Wuchang Fallen Feathers review: The summer’s must-play Soulslike

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

There are quite a lot of gameplay concepts in Wuchang — we’ll get to ‘em extra in a bit — however clashing allowed me to hit by means of enemy assault animations, deflecting many of the harm. With the blademaster buff activated, I used to be even in a position to heal when clashing. Out of the blue, I might 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 manner. I didn’t have to give attention to blocking and parrying, however as an alternative on relentless attacking; the sport let me have interaction with it by myself phrases, how I wished to.

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

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the newest entry within the overcrowded Soulslike space, with seemingly many video games introduced these days riffing on the method FromSoftware cracked open greater than a decade in the past. FromSoft remains to be the king of the style, however a lot extra devs, like NeoWiz and Spherical 8 (Lies of P) and Staff Ninja (the Nioh games, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty), are placing up a worthy combat 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 sport 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 in quest of solutions, each when it comes to her affliction and her previous. In true Soulslike style, the storytelling in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is opaque, instructed by means of NPC dialogue and the setting, with its battle-damaged terrain in components and villagers hiding behind closed doorways. However you’re possible interested by 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 manner by means of.

I gravitate towards the twin swords, as I desire speedier, Bloodborne-esque weapon choices reasonably 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 abilities and self-discipline assaults. These are sometimes damage-dealing strikes, however some weapons begin with the flexibility to dam as a weapon talent (mapped to L1/LB). As you unlock extra abilities and assaults, you’ll have the ability to swap them out, customizing your arsenal.

Within the stream 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 nearly rhythmic in nature with the best way she slides her toes and lunges ahead; she’s a sleek killer.

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

Skyborn May is Wuchang’s magic system. Its fees are used each to solid spells — you have got your commonplace fireball projectiles and safety spells, amongst others — and to make use of weapon abilities and self-discipline assaults. Every spell, talent, and particular assault requires a unique quantity of fees to activate, and fortunately you gained’t have to fret about managing mana potions or something like that; Skyborn May fees are acquired after completely dodging enemy assaults. As I desire dodging over blocking anyway, this works out nicely in my favor. I’d typically max out my Skyborn May fees 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 far and wide. Some are too simple (particularly an early one with an NPC summon, who annoyingly did many of the work) whereas others cease me in my tracks like Woman Maria from Bloodborne’s The Previous Hunters enlargement. For some, all you actually need to do is dodge left to keep away from assaults, although circling left around 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 sport’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 step by step flip pink. When the insanity meter is full, Wuchang’s harm is elevated, together with the harm she takes. This may create an additional layer of technique. Maybe you need to preserve your insanity deliberately excessive in order that your assaults pack extra punch.

Insanity additionally frustrates — who ever desires to obtain extra harm? — and restricted consumables are wanted to cut back it, however solely at a selected locale. Dying can even rid you of insanity, however in your subsequent corpse run, a demon will spawn, whom you could 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 means of the world. Fortunately, other than these death-by-corpse-run-demon circumstances, 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 abilities, and abundance of spells, it includes a layered fight system with partaking playstyles for everybody. As an alternative 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 Collection X. The sport was reviewed on PlayStation 5 utilizing a prerelease obtain code offered by 505 Video games.