izigame.me

Not My Game of The Year

Black Myth: Wukong was a game I’d been eagerly waiting for since it was first revealed in 2020. Like many others, I was skeptical about whether the developers could deliver on such an ambitious project. I don’t think the Steam reviews and player counts accurately reflect the reality. The overwhelmingly positive reviews and high player counts are largely driven by nationalistic support from China, where the game is celebrated as a major achievement. While my review is positive because I do believe the game is good, I also think it is kind of overrated. As always, I aim to provide honest opinions and a truthful assessment of my experience. I am writing this review after actually completing this game, unlike every review with 2 hours and claiming it GOTY.
Graphics and Optimization
The game’s graphics are outstanding. The visual fidelity, from the breathtaking environments to the intricate character designs, is top-notch. The animations, visual effects, and render distance are all impressive, adding to the game’s overall looks. The sound effects are equally well done, though the soundtrack leaves much to be desired. While the game runs smoothly for the most part, Chapter 3, particularly the snowy maps, does suffer from performance issues. Despite this, the overall optimization is solid, and the game manages to maintain its high graphical standards without too many hiccups.
Bosses and Combat
The bosses in Black Myth: Wukong are a real feat to play against. When it was revealed that the game had 81 bosses, I was sure that at least half of them would be replicated, similar to what we saw in Elden Ring. But it's shocking and great to say that more than 90% of the bosses in the game are unique, each one fun to play and mostly well-designed. However, most of the bosses are surprisingly easy. Speaking of difficulty, I’ve seen some people argue that Wukong isn’t a Soulslike, but I would definitely consider it one. It has everything a Souls game offers, except for the corpse-run mechanic. It has some similarities to God of War and Bayonetta, but I believe it’s much closer to Soulsborne titles than that.
Game Feel and Combat Mechanics
The game feels and combat is initially great and fun to play. The fluidity of movement and the responsiveness of controls are great. However, as I played through the game, I found that it became too repetitive for me, even with the large variety of bosses and enemy types. Once you discover which combos and moves work best, there’s little need to change them. The same goes for the Spirit mechanics. The game provides you with a ton of spirits, but once you find a good one and upgrade it, there’s really no need to use others, just like how most people only played with the Mimic Tear in Elden Ring. The spells, while fun to use, also feel limited in variety. Only having four spells for a 40-hour game made the experience feel stale over time. Additionally, the spells cost mana, which restricts their usage, especially during boss fights. Since the most fun aspect of Wukong is using these spells, this limitation is quite a shame.
The big skill trees in the game primarily change your passive stats and your heavy attack, which you use rarely. This adds to the repetitiveness of the combat since the skill trees don’t significantly alter how you engage in battles, making the combat feel even more repetitive as you progress.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3313750794
Story and Characters
When it comes to the story, Black Myth: Wukong seemingly tells the story of Journey to the West. I have no prior knowledge of this story or the movie, so I didn’t get much out of it. The mute protagonist doesn’t help either. The game seems to expect players to be familiar with the original story, which made it hard for me to connect with the narrative.
Level and Map Design
The level and map design is by far the worst part of Black Myth: Wukong and the major thing that severely impacted my experience, reducing the enjoyment I got from the game by miles. In Chapter 1, the level design is very linear—you kill a few enemies, 30 seconds later comes an amazing boss fight, you kill another bunch, and a minute later, another spectacular boss fight. This pattern repeats until the end of the chapter. At first, I wasn't sure if I liked this; it felt odd and almost made the game seem like a boss rush experience. But since I was enjoying the heck out of the bosses, I loved this design choice, and fighting new bosses every 10 minutes was such a joy. This continued the same way until I reached the Tiger Vanguard boss fight, which is the peak of Black Myth Wukong in terms of game design tempo. The boss was one of the best in the game. At that point, I was sure I was playing the Game of the Year 2024 and possibly one of the best action games I've ever played.
Unfortunately, that's when the game began going downhill. By Chapter 3, the game started to feel very repetitive, with the same combat mechanics being reused over and over. In Chapters 2 and 3, you start playing in huge, open world-ish maps. Now, is that a bad thing? Elden Ring did the same, right? No, because Wukong's maps are filled with limiting invisible walls everywhere. There are hundreds of the same enemies throughout the map, and you often go in a direction unsure if it's worth your time. You never know if you’ll find a new boss, an invisible wall, a little XP, or just nothing at all. I found myself sprinting around the huge maps only to find nothing most of the time, as there was no indicator if the journey was worth it. What adds to the frustration is that the game doesn’t guide you to your main objective, or even clearly define what it is. So, if you’re bored of aimlessly wandering around, you can't simply rush to the main quest. This lack of direction makes the game feel even more disjointed and tiresome. The issue peaks in Chapter 6, where the game becomes a frustrating slog. There’s never an indoor-level design to alleviate this, except for one extremely linear and frustrating dungeon. The lack of a map or compass is a particularly bad decision, especially since even FromSoftware addressed this with Elden Ring. The graphical quality of the maps is insane, but they look extremely bland and uninspiring compared to the art design of Elden Ring. This detracts from the game’s atmosphere and overall enjoyment.
Music and Soundtrack
The music and soundtrack are also quite poor, which significantly affects the atmosphere of the world. The only song I liked was the one sung by the headless dude; nothing else stood out. No Soulsborne or Soulslike game has ever come close to the level of Dark Souls 3's soundtrack, and Wukong doesn’t change that.
Bugs and Glitches
Many bosses and enemies have a tendency to freeze during fights, some even becoming invincible. These bugs made me replay the same enemies several times.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Black Myth: Wukong is a good game, even though it’s far from meeting all of my expectations. Despite its shortcomings, it is a very solid entry from Game Science. I will be highly looking forward to their next game as much as I did for Black Myth: Wukong, hoping they will improve upon these shortcomings and deliver an even more polished experience. I don’t have a definitive Game of the Year candidate for this year, but I can confidently say that Black Myth: Wukong isn't it. For me, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown stands out as a better title.

SILVER MEDAL

Follow My Curator Page ❤️