Wuchang Fallen Feathers review - a gold-standard soulslike

I'll let you in on a secret: I don't play soulslikes for the bosses. While there are some obvious outliers, most resolve into the same routine of dodges and parries, a DDR-style learning curve of tactile rhythm designed to test your muscle memory. The euphoria of beating a boss reaches its zenith in soulslikes, but it's a fleeting satisfaction. Instead, it's everything between bosses that sustains me. Lucky for me, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers seizes the soulslike tradition of rich and diverse world presentation and runs.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers joins Black Myth: Wukong and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty in the growing cavalcade of soulslikes games based on Chinese history and mythology. While the latter two take place during the perennially popular Three Kingdoms period, Wuchang draws its inspiration from the Great Plague in the late Ming dynasty. Its protagonist is the titular Wuchang, a pirate warrior stricken with amnesia, an avian affliction, and a misplaced sister. Like Game Science before it, Chengdu-based developer Leenzee is a next-to-unknown quantity, but the pitch alone is enough to prove its potential.

Soulslikes are traditionally lonely affairs - a bid to emulate FromSoftware's moody atmosphere, more often than not. Wuchang embarks on a solo expedition, yet she's far from alone. From the mellifluous He Youzai to the genial Nian Suichang, there is a sense of community and society here. Often, the enemies I encounter aren't undead, demonic, or otherwise corrupted. They're human; Wuchang is the monster here. Foragers with bamboo baskets cower in fear at my approach, while despairing women in military tents huddle on straw mats. Unlike Elden Ring, Lords of the Fallen, and countless other soulslikes, we don't begin at the end of the world. Instead, the stakes are higher because Shu is teetering on the brink.

To clarify, Wuchang is far from a prestige TV-style game. However, its story inarguably benefits from the verisimilitude of history. You're not killing god because a weird snake with human teeth told you to; you're trying to find your sister in a war-torn and plague-stricken province. It's dark fantasy grounded in Ming philosophy and the archaeological remnants of Sanxingdui, carefully drip-fed to a Western audience. If Dark Souls was trying to bring Western folkloric tradition to the East, then Wuchang is the other way around. Sekiro fans will be well aware of how effective this worldbuilding method can be, and it holds true for Wuchang.

Echoes of FromSoftware's works are endemic throughout Wuchang. The voices of disembodied villagers condole, lament, and jeer at me from inside their dwellings. A young girl entreats me to track down her family, then dissolves into sobs when I return with evidence of her father's death - a dead ringer to Father Gascoigne's daughter in Bloodborne. Even Nian Suichang, an ambitious warrior perpetually thwarted by obstacles that require my helping hand, is a throwback to Siegmeyer of Catarina in Dark Souls. When I cross a rope bridge suspended across a chasm in Wuchang, I half-expect a facsimile of Sekiro's Great Serpent to strike it down. I suppose these flashes of familiarity are meant to tweak my nostalgia, or at least assure me that Leenzee knows its history; all it does is make Wuchang seem more derivative than it actually is.

Wuchang's semi-open world structure strikes a happy medium between tight level design and freedom of exploration. Leenzee has a clear fondness for the often-coveted Dark Souls "aha!" moment. I've lost count of the number of times I've unlocked a door, only to find it leads to an area I passed through hours ago. As in Dark Souls, my perception of Wuchang's Shu region dilates as I explore. I labour to keep a mental note of paths not taken and doors that proclaim they "do not open from this side," marveling at each area's scale as it unfolds. Then, I reach one of these shortcuts, and my perception contracts with familiarity. The result is a world that feels simultaneously vast yet intimate.

FromSoftware is a master at this impression of space, but it's rare to see it reproduced by another studio to such great effect. If I'm getting frustrated with a particular area or boss, I'm not condemned to bang my head against a brick wall until I finally break through to the other side. There's often another road to take, one that lets me rack up some level-up currency, pick up a new weapon, or further a questline, before finally coming back for another attempt at bringing that wall down. Wuchang's scale is reflected in its length, which is frankly absurd, nudging up against Elden Ring's innings. Regardless, it manages to sustain itself with its assorted locations, even if the enemy variety is not as extensive as FromSoftware's epic.

Cast through the lens of modern soulslikes, I consider Wuchang the antithesis to Black Myth Wukong. Game Science wore its 100+ bosses like a badge of honor, a challenge issued to any would-be soulslike fan. Wuchang kicks off with the traditional FromSoftware structure, even tossing in a classic hopeless boss fight tutorial that spells doom for the vast majority of first-time players - think Elden Ring's Grafted Scion dressed up as Bloodborne's Orphan of Kos. However, it soon deviates from expectation.

Instead, Leenzee employs boss encounters like punctuation marks. They are a puzzle to be solved, not a skill check to be brute-forced through copious trial and error. Don't get me wrong, there's still ample challenge to be found here, but the times that Wuchang drives me to frustration are exceedingly rare. Reaction-based moves, such as dodges and counters, all have an exceptionally generous window, giving the overall impression that Leenzee is less inclined to reward players for the speed at which they press a button, but for how well they respond to situations.

The backbone of Wuchang's combat system is Skyborn Might, a combat currency initially earned through pulling off perfect dodges, that you can expend to execute powerful skills and spells. Leenzee has taken mana out of the equation entirely, folding its magic system into the rhythm of combat flow. Stamina management is minimal, and strikes me as token prevention against Wuchang turning into an all-out hack-and-slash. It becomes even less of an issue the more I invest in Wuchang's endurance stat.

Soulslikes often corner me into committing to my early-game build for the long haul, whether that's due to a limited ability to respec or the hours invested in a specific weapon type. Lies of P and Black Myth Wukong took big steps towards shaking off this lingering Dark Souls hangover, but Wuchang casts it off entirely. At any point, I can hop into the skill tree and refund every point in a weapon branch, and then reinvest it elsewhere.

Skill trees are a late addition to soulslike convention, ushered into common parlance by the likes of Sekiro and Wukong. Compared to their compact structure, Wuchang's skill tree is a massive constellation. Minor stat nodes are the stepping stones to health upgrades and new weapon skills, providing latent growth without agonizing over point distribution at bonfires or sites of grace. Don't like dodging for Skyborn Might? That's okay - there are plenty of alternative means to earn it lurking in those branches.

Traditionally, the argument against this freedom is that you can just spec into whatever can exploit a tough enemy's weaknesses. Leenzee doesn't just embrace this possibility - it actively promotes it. Wuchang is a glass-cannon sorceress, an axe-wielding berserker, a parry-happy swordswoman, and an elemental rogue, all in a single playthrough. The only drawback to all this choice is the sheer amount of time spent in menus to restructure your build. You've decided to drop your trusty spear and take a one-handed sword for a spin? Be prepared to manually rearrange your benedictions, skills, spells, pendants, even item slots.

This extends to Wuchang's equipment loadout. I'll always sacrifice superior armor stats for the sake of fashion, but Leenzee demands careful deliberation. I can mix-and-match my outfits to stave off frostbite while hiking up a frigid mountainside, stymy the corruptive excretions from a cave-dwelling centipede, and even reinforce myself against the onslaught of a military commander's longsword. It helps that Wuchang has a transmog system; I never have to settle for a mish-mash of gooner bait and bandit chic when I've got a solid Lautrec cosplay on standby.

I'm as guilty as the next person of hoarding items in RPGs, but for me, consumables are nigh-on contrary to the soulslike experience. Their rarity and one-time usage make it all too easy for them to go to waste in unfamiliar situations, and so they're often left to gather dust in my inventory until new game plus. Again, Leenzee understands this impulse implicitly. Wuchang regularly throws consumables at me from all quarters, and I never feel the need to ration. Temperance is a direct answer for those of us who stockpile resin, grease, and similar weapon buffs. It functions similarly to Elden Ring's Flask of Wondrous Physick: infinitely replenishable, customizable, with the bonus of further upgrades in the skill tree.

Wuchang isn't entirely free from consequence, but failure is blunted enough that it's rare to feel truly backed into a corner. Like Sekiro, you lose a fraction of red mercury upon death, but it's free from the old-school sting of losing everything in one fell swoop. It also liberates players from the endless loop of soul retrieval. Sure, you might retrace your steps anyway, but it's not a total loss if you'd rather go and do something else. I don't feel a pressing need to track my currency counter; more often than not, I'm surprised at how much red mercury I've accrued since the last time I looked at it.

In the face of insurmountable odds, Wuchang's Inner Demon system is a breath of fresh air. Rather than kick you while you're down like most soulslikes, Leenzee offers a leg up without diminishing the challenge entirely. Every death ticks up Wuchang's madness until you reach a threshold where she both deals and receives more damage. This clear-cut trade-off gives you just enough of an edge to clear whatever hurdle you're stuck on, then offers a fast and free way to dispel it afterwards. Sure, this involves fighting a demonic clone that invades at random, but even so, it's hard to imagine FromSoftware doling out damage buffs for free. It's even possible to pit your manifest demon against elite enemies, which makes for a fun spectator sport as you watch them duke it out, then tag back in to finish off the victor. In Wuchang, even death itself is an opportunity.

Once again, Unreal Engine 5 is the fly in the upscaled ointment of modern game design. Wuchang's system requirements are well within my rig's reach, and yet I'm plagued with framerate drops at the least opportune moments. My heart-in-throat confrontation with Commander Honglan is beset by stop-motion intervals that have me missing dodge windows and counters - in an enclosed arena, no less. These performance hiccups extend to specific loading points in general exploration, though they're thankfully less egregious. Wuchang's world is beautiful, but I'd trade all the visual fidelity in the world for a consistent framerate.

With so many soulslikes flooding the market in recent years, it's easy to conclude that we've hit the ceiling for what the genre can offer. However, Wuchang proves that there's yet more iteration to carve out from its well-worn facade, if not to the same magnitude as FromSoftware managed with Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. Wuchang's myriad deviations and remedies for the pain points endemic throughout soulslikes speak to a studio that's not content to settle for a pale imitation of FromSoftware. Leenzee pays its respects, but doesn't consider it an infallible arbiter. I called Wukong a GOTY contender last year; Wuchang is just as good, if not better.