Black Myth: Wukong

[Indiana747]

Put 60hrs into Wukong now, on final chapter(been looking for everything though, hunting secret bosses & areas) & now got my Somersault Cloud, game just keeps continually impressing me, can't praise it enough.
To the people who criticised Wukong, saying it was linear need to give their head a wobble, getting lost is pretty easy on a few of the chapters. Also IGN crying about no women in the game obviously didnt even get past Chapter 2. Imagine reviewing a game having played less than 20% of it.
All in all its Game of the year easily for me, even go as far as to say its the best game ive played in the last 8 years. What an epic journey, recommend if anyone does play to play with Chinese dialogue & stick on English subs, so much better that way.

[JaySevenZero]

I think this will probably be my next game after I'm done with Star Wars: Outlaws as it's been on my radar for the past four years.

[Indiana747]

I dont think you'll be disappointed Jay, its an amazing game, well worth the wait.
Finished it yesterday, done everything except defeating the secret boss in the True Ending part(hes ridiculously hard btw, really frustrating). Doesnt taint my overall opinion of the game though as its a totally optional ending which only culminates after finding the 5 optional secret areas in the game.
The characters, fluid combat, levelling & respec anytime system, the nuances with buffs & healing items & the upgrading weapons & armour mechanics are all *chefs kiss*.

[JaySevenZero]

So I've been playing this for the last week or so and I can see why it's sold 20 million! For their first international release I'm finding the game very accomplished particularly in its gameplay, overall visuals and animation.

As for the game itself I hit a bit of a wall with the White Robed Noble boss fight but as with the best of these kinda things I figured out where I was going wrong, came up with a gameplan, then beat him down.

Yeah, so far it's been pretty damned good fun!

[Indiana747]

I hit a bit of a wall with him too, went from an internal joyful cheer to a "ahh for fuck sake" when i fully depleted his health bar & he went to a second phase. Had to grind for a couple of hours to level up in the areas leading up to him as i clearly wasnt on his level. What a game, im still thinking of it weeks later. It even inspired me to have another crack at Lies Of P & im glad i did, with the skills id learned in Wukong i bet a boss on Lies that had made me quit the game altogether last year. Now 40+hrs later ive finished Lies Of P too, pure quality.

[Caligulas Horse]

Also IGN crying about no women in the game obviously didnt even get past Chapter 2. Imagine reviewing a game having played less than 20% of it.

I don't think that is what happened, actually.

Rebekah Valentine and Khee Hon Chan wrote this piece https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black- ... o-the-west, which essentially details accusations of sexism levelled against the developer Game Science made by industry insiders and fans, mostly women, in China. They interview several women game designers in the article and look at some controversial posts made by members of the development team. While the article is focused on controversies surround Game Science in particular, it's also looking more broadly at difficulties women face in the industry in China, from the perspective of the women game designers interviewed.

They then published this preview https://www.ign.com/articles/black-myt ... st-2-hours. At the bottom it includes these comments from Rebekah Valentine which I'll post in full:

Last year, we published a comprehensive report on IGN detailing a number of sexist and inappropriate remarks made by multiple developers of Black Myth: Wukong, including those in leadership roles at Game Science. As of the publication of this preview, Game Science has yet to provide any response or statement addressing our report or their past remarks.

Like Mitchell, I had the opportunity to see Black Myth: Wukong at Summer Game Fest, though my appointment was admittedly a little strange. I was told as a part of my invitation that Game Science would have a statement “related to the reports of sexism.” I arrived at the appointment and saw the game as planned, but when I asked for the promised statement, I was told by a PR representative, "Game Science is focused on the demo during Play Days and will only answer questions related to gameplay."

Mitchell’s preview doesn’t need my validation, but for what it’s worth, I fully back everything he’s written here. Black Myth: Wukong looks like it’ll be a great game. It’s gorgeous, with snappy combat, fantastic monster design, and some really interesting boss fights. It is also true that several of the people who are making it have made disparaging remarks about women, and don’t seem to be interested either in retracting their past statements, or in supporting the numerous women who are being harassed in online conversations about Black Myth: Wukong purely for expressing their discomfort with those statements. Both of these ideas can exist simultaneously - what audiences want to do about this conflict is ultimately their choice.

One last note - I didn’t see any women or femme-coded characters in the demo, and I was able to confirm from Game Science that there were none present in the section of the game presented to the press. There will be women in the final game, but for now it is impossible to really comment on whether or not Game Science developers’ expressed beliefs permeate Black Myth: Wukong in a meaningful way..

So they weren't reviewing the game having played less than 20%, it was explicitly a preview of the first 2 hours of the game which was arranged by the developers, as is the norm. And nobody was "crying" that the game didn't have women in it, what she said is that she cannot judge whether the sexist attitudes described in the earlier article have made their way in to the game itself because the preview didn't feature any women characters to judge how they are depicted. Moreover, the preview itself was largely positive and Rebekah Valentine echoed those sentiments and made a pretty even-handed statement.

I'm not trying to pick an argument here and I'm not going to get into a back and fourth about the earlier article, but I did want to clarify this because far too often people who raise concerns like this have their words twisted and taken out of context to try and make them look like irrational/hysterical.

Edit: Also just wanna add I'm not saying you're doing that btw. It's very easy to fall victim to misinformation on the internet these days!

[JaySevenZero]

Fully into Chapter 2 now, it amazed me just how it stepped up everything it had laid out in Chapter 1, the enviroment and the creature (or Yaoguai) design is at times truly sublime.

The are choices they made in the game which I really adore such as the animated music videos that culminate the chapters, which also flesh out the Journey to the West backstory for the characters in the preceding chapter.

Speaking about music, the headless singer in Chapter 2 is definitely a standout so far with their incredible voice.

[Indiana747]

Have you fought Tiger Vanguard in the pool of blood yet Jay?

[JaySevenZero]

Yeah, haven't beaten him yet though but I've just got the duplicate spell so I reckon it'll come in handy with him.

Also found his brethren protecting that entrance, who also kicked my ass - for now!

[Indiana747]

Tiger Vanguard wrecked me so many times, fast, hits hard, difficult to time his delayed attacks, but looks cool as fuck like everything else in that game.

[JaySevenZero]

I don't believe that I've seen any level in any videogame to date as so intricately detailed as the New Thunderclap Temple in Chapter Three of Wukong. All those statues and carved wooden interiors and exteriors are modeled with such meticulous attention to detail it blew my mind with how much effort they had put into it!

[Truk_Kurt]

How does this game compare to difficulty compared to FromSoft games? And does it have a bonfire mechanic? It's less so much the difficulty of the FromSoft games that has led to me falling off them but more having to do runs up to bosses every time I die at the hands of a boss. Are their checkpoints before bosses I guess is my question?

[JaySevenZero]

Yeah, there are these things called Keeper's Shrines in the game which act as your usual one-stop shop and pretty much most major bosses in the game have a nearby Shrine so it was usually just a 10-30 second run to get back to the arena.

As for overall difficulty, I definitely had trouble with several bosses in the game but the game feels like it accomodates players far better than any FromSoft title for the lack of penalties for failing a boss fight, nothing lost other than time. An example of this was at the end of chapter 3, it has a three stage boss fight and I died at the start of the final stage and was transported back to the shrine just outside the room. I thought that I would have to repeat the whole damn fight from the beginning but upon entering the room was taken straight into the third stage.

Whilst the game is not without its gameplay challenges I felt that they'd clearly put thought behind removing some of the more obvious frustrations that arise from these kind of games.

[Truk_Kurt]

Yeah, there are these things called Keeper's Shrines in the game which act as your usual one-stop shop and pretty much most major bosses in the game have a nearby Shrine so it was usually just a 10-30 second run to get back to the arena.

As for overall difficulty, I definitely had trouble with several bosses in the game but the game feels like it accomodates players far better than any FromSoft title for the lack of penalties for failing a boss fight, nothing lost other than time. An example of this was at the end of chapter 3, it has a three stage boss fight and I died at the start of the final stage and was transported back to the shrine just outside the room. I thought that I would have to repeat the whole damn fight from the beginning but upon entering the room was taken straight into the third stage.

Whilst the game is not without its gameplay challenges I felt that they'd clearly put thought behind removing some of the more obvious frustrations that arise from these kind of games.

Oh cool, that about being put back into the third phase makes the game a LOT more enticing, as well as not losing anything when you die. Just one other question though, even for the 30 second runs back to the start of a boss, do you have to fight any enemies along the way?

[JaySevenZero]

More often than not though the shrines are placed in such a way that any major bosses are hassle free to get back to, sub-bosses on the other hand can be positioned closer to regular enemies and although you can often simply run past them rather than engage sometimes they'll follow you into the fight if you don't clear out those closest to the boss prior to it kicking off.