Black Myth: Wukong - Player Review

(Forewarning to any and all readers, this article will contain features, pictures, and some main story of the Black Myth: Wukong game. If you don't wish to be spoiled, please keep this warning in mind.)

With the games recent release, Black Myth: Wukong, has certainly garnered attention. The game has already sold more that 4.5 million copies across platforms, and it was only made available on August 20th, 2024! It's quite obvious this game is well received by the gaming community, but what's the game about anyway, and why's it such a big deal?

Some people already know how the Journey to the West, a Chinese novel published in the 16th century and the story the game is based around. While there's reference to Sun Wukong's Journey, this game takes place soon after. The story begins with Sun Wukong confronting the army of the heavens and a few members of the celestial court, who demand that Sun Wukong return to the heavenly court by threatening to destroy his home mountain along with his simian kind who reside there. Faced with no other choice, he fight and nearly bests the assailants but is then defeated. While he was defeated, he managed to split himself into six relics, or senses as they've been referred to in game.

The game take you through chapters of five main areas to find these relics. Each area has it's own setting and subplots that you can freely revisit. While it's not a soulsgame it does require resource and level grinding as there are skill trees and the player can even craft armor. The third-person gameplay really let's you take on the games setting, especially during combat. As the Destined One (the player) travel through the chapters, you encounter many foes ranging from Yaoguai, deities, and immortals. The Destined One is a melee fighter who relies on a mixture of his staff and spells. These skills are honed as you level up and gain points, not to be confused with the currency system of Will, that you earn by defeating enemies. Once you gain points you can apply these to a variety of skills which consist of core stats, staff styles, and your spells. While this is the primary way to gain points, there are meditative spots throughout the levels that give you a point. Not only can you upgrade your skills, you can also upgrade your mana, stamina, as well as health as you progress. Some of which happen after a boss fight where you find special pills that increase your stats. This game can certainly be challenging, but fear not because it also provides ample resources to strategies and improve your gameplay. The games boss fights can certainly be rage inducing, believe me I don't rage but those fights were something else, but the graphics and scenery sure do make the make a sight for sore eyes.

The games scenery is nothing less than beautiful, even the boss arenas had such fascinating detail. As you go through the game you go through forests, rivers, bamboo, temples ect. The attention to detail to these areas bring home the feel of the game. The game is littered with details temples that are often abandoned, and lively lush forests that make you want to take pictures around every corner. While this detail is coveted for story based games, it can be very overwhelming to explore. Some areas are just too large for what it brings to the story, and scatters items thin and far between that it can be hard to keep track of everything.

Overall, Black Myth: Wukong is a great game with great pros as well as some annoying cons. The game itself is a interesting spin on of Sun Wukong. Though the fighting can be repetitive, the story is semi fragmented so its hard to stay excited to learn more. Even so, the game has gained my thumbs up purely from the love I can see that was put into making this game. I truly think this game with go far, and that Game Science will go farther with this such a game as this in their portfolio.

(Credit to Game Science, the developer of Black Myth: Wukong, https://www.heishenhua.com/)

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