Very few video games can generate a large amount of hype and live up to those expectations. The hype surrounding Black Myth Wukong reminded me of the days of waiting for games like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 4 to be released back in 2007 & 2008. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get away from the discourse surrounding those games, and Wukong is no different. Some people on the internet try to rewrite history by saying the game came out of nowhere and its overnight success is somehow rigged.
This is the furthest thing from the truth. Black Myth Wukong has been in the gaming spotlight since its announcement four years ago and has been shown at every major Geoff Keighly tradeshow since. It is no surprise that the game has had a successful journey to the West. Since the game was first shown, Game Science (the developers) has blown people away with their technical skills, despite previously being a mobile game developer. Shockingly, this game is Game Science's first big single-player title, and it is better than many games that have come out from more seasoned developers, but enough talk, let's take a deeper look at the highs and lows of this amazing journey known as Black Myth Wukong.
Right off the bat, I have to talk about this game's presentation. For an indie game, its presentation rivals that of triple-A video games. From graphical fidelity, sound design, voice acting, cinematography, animation, and art direction, the game's presentation is a true treat to experience. The intro sequence alone is one of the coolest pieces of animations and set pieces I have seen in a video game, especially in the SoulsBorne genre. What makes it better is that it is all done in real-time, not a low-resolution FMV like in many other games. I haven't even mentioned the industry-defining cloud physics, I have never seen such technical prowess from an indie developer before this; the bar for indie games has definitely been raised.
You can really feel the love and care the developers put into bringing their culture and folklore to life in this medium, not just through the visuals but through the music, characters, and post-chapter animations. The game has some decent pc optimization as well. Outside of one or two hiccups in the first zone, the game's performance was fantastic, and most importantly, consistent, especially when using Nvidia features like dlss and frame generation. Keep in mind that I have a 4000$ pc, so its results may differ on other pc builds.
Another positive I want to mention is the boss fights. The most important part of any Souls game is the boss fights, and Wukong delivers in this department. The developers made great use of the 2000+ years of Chinese folklore to create beautiful, and mechanically interesting boss encounters. Though some mechanics are questionable (I talk about this later in the review) most were fun to experience. My favorite aspect of the boss encounters is the fact that there are checkpoints.
Most soulsborne games make you redo an entire multiphase boss if you die at any point during the encounter, however, Black Myth Wukong has built-in checkpoints between most boss phases. Time is not a renewable resource, once it's gone it's gone, so I appreciate the developers' respecting that and not wasting our time by forcing us to redo unnecessarily long boss encounters.
Unfortunately, we have to start discussing the aspects of the game that aren't so great. As per usual with this genre, these souls clones tend to have some amazing elements that really give them their own unique personality, but some design decisions hold them back from being considered a masterpiece. The first problematic area for most people will be combat. While the combat borrows a lot from the souls' formula i.e. simplified controls, dodging enemy attacks and counter-attacking, managing stamina, using gourds or estus to heal, and enemies respawning after resting at a shrine or bonfire, it decides to experiment with combat that sometimes feels cumbersome to the player.
In most Soulslike games (games that borrow mechanics from FromSoftware Games), simplified controls allow the game to be accessible to a wide range of audiences. The controls are easy to pick up which gets the player into the action quicker and it doesn't expect them to remember complicated inputs, however, I think the combat in Wukong is in a bizarre place where it is both simple and overly designed at the same time. The base combat in Wukong is extremely simple. The core combat involves stringing together a light attack combo that builds the focus bar, which powers up the character's heavy attack.
Once the meter fills up you can cash out that meter for an enhanced heavy attack. While the combat animations may seem flashy, 70% of the combat in Wukong involves hitting the light attack button, with very few combo options available. There are upgrade paths and different stances for sure, but they don't change the core experience a ton. Yes, the stances add a bit of variety, but the stances don’t change the pacing or depth of the combat.
You still use the same light attack combo, but with the stance upgrades unlocked you can flow into two other heavy attack finishers. Where things do get a bit more interesting is in the spells you unlock throughout the game. The spells add a bit more versatility and depth to combat encounters but sometimes are held back by some excessive restrictions placed on the player character through meter management.
There are way too many meters that the player must manage. It winds up making the game’s combat unnecessarily cumbersome. For starters, you have a health bar, mana bar, and stamina bar, which are standard for most video games. Then, you have the Qi gauge for your spirits, another bar for the artifacts you collect from side quests, and a focus bar for your heavy attacks.
Alongside the meters you must manage, there is a cooldown system for your spell attacks. It feels like halfway through the development, the developers realized that the player would be too powerful if they were allowed to freely use the abilities given to them whenever they wanted, so to counter this, they added a bunch of different meters and cooldowns that the player would have to manage to make the game artificially more difficult.
Like why is there a cooldown on spell use, and mana bar? Why are there upgrades that make some spells cost more mana peruse? Especially when all the late-game bosses seem to be resistant to them, which makes the upgrade kind of worthless? I say this because for the most part, this game is pretty easy, but there are times when it feels like the game is purposely putting a hindrance on the player as a means of making some boss encounters unusually more frustrating than others. Now, I am not saying the combat is bad, no, far from it, but the combat would be a bit more enjoyable to my taste if there was more depth to the base combat, and we were not as restricted as much on ability use. Combat in video games should be fun first, and challenging second.
While the combat decisions sometimes left me scratching my head, other questionable design decisions left me actually frustrated with the game. The biggest offender is how unresponsive the healing is in this game. The healing never comes out the first time you press L1, it feels like you have to mash it two to three times before your character takes a drink. In a fast-paced game where you have to make split-second decisions, having the healing function be delayed is a big no-no. Players should get the response they desire when they desire it. Funny enough, there is a way to make the healing gourd more responsive, but it comes from an item you get way later in the game. Locking off basic item responsiveness behind an upgrade is absurd. A game should feel good to play at all stages in a playthrough, whether you are at the beginning with no items or at the end at max level. Side note, the healing gourd upgrade does not affect the other medicines in the game, so those will still be super unresponsive.
The last criticism I have of the game revolves around some bosses doing scripted cinematic damage. It is a bit mind-boggling to think that some developers thought that it was a good idea to punish players for something that they cannot control. Allowing the bosses to do significant damage to the player through scripted phase changes may be one of the craziest design decisions I have encountered in all my years of playing video games. Why would you punish your players for being skillful and making progress in a boss fight? Players should be rewarded for their skill, not punished. Again, there are many aspects to combat and boss designs that are simply there to artificially make the game harder.
To end this review, I want to state that while I may seem very critical of this game, I actually had a fantastic experience with Black Myth: Wukong. The game is far from perfect, but what is there is probably one of the best Soulsborne clones currently out there. The flaws of the game can be annoying, but the game has so much love and care put into its presentation, characters, and boss fights that you continue to be sucked into the experience. If you love games like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Lies of P, and are looking for a game that gets close to offering the same level of quality and care as those, then I highly recommend you check this game out.
