite borrowing familiar designs from Jedi: Fallen Order and God of War, it goes a little old school but with the modern refinements thanks to stellar choreography, animation, smooth controls, and crisp visual detail. If you're using an Nvidia GPU that is, AMD users are sadly out of luck for multiple reasons.
But even bigger draw here are the bosses, like there are so many bossfights here. Some could easily call it a boss-rush game, when it kind of isn't. Few are easy, others are tough to beat. In the first chapter, at some point, I opened a portal to a secret level to repeat fight a boss in an ultimate form. They have animated story sequences as well, including this giant bear. He was a man at first, before leading to this large temple ground and, well, absolutely destroying me multiple times.
You want to flex and go crazy with the build of your choosing, these fights are the best arena to try on. But even with all the net positives here, there are some issues that hold it back. No area map, why? I forgot to mention spinning the staff holding left trigger, which deflects arrows, but also becomes broken like easily short stunning enemies to the point of pummeling. That makes it broken.
You can say goodbye to platforming, since that is almost non-existent. He can't double jump, climb, not even wall-running. This guy is a monkey, you're telling me you didn't consider platforming for him? Donkey-Kong isn't happy about this. Oh well, like the open world is any better.
It's a power trip of a title, like even with the spells I have, I can change them up when I get more later. First chapter was over 10hrs, second chapter takes place in west of China, which is kind of a desert. Also, don't worry about dying, you don't lose anything. That's a given. You will question yourself again as to how much of a gimmick this game can be to sell this well.
The same answer is maybe to do with overhyping. I hope AMD and Game Science is optimizing this, for my sake. Otherwise, I'm getting an Nvidia GPU, even if I dig a deeper hole in my wallet. To go even further, they're releasing an expansion. That's great, please add the stuff I want, that'll be greater.
