Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Review (PS5): A Strong Soulslike With Some Major Frustrations

Whether it is felling emperors, dealing with transformed birdlike foes, or exploring beautiful bamboo forests, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a beautiful Soulslike title. It hits many of the right notes that will keep fans of the genre interested, but areas full of baited enemies and bosses with absurd difficulty swings make the game somewhat of a chore to get through. To sum up the world, it feels more like the developers of this game were, at times, more interested in filling an area with as many things as possible to annoy you than they were in creating a compelling environment. Although there are moments of pure bliss, the game features a customization menu that other Soulslikes would be jealous of.

Strategic Combat That Flows Like Water Stopped by Rocks

The biggest appeal of any Soulslike game is the combat, which Wuchang: Fallen Feather gets nearly perfect. After awakening in a cave and finding your way, you discover that there are a few weapon types to choose from that consist of longswords, axes, spears, one-handed swords, and dual swords. While this is fairly limited, each weapon type has a rather expansive skill tree, letting you customize your playstyle with each or focus on specific maneuvers.

Each of these weapons has a different attack pattern along with different benefits. Longswords, for instance, are great for hitting enemies from an increased distance, and the parry mechanic is an absolute lifesaver. Axes, on the other hand, are more up close and personal, hitting enemies with strong slashes that can sometimes throw them to the ground. No matter what weapon you choose, there is a means of making you feel powerful.

The more strategic side of combat comes from knowing when to strike, taking advantage of heavy attacks, and using skills to grant you the upper hand. For instance, timing heavy attacks to break an opponent’s guard can leave an opening for you to perform a critical strike that deals a ton of damage all at once, similar to visceral attacks in Dark Souls. Skills also come into play in a big way, with abilities such as parrying allowing you to block attacks and counter. One of my favorite skills is Icebound Escape, as it lets you dodge attacks while also throwing out a barrage of ice knives at your foes.

Unfortunately, while there feels like a lot of variety in the game, you are limited to only a small handful of weapons of each type. This does make the weapons feel more purposeful, but it limits your build capabilities in a way. A larger variety would have been nice to see, as it would have taken the build variety to new heights.

Speaking of variety, I have played through this game a total of five times. Each time, I tried to use different weapon types, but I always found myself defaulting back to longswords. The other weapon varied, but I preferred one-handed swords. The reason for the one-handed sword choice is that the game feels like it forces you into a build style early on, with many of the enemies being very susceptible to the parry skill, allowing you to breeze through the game. In each of my NG+ playthroughs, I found that I could more easily use other weapon types because I had later-game skills that made the enemies far easier. Restarting the game after knowing what I was doing, I still fell into the same issue where one weapon type stood above the rest until about halfway through the game.

Particularly, this issue came with the Commander Honglan boss, as you can feel very powerful with any weapon early on, but the game suddenly feels like it forces you into a more Sekiro-style of gameplay, where you are required to deflect if you want to defeat her. Even bosses later in the game, such as the Ming General, feel as though you are required to master deflect/parry if you want any hope of defeating them.

During my first playthrough, I luckily skipped the Ming General, obtained a spell called Ethereal Form, and discovered him later. This spell basically turned the game into easy mode for many of the more difficult bosses because it allows you to dodge attacks without trying. I went back later on and beat the game without this spell, and while it was a rewarding experience, I did notice a larger uptick in difficulty without the spell, which makes me think it is far too overpowered, taking away from the experience if you are someone who wants a challenge. Most of the combat does feel fair in the same sense as any other Soulslike title, but there are some noticeable areas where the difficulty spikes seemingly out of nowhere, particularly with bosses.

Beautiful Environments That Want to Screw You Over

From the very beginning of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, you are met with beautiful landscapes that pull you into the world and beg you to explore. At first, I thought the game was more linear than anything. The landscapes felt straightforward, and the only exploration was from the occasional side path. Thankfully, I was wrong, and the world opened up immediately after defeating the first major boss and reaching the Sanctum – one of the game’s main hubs.

At this moment, I began heavily searching, and the game soon became much more full of life. Enemy locations felt purposeful, NPCs each had deep questlines that I wanted to progress, and every nook and cranny seemed to have hidden items. I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, as exploration is ultimately my favorite part of any game.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers brought back that sense of exploration from the original Dark Souls game to me. Those who have played the Souls series know that moment when you first discover that Undeadburg loops back to Firelink, and the map just feels more intertwined than you thought. That moment hit for me in the Sanctum of Fallen Feathers, where I walked down a hill only to loop back to the start of the game.

From there, I found myself checking every tree and door to see what parts of the map connect and what parts didn’t, discovering hidden mechanics such as Inner Demons, which came as a complete surprise, in the process. It brought back such a sense of nostalgia to my first Souls experience that I didn’t expect from a title such as this.

The ultimate downfall of the level design is that large areas feel as though the developer attempted to make the most frustrating levels imaginable, and I found myself wanting to launch myself off a cliff rather than deal with the annoyance.

For instance, the snowy encampment leading to the Ming General has so many mines that are nearly impossible to see, that you can’t help but hit most of them. This ultimately felt like a slog because I either needed to move rather slowly through the area, losing all momentum I had, or rush through and pray that I wouldn’t be launched by a mine for the hundredth time. A similar instance can be found later in the game at the Zhenwu Temple, where despair-inducing enemies that can instantly kill you lie in wait around nearly every corner.

Areas like these ultimately hurt the experience and made me feel like the game was purposefully attempting to top the worst Souls game levels, and not that it matters in the greatest degree, but I was a little put off by the fact that the best despair-reducing gear in the game is also the skimpiest and most revealing.

The Verdict

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers introduces you to a beautiful new world that is very connected and full of life, with every location being more beautiful than the last. Combined with unique combat mechanics and deep build potential, a lot is going for this game. Unfortunately, the positives are weighed down by some bad level designs and gameplay that force you into specific build styles at certain points to progress. This is only made up for slightly by good exploration and interesting NPC questlines.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers was reviewed on PlayStation 5 with a code provided by 505 Games. It is also available on PC and Xbox Series X.

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