Wuchang: Fallen Feathers makes me feel as powerful as its bosses

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers actually began to click on for me as soon as I realized how one can leverage the conflict mechanic.

There are a variety of gameplay concepts in Wuchang — we’ll get to ‘em extra in a bit — however clashing allowed me to hit by enemy assault animations, deflecting a lot of the harm. With the blademaster buff activated, I used to be even capable of heal when clashing. All of the sudden, I may scrap with a boss for a second and are available out of a combo no worse for put on whereas my enemy couldn’t say the identical. I felt simply as highly effective because the bosses the sport threw my approach. I didn’t must deal with blocking and parrying, however as a substitute on relentless attacking; the sport let me have interaction with it alone phrases, how I wished to.

This being a Soulslike, nonetheless, I nonetheless often get my ass kicked till it’s as crimson as pirate warrior Wuchang’s eyes.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the most recent entry within the overcrowded Soulslike area, with seemingly many video games introduced these days riffing on the system FromSoftware cracked open greater than a decade in the past. FromSoft continues to be the king of the style, however loads extra devs, like NeoWiz and Spherical 8 (Lies of P) and Group Ninja (the Nioh video games, Wo Lengthy: Fallen Dynasty), are placing up a worthy struggle of their very own. Developer Leenzee throws its hat within the punishing ring with Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, its Soulslike with a well-crafted fight system that alone makes that recreation price trying out.

You play as Wuchang, an amnesiac pirate with a foul case of a mysterious plague. She awakes in a cave close to a temple and ventures off seeking solutions, each when it comes to her affliction and her previous. In true Soulslike trend, the storytelling in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is opaque, informed by NPC dialogue and the atmosphere, with its battle-damaged terrain in elements and villagers hiding behind closed doorways. However you’re possible concerned with Wuchang for its soulslike gameplay, which it delivers in spades. You’ll discover largely linear interconnected ranges dotted with traps, secrets and techniques, and, after all, enemies to slice your approach by.

I gravitate towards the twin swords, as I want speedier, Bloodborne-esque weapon choices relatively than plodding warfare golf equipment or two-handed axes. Along with your anticipated mild and heavy assaults, they, together with all of Wuchang’s weapons, have weapon expertise and self-discipline assaults. These are sometimes damage-dealing strikes, however some weapons begin with the flexibility to dam as a weapon ability (mapped to L1/LB). As you unlock extra expertise and assaults, you’ll be capable of swap them out, customizing your arsenal.

Within the movement of fight, I get right into a groove with the twin sword’s blademaster self-discipline assault. It applies a buff to my blades, enhancing the velocity of my mild assaults along with its clash-induced therapeutic, turning me right into a dancer of destruction on the battlefield. A few of Wuchang’s assault animations are virtually rhythmic in nature with the best way she slides her toes and lunges ahead; she’s a sleek killer.

In fact, my trusty twin swords aren’t the one weapons in Wuchang. Every of the 5 weapon sorts embody distinctive mechanics and skills, guaranteeing Wuchang harbors a playstyle for each kind of Soulslike participant. Spears are nice for whenever you need to pokey poke from afar, whereas a singular sword gives a balanced preventing model. Wuchang’s ability tree can be reset for free of charge to the participant, encouraging us to freely experiment with any weapon she acquires.

Skyborn May is Wuchang’s magic system. Its costs are used each to forged spells — you’ve got your normal fireball projectiles and safety spells, amongst others — and to make use of weapon expertise and self-discipline assaults. Every spell, ability, and particular assault requires a distinct quantity of costs to activate, and fortunately you gained’t have to fret about managing mana potions or something like that; Skyborn May costs are acquired after completely dodging enemy assaults. As I want dodging over blocking anyway, this works out nicely in my favor. I’d generally max out my Skyborn May costs simply from dodging a single enemy combo.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers gives a layered and deep fight system, however that’s to not say each component of the sport hits. Its boss balancing is in every single place. Some are too straightforward (particularly an early one with an NPC summon, who annoyingly did a lot of the work) whereas others cease me in my tracks like Girl Maria from Bloodborne’s The Outdated Hunters growth. For some, all you actually need to do is dodge left to keep away from assaults, although circling left round a boss isn’t something new to the Soulslike style.

I’m discovering the insanity mechanic a bit hit or miss as nicely. Wuchang suffers from a mysterious feathering illness that’ll slowly flip her right into a monster. It’s a big issue within the recreation’s story, and its fight as nicely. As Wuchang cuts down human foes, her insanity grows, tracked within the nook of your HUD in addition to in Wuchang’s eyes as they progressively flip crimson. When the insanity meter is full, Wuchang’s harm is elevated, together with the harm she takes. This could create an additional layer of technique. Maybe you need to maintain your insanity deliberately excessive in order that your assaults pack extra punch.

Insanity additionally frustrates — who ever needs to obtain extra harm? — and restricted consumables are wanted to scale back it, however solely at a particular locale. Dying can even rid you of insanity, however in your subsequent corpse run, a demon will spawn, whom you should defeat to get again your dropped exp. How did I discover this out? Dying to an enemy after taking down a boss (rookie, late-night, brain-drained mistake) and freaking out when a demon rose from the bottom after I subsequent went by the world. Fortunately, except for these death-by-corpse-run-demon instances, you don’t lose all of your exp upon dying, making corpse runs much less of a necessity and eradicating among the annoying stress out of the normal Soulslike loop.

However these demon-filled corpse runs or forgettable bosses aren’t sufficient to tug Wuchang: Fallen Feathers down. Between its weapon choices, number of expertise, and abundance of spells, it encompasses a layered fight system with participating playstyles for everybody. As a substitute of feeling squishy and defenseless, like in some Soulslikes, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers makes me really feel as badass as you’d anticipate a pirate warrior to be.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers will probably be launched July 23, 2025, on PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X. The sport was reviewed on PlayStation 5 utilizing a prerelease obtain code offered by 505 Video games.