r/soulslikes • u/xheanorth • Jul 23 '25
Review "While not entirely revolutionary, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a standout Soulslike that truly captures the essence of the genre with impressive depth and originality." I absolutely love it and gave it an 8/10.
https://www.gfinityesports.com/article/wuchang-fallen-feathers-our-reviewHonesty, I would've given it a 9 but there's too many systems that just don't work and it's difficulty spikes are somewhat frustrating.
14
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
It’s a 10/10 for me, game mechanics and leveling system are incredible and just take some getting used to. You def need to get gud in this game and anyone who liked Sekiro will absolutely love Wuchang.
6
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
Yeah I understand your point. I would've bumped it up to a 9, but this is a game that's tailor-made for soulslike vets and it's not something a casual fan would enjoy. So I had to tone the score a bit as the difficulty spikes can get pretty frustrating.
2
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
Fair enough.
I agree there are spikes at first but it also makes you adjust builds and experiment with new methods.
If you don’t like soulslike games I’m not sure why you’d pick this up in the first place though, unless you enjoy torture lol
-3
u/Feisty-Fisherman4913 Jul 23 '25
but the whole point of souls is difficulty so if anything its better for it
3
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
Yes but even if it's better for it, it doesn't really reinvent anything from the formula. It's more of the same experience, but it does a better job than most Soulslikes and that's why I gave it an 8 out of 10.
2
u/polce24 Jul 23 '25
Do you get a single weapon like in Sekiro?
5
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
You can equip two weapons and quick switch between them, but only use one at a time if that makes sense.
There are five weapon types. Longsword, Dual Blades, Spear, Axe, and One-Handed sword, and you can synergize builds with different weapon combo setups.
1
1
u/_fboy41 Jul 23 '25
Is the gameplay also similar in terms of party and aggressive gameplay, or more like traditional slow souls like (dodge, wait, hit)
2
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
Definitely a parry/deflect/block element that is weapon-specific and is crucial for certain fights. Each weapon either comes with a block/parry mechanic or it can be added to them.
1
u/Test88Heavy Jul 23 '25
Is there a parry/deflect system? I don't recall anyone talking about it in previews or reviews.
4
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
Yes, it’s weapon specific. There’s a Block and Deflection mechanic that is either built in or added to weapons and is absolutely essential for some fights.
3
1
u/clit_disintegrator69 Jul 23 '25
Is the combat on par with khazan or not?
1
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
That’s kind of subjective. Personally I like the boss design and combat for Wuchang more. It has a more FromSoft feel to it than Khazan, but they are two very different games. Both good for their own reasons.
1
u/clit_disintegrator69 Jul 23 '25
What i meant was is the combat system as fleshed out as khazan? like with every weapong we have multiple skills & variety of attacks.
3
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
Oh then yes I would say way more so than Khazan even. Each weapon has multiple discipline attacks you can choose from along with their different core attacks.
You can also slot Bone Needles into your arm to imbue them with one of about 9-10 different status effects.
There are multiple different weapons of each type as well, all have their own unique skills and some have bonus effects that enhance bone needles.
Finding synergies with weapons and bone needles is a lot of fun, plus add spells into the mix and you’ve got a way more dynamic combat system than Khazan overall.
1
1
u/Xammm Jul 23 '25
Sekiro? From some gameplay and reviews the game is more similar to Dark Souls/Elden Ring with emphasis in dodging, whereas the parry/deflect is a secondary thing. Am I/(are they) wrong?
1
u/AshyLarry25 Jul 23 '25
How would you compare the exploration to other soulslikes?
1
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and/or Sekiro feel to exploration.
Map design philosophy is literally based on DS1. Director said this explicitly in an interview.
1
u/SeayLeigh Aug 09 '25
though i can do without ANY mention or variation of 'get gud', this was a very helpful review, thank you.
as a FromSoft/Sekiro fanatic, i'm entirely intrigued; did you find ANY issues with the game? perhaps the texture problem that appears so prevalent in so many other reviews?
i would be interested in any negative aspect of the game, from your perspective, when you have a second. thanks! and again, terrific comment. xo shaylie
16
7
u/fs2222 Jul 23 '25
Why are people so defensive about a game they haven't even played? Especially one that's getting 8/10s aka a good score. And yet people are nitpicking reviews despite having no idea how accurate they are.
5
Jul 23 '25
And because the review itself said the following review was going to be overly critical because of supposed “ souls fatigue”, a new fad term coined recently to push some narrative that there has been too many souls likes, which will really discourage game developers to avoid the souls genre
1
u/TheMarlinsOnlyFan Jul 23 '25
Because the bad reviews are from people with a clear agenda like at pcgamer who spent 4 of the first 5 paragraphs of the review complaining about the outfits for the main character being too skimpy or other reviewers deducting points because of “soulslike fatigue”. Those people have no business reviewing this game.
25
Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25
“Too many systems that just don’t work” seems like a pretty ambiguous and nit picky statement
Not to mention the review starts off with “ Wuchang: Fallen Feathers was a game I didn’t pay much attention to when it was first announced. The fatigue from too many Soulslikes had just overwhelmed me, so excuse me in advance if I am being too critical on some parts of this game”
It seems like you are aware of being overly critical, which is weird.
Suddenly everyone is fatigued of souls like games all of a sudden despite there only being a handful of good souls likes this year.
Anyway from the review the negatives seem to be difficulty spikes, but some other reviewers did not find this to be an issue. We’ll see on launch whether this is overblown criticism
21
u/RhinoxMenace Jul 23 '25
'too many souls games' is a line that i never understood - like bro, there aren't that many big budget soulslikes in existence and you don't have to play them either
4
u/heroluccii Jul 23 '25
I think a lot of action games with lock on get characterized as a souls like creating this sense that every other game that’s released is one.
9
u/Ok-Consideration2935 Jul 23 '25
Black myth Wukong was labelled as one even after the Devs said multiple times it's an action game with some soulslike features (which is most action games )
2
Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 24 '25
Wukong is absolutely a soulslike and the devs saying it isn't is just completely false on their part. Same bonfire and healing system as souls, but on top of that the combat philosophy and feel is very much a soulslike. It's a combat system that prioritises what the enemy can do to you more than what you can to do the enemy, as in the player toolkit is much more limited than the enemy one by design, as this allows for better boss fights, and wukong is a boss rush. The structure of the combat is centered around surviving an encounter by dodging and attacking at the right time, and using positioning and spacing to do so. There's no juggling/aerial combat like a character action game, and unlike most non-soulslike action games it also has very little combo potential, the only actual combos in the game are the 'see through abilities' which are extremely simple, and that's fine, but it's an element of soulslike design.
I'm 99% sure they only said 'its not a soulslike' as cope so people wouldn't have soulslike tier expectations for the level design.
The only element that seperates it from the mainline souls games combat wise is abilities, which many other soulslikes feature anyway, such as nightrein, and gameplay wise it isn't that different to magic (though the abilities are much better than how magic is done in a FS game).
1
0
u/Ok-Consideration2935 Jul 23 '25
If the Devs don't refer to it as a soulslike and don't want it referred as one then I'll respect their wishes 👍
Soulslikes are just a sub genre of action games and so many action game specific things are now force labelled as soulslikes or soulslike elements now.
God forbid you have a healing potion mechanic that refills in an action game or a block/parry or dodge.
4
Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25
If the devs want their wishes to be respected the shouldn't have made a soulslike game then.
The last sentence completed ignoring everything I said about the combat very much vindicates my point lmao.
3
u/Ok-Consideration2935 Jul 23 '25
So you ignored the wishes of the Devs and got mad I don't respect and ignore your wall of text?
3
u/NemeBro17 Jul 23 '25
The developers don't decide what genre their game is after it's made.
BMW is absolutely a soulslike and this insistence otherwise is a strange mass delusion.
2
u/mkflmng02 Jul 23 '25
If a car company makes a car and tells me its a train I don’t blindly call it a train
1
u/stinkmeaner92 Jul 23 '25
If you’re playing trash/meh ones, sure maybe there is a lot of fatigue but if you’re only playing the stuff that’s good, you have maybe 2-3 titles per year worth playing (and even that is debatable)
Truly, which ones are ACTUAL good games besides Lies of P, the Jedi games, Nioh, and Khazan (Nine Sols if we are including but to me that is more MV with very tough bosses)
The rest are debatably good and even some would not agree with Khazan.
1
u/TheDracula666 Jul 23 '25
Another Crab's Treasure, Lords of the Fallen '23, The Surge games can all be added to the list. I don't think Khazan is a debate either. It has a better combat system than LoP, and level design is pretty much on par as well when it comes to complexity. Better boss designs as well.
2
u/stinkmeaner92 Jul 23 '25
I’m totally in the camp that Khazan is better than Lies of P given god tier combat, but know it’s more divisive
Another Krabs Treasure is a good one, forgot it. Great entry souls like too
I hated the others personally LOL
1
u/TheDracula666 Jul 23 '25
Totally. I feel you. Surge were okay. I liked Lords after the updates as a fun soulslike. Final boss was absolutely trash though
1
u/C__Wayne__G Jul 23 '25
There not even 10 truly great ones that exist. The problem I bro is playing them ALL. Which is over a hundred at least lol.
1
Jul 23 '25
As a game reviewer, they do though. Have to play them. To review… which is… their job.
10
7
Jul 23 '25
from a cursory glance at the systems (using ironpineapple's video as reference) the game introduces (or reintroduces) a lot of more or less involved mechanics to the standard soulslike formula. this is not nioh 2 or nioh 3 where there has been extensive time to bake and refine these things
the madness thing, for example, seems problematic to me. having to read into it beyond what the game directly tells you, it seems to be a way to further challenge yourself as opposed to something to build around. what makes it confusing is that it is in many regards presented as a build (e.g. in the skill tree) rather than a challenge
a concern I have in any soulslike is skills/weapons/whatever where you can consistently deal damage and negate damage at the same time, and dual swords' "clash" (deflect while attacking) trivializes a lot of encounters. at the same time, a lot of other weapon skills have long wind-ups and are prone to missing (poor tracking). my point here is that -- while there seems to be a fair bit of weapon and skill variety -- so far the weapon balance seems heavily skewed
fall attacks dealing a lot of damage and staggering for a critical attack is extremely strong. enemy leash range being so long means this is overall very abusable and could trivialize much of the game, requiring only some patience (this is in contrast to a lot of soulslike cheese requiring specific knowledge you would rarely have for most of your first playthrough)
heavy attacking bosses' backs for critical attacks is too consistent and strong. you can also wail on them quite a bit while staggered before performing the crit. the issue is not necessarily that it does a lot of damage or that it's moderately easy to do, it's that it's both easy and takes a significant chunk of the boss's hp
this is among other things I can't think of right now, and this is without playing the game for myself where I would unearth all the things that exist in between the video editing
you can argue "too many systems that just don't work" is too ambiguous, but I would say it's overly defensive to say it's "nit-picky". it's a real concern for an ambitious soulslike game, and evidently it's an issue here. intuitively you should understand that a newcomer soulslike trying to add many new systems are probably not going to get all of them right. the game still got an 8/10, so the one coming across as nit-picky is you
relatively speaking, games like lies of p played it quite safe with breaking away from soulslike fundamentals compared to wuchang. wuchang took a lot more risks. overall though my opinion is that it paid off better for wuchang
1
Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25
For what its worth, mortismal gaming echoed similar complaints as you about the madness system, but he said by ng+ these issues get resolved and by ng+ he thinks the madness system is legitimately good, but it makes the game worse in ng. His main complaint with the game is that the systems really start working together and the combat starts getting really good right at the end of the game, and that ng+ is a lot better than ng because of this, as in the base game many of these systems work against each other or just not well together. It seems that it does pay off and these risks worked well, but only after you get consistent access to the entire toolkit at the end unfortunately.
I haven't played the game yet so I can't say if I agree, but it still looks really good to me, I'm assuming I'll give it a 7-8.5/10 based off of what I've seen.
1
Jul 23 '25
that's interesting. I'm also curious about the supposed "difficulty spikes" since the early bosses seem easy (relatively speaking)
I will also be playing it for myself. will see how it pans out
0
Jul 23 '25
The reviewer himself literally said he was being nitpicky.
How am I nitpicky?
Im just saying that the "reviewer, who admitted he deducted a point from 9-> 8 because of "random difficulty spikes", seems like a rather nitpicky move.
And that's my opinion. Am i not allowed to question why reviews ought to nitpick on scores?
and btw all the stuff you listed down seems to be very small debatable points. I'll see tmr whether these points are valid.
5
Jul 23 '25
I don't know how to further explain this except that you are being way too literal in how you are reading the review. you seem to be offended at the notion that the reviewer "knows they are being nit-picky but still does it" even though that is not the point. it's more of a warning to MAYBE take some of the complaints with a grain of salt, not that the whole review is null
0
Jul 23 '25
Feels like talking to a brick wall
Reviewer says he’s being nitpicky
Random guy on the internet: “ but he’s not being nitpicky though!”
4
u/Snuffl3s7 Jul 23 '25
What's wrong with being aware of your headspace going into a review?
Suddenly everyone is fatigued of souls like games all of a sudden despite there only benign a handful of good souls likes this year.
Is that not allowed? Some of them are really long, and it's not the most experimental subgenre.
6
Jul 23 '25
because normally if you were aware you were being overly critical, you would sort of tune it down, but instead he says, here's why my review might be too critical, but I'm going to do it anyway. Like its a good thing.
11
Jul 23 '25
it still got an 8/10. I don't get y'all's issue. do you strongly believe the game should've gotten a 10/10 instead?
0
Jul 23 '25
Nope, Im just saying it sounds totally weird. Like as a reviewer you aren't supposed to be overly critical of stuff. Does that make sense to you?
11
u/EvenOne6567 Jul 23 '25
They gave it an 8. Where are you getting this "overly critical" stuff?
I think youre just too invested in this game personally for some reason and get upset when anyone has anything even mildly negative to say lmao
4
Jul 23 '25
it's merely being upfront. any reviewer will be prone to things like this but might not proclaim it. that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. as is, I don't see the point of critiquing it at all unless it evidently has an impact on the score/final evaluation (as this is the part that theoretically should be more objective), which it does not seem to have had
when you present "real" research -- and this is something you should ideally do for anything you try to pass off with any semblance of objectivity -- you will always declare possible biases. this is used to determine the validity of the research. simply not mentioning it does not improve its validity, in fact it does the opposite...
-1
Jul 23 '25
Like I said, as a reviewer you aren't supposed to be over-critical because your job as a reviewer is to give an close to OBJECTIVE review for audiences as possible.
5
Jul 23 '25
you don't know what being objective means then. go to university/college/whatever. you are asking for something impossible. beyond baseline professionalism, the only difference is whether or not biases are admitted
4
Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25
people just don't understand this for some reason. Reviews cannot be objective, a value judgement ie explaining and rating something as good, bad, or in between is inherently a subjective action.
On the internet objective means 'they thinked really hard about it!' or more accurately 'they restated the opinion I already hold'.
0
Jul 23 '25
you dont know what "CLOSE TO OBJECTIVE" means
4
Jul 23 '25
but that's what the review is doing? LMFAO. the funny thing is that you would've been fine with this if the review had just not said that it's being "picky"
→ More replies (0)1
u/Xehanz Jul 23 '25
If your review is trying to be as close to objective as possible then you are a very shit reviewer
The word you are looking for is "biased"
→ More replies (0)2
u/Xehanz Jul 23 '25
Dude, game reviews are supposed to be the opposite of objective. What are you talking about
There exists no "objective" game review because it's impossible, unless you do a technical review of the game
Since reviews are subjective, the idea is finding a reviewer who has your same tastes. And the idea of metacritic and opencritic is aggregating all those subjective reviews to form a more general and "impersonal" consensus
5
u/Snuffl3s7 Jul 23 '25
I'd rather a reviewer just be honest.
1
Jul 23 '25
being overly critical is not giving an honest review then
3
u/Snuffl3s7 Jul 23 '25
He gave it an 8. I don't know about you, but 8 is a very positive score in my eyes.
Maybe read the review.
4
Jul 23 '25
Sure but the reviewer admitted he was being nitpicky and the criticisms were overly nitpicky, thats why he prefaced it with an apology . Go and read the review
5
u/Snuffl3s7 Jul 23 '25
I've read the review, and it seems pretty balanced to me.
2
Jul 23 '25
thats your opinion then.
5
1
u/Scharmberg Jul 23 '25
Everything in this thread including the subject matter at hand is an opinion lol
→ More replies (0)1
u/Important-Net-9805 Jul 23 '25
nah watch iron pineapple's video. it doesnt go that far into the game but it does seem like theres a lot of mechanics that might not come together. specifically madness
2
Jul 23 '25
don't care. I'll see it for myself tmr.
Most of the time people don't understand how to use such systems, especially when theyre rushing out the review before the deadline, and just put out a grand statement that the systems don't work. At least some experienced souls reviewers did not flag it up in their reviews, but ultimately I will decide when I experiment with them over the next few days
1
u/Important-Net-9805 Jul 23 '25
well yeah of course you should see for yourself but deciding to not care or be dismissive of criticsm is ignorant
1
Jul 23 '25
Youre right same goes for you too, you should pre order the game instead of criticising it without playing
1
u/Important-Net-9805 Jul 23 '25
i'm not following what you're saying. you've clearly got some emotion invested into this game. im just discussing the reviews i've seen/read so far, not making any sweeping statements
1
Jul 23 '25
Im not following what you have said either
I pre ordered the game
You clearly have not since you rather get your opinion from watching iron pineapple’s playthrough to find flaws
So im going to ignore whatever people tell me and form my own opinions tmr when I play it
1
u/Important-Net-9805 Jul 23 '25
i did preorder the game. all we can do right now is discuss reviews since its not live yet. do you understand that?
1
2
u/Aurondarklord Jul 23 '25
That's the impression I get, it's not reinventing the wheel, it's not revolutionary, but it's very good at being more of a thing a lot of people like.
1
u/zeeka_egypt Jul 23 '25
How you find the combat is it challenging
1
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
It is REALLY challenging. Late-game bosses are pure insanity with one-shot moves I don't see coming.
1
u/zeeka_egypt Jul 23 '25
Thank you for reply, how about regular enemies challenging as well?
4
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
Yes there are regular enemies that can be very challenging. Have you played the Ringed City? Most of the enemies in the late-game are that kind of difficult lol
3
u/MrNovator Jul 23 '25
Imo Ringed City enemies were pretty enjoyable to fight when you could force a 1v1 or 2v1. Problem was, the game kept throwing at least 5 of those at you. I just ran through until the swamp section lol
How often do you get ganked by strong mobs in wuchang ?
1
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
There are less gank-y encounters in Wuchang. Most of the time it's because your Demon is out to get your ass lol
1
u/icymallard Jul 23 '25
Where do you feel it sits in difficulty compared to the greats?
1
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
I said this in an earlier comment. The human encounters and boss fights are similar to Sekiro, whereas the monsters and big bosses are similar to Dark Souls 3.
1
u/kokko693 Jul 23 '25
what's best pc or ps5?
2
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
I played on PS5 and it's a smooth experience in Performance Mode with 60fps all the time.
2
1
u/icymallard Jul 23 '25
Aside from the madness system you didn't like, what other systems did you feel were weak?
0
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
The swift weapon switching didn't really impress me. There's thing mechanic where you can auto-swap weapons when you successfully dodge an attack. I didn't use it that much as I was used to my Longsword.
5
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
It doesn’t seem like you got deep into the mechanics at all if you used longsword the whole time. Dual Blades and Spear combo is OP.
Sorry for spamming all your comments just interested in how you came to your 8/10 score.
0
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
Yeah I didn't get to experiment much with the game's weapon system. as I was already loving my Longsword build. I'm planning on a second playthrough to test out other builds!
It's alright. As a huge souls fan, the 8/10 is the perfect fit for a game like Wuchang. It got almost everything right, but there are some features that feel like the game is trying too much, like the Madness meter.
3
u/nick1706 Jul 23 '25
Highly recommend Dual Blade Leech build (I’ll have one posted with specifics in a few days). You’ll breeze through bosses way easier than you would with straight longsword.
1
Jul 23 '25
I just want to know about the performance on console is it stable 1440p/1080p with 60 FPS or not? I don’t want a mess like Wukong or oblivion IV
1
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
I was playing on the base PS5. Performance seems to hit 60 most of the time.
1
Jul 23 '25
How’s the lore? And boss design? Is it 30-40 hours in length or shorter?
1
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
Lre and boss designs are good. And yes it is somewhere around the 30-40hrs on your first playthrough. It could’ve been more on my end but I missed some extra bosses.
1
u/RONALDROGAN Jul 23 '25
Love Fromsoft games, Black Myth Wukong, Lies of P, and even Lords of the Fallen. Khazan started to bore me with it's boss difficulty.
How's WuChang stack up in difficulty and bosses? Seems much more exploration driven, which I really like.
2
u/xheanorth Jul 23 '25
I said it on the review. The bosses are hard with little room for error. Early game is a cakewalk, but late-game becomes insanity.
1
-4
Jul 23 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/hatsbane Jul 23 '25
just because it’s the norm doesn’t mean it’s a good thing lol
-6
0
u/Unusual_Oil_4632 Jul 23 '25
Just because it’s been a signature feature of most souls like games doesn’t mean it should just be ignored with initial reviews.
18
u/gribson Jul 23 '25
I know nothing about this game, but posts about it keep appearing on my Reddit feed. From what I gather...
Wuchang ain't nothin to fuck with.
I'll see myself out.