WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers Review: A Chinese Souls-like Masterpiece (PS5)

Fighting against a disease that threatens to rob your humanity is a tough situation, especially when it robs you of your memory. That disease has also ravaged the land with several factions taking advantage of the chaos to assume control. With your unique ability to use the disease to empower yourself, fight your way through stunning landscapes and powerful bosses. Decide how you want to defeat enemies and experiment with the myriad options available to you.

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers polishes the souls-like formula to give you a strong gameplay experience. The foundations are similar but new additions make gameplay more challenging while also giving the player more combat options. Some aspects like the story feel like missed opportunities for improvement. However, WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers more than makes up for its flaws to deliver a stunning masterpiece you won’t forget.

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S for USD 49.99.

Every battle is a learning opportunity even if you fail.

Story – The Feathering is Everywhere

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers puts you in the role of the titular Wuchang, a pirate warrior who lost her memories after contracting the Feathering. The Feathering is a disease that turns people into creatures and arrived in the land of Shu around six months ago. Several factions are battling for supremacy in the remains of the ravaged world. Wuchang must fight her way to a potential cure for the Feathering to regain her memories and find the people important to her.

Unlike games such as Elden Ring, you don’t get to build your own character as you only play as Wuchang. Focusing on a single character allows Wuchang to exist within the narrative rather than be a random pawn in the story. Wuchang visits locations not just because the game asks you to, but because she believes she’ll find answers or clues. This invests you in the story as characters react to her achievements and progress, instead of giving generic progression responses.

Wuchang is part of the story instead of being a generic character.

However, the story isn’t strong and resembles previous games in the genre. You must pick up clues about the setting from exploring and talking to people. While there is good exposition in the beginning, it’s easy to miss out on details if you don’t fully explore places. It feels like a missed opportunity since more focus on Wuchang and the story would complement the impressive setting.

Setting – Ming Dynasty in Ruins

One of the best parts about the game is how well the late Ming Dynasty is portrayed. Even if you aren’t familiar with China’s culture or history, the game’s world is easy to understand. Wuchang’s background as a pirate warrior is realistic and no one thinks her skills are odd. Portuguese missionaries are promoting Christianity even if their presence is small. There’s a rebellion just as there was in the final days of the dynasty.

Characters acknowledge Wuchang and talk about her progress.

The supernatural elements also reflect several beliefs held at the time. Traditional Chinese medicine is your main hope of curing the Feathering. Taoism is a religion that has found some success against the monsters. Even if liberties are taken to accommodate the supernatural, the richness of Chinese culture is prevalent throughout the game. You feel like you are in a wuxia story with action-packed scenes though it’s not always martial arts-focused.

That level of immersion draws the player into the world and you feel the impact of the Feathering. The land is ravaged by conflict, people are losing hope, and monsters are everywhere. Even through all that misery, you understand the risks people take for a better life. You relate their actions even if they seem silly in hindsight. That’s the power of the setting and it’s a shame that the story didn’t get as much detail.

The supernatural aspects easily blend in with normal life.

Gameplay – The Woman of Several Proficiencies

Danger is everywhere in WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers and the world is built to push your skills. Enemies are sometimes waiting behind doors or dropping from heights above you. You take lots of damage while it takes several hits to bring down enemies. Traps are hard to see and can kill you. Bosses are powerful and will kill you in a few hits. Every revival is a chance to learn from your failures as you fight the same situations repeatedly.

If you have played games like Dark Souls before, you know what to expect. This game doesn’t reinvent the wheel and you feel like you are playing a generic souls-like with a Chinese twist. What the game does is give you new methods to fight and add more risk vs. reward mechanics. This makes experimentation easier and lets you think about turning some situations to your advantage.

Different outfits provide advantages that may help for different areas.

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers uses the Impetus Repository system to let you develop and explore combat options against powerful enemies. The Inner Demon system puts a penalty on dying too often but also provides a unique way to defeat enemies. Putting those systems together adds a level of complexity and freedom that you don’t see in other souls-like games. This also makes gameplay more fun since you aren’t worried about making big mistakes.

Systems – Take Advantage of Them

Regular souls-like games have you allocate stats and weapon upgrades permanently for a single playthrough. This means committing to a single build and punishing players if that build isn’t optimal. WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers allows you to allocate points through the Impetus Repository system as your way of leveling up. If you make a mistake or need a new build for a boss, you can reset your points for free.

The game gives you several options to make battle easier.

The Inner Demon system has a resource called Madness that accumulates when you die or defeat humanoid enemies. When your Madness reaches its maximum capacity, a hostile copy of yourself spawns in the area where you died. That copy charges at you but can also be used to defeat other enemies with the right planning. You can also build up your Madness on purpose to exploit this.

Resetting your level-up points whenever you want without a cost lets you experience the full depth of combat. You can try new weapon builds, learn different skills, and potentially find a new edge against a challenging boss. Learning to manage the Inner Demon system also provides new options though it’s not effective against bosses. These come together to shake up the usual formula, giving you more strategies to deal with tough situations. However, this also makes WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers harder to learn than other games.

The Inner Demon is a nightmare for you and your enemies.

Difficulty – More to Learn

Introducing several new systems and mechanics is a great way to innovate but it also means there’s more to learn. There are far more concepts and abilities to master in WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers that lead to a steep learning curve. It doesn’t help that the game isn’t always clear on some concepts and that leads to frustration when things don’t work as you hope. This also disincentivizes you to switch builds since you must learn a new style of combat every time.

For example, blocking and deflecting is a helpful way of preventing enemy attacks from harming you. Done correctly, the enemy becomes vulnerable and gives you an opening to strike. You can’t block magic, punches, or kicks as it only applies to weapons. However, it’s not always clear what is and isn’t magic. Is a wind slash launched by a sword considered magic? What if a sword is lit on fire? Can enemies larger than you be vulnerable to deflection?

Are those flaming claws considered a magical or physical attack?

This makes learning how to block a painful process as you figure out what can be deflected. Even magic is not immune to this; you can get hit while casting and use that to your advantage. But that’s another risky maneuver that takes practice. While dying and improving is part of the formula, WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers demands significantly more practice time. If you aren’t mastering the new concepts, expect the game to be nearly impossible to overcome. 

Audio & Visual – Solid Efforts on Both Fronts

Even though the land of Shu has been ravaged by the chaos of the Feathering, it is still gorgeous to look at. When you step into a relatively safe area, trees are vibrant, buildings are colourful, and the landscape is soothing. Devastated locations are crumbling, burned down, or squalid to show the damage. But even in the devastation, the level of detail put into these locations is hard to miss and it looks amazing.

One of the best parts about the audio is that the English and Chinese voice acting is well done. Normally English voice actors struggle with pronunciation and it’s obvious when you hear it. Fortunately, more effort is put into the pronunciation and while it isn’t perfect, it’s likely the best in any Chinese game thus far. Both language options convey emotions perfectly, and the sound effects of battle are easy to make out.

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by Renaissance PR.