It’s a good time to be a fan of soulslikes. Between the unbelievable The First Berserker: Khazan earlier within the yr, the superb Lies of P: Overture DLC final month, and the multiplayer/co-op centered Elden Ring: Nightreign, we now have been consuming nicely in 2025 – and you may add Wuchang: Fallen Feathers as one more course in that meal. This debut recreation from developer Leenzee Video games impressed me from the beginning with its thrilling, fast-paced, and dynamic fight. It additionally has the most effective ability bushes within the style, together with intricate and interconnected stage design that guides us by beautiful vistas and grotesque sights in equal measure. That stated, its issue is everywhere, 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 a bit of whiplash after beating it, it’s nonetheless a straightforward robust suggestion for anyone who’s hungry for extra.
In typical soulslike style, Wuchang expects you to do the heavy lifting on the subject of piecing collectively its story and lore – however it’s not dealt with fairly as elegantly as a FromSoft recreation or one thing like Lies of P. I used to be truly on board for the intriguing opening, which exhibits our titular, largely silent hero awaken in a cave to find she has a illness that robs these troubled of their recollections and progressively 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 mild and also you do battle with these transfigured by its results.
That was a great begin, however by the top of its 45-hour marketing campaign, I’d misplaced monitor of the various characters who pop up, say a couple of strains of dialogue, after which disappear for 10 or so hours till they pop up once more in a very new location. Individuals saved referencing names that I’d by no means heard of earlier than, making it unattainable for me to observe the dialog. Lore fiends who get pleasure from digging into weapon and merchandise descriptions for clues may get extra out of the story than I did, however taking part in by it the identical means I’ve many different video games meant its large 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 mild and heavy assaults to get you from checkpoint to checkpoint is its large give attention to combining the talents and skills which can be tied to your weapons with Self-discipline expertise you unlock on the completely large ability tree. As an example, 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 Talent whereas additionally providing you with a defensive counter choice on prime of that. Or you can pair that very same weapon with one thing like Crescent Moon, which nonetheless provides you that very same burn construct capability, but additionally means that you can get in after which get out to keep away from counter assaults all collectively whereas nonetheless with the ability to construct Skybound May with it’s in-built evade. On prime of that, you’ll be able to swap between two weapons mid-fight, even mid-combo, which doubles your choices.
It’s good that you’ve got these further choices, too, as a result of this isn’t a recreation the place you may get by with simply the fundamentals, particularly on the subject of the harder fights. Powering your expertise and spells hinges on producing a useful resource generally known as Skyborn May, which is gained largely by completely dodging enemy assaults on the final prompt, however can be gained in sure weapon-specific methods, similar to touchdown the fourth hit of a light-weight combo string with the Axe, the second hit of a light-weight combo string with the Longsword, clashing weapons with the twin blades, or robotically over time just by having the one-handed sword geared up.
I had a blast discovering methods to include each Weapon and Self-discipline expertise into fight to get round limitations like stamina, since utilizing a Skyborn May cost typically provides you a strong assault that doesn’t deplete your meter, or allows you to blow by an enemy’s robust protection with a poise break-afflicting mist and take large chunks out of their well being in seconds. I felt like I normally had extra fascinating choices to make with every stage 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 foreign money to stage, 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 expertise, 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 costs, basic buffs for executing sure methods, and so on. The grid is totally gigantic, and even 20 or 30 hours into the 45-hour marketing campaign I used to be nonetheless unlocking brand-new branches with new Self-discipline expertise and tons extra upgrades to select from. That’s quite a bit, 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 recreation plan towards a difficult boss. It’s a wonderful system that encourages experimentation whereas additionally rewarding you for having a transparent thought of what sort of construct you wish to make.
There’s a reasonably spectacular quantity of several types of enemies as nicely, with every space you go to packing loads of new twisted creatures with a brand-new set of assaults and expertise that you just’ll must discover ways to alter your construct and your ways to cope with. Every little thing on this recreation might be threatening: from the small hunchbacked dudes that go down in only one or two hits, however can sneak up on you with a vastly damaging seize, to the towering fiends which can be nearly like minibosses unto themselves. This selection saved the motion contemporary all through the entire journey and saved me tense at any time when I’d 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 need to 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 a variety of soulslikes in my day, and as soon as I bought the grasp 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 largely got here from an abundance of some cheap-feeling “gotcha” moments like: Faucet to Reveal
To be honest, numerous 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 largely easy crusing till I got here throughout a boss referred to as Commander Honglan. She wasn’t a lot a problem spike, as a result of that means at the very least 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 aspect of it having largely loved the depth of the combat, Honglan serves as a non-spoilery encapsulation of what I don’t like about a number of of Wuchang’s later boss fights.
The most important challenge is that the punishment window for accurately and exactly dodging most of their assaults is tremendous tight, which takes away from the satisfaction of really with the ability to dodge an enormous sequence of swings. Evaluate 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 with the ability to do a harmful important hit when you utterly drain it. There’s no such satisfying mid-fight progress right here, as a result of excellent dodges simply offer you Skyborn May costs, which you continue to want to seek out a gap to have the ability to use. Wuchang does have a posture meter on enemies, however it solely will increase if you land hits and reduces after a time when you don’t, which makes it extraordinarily tough to get that reward for nuanced aggression when your alternatives to deal injury are so minimal and so fleeting. Not each boss combat 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 applicable rewards. I cherished the gradual descent into darkish fantasy – you start in a really colourful and delightful 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 were completely ravaged by The Feathering it begins to really feel increasingly more like a horror recreation.
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 instant-killing standing affliction referred to 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-reach foe. It’s an awesome instance of robust enemy design meshing with intelligent stage design to create a completely intense dash by a harmful atmosphere.
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