It’s a good time to be a fan of soulslikes. Between the implausible The First Berserker: Khazan earlier within the 12 months, the wonderful Lies of P: Overture DLC final month, and the multiplayer/co-op targeted Elden Ring: Nightreign, we now have been consuming effectively in 2025 – and you’ll add Wuchang: Fallen Feathers as yet one more course in that meal. This debut sport from developer Leenzee Video games impressed me from the beginning with its thrilling, quick-paced, and dynamic fight. It additionally has probably the greatest ability bushes within the style, together with intricate and interconnected degree design that guides us by attractive vistas and grotesque sights in equal measure. That mentioned, its issue is in every single place, with really wild dips and spikes that go from a relative stroll within the park, to “oh my god, when is it my flip to assault?!” ranges of aggression in a few of its later bosses. So whereas I’m left with somewhat whiplash after beating it, it’s nonetheless a simple sturdy advice for anyone who’s hungry for extra.
In typical soulslike trend, Wuchang expects you to do the heavy lifting relating to piecing collectively its story and lore – however it’s not dealt with fairly as elegantly as a FromSoft sport or one thing like Lies of P. I used to be really on board for the intriguing opening, which reveals our titular, principally silent hero awaken in a cave to find she has a illness that robs these stricken of their recollections and step by step turns them into hideous monsters. What begins as a private journey to find who she is and remedy her affliction earlier than she mutates right into a nasty chicken beast turns right into a descent into darkish fantasy because the mysteries of the illness, generally known as The Feathering, begin to come to gentle and also you do battle with these transfigured by its results.
That was begin, however by the top of its 45-hour marketing campaign, I’d misplaced observe of the numerous characters who pop up, say a couple of traces of dialogue, after which disappear for 10 or so hours till they pop up once more in a totally new location. Folks saved referencing names that I’d by no means heard of earlier than, making it unimaginable for me to comply with the dialog. Lore fiends who get pleasure from digging into weapon and merchandise descriptions for clues would possibly get extra out of the story than I did, however enjoying by it the identical method I’ve many different video games meant its massive revelations largely fell flat.
A Sport of Abilities
Fight, although, had the flexibleness and depth to hold me by to the top in fashion, with a ton of various offensive and defensive choices at my disposal always. The place Wuchang units itself aside from others that use the acquainted stamina-fueled gentle and heavy assaults to get you from checkpoint to checkpoint is its big give attention to combining the talents and talents which can be tied to your weapons with Self-discipline abilities you unlock on the completely huge ability tree. As an illustration, equipping the sword parry Self-discipline ability whereas utilizing the Flamebringer Longsword weapon will allow you to construct up the burn standing ailment with its Infernal Firebrand Weapon Ability whereas additionally providing you with a defensive counter choice on prime of that. Or you may pair that very same weapon with one thing like Crescent Moon, which nonetheless offers you that very same burn construct capability, but in addition permits you to get in after which get out to keep away from counter assaults all collectively whereas nonetheless having the ability to construct Skybound Would possibly with it’s inbuilt evade. On prime of that, you possibly can swap between two weapons mid-battle, even mid-combo, which doubles your choices.
It’s good that you’ve these further choices, too, as a result of this isn’t a sport the place you may get by with simply the fundamentals, particularly relating to the harder fights. Powering your abilities and spells hinges on producing a useful resource generally known as Skyborn Would possibly, which is gained principally by completely dodging enemy assaults on the final on the spot, however may also be gained in sure weapon-particular methods, resembling touchdown the fourth hit of a lightweight combo string with the Axe, the second hit of a lightweight combo string with the Longsword, clashing weapons with the twin blades, or mechanically over time just by having the one-handed sword geared up.
I had a blast discovering methods to include each Weapon and Self-discipline abilities into fight to get round limitations like stamina, since utilizing a Skyborn Would possibly cost typically offers you a strong assault that doesn’t deplete your meter, or enables you to blow by an enemy’s sturdy protection with a poise break-afflicting mist and take big chunks out of their well being in seconds. I felt like I often had extra attention-grabbing selections to make with every degree up than I do in most soulslikes when it got here to defining my construct.
An enormous a part of that’s how as a substitute of simply boosting your most popular stat and making numbers go up every time you get sufficient forex to degree, Wuchang makes use of a development system that resembles the Sphere Grid from Last Fantasy X and Salt and Sanctuary. It has six paths to go down and unlock progressively extra highly effective abilities, with 5 being dedicated to stat and weapon upgrades enhancing every of the several types of armaments, and the final one focusing extra on extra common boons, like further therapeutic expenses, common buffs for executing sure strategies, and many others. The grid is totally gigantic, and even 20 or 30 hours into the 45-hour marketing campaign I used to be nonetheless unlocking model-new branches with new Self-discipline abilities and tons extra upgrades to select from. That’s rather a lot, however fortunately respecs are free, permitting you the liberty to vary up your complete construct with zero value or penalty, whether or not to easily check out a brand new weapon or alter your sport plan in opposition to a difficult boss. It’s a wonderful system that encourages experimentation whereas additionally rewarding you for having a transparent concept of what sort of construct you need to make.
There’s a reasonably spectacular quantity of several types of enemies as effectively, with every space you go to packing loads of new twisted creatures with a model-new set of assaults and abilities that you just’ll must learn to modify your construct and your ways to take care of. Every thing on this sport could be threatening: from the small hunchbacked dudes that go down in only one or two hits, however can sneak up on you with a massively damaging seize, to the towering fiends which can be virtually like minibosses unto themselves. This selection saved the motion recent all through the entire journey and saved me tense each time I might enterprise in a brand new space, since I by no means knew what to anticipate across the nook.
Bumpy Roads
For the primary 10 or so hours, although, I didn’t must do a ton of construct tweaking to breeze by most of those fights. That wasn’t to say that it was a stroll within the park, however I’ve performed quite a lot of soulslikes in my day, and as soon as I received the dangle of dodging by the final hit of an enemy combo and charging up a heavy assault to immediately stagger them, I initially felt like I had figured Wuchang out.
The deaths that I did expertise principally got here from an abundance of some low cost-feeling “gotcha” moments like: Faucet to Reveal
To be honest, a lot of soulslikes have moments like these, however in Wuchang it occurs with such frequency that it felt like I used to be getting continuously pranked by the builders – and at a sure level that joke will get previous.
Aside from that, it was principally clean crusing till I got here throughout a boss known as Commander Honglan. She wasn’t a lot a problem spike, as a result of that suggests no less than some extent of an incline or ramp up, as she was like operating right into a brick wall. She took me about two hours to beat, and whereas I nonetheless got here out on the opposite facet of it having principally loved the depth of the battle, Honglan serves as a non-spoilery encapsulation of what I don’t like about a number of of Wuchang’s later boss fights.
The largest challenge is that the punishment window for appropriately and exactly dodging most of their assaults is tremendous tight, which takes away from the satisfaction of really having the ability to dodge an enormous sequence of swings. Examine that to video games like Sekiro or Khazan, the place you’re damaging the boss’s posture bar each time you exactly block an assault, getting nearer to having the ability to do a harmful crucial hit when you utterly drain it. There’s no such satisfying mid-battle progress right here, as a result of good dodges simply provide you with Skyborn Would possibly expenses, which you continue to want to search out a gap to have the ability to use. Wuchang does have a posture meter on enemies, however it solely will increase once you land hits and reduces after a time when you don’t, which makes it extraordinarily troublesome to get that reward for nuanced aggression when your alternatives to deal harm are so minimal and so fleeting. Not each boss battle after Honglan is like this, however the ones which can be really feel very drawn out to a level that diminishes their enjoyable.
The Darkish Descent
The world all of those ups and downs happen in is wealthy with secrets and techniques to find, interconnected paths that satisfyingly hyperlink complete sections of the map collectively, and difficult non-obligatory challenges with acceptable rewards. I liked the gradual descent into darkish fantasy – you start in a really colourful and exquisite Chinese language village that’s simply exhibiting refined indicators of the horrible sickness sweeping by its inhabitants, after which as you progress deeper underground and thru areas which have been completely ravaged by The Feathering it begins to really feel increasingly like a horror sport.
There are additionally some actually cleverly put collectively sequences that create rigidity and chaos even with out fight being concerned. One instance is a bit the place you begin on a straightaway with an enemy on the finish who builds up an on the spot-killing standing affliction known as Despair simply by taking a look at you. To evade his gaze and get by, I needed to make a mad sprint previous a bunch of enemies, climb up a ramp whereas avoiding toxic drops from the ceiling, and navigate round continuously spawning powerful monsters that have been created by one other out-of-attain foe. It’s a fantastic instance of sturdy enemy design meshing with intelligent degree design to create a fully intense dash by a harmful atmosphere.