Ever since its announcement, Black Myth: Wukong has attracted the attention of many players not only with its stunning graphics and technical part, but also with the change of the boring atmosphere of darkness, blackness and sadness – after Miyazaki, it was suddenly loved by soulslike developers. Black Myth eventually managed to justify almost all expectations and become the main contender for the title of “Game of the Year 2024” – even despite the scandals in the Western gaming community!
A trip for those who love to read
Black Myth: Wukong is based on the fantasy-satirical novel Journey to the West, one of the main mythologies of China. However, the game takes place several centuries after the events described in it.
Those familiar with the original will definitely recognize many of the characters and find all the references easily, but those unfamiliar with Journey to the West will have a hard time figuring out what the hell is going on here. Who is this old spider? Why is the grumpy boar helping us? How did we offend the feisty tiger? Where can I learn to play the Sanxian as well as the headless monk from Chapter 2?
The game doesn’t even try to go into detail about the unfolding events, but describes them in some detail in the codex, which is filled with descriptions of enemies, allies, and simply sympathizers as the storyline develops. The only problem is that not everyone climbs into the menu to read this codex. At least some clarity is brought by the videos between chapters, but, again, to understand them you need to return to the codex.
In short, Sun Wukong angered the celestials and got into a fight with an army of thousands at the very beginning of Black Myth: Wukong. His arrogance resulted in him being imprisoned in stone. Having demonstrated the full power of the Monkey King, Black Myth immediately brings the player down to earth and shoves them into the skin of a certain Chosen One, who must set out on another journey to the West to collect six relics and bring Sun Wukong back.
The task can hardly be called simple, since all the relics have already been taken into the clutches of the powerful yaoguai, local beast-like creatures who will not give up the artifacts without a fight.
A follower of Sekiro, not Souls
There are about a hundred bosses in Black Myth, and unlike many soulslikes, here they are full-fledged, fully voiced and animated characters, and not banal reskins of other bosses or simply strengthened versions of ordinary opponents. This is very reminiscent of the approach of slashers of the 00s and 10s, when bosses were difficult and unique. But still, the game clearly looks towards the projects of Hidetaka Miyazaki – there are fires, and “souls”, reincarnation of enemies and other, smaller details of the souls-like genre.
Not all villains even want to fight the monkey, which is directly stated to him right away – as in the case of the Scorpion Lord, one of the most difficult and severe bosses in the entire game. Quite the right move on the part of the developers, considering not only the number of bosses, but also how often the chosen one has to deal with them.
The entire game is essentially a boss rush mode, which also takes us back to old slashers, lasting 40-45 hours. Sometimes battles with the main villains are literally separated by one checkpoint, and some are easy to stumble upon while exploring locations in search of secrets and resources for brewing potions or enhancing the Chosen One’s equipment.
The boss battles are well-done, there are no unexpected or sharp jumps in difficulty, and if one of them seems too difficult, then most likely you did not complete some additional task or did not find an extremely effective and necessary item – you can always go back, go another way, become stronger and come back.
Black Myth: Wukong can be completed with persistence and impudence, unlike modern soulslikes, to which it is equated. It is not necessary to have the ability to deftly react to enemy attacks and memorize the sequences of boss attacks. Aggression in local battles has not been canceled and it pays off.
Fresh ideas in old mechanics
One of the key elements of the combat system is the mechanics of transforming into various enemies and bosses that the Chosen One will encounter during their journey and then catch as Pokémon. In some Yaoguai, the Chosen One can transform for a long time, while transforming into others is limited to using only their main attack or ability.
All captured spirits provide various passive abilities such as increased critical hit chance, increased defense, increased resistance to elements, etc.
The combat system is based on three different stances, from which the Chosen One painfully hits enemies on the head with his stick. For the most part, normal attacks are needed solely to fill the concentration meter, which is necessary for delivering especially powerful blows.
Although Black Myth has magic, you can’t make a wizard out of the Chosen One, because there are only two useful spells in the game – the ability to put enemies on “pause” and summoning doppelgangers. “Pause” gives you the necessary time to replenish health or smear yourself with damage-increasing herbs, and doppelgangers, although they hardly distract bosses from themselves, can still cause serious damage to them.
The Chosen One can also draw a fire ring on the ground that restores health, and turn into stone, which serves as a kind of block, but there are no bosses or enemies in the game that will allow you to stand in the ring for more than a couple of seconds, and instead of blocking an attack, it is much easier to dodge, saving mana.
Completing the game and completing one of the side quests yields two more spells of similar levels of uselessness: the first allows you to avoid death, while the second converts all mana into damage and blocks the use of magic.
Game Science’s rather strange decision was to hide the armor-upgrading blacksmith in a location accessible after completing a side quest that is very easy to miss. But even stranger is Chapter 6, where Game Science implemented a semblance of an open world, where you can freely fly on Wu-kung’s cloud. The location is simply huge, but completely empty, except for a few bosses. Yes, it shows off the engine’s capabilities and picturesque landscapes, but everything in the previous chapters was also beautiful, and the lack of a cloud did not interfere with traveling through them.
There are some technical issues with the game. The PlayStation 5 version looks good even in performance mode, but already from the second chapter serious drops in frame rate begin – even in cases when nothing serious is happening on the screen.
On a PC with AMD hardware (Ryzen 5 7500F, RX 6800 16GB, 32RAM 6800Ghz) the game runs at 60 frames per second on high-ultra settings with the FSR3 upscaler enabled and anti-aliasing oversampling at 80. If you raise the frame rate above this value, the picture becomes very sharp and hurts the eyes. Drops occur only when entering a new location for a few milliseconds, when loading new textures and enemies.
Diagnosis
Black Myth: Wukong is a must-have for fans of slashers and soulslikes. It cleverly takes the features of both genres and combines them into one. Although you shouldn’t be afraid of its complexity – the game adaptation of “Journey to the West” is still aimed at a wide audience.
It’s a fantastic game with a dynamic combat system, engaging bosses, and a beautiful world that you actually want to explore. And it’s also honest – unlike FromSoftware’s games, where some bosses are clearly designed to humiliate even experienced players as much as possible.
Pro
- Beautiful world
- Lots of unique bosses
- Memorable characters
- Mechanics of transformations
- Spectacular cutscenes between chapters
- Optimization on PC
Contra
- People unfamiliar with the original novel will be “floating” in the plot
- Low potential magic
- Strange decisions to hide main content behind side quests
- Optimization on PS5
- Weak Chapter 6
