Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. You shall set out as the Destined One to venture into the challenges and marvels ahead, to uncover the obscured truth beneath the veil of a glorious legend from the past.

The story in Black Myth: Wukong can be confusing and difficult to follow if you are not prepared and know the lore. I did not know much, and felt pretty detached from the story. You need to pay close attention to what every NPC says along the way and exhaust all dialogue. The side quests with various NPCs you meet along the way can be very difficult to figure out what you need to do and when to do it without checking a guide on the internet. Sometimes if you progress the game too far without doing certain steps in a side quest, the quest will be forfeited without warning and you have to try again the next playthrough. You have no journal or similar to keep track of your quests either. This can be very annoying, and is a thing that I "dislike" with this game and other souls-games for that matter, even if it's a minor thing.

The combat in this game is kinda boring and doesn't get much better the further you go in the game. The game is very bad at informing you about how things work too, for example combos or certain items. The combat is very basic and there are not many combos. The combat is basically spam your light attack, until you build up enough focus points to do a heavy attack and dodge every now and then. Rinse and repeat. Very repetitive. I also don't think dodging works well in this game. I don't know how many times I felt like "that should have been a dodge or perfect dodge" but the monkey just didn't do what I wanted. Once you start spamming X for your combo, it's like the monkey is stuck in the combo somehow and you can't dodge. The hitbox in this game is also very bad, especially on some bosses. Imagine spamming your combo on a boss and not a single attack can hit it!

You also have some spells at your disposal, which don't always work so well. Let's say a spell takes 2 seconds to channel. If you get hit while channeling the spell, you are interrupted and it goes on full cooldown. It doesn't matter if you did 5% of the channeling or 95%. Full cooldown. Very annoying.

Transformation spells transform you temporarily into another creature with different attacks. Dodging in these forms was even worse. Most of the Transformations also have a very awkward attack pattern, so I did not use them much.

The Talent Tree is very boring if you ask me. I focused mostly on the Foundation part for more defense, health, stamina, etc. After that I was not tempted by much else in the tree. Many of the spell upgrades, additional attacks and other various upgrades felt quite boring and useless. Why is there, for example, a possibilty to upgrade your usual jump, so it consumes less stamina?

A lot of what you find in this game feels like pure garbage. Armor sets and Curios' have no fun effects and many feel terribly unnecessary. There aren't many weapons to choose from either. You can craft new upgrades to your weapons, giving you more Critical Hit Chance and Damage, but with each upgrade the weapon gets a new Effect as well. For example, a certain part of your light attack combo receives shock damage. If you like the effect that the new upgrade has, and then upgrade your weapon again to increase your Crit Chance and Damage, the previous effect will disappear and you will gain a new effect. If you want your previous effect, you have to live with much less damage instead, which is idiotic. Let's say upgrade 5 is max. What if you like the effect on the second upgrade of the weapon and want to play with that, but you can't because you will lose too much damage. Just imagine the difference in damage between upgrade 2 and 5. It's so stupidly designed.

The enemies in this game are very boring and feel more like a chore to get through. They are very tedious and are not much of a threat to the dumb monkey you are playing as. Many of them also has a lot of health and maybe even a shield. What usually happens is that you use your spells on them, burning your mana before a boss, because you can't be bothered to kill them slowly. You can pick up materials in the form of flowers, mushrooms, etc. Some of these are hidden enemies in the ground. They jump up and you have to kill them to get the material. They could have skipped this because it was very boring and tedious.

This game has 107 bosses. 107! The majority of the bosses are very boring and way too easy. Many bosses are poorly designed as well. That in conjunction with the dodge function and the bad hitbox made me very frustrated many times. Out of all 107 bosses, a maximum of 5 of them were fun. I beat almost all the bosses on the first try, some on the second try, and some on a few more tries. A lot of the bosses are flying around in the air and were impossible to hit and just extremely annoying. How fun is it to fight a boss that just goes up in the air that you can't hit, when you have no ranged attacks? Some bosses also have some extremely annoying and stupid attacks where, for example, they make a lot of whirlwinds that are hard to avoid. If you get hit by them, it triggers a 1 second cutscene of you being flung into the air. Why? Some of these things can be avoided IF you have a special item equipped, that you don't know of, because the game does not tell you. Some bosses also have several automatic cutscenes in the middle of the fight when you manage to remove a certain part of the boss's health. In the cutscene, you get pounded by the boss, which is meant to happen, but when the cutscene is over, you've lost a lot of health. Some bosses are also impossible to hit sometimes even if they are on the ground because the hitbox is so bad. Quality over quantity please.

The visuals in this game are very beautiful. The environment is varied through the 6 chapters, BUT. This game has a lot of invisible walls, which was extremely annoying. Many times it looks like you can go to a certain place, or jump up on a certain rock, but you can't. Later you come to a very large area with many paths and space to explore. Suddenly you can go to a lot of places. All this space to explore, for basically nothing. A lot of large, unnecessary areas which only made the game longer and more confusing. Then comes chapter 4, where a large part takes place in a very confusing cave with a vertical layout, with more invisible walls. The stupid thing is that there are times in the game when there are no invisible walls. An enemy will appear and knock you over the edge. What? No invisible walls protecting me now? Chapter 5 is more linear and straight forward and it is much clearer where you can and cannot. Chapter 6 is the shortest chapter but also the most open one. Designing the environment and surroundings this way makes the player very confused and has a hard time knowing where the boundaries of the map are. This created a continuous frustration throughout the game for me.

This game also suffers from long loading screens. It also suffers from FPS drops and short freeze lag during some boss fights. Very annoying.

Honestly, I don't understand how this game can have overwhelmingly 95% positive reviews. It's a beautiful game with an okay story if you know it, but otherwise, it's very mediocre. I've played a lot of other souls-like games like the Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Elden Ring, and more, and if I compare this game to those, then this game is not very good. There is a lot of room for improvement though if they make a sequel or another game. Too easy with too boring combat for my taste.

[h1]A very mediocre Souls-like game. I don't understand all the positive reviews...[/h1] [i]Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. You shall set out as the Destined One to venture into the challenges and marvels ahead, to uncover the obscured truth beneath the veil of a glorious legend from the past.[/i] [h2]Story & Quests[/h2] The story in Black Myth: Wukong can be confusing and difficult to follow if you are not prepared and know the lore. I did not know much, and felt pretty detached from the story. You need to pay close attention to what every NPC says along the way and exhaust all dialogue. The side quests with various NPCs you meet along the way can be very difficult to figure out what you need to do and when to do it without checking a guide on the internet. Sometimes if you progress the game too far without doing certain steps in a side quest, the quest will be forfeited without warning and you have to try again the next playthrough. You have no journal or similar to keep track of your quests either. This can be very annoying, and is a thing that I "dislike" with this game and other souls-games for that matter, even if it's a minor thing. [h2]Combat & Gameplay[/h2] The combat in this game is kinda boring and doesn't get much better the further you go in the game. The game is very bad at informing you about how things work too, for example combos or certain items. The combat is very basic and there are not many combos. The combat is basically spam your light attack, until you build up enough focus points to do a heavy attack and dodge every now and then. Rinse and repeat. Very repetitive. I also don't think dodging works well in this game. I don't know how many times I felt like "that should have been a dodge or perfect dodge" but the monkey just didn't do what I wanted. Once you start spamming X for your combo, it's like the monkey is stuck in the combo somehow and you can't dodge. The hitbox in this game is also very bad, especially on some bosses. Imagine spamming your combo on a boss and not a single attack can hit it! You also have some spells at your disposal, which don't always work so well. Let's say a spell takes 2 seconds to channel. If you get hit while channeling the spell, you are interrupted and it goes on full cooldown. It doesn't matter if you did 5% of the channeling or 95%. Full cooldown. Very annoying. Transformation spells transform you temporarily into another creature with different attacks. Dodging in these forms was even worse. Most of the Transformations also have a very awkward attack pattern, so I did not use them much. The Talent Tree is very boring if you ask me. I focused mostly on the Foundation part for more defense, health, stamina, etc. After that I was not tempted by much else in the tree. Many of the spell upgrades, additional attacks and other various upgrades felt quite boring and useless. Why is there, for example, a possibilty to upgrade your usual jump, so it consumes less stamina? [h2]Gear & Weapons[/h2] A lot of what you find in this game feels like pure garbage. Armor sets and Curios' have no fun effects and many feel terribly unnecessary. There aren't many weapons to choose from either. You can craft new upgrades to your weapons, giving you more Critical Hit Chance and Damage, but with each upgrade the weapon gets a new Effect as well. For example, a certain part of your light attack combo receives shock damage. If you like the effect that the new upgrade has, and then upgrade your weapon again to increase your Crit Chance and Damage, the previous effect will disappear and you will gain a new effect. If you want your previous effect, you have to live with much less damage instead, which is idiotic. Let's say upgrade 5 is max. What if you like the effect on the second upgrade of the weapon and want to play with that, but you can't because you will lose too much damage. Just imagine the difference in damage between upgrade 2 and 5. It's so stupidly designed. [h2]Enemies & Bosses[/h2] The enemies in this game are very boring and feel more like a chore to get through. They are very tedious and are not much of a threat to the dumb monkey you are playing as. Many of them also has a lot of health and maybe even a shield. What usually happens is that you use your spells on them, burning your mana before a boss, because you can't be bothered to kill them slowly. You can pick up materials in the form of flowers, mushrooms, etc. Some of these are hidden enemies in the ground. They jump up and you have to kill them to get the material. They could have skipped this because it was very boring and tedious. This game has 107 bosses. 107! The majority of the bosses are very boring and way too easy. Many bosses are poorly designed as well. That in conjunction with the dodge function and the bad hitbox made me very frustrated many times. Out of all 107 bosses, a maximum of 5 of them were fun. I beat almost all the bosses on the first try, some on the second try, and some on a few more tries. A lot of the bosses are flying around in the air and were impossible to hit and just extremely annoying. How fun is it to fight a boss that just goes up in the air that you can't hit, when you have no ranged attacks? Some bosses also have some extremely annoying and stupid attacks where, for example, they make a lot of whirlwinds that are hard to avoid. If you get hit by them, it triggers a 1 second cutscene of you being flung into the air. Why? Some of these things can be avoided IF you have a special item equipped, that you don't know of, because the game does not tell you. Some bosses also have several automatic cutscenes in the middle of the fight when you manage to remove a certain part of the boss's health. In the cutscene, you get pounded by the boss, which is meant to happen, but when the cutscene is over, you've lost a lot of health. Some bosses are also impossible to hit sometimes even if they are on the ground because the hitbox is so bad. Quality over quantity please. [h2]Environment & Performance issues[/h2] The visuals in this game are very beautiful. The environment is varied through the 6 chapters, BUT. This game has a lot of invisible walls, which was extremely annoying. Many times it looks like you can go to a certain place, or jump up on a certain rock, but you can't. Later you come to a very large area with many paths and space to explore. Suddenly you can go to a lot of places. All this space to explore, for basically nothing. A lot of large, unnecessary areas which only made the game longer and more confusing. Then comes chapter 4, where a large part takes place in a very confusing cave with a vertical layout, with more invisible walls. The stupid thing is that there are times in the game when there are no invisible walls. An enemy will appear and knock you over the edge. What? No invisible walls protecting me now? Chapter 5 is more linear and straight forward and it is much clearer where you can and cannot. Chapter 6 is the shortest chapter but also the most open one. Designing the environment and surroundings this way makes the player very confused and has a hard time knowing where the boundaries of the map are. This created a continuous frustration throughout the game for me. This game also suffers from long loading screens. It also suffers from FPS drops and short freeze lag during some boss fights. Very annoying. [h2]The Verdict[/h2] Honestly, I don't understand how this game can have overwhelmingly 95% positive reviews. It's a beautiful game with an okay story if you know it, but otherwise, it's very mediocre. I've played a lot of other souls-like games like the Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Elden Ring, and more, and if I compare this game to those, then this game is not very good. There is a lot of room for improvement though if they make a sequel or another game. Too easy with too boring combat for my taste. [h2]Rating: 5/10[/h2]