Black Myth: Wukong Review: Unique but Confusing Action RPG

Black Myth: Wukong is an action game with light exploration elements and a skill tree progression system inspired by A-RPGs. The urge to call it a souls-like is strong, for me as it was for fans, many of whom gave in long ago. But doing so forces us to talk about Wukong only in relation to souls-likes, obscuring some of its best, unique choices. Let’s start by talking about those instead.

Fight Like a Monkey

Wukong is an action game that seems built for the one-on-one more than for group battles. It’s not a button masher, far from it, but it doesn’t have the predictability of a more “technical” action game. When you swing your staff, your main weapon for the entire game, you might not know what animation it will trigger. It’s not impossible to predict it, and practice will certainly make you better at it, but it rarely ever matters.

This isn’t the kind of game that makes you dodge through five (slow, predictable, deadly) attacks in a row only to deal two or three hits before retreating. Every enemy and every boss has its own rules, but they all give you ample space to attack aggressively. Light and heavy attacks can be cancelled by dodging, and every dodge can lead to an attack. At the same time, you also have enough stamina to keep dodging indefinitely when an enemy executes a long flurry of blows. Retreating is rarely the correct strategy, and it never feels good. Dodging for the sake of avoiding damage is useless, since attacks aren’t followed by a long vulnerability moment.

All this, plus the relaxed challenge level followed by most of the game, makes for fights that are refreshingly quick; less methodical and more intense. Wrestled onto this base system are spells, which impose an opportunistic twist on the hardest of fights. You could learn the attack pattern of this mini boss so well that you can cut through its defence and efficiently bring it down in seconds, but it would take time and effort. It would slow down the breakneck pace of the game, and nothing feels worse than pulling the breaks after moving so fast.

Much better to use every dirty trick in the book and win by a hair, and see what horrible new little guys the game has in store. If it wasn’t clear, I love those little guys. I just wish I understood their role in the story.

I Don’t Understand Black Myth: Wukong

Black Myth: Wukong certainly has a story, that much I know. And I’m sure it’s a good story, too, full of weird little dudes, incredible natural environments, and shockingly large human structures. I loved watching two enemies bickering in their cutscene. I anticipated meeting the next weird guy more than unlocking new abilities or travelling to a new location. I was invested in this story. But in the end, I’m left wondering if I’m missing something.

I can’t get into specifics, since you likely haven’t played the game yourself, but so much of the story just happens. No reason given, no exposition to set this up, no ‘please kill this rat/wolf/demonic humanoid’ instructions. Most bosses, especially the lower ranked ones, are presented in the same scene in which you begin fighting them. Friendly characters do a little better, in the sense that they stick around longer, but they still don’t explain themselves. Even gameplay elements are vague. A skill doesn’t grant 10% longer-lasting spells, it “greatly improves” spell duration.

Surprisingly, this is when a comparison to Dark Souls and similar titles does Wukong justice. After all, this isn’t the first action RPG about duelling giant demons while keeping an eye on the stamina bar with a story that’s a little hard to parse. The story appears obscure and underdeveloped, but there could be a hidden underbelly of characters and world history to discover, somewhere on the periphery of the game’s cutscenes.

But while there could be a game’s worth of lore in the item descriptions and the in-game encyclopedia, there could also be nothing. Item descriptions don’t seem to say much of anything, while most enemy entries in the encyclopedia were still untranslated in my review copy. And regardless, not even a whole wiki could have ever done enough to beef up a plot like this.

Biting on More than You Can Chew

The story of Black Myth: Wukong is adapted (loosely, I would hope) from Journey to the West. I’m sure this revered 16th-century epic does, in fact, make logical and thematical sense. I’m sure it has a larger point to make, and I’m positive that it does it effectively. I just don’t see how Black Myth: Wukong can replicate that with the game I played and a few enemy descriptions.

There is also the possibility that this confusion might be intentional. Going back to our Dark Souls comparison, how many of the players that have beaten that game managed to piece together its story? How many have even tried, or realized it was possible? And how many enjoyed being scared and confused in a scary and confusing world, conquering their fears in the end, only to realize that they were still very confused?

It’s not like Wukong doesn’t benefit from the confusion. Late into the game, an enemy tells the protagonist that if he keeps fighting only for his masters, he will fall by their blades. This is just a throwaway line, a mockery hurled away mid-combat, and ultimately the game proves this character wrong. But he does have a point after all. We only fight for our masters. The monkey protagonist does none of the talking. Who knows, maybe he’s as oblivious to the plot as I am.

Black Myth: Wukong — The Bottom Line

Pros:

• Fun combat, especially boss battles
• Great environments
• Inspired character designs

Cons:

• Confusing story
• Frustrating invisible walls
• Almost every character lasts a single cutscene

Black Myth: Wukong is not the safe, samey, hyper-polished souls-like I expected it to be. This is great news for those who will jell with its style, but it will stop it from reaching mass appeal. The surface-level exploration and awkward invisible walls are frustrating, as is the lacklustre story. Hopefully, Wukong’s originality will shine brighter than its pitfalls.

Gameplay tested on PC. Review code provided by GameScience.

7

Black Myth: Wukong

Black Myth: Wukong is full of unique ideas and just as many missed opportunities.

Pros

• Fun combat, especially boss battles
• Great environments
• Inspired character designs

Cons

• Confusing story
• Frustrating invisible walls
• Almost every character lasts a single cutscene

Gameplay tested on PC. Review code provided by GameScience.