In a year that has already seen The First Berserker: Khazan, AI Limit, the Lies of P expansion and, of course, Elden Ring: Nightreign, you might be forgiven for overlooking Wuchang: Fallen Feathers as just another Soulslike swimming in an increasingly overcrowded pond. But Leenzee’s adventure does a few things to set itself apart from at least most of the shoal.
Positioning itself somewhere between Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Black Myth: Wukong, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers follows the titular heroine through a fantastical version of ancient China where a disease called the Feathering is turning humans into bird-like monsters. The quest for the cure leads her through numerous environments and into encounters with grotesque mutants and rival warriors, as she works alongside a group of NPCs struggling to survive.
At least, that’s as much sense as I could really make of the story. Wuchang suffers heavily from the usual Soulslike issue, which is to say its story is largely indecipherable nonsense conveyed through flavour text, dialogue without proper context, and whatever lofty nonsense bosses growl at you before trying to eat you. As a result I moved through it much as I did Wukong, going from encounter to encounter, either fighting or talking until it was time to kill something and continue.
The world itself doesn’t do an awful lot to really stand out, presenting the usual cavalcade of locales that tick all the boxes without breaking any moulds. There’s an industry-standard Blight Town, of course, as well as a version of Caelid, and a variety of tombs, dungeons, forests, and abandoned towns. If you’ve played anything in the genre in recent years, you’ve probably seen this all before. And yet, despite this familiarity, Wuchang felt surprisingly, and quite consistently, fresh.
A lot of this is down to the way it presents established concepts. Like Wukong it’s very dodge-centric, at least to begin with. It actually decided to tutorialise blocking and parrying at around the 10-hour mark for me, which was followed by one of the most infuriating and downright one-sided boss fights I’ve seen. I’ve got no issue with Soulslikes being tough, after all that’s kind of the point, but some of Wuchang’s bosses border on being outright frustrating as opposed to fun. This particular boss was simply too fast for me to effectively counter, presenting me with zero challenge until I got her to half health at which point she went ape-shit, and I found that nothing I’d learned up until this point was effective.
Yet, by comparison, some of the bosses rolled over like puppies waiting for a tummy-rub, which created a sense of uneven difficulty that made some encounters feel simply over-tuned. Again, I’m not complaining about the challenge; I just prefer it to be consistent. Regardless, it does a decent job in the minute-to-minute gameplay of tying together gameplay elements we’ve seen before in a different coloured bow.
One thing I did find incredibly rewarding was exploration. While some of Wuchang’s level design feels almost obtuse, with shortcuts that lead to places I’m sure they shouldn’t lead to, actually investigating every side path and hidden alcove revealed an abundance of items in the form of consumables, currency, and gear. As is par for the course, currency is spent both on vendor purchases and levelling up Wuchang’s abilities. But instead of increasing individual stats, you spend said currency (called “mercury”) to unlock nodes on a sprawling talent tree.
Talents you unlock pertain to your spells, health refills, and weapon type (or types) of choice. I used Longswords almost exclusively, and so focused on them, unlocking Disciplines that granted me special abilities at the cost of a rechargeable resource called Skyborn Might. This is essentially mana (although in Wuchang, manna is the drink that stands in for Estus), the resource pool from which you cast spells and activate Discipline attacks and weapon-specific arts. Here, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers excels at giving you options, from special parries and draw attacks that trigger when you switch between two weapons, to devastating spells and buffs, or throwable items like bombs and daggers.
Combat is a treat, even when bosses are pounding you into the mud. You can add special trinkets to your blades, and use a technique known as Temperance to apply temporary buffs to specific weapons thanks to your Feathering. But what makes combat such a joy is how fluidly Wuchang moves; each attack and dodge is incredibly responsive. Dodging at the right time is the primary way to regain Skyborn Might, although there are items that can help there. Beware though, as using them, as with dying, increases your Madness.
Each death and rebirth increases the Feathering Madness, which will eventually spawn a demon at the point where you dropped your mercury (unless in a boss arena). When you approach it, the demon will attack and you’ll need to kill it to reclaim your XP and banish your Madness. Though handily, it will also attack any enemies in the vicinity and save you a job. It’s not considerably tough, designed to be more of a hindrance than a challenge, but it can be annoying on particularly long corpse runs. Oh, and on that note, Wuchang desperately needs more save points as they are just far to wide spread.
Like last year’s Stellar Blade, Wuchang delights in dressing its protagonist in armour that seems somewhat “impractical” at times, but some of the armour, spell, and boss design is very good, and it all ties in perfectly well with the world Leenzee has created for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. The biggest complaint have is with the performance, which on PS5 has been a little choppy, with horrendous screen-tear in places, as well as dropped frames and stuttering. It improved a little after a pre-release patch, so hopefully LeenZee is on the case.
Despite some issues with uneven performance and difficulty, and a mostly impenetrable story, I enjoyed Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. Anyone put off recent Soulslikes by a perceived lack of challenge need not worry: Wuchang is at least on par with Wo Long as far as difficulty is concerned, while its mostly linear world design echoes Black Myth quite closely. And yet even though so much of it feels familiar, it has a heart and personality of its own that are sure to win it a following.
