In a space as crowded as the soulslike genre, it can be difficult to stand out, but after two hours with the uber-difficult Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, it seems the folks at Leenzee Games may be onto something. Taking place in a magical reimagining of dynastic China, you play a pirate warrior who has some serious moves, making use of intricate and deadly spells, an arsenal of weapons with potent movesets, and an upgrade tree that’s much more involved than your typical action-adventure game. This makes for an adventure where, more often than not, I felt like the scary badass the rest of the world should be afraid of, rather than the other way around. Of course, the upper limit on just how much I could make myself feel like an overpowered Dynasty Warriors character was my own skill level and understanding of Wuchang’s extremely complex systems, which I could only dive so deep with during my limited demo. But what I’ve seen so far has me quite optimistic.
The main way Wuchang: Fallen Feathers seems to differentiate itself from its peers is that here, instead of a few basic sword moves, a handful of meager spells and abilities, and a tiny health bar, you’re given a pretty extensive toolkit of formidable tools to play with. Each weapon allows you to unleash unique flurries of attacks that send you soaring into the air, darting across the map, and performing insane feats of dexterity that are far beyond what’s possible in most soulslikes. It got to the point where I felt like the area boss stomping my enemies flat, rather than a scared, cautious adventurer facing incredible odds.
That feeling of superiority might have something to do with how those abilities are acquired: by harvesting them from fallen enemies. That’s right! Every defeated foe is more than just a handful of upgrade materials. You actually get to learn their moves and put them to use against future opponents, eventually turning you into a deadly reflection of everyone you’ve bested in battle, and in my time with it I already began to feel like a power-stealing badass in short order. And this was just the opening areas of the adventure too – I can only imagine how wild things get later on when you’re squaring off against more powerful opponents and presumably unlocking even more insane abilities.
I can only imagine how wild things get later on when you’re squaring off against more powerful opponents and presumably unlocking even more insane abilities.
Don’t get me wrong: there were still plenty of instances where my eagerness or lack of awareness got me absolutely smashed to pieces, but I also felt like I had way more options for cutting the enemy down to size. For example, one move I was given while wielding a giant ax let me leap straight into the air to ludicrous anime-level heights, then smash down on my opponent, stomping them flat and leaving a minion-shaped impression in the earth. Another weapon, fast moving dual blades, gave me the ability to fire off a bunch of small, sticky explosives every time I dodged, which then exploded doing a small amount of damage, but more importantly, interrupting enemy movement.
These abilities and weapon combos, combined with spells that let me do things like fire off a deadly disc of fire, allowed me to play much more aggressively than I’m accustomed to, and it’s clear there’s just a whole lot more to learn with Wuchang in general. I didn’t have nearly enough time to fully wrap my mind around the various skill trees, ability customization options that let me alter how my weapons functioned, and spellcasting system, but it’s clear this borrows quite a bit from RPGs and will need to be thought through if you want to max out your levels of badassery.
That will be pretty helpful to do too, because of the two bosses I took on in Wuchang, one of them was extremely aggressive and equally beefed up with fancy movesets. It took me quite a few tries to learn her quick, convoluted attack patterns, and master the timing for parrying her attacks, especially in the second half of the fight when each swipe of her blade sent out massive gusts of wind that knocked my on my butt and did way more damage than I thought the wind was capable of. Eventually, though, I stood triumphant against her devilish tricks. Rather than a feeble goon hopelessly outmatched by an enemy clearly above my power level, Wuchang’s boss fights made me feel a lot more like a peer locked in a duel with strong weapons and destructive abilities to see who was more worthy of success.
If there’s one part I didn’t get a completely strong read on, it’s Wuchang’s story, which centers on a disease spreading throughout the lands that drives people mad and makes them sprout feathers. I didn’t see enough to say whether or not this is likely to go the distance, but I will say I’ve lost count of the number of soulslikes in the past few years that have leaned on that incredibly tired trope. I get that having a disease that turns people into monsters offers a pretty easy reason to make everything in the world want to kill you, which is very helpful in this kind of game, but man am I ever tired of seeing it. I’d really like to see Wuchang break free from some of the story cliches in the same way it seems to be switching things up when it comes to combat style.
I get that having a disease that turns people into monsters offers a pretty easy reason to make everything in the world want to kill you, which is very helpful in this kind of game, but man am I ever tired of seeing it.
It’s also worth noting just how visually impressive Wuchang is, which is by no means the norm for the genre. Even if I was dying half a dozen times to the same boss or lost among a sea of disgusting, mutated enemies, I was at least able to content myself with how downright gorgeous everything looked, ruined and deeply troubling as the world was. That said, I did notice somewhat long load times after each humiliating defeat that respawned me back at a checkpoint, and I have to wonder how much of that hang time is owed to the world and characters looking so dang good. In fairness, there’s very little chance this thing’s been optimized enough to be representative of the final product, but since I was playing on a PC that seemed fairly powerful, it’s definitely something I’m going to want to keep an eye on as I check out future builds.
With only a short exploration area and two boss fights to contend with, I only caught a small glimpse at Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, but I already feel pretty good about its chances at being more than just another soulslike to add to the ridiculously overflowing pile. The movesets are intricate and interesting, the RPG mechanics seem deep and offer a lot of freedom (even if I can’t claim to understand some of them fully), and the boss fights gave me a serious run for my money that’s rare these days. All that’s already got me pretty excited to play more.
