168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is very frustrating. You could argue that this is what makes the soulslike genre so appealing, as you tussle with foes much bigger andౠ stronger than you who will - nine times out of ten - mash you into a fine paste, but Wuchang is frustrating in ways that make it a slog to get through. Whether it be a boss fight that feels a little too unfair, or level design that seems as if it never gets more complex than a scribble on the back of a napkin, there’s always something eating away at your patience.
Inconsistency is what frustrates me the most about Wuchang though, especially its boss fights. After steamrolling through the first chapter, I found my🔜self worrying about how the experience was on the easier end of the soulslike spectrum, only to step into the second chapter and be met with back-to-back brick walls that each took up multiple hours of my life. I’d then reach a well-designed and difficult boss, only for the g🌱ame to follow it up with a damage sponge that can kill you in just a couple of attacks.
Again, this is part of the package, but Wuchang's toughest fights just aren't fair. One of the most satisfying parts of fighting a boss is learning the attack patterns,🥀 finding a good counter, and executing it perfectly. There are a handful of bosses that gave me that feeling of struggle and triumph, but many of them can’t be fought this way because they don’t have discernable attack patterns.
A boss will come a🌳t you with a flurry of sword strikes and follow it up with a lunge, only to follow up with a completely different attℱack the second time around, and unless you have the reaction speed of a lizard, you’re getting punished. A lot of bosses have one or two punishable moves that you have to pray come out more often, and so many encounters feel like I got through them with pure luck. You don’t feel good after a fight like that, you just feel numb.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Can’t Decide What Game It Wants To Be
This erratic inconsistency also applies to the game’s level design, which can range from extremely linear hallways, to a FromSoftware-esque area filled with looping shortcuts and tucked away secrets, to frustratingly confusing, semi-open-world segments that can be a struggle to find your way around.
The Avian Marsh is an amazing tangle of branches and vines that all lead back to one another, with a surprising level of verticality and depth. I often found myself impressed upon finding a shortcut that led me back to the area’s main shrine, perplexed as to how the game had managed t༺o fit so much into such a small space.
On the other hand, Shu Sanctum is a village that looks the same throughout, has very few landmarks to tell where you’re actually going, and includes shortcuts that have no reason to exist. On more than one occasion, a boss will be at the end of an ex🌃tremely long and boring runback, or at the bottom of a hole that requires you to take the slowest elevator in existence to reach. It feels like two soulslikes of extremely differing quality have been mashed together.
Wuchang Is All About Experimentation
Thankfully, some of the frustration of Wuchang's bosses and levels is eased by how exciting✤ it can be to experiment with different builds, with developer [name][ offering up a nice variety of weapons and abilities, including axes, spears, dual blades, and more.
For defensive options, you have your basic Shimmer, which acts as a dodge that can be used at the perfect time to gain Skyborn Might, a resource that is required to fire off powerful abilities and spells. You’ll also event🌜ually unlock a parry, which can be upgraded to grant Skyborn Might upon each deflect. There's a nic𝓰e flow to combat, as you quickly switch between defense and offensive, spending your Skyborn Might as quickly as you accumulate it.
All of your power comes from the game’s gigantic skill tree known as the Impetus Repository, which has similar vibes to Final Fantasy 10’s iconic Sphere Grid. You make your way along your desired trees by spending Red Mercury Essence (the game’s version of souls), upgrading health, attack power, and stamina as you go, and eventually making your way to more powerful upgr𒁏ades and abilities.
Even your weapon mastery and the number of health flasks you can hold is upgraded through theImpetus Repository, and a soulslike with what is essentia🌜lly a Sphere Grid is a very clever idea that I’m honestly astonished nobody has attempted before. Couple that with a very easy respec system, and you can experiment with different builds almost endlessly. It makes Wuchang really stand out in a genre that’s becoming increasingly saturated.
Note: You’ll eventually unlock weapon buffs called Benedictions and൩ Temperance, which pile even more possible builds onto what you already have. It can feel a little overwhelming, but the satisfaction you feel when a build clicks is immense.
Wuchang Is A Little Skeevy, And It Really Shouldn’t Be
Unfortunately, for all of its unique appeal, there is one increasingly common problem in the games industry that Wuchang suffers from, and that’s a skeevy attitude towards women. Before the cri♕es of ‘woke gamer’ start flooding in, I’d like to preface that I’m able to enjoy games that cater to the male gaze. I liked Stellar Blade. I'm a Marvel Rivals enjoyer. I acknowledge they very clearly have a place in the industry, whether I want them to or not, but Wuchang is not a game that should have partook if it wanted to tell a serious story.
It’s extremely di🦂stasteful to depict women going through untold horrors, only for you to find multiple armor sets that let you run around in their underwear. You can tell a story about the depravity of an invading army, as long as you treat barbaric acts with the required sensitivity. Throughout the game, you’ll see women strung up, weeping in dark rooms with a slither of a health bar, and one of the main story threads in the game revolves around an evil queen who kidnaps women 🐟to experiment on them in order to create the perfect bride for her son.
It would have been fine if Wuchang had treated this story with the gravity it deserved, but you can then find the clothing of these women and read about how horribly they’ve suffered, only for the game to giggle as your character breasts boobily in ꩵthose same clothes. It’s just gross, and makes vast sections of the game feel uncomfortable to play through.
Note: We won’t even get into t𝐆he p꧑revious descriptions of these “armor pieces”, which were thankfully patched during the review period to be far less disgusting than they initially were.
When the game isn’t trying to get you to wear the underwear of tortured women, it actually has a pretty🧸 cool sense of style, with various outfits you can mix and match however you like. In fact, due to how hard some of Wuchang’s fights can be, mixing up your armor to buff yourself up against certain damage types is essential. It makes finding new outfits feel a lot more like a reward, and the game’s transmog system makes it easy to play fashion souls.
Wuchang Is Combat First, Story Second
As for the plot, it’s not exactly a masterpiece of storytelling. You wake up with no memories and an arm full of feathers, find out you’re afflicted with a disease ravaging the land called Feathering, and set off to find a series of mystical doohickeys that may or may not lead to a cure. If Wuchang was a present, the story would be the plain brown wrapping paper that holds everything together, keeping things a myster🐷y in the least dazzling way possible.
Its side quests are just as serviceable, albeit with a couple of exceptions. I encountered a gang of lovable orphans in a city called Cloud꧙spire, and I found myself caring for their wellbeing a lot more than I expected. Outside of that, no other characters really had me invested in their stories, and the simplicity of picking up an item and bringing it to them to move th☂eir quests along didn’t help much either.
There’s plenty to enjoy about Wuchang, but it is not a game for the casual soulslike enjoyer. It’s a game for the soulslike sickos that enjoy banging their heads against brick walls until it cracks, or they do. I’m usually right there alongside them, as an avid soulslik𓃲e enjoyer myself, but the game’s brutally unfair boss fights, inconsistent level design, and general attitude towards women broke me. Wuchang often shows glimpses of the🍌 game it could have been, but frustrations upon frustrations sour the whole experience.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
- Released
- July 24, 2025
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence✤, Partial Nudity
- Developer(s)
- Leenzee
- Publisher(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:505 Games
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Multiplayer
- ಌOnline Multiplayer
- PC Release Date
- July 24, 2025
- The Impetus Repository is clever and offers endless experimentation
- A handful of excellent boss fights and some impressive level design
- Far more boss fights that are either too easy or brutally unfair
- Confusing semi open-world segments that are difficult to navigate
- An uncomfortable and tasteless depiction of women
