Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Review – Come for the Art, Stay for the Pain

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Review

It feels like over the past few years, Soulslikes have finally found a happy medium between punishing and pushover. Games like Lies of P and The First Berserker: Khazan can be immensely challenging but either through flexible gameplay mechanics or accessibility options, they offer rewarding experiences for a wide range of players. These games introduced some quality of life features, too, like XP that doesn’t disappear after dying repeatedly to a boss. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers moves in the another direction. You can charitably call it uncompromising or possibly unbalanced, even now and then unfair, but developer Leenzee’s new Soulslike is definitely a beautiful rose. With a lot of painful thorns.

At this point, even die-hard Soulslike fans like myself can’t help feeling a little fatigued. There are so many good games in the genre that a newcomer has to be really special to dethrone our favorites. It’s an immensely difficult assignment. Even FromSoftware wasn’t able to score an unassailable win with Nightreign. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers hopes to stand out in a few different ways. First, it often looks incredible. Second, it attempts to shake up traditional Soulslike character progression and stats with variations on standard systems. Finally, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers approaches combat in a very specific way that’s both different and potentially narrower than players might be familiar or comfortable with. 

Stun-Locked by Beauty

It’s hard to deny that Wuchang: Fallen Feathers often looks stunning in all its Unreal Engine 5 glory. This is particularly true in its outdoor locations like dense bamboo forests and snowy mountaintop temples and ruins. The earthly locations feel historically grounded, full of authentic Buddhist and Taoist iconography. The developers have clearly done their research here. The more imaginative environments, those not grounded in reality, are sometimes less successful. For example, the underground area filled with multiple status effects  – seemingly required by law – is a bit repetitive and initially feels endless. 

However, when the landscape and level design are in sync, the game’s many branching paths and hidden nooks and crannies add up to genuinely interesting hours of exploration. The world design often feels organic. It’s not an open world, but the intentional and curated spaces offer a more concentrated experience. There’s a certain amount of verticality and ladders to climb, but given the character’s inability to jump or survive even small falls, this aspect is limited.

A Familiar Malady

You play as Bai Wuchang, a pirate during the late Ming Dynasty. Wuchang suffers from amnesia, a condition that affects approximately 1% of the real world population, but upwards of 90% of video game characters. Bai Wuchang also suffers from a supernatural condition called the Feathering Disease. The Feathering is ravaging the province of Shu and turning the populace into monsters. Bai Wuchang is succumbing to the disease as well, making her a feared demon to everyone. Her search to find the source and cure drives the plot. Like the historical locations, many of the game’s NPCs and monsters are spawned from Chinese mythology and folk tales. No spoilers, but while the narrative takes some interesting twists and turns, it’s also made less engaging by a cast of generally bland and largely forgettable NPCs.

At least in passing we need to talk about Bai Wuchang’s character design, which is in line with a lot of Asian RPGs. On one hand the objectified, pandering female design feels out of place in an otherwise serious game. On the other hand, Leenzee leans into it pretty hard. Most RPGs don’t have magical panties as an armor option. I guess in the end, it will appeal to some gamers and make others feel a little uncomfortable. It’s also largely irrelevant to the game play.

Madness is Bad

The Feathering Disease and its effect on Wuchang is a great place to dive into the game’s mechanics, because it introduces a significant element of combat. Each time Wuchang kills a certain type of enemy or dies, the Feathering more and more begins to manifest in the form of Madness. At some point, the Madness consumes Bai Wuchang, making her more powerful but also more easily injured. To dispel the Madness, Wuchang has to defeat a demon version of herself which spawns near her bloodstain. If she fails, she remains in the Madness state and loses all current XP. There’s a rare item that can dispel the condition at a shrine back at the hub temple, and consumables that allow Wuchang to enter the Madness state voluntarily. 

The mechanic of increased power at the cost of health is not a new idea, but making it unavoidable and perpetually a part of combat can be frustrating. This is particularly annoying during boss encounters, where there are already some balance problems and where taking increased damage ends fights very quickly. It places players in a perpetual loop. The only way out is to teleport away from the boss and hope the demon version spawns in order to dispel the Madness. The yin/yang of the Madness mechanic would be great simply as an option. As a persistent element it leads to some frustrating and ultimately repetitive boss fights.

The demon spawn mechanic needs some minor tweaking, too. Quite often, demon Wuchang spawned in behind me and attacked before I even knew she was there, ending a run to retrieve XP before it could really begin. The concept would work much better if the demon could be more intentionally and consistently summoned. 

Tangled Web

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers does not use a standard character upgrade system, instead assigning the process of creating builds to weapons and armor. Each of the five weapon types (and their variants) have their own upgrade tree. Upgrade paths include special moves and increases in base stats like agility, strength or endurance. Like in The First Berserker: Khazan, players can freely re-spec at any shrine. Instead of reconfiguring some core stats, however, Wuchang requires a deep dive into the branching upgrade paths to reassign points. It’s a good idea. It can also feel unnecessarily convoluted. 

Wuchang’s most important combat mechanic is Skyborn Might, which powers both magic and most special attacks. The primary generator of Skyborn Might is a successful perfect dodge or a succession of hits. Some weapon types come with the built-in ability to block or parry. Unfortunately, these familiar moves don’t work against magic or other common enemy tactics like kicks. In other words, you’d better master the perfect dodge. Players can equip up to four magic spells – the power of which can be increased in the weapon upgrades – but they take a very long time to become a legitimately effective option. Being a pure spellcaster is possible but becoming one will take a lot of patience, skill and time to develop.

The Skyborn Magic mechanic pushes the player into a very specific play style that leans into aggressive up-close moves. It also — of course — punishes mistakes, to possibly an unfair degree.

Whole and Parts

When all of Wuchang’s systems come together in combat, it can be extremely satisfying and rewarding. Unfortunately, the game embraces what now feel like outdated mechanics. Anyone who remembers how long chugging an Estus flask took in the original Dark Souls will feel the same annoyance with Wuchang’s slow healing. The recovery animation from being knocked down or staggered is so protracted that the enemy has already landed another attack. Some bosses are fun to spar with. Others feel like a collection of unfair tactics, uninterruptable insta-kill attacks and ridiculously large health bars. In particular, the first few hours of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers are in serious need of rebalancing. Character progression feels slower than in most Soulslikes. 

At least on the PS5, there were a few freezes and stutters during combat, one of which ruined a nearly successful boss fight. I had a hard time finding the framerate vs graphics sweet spot, but there are a reasonable number of options to play with. 

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers often looks best-in-class fantastic. That impressive visual excellence is rarely matched by its audio. While the ambient environmental sounds and music are evocative, the boss battle music is nothing like the symphonic grandeur we’ve come to expect. I usually turned it off.

It’s Complicated

As a Soulslike player with tens of thousands of hours invested in the genre, I came away from Wuchang: Fallen Feathers with a complex mix of emotions. It’s one of the best-looking of the recent Soulslikes, and when its combat feels balanced, it is a lot of fun. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is encumbered by a few too many mechanics, sluggish animations, boss fights that need a tune up and slow progression. But it’s also a value-priced, substantial game with multiple endings and the potential for long-term play beyond the credits. It treads extremely familiar ground to be sure. Its greatest appeal might be to those devoted Soulslike players who are looking for an unadulterated old school challenge with up-to-date production values and new systems to learn. 

***PS5 code provided by the publisher for review***

---

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Guides:

• Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – Wiki
• Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – How to Get All Endings
• Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – All Collectibles
• Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – Side Quests
• Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – Bosses
• Wuchang: Fallen Feathers – Trophy Guide