Review by Mohammad Hossein Karimi
For several decades, we have been in the era of ‘modeling’ in the video game industry. Formulaic works with flexible structures are created by creative studios, and other developers create their themes and ideas within that philosophy. However, these days, the element of ‘selective performance’ is more evident among various titles, in such a way that several games are chosen as models, and with a deep understanding of the goals of the work to be developed, the development team selects the key themes and elements of inspiration sources for their work; Black Myth: Wukong is one such work.
The success and entertainment value of Wukong depend on the meaningful integration of elements, approaches, and selective mechanics from its sources of inspiration. Here, clear and evident signs and influences from God of War 2018, more action-oriented titles from FromSoftware like Bloodborne and Sekiro, and Nioh can be seen, and the main question is whether a meaningful integration has taken place or if we are dealing with a chaotic and cluttered output.
Describing the gameplay style of Black Myth: Wukong is not too difficult. We are dealing with an action role-playing title that borrows its ‘role-playing’ aspect from God of War 2018 and its ‘action’ dimension, including level design and combat rhythm, is indebted to FromSoftware titles. The idea of stance in battle and the Spirit mechanic of the game clearly remind us of Nioh. In Black Myth: Wukong, by finding special items, you increase your maximum health, stamina, and magic, and there is no traditional level-up system. This, along with the weapon and armor value system and the absence of key mechanics from Souls-like titles such as Corpse Run (losing the game’s currency and having one chance to retrieve it), clearly steers the game more towards titles like God of War and Sekiro rather than a Souls-like title. Among these two titles, Wukong resembles God of War more, because unlike Sekiro, whose defensive mechanics were based on Parry (timely defense), here the defensive mechanism relies on Dodge.
However, something that has been less talked about is the infiltration of two significant achievements of Nioh and Nioh 2 into Black Myth: 1- the Stance system and 2- the Soul Core mechanic. The presence of three battle stances, one of Nioh’s popular features, has found its way into Wukong, with the difference that in Nioh, each type of weapon had its own skill tree for each of the three stances (high, low, and middle), but Wukong, being a shorter, more linear, and more condensed experience, only has a skill tree for the three different stances and does not take a deep approach to skills. Soul Core was another point of attraction in Nioh 2 that allowed you to absorb the abilities or powers of each type of enemy and execute them by managing the Yokai gauge. This system exists in Wukong under the name Spirits, but on a scale appropriate to the amount of content. Finally, Black Myth distinguishes itself from other titles in two ways: 1- the Transformation mechanic that allows you to transform into some bosses you have previously defeated, and 2- a mechanic called Focus Point that is tied to the heavy attack (Triangle or Y). The Focus gauge fills up with perfect dodges or successful hits, allowing you to deliver a powerful heavy attack based on the stance you have chosen.
Black Myth: Wukong openly borrows from other games, and in most cases, we see clear adaptations. However, experiencing the systems and mechanics of the mentioned titles on a smaller scale is enjoyable and attractive. There are no numerous Souls Cores from Nioh with various levels or useless Runes from God of War. Thanks to this simplification and not cluttering the loot, Wukong can maintain its rhythm well and fortunately does not get involved in complexities that a small development team might not be able to balance. On the other hand, the combination of mechanics from different titles has made the game feel different in an overall framework.
In terms of combat and difficulty, Black Myth tries to appeal to a general audience. Unlike familiar elements that we usually see in challenging titles, the enemies and bosses in this game will not engage you much. The game is designed in such a way that every choice in battle appears impactful, rather than targeting hardcore players who require skill, deep understanding of mechanics and enemy attack patterns, or selecting the right skill for each boss. It generously provides you with many powerful tools and abilities like magic, transformation, and Spirits. Unlike titles like Nioh that used the stance system to offer deep gameplay, Wukong uses combat stances only to create three different builds. In Nioh, you could switch between three stances on the fly to execute combos, and each enemy had a weakness to a specific stance; for example, some enemies were short or crawled on the ground, and it was better to choose the low stance to fight them, and human enemies’ guards would break faster with a high-to-low stance. But Wukong does not have such an approach and is closer to God of War in this regard; it specifically wants you to enjoy the moment-to-moment combat with the main character’s powerful spells rather than needing to strategize or react quickly.
Of course, Wukong is much more challenging than God of War, and some bosses in the second half of the game and hidden ones will challenge you, but the combat system is not multi-layered, and its lack of complexity is not necessarily a wrong approach. Gaming in terms of ‘challenge’ and ‘combat depth’ hosts different philosophies and goals. Many players do not have enough time to learn a video game and prefer such an approach, while others may want multi-layered and complex systems. Overall, identifying the target audience for such a title, which has an aura of ambiguity around it and draws inspiration from several different titles, is very important. Now, with this explanation, you should know whether Black Myth: Wukong is made for you or not.
From the moment the game was unveiled, we knew Wukong had a special focus on its bosses. Now that the title is available to us, I can say that although we are not dealing with a Boss Rush, the game still puts all its focus on the bosses. Black Myth includes a collection of diverse bosses, many of which are standard and high-quality. Black Myth: Wukong manages to present engaging boss fights with well-designed mechanics in this impressive number, and especially the final bosses have creative themes. Clear signs of attack patterns from famous gaming titles can be seen, but fortunately, only a few of them are clunky or tedious. Overall, Black Myth successfully completes its mission of providing engaging and attractive bosses, even if very few of them become unforgettable and iconic. I must also mention that you should not miss the hidden bosses of the game as they are the highlights and some of the best bosses are hidden in the game’s world.
However, what you experience between these boss fights is equally important. Wukong starts with a relatively linear environment, but in later chapters, the environments become larger. As the environment expands and role-playing elements intertwine with exploration, problems begin to emerge one after another. The game, by scattering numerous items and hidden areas throughout its stages, clearly does not want to offer a completely linear experience, and these hidden contents eliminate the excuse for not focusing on exploration. Environmental connections, rather than inducing a sense of satisfaction and joy of exploration, confuse you because the environments are very similar to each other, and each realm connected to another does not have its own unique symbol to distinctly differentiate the areas in your mind. The maps are isolated as desert, forest, or snowy, without being separated by a unique structure like a building or a tower with specific architecture. On the other hand, the paths are not visually blocked to indicate whether they are dead ends or not. Invisible walls are everywhere, causing you to constantly test the paths. Some environments are also copied and pasted exactly in different chapters. Ultimately, item or reward chests sometimes blend in with their background environment, making it likely to miss some. Proper Soulslike titles that do not have maps have marked their paths and areas with visual cues, and this, combined with the lack of a map, induces a satisfying sense of exploration. However, when you lack ingenuity in level design and invisible walls are an integral part of your game, the least you can do is add a minimal map.
The placement of enemies is also not intelligent in any of the scenarios and stages. In a video game with thoughtful level design, enemies are placed in such a way that the player feels like they are solving a puzzle during their progression; for example, sometimes they have to prioritize destroying enemies in a scene, or in some scenarios, the environment itself plays a challenging role and aids the enemies. Black Myth makes less optimal use of its environment or enemies and presents the challenge in a traditional and direct combat manner.
Therefore, after playing for a while, you will clearly notice that the level design of Black Myth Wukong does not match the quality level of other parts of the game, such as visual output and boss or combat design, causing it to lose its coherence. It is evident that the development team lacks significant experience and skill in level design. However, it should be noted that the first, fourth, and fifth chapters, due to being more linear and moving away from open environments, offer better exploration and are less confusing.
During the promotional campaign, Game Science Studio placed special emphasis on the stunning visual output and next-gen quality of Black Myth, with the name Unreal Engine 5 seen everywhere. Unfortunately, the PS5 port, especially in more open stages (chapters two, three, and six), faces issues such as late texture loading, screen tearing, and low resolution, which make the game’s output on PS5 significantly different from the promotional trailers or the PC version. Although no one should expect a console experience identical to PC, the gap is much larger than usual. Clearly, the developers, given their expertise, targeted the PC as the main platform and later decided to do a console port. However, the game is entirely playable, and if you are not overly obsessed with graphics, you will enjoy it, and there are no game-breaking bugs that hinder your progress.
Nevertheless, the physics of sand or snow, animations during combat, and the feedback of enemies’ bodies to your hits, various effects, and facial details are very satisfactory and pleasing. When combined with very precise sound design, they induce a dynamic and lively feeling. The sound of the staff hitting the enemies’ body parts is very satisfying, and if the enemies have armor, the sound of hitting metal can be heard. The game’s music is also acceptable and can effectively convey the epic feel of the battles.
It was previously mentioned that each chapter individually has overly similar environments, which, without unique structures, might cause confusion. However, the diversity between the lands of each chapter keeps the experience fresh throughout, and you constantly wonder what kind of realm the story will take you to next. However, the visual design of the bosses and enemies is somewhat controversial. Since Wukong is Game Science Studio’s take on the continuation of the novel Journey to the West, the appearances of the monsters and characters were not originally designed by the team’s concept artists, but there are sources of inspiration. Nevertheless, it can be said that this interpretation of ‘Journey to the West’ has managed to maintain the grandeur and appearance of the monsters or characters.
As mentioned, Black Myth is not a direct retelling of the novel Journey to the West, nor is it a completely faithful adaptation. The game’s prologue begins with an important battle for the Monkey King. Sun Wukong, who has attained the rank of Buddha, rejects the offer to join the ‘Celestial Court,’ which angers the gods. The Jade Emperor, the god of gods in heaven and the Celestial Court, assigns his nephew Erlang Shen, an unparalleled warrior, to eliminate the Monkey King. The game starts with this fierce battle, and the audience witnesses the defeat of the Monkey King. Then, you take on the role of another monkey named Destined One and follow a story written by the writers at Game Science Studio.
Therefore, do not expect the game to narrate the long and rich novel Journey to the West. Black Myth only uses some myths, monsters, and characters from this novel to tell the clichéd story of ‘collecting several legendary items’ (here, the relics of Wukong’s power). If you are a fan of the novel and already know the characters, you will have a much more enjoyable experience, and Game Science’s take on Chinese mythology will be very interesting for you. However, if you approach the game without familiarity with the novel, you will only encounter a series of animal characters and monsters that you are motivated to fight. Encountering these myths will likely excite a Chinese player who has heard their names and read the novel since childhood, but you will not feel a deep connection with the myths, especially since Chinese myths have appeared less frequently in various cinematic works compared to Norse or Greek myths. Overall, the motivation the game gives its main character to embark on an epic adventure clearly shows that the developers have prioritized gameplay. The story and myths exist to serve the gameplay, and the game provides enough motivation to complete your adventure. Therefore, do not expect a cohesive narrative and consider it a lever for gameplay and presenting attractive bosses.
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The Verdict
Black Myth: Wukong is not particularly innovative in its combat or role-playing structure and mostly feels like a compilation of mechanics and elements from notable action, cinematic, and Souls-like titles of recent years. However, the point is that the developers have thoroughly understood their work during the ideation and development process and have been able to identify and implement ideas that align with the game’s goals. Even with issues in level design and a vague narrative for those unfamiliar with the novel Journey to the West, Black Myth: Wukong can be recommended to both fans of Souls-like games and enthusiasts of cinematic action titles.
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9/10
This game was experienced and reviewed on the PS5.
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