Game review 22 August 2024, 00:35

author: Giancarlo Saldana

Black Myth: Wukong Review: Monkey Magic

Despite its soulslike elements, Black Myth: Wukong feels accessible, looks amazing, and gives you plenty of ways to play it to your liking. It’s not perfect, but it is a game you should try.

The review is based on the PC version. It's also relevant to PS5 version(s).

When I first played Black Myth: Wukong this summer at the end of Summer Fest, the game felt very difficult. It was nerve-racking playing the game in a room with the team from Game Science watching my every move and clapping when I finally beat a slithering water demon after dying at least 20 times to it. In those two hours, the game felt very much like a merciless soulslike, but to my surprise, the full game feels a lot more forgiving.

Wukong is more akin to an action-RPG with soulslike elements that make it tough, but not impossible to beat. It’s not Elden Ring but more like a version of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with Chinese mythology serving as its inspiration. Its mix of RPG elements that let you play around with your skills, build, and approach to certain fights make Wukong an approachable yet sometimes difficult game that continuously takes your breath away, not just because its combat keeps you on your toes, but because of how beautiful and evocative the game feels.

A World Rich in Mythology

While it’s not a direct adaptation per se of “Journey to the West,” the game takes elements from this classic novel and uses its settings, creatures, and magic realism to create a world you can’t help but want to explore. It doesn’t hurt that the game is a sight for the eyes either. Composed of several chapters that take place in a different setting and biome, Wukong will take you on a journey through humid jungles to barren deserts to snowy mountains that look lived-in and are full of detail and wonder. Its powerful soundtrack further helps give the game an air of mystery as you explore its surroundings while combat shifts the tone and comes complete with a soundtrack that pumps you up with cymbals, drums, and other Chinese musical instruments. It’s one of the best looking games I’ve played this year.

Despite its visuals painting quite the picture, its narrative isn’t as strong as you would hope from a game that takes inspiration from a work of literature. You play as the Destined One, a descendant of the legendary Monkey King Sun Wukong tasked to retrieve ancient relics scattered across different lands. Your protagonist doesn’t speak, and without prior knowledge of what transpired in “Journey to the West,” you may feel lost at times. A recap of the original novel or how it relates to the main story would have been helpful, but because key character encounters are brief as you progress through each chapter, you will need to start picking up the pieces of its narrative on your own either by reading the journal entries of the creatures you defeat or by looking them up online.

Each chapter, however, ends with an impressive animated sequence that shows off a different kind of art style and gives you some backstory to that chapter’s antagonist in very moving ways. They are beautifully done, and make you wish the game offered more of these sequences that not only look good but also tell you a story in a more traditional way.

Also, despite looking quite inviting, its surroundings don’t make it easy to explore them. Later in the game, you’ll start in vast landscapes, but veering too far off its main paths means you’ll run into an invisible wall. Want to jump on some rocks and scale a cliff to save time from having to climb up a path several feet away? Tough luck. Don’t get me wrong, the game’s maps are big and full of secrets that reward exploration, but moving about them isn’t the smoothest. A map, also, would have been helpful as some of these locations are massive and have plenty of things to explore—not a bad thing, but some navigational tool is always good.

Pole Dancing With the Enemy

As an action RPG, expect to do a lot of fighting so it’s a good thing combat is straightforward, simple, yet leaves you with plenty of room to master all its intricacies. Equipped with just a staff, the Destined One can deploy light attacks and heavy attacks at enemies. Each time you use a light attack, dodge effectively, or simply hold the heavy attack button, your Focus charges up letting you deploy it in a powerful overhead smash or in varied combos. Your main stance, Smash, lets you go right into battle and start pummeling your enemies with this attack patter, but you can also unlock Pillar and Thrust stances which offer you a different way to attack enemies and deploy your Focus. You’ll probably lean more towards one stance, but the game gives you opportunity to play around with what works for you thanks to its skill trees.

Each time you level up, you’ll also gain Sparks that are used to level up your abilities providing you with extended combos, more health, stamina, and even new abilities. You can reset these points at any checkpoint so you can essentially experiment with what works best for you in certain situations, but I found focusing on one stance makes the most sense to fully power up all your abilities rather than evening them out and wasting points on abilities that you probably won’t use that much.

Dodging is your main way of evading damage, but besides just attacking with your staff, Wukong also lets you use magic spells and call on defeated spirits to assist you in combat. Spells are incredibly useful in battle, but use up your magic meter forcing you to decide when is the best time to use them. Immobilize, for example, freezes an enemy letting you smack it for a few seconds until it wears off, and Pluck of Many lets you send out multiple clones of yourself to attack. You can also transform into certain defeated enemies and summon them into battle. They have their own health bar and unique movesets and are great when you want to save some of your own health for a few seconds while doing more damage. Finally, some enemies or Spirits you defeat can also be equipped and called out mid-combat like Pokémon, each with a unique attack that can have secondary effects or buffs.

An Approachable Soulslike Journey

Suffice it to say, combat is fast, frenetic, and really requires you to know how to approach an enemy, learn its attack patterns, and make proper decisions to maximize your offense while keeping your health from dwindling down. Though some do recycle attacks later on, most enemies and bosses you fight are a joy to experience simply because of their attacks and the challenge they are to fight. Only a handful of bosses truly gave me trouble, and a couple of them killed me over a dozen times. It’s a big change from my demo experience so it feels as if the developers have adjusted the difficulty to give players a game that feels formidable but not impossible. These changes make combat much more enjoyable while still giving soulslike fans a game that wants you to find and defeat all its secret bosses.

What also makes the game more approachable is that while Wukong does have soulslike elements, it’s not exactly a soulslike. When you die, you don’t lose your experience points, gear, or currency. You simply restart at a checkpoint and lose any consumable items you used in battle. Besides Sparks, you can also collect Will, which acts as the game’s currency to upgrade your gear, Spirits, and even your health gourd to keep you alive longer. You only have your staff to worry about, but you can upgrade your weapons and gear and even equip different accessories for different effects. Overall, Wukong feels more RPG-oriented and freeing than most soulslike games you’ll play. This format doesn’t punish you from making mistakes, but instead encourages you to plan your load-out or spend a little more time grinding to level up.

Final Thoughts

Black Myth: Wukong uses the wonderful canvas of Chinese mythology to draw you into its world that is both beautiful and dangerous. Struggling at times to fully tell its story, its narrative mostly gives the game structure while leaving out a lot of detailed substance hoping for you to somehow make it make sense. Sure, the game’s emphasis is combat, but for a soulslike game that looks this beautiful and has so much lore attached to it, you would hope it also spent more time focusing on its story.

Its combat offers you plenty of ways to experiment what works for you, but it also offers you enough difficulty to keep you on your toes and adapting to each new situation. These elements make for a game that rewards you with the thrill of a battle and doesn’t punish you too much for making mistakes. While its world is not the easiest to explore or to comprehend, Wukong’s rewards are worth it and make for a thrilling journey of discovery.

The game was reviewed on PC with PS5 controller.