In “Black Myth Wukong” you can dive into a dense mythical gaming world based on Buddhism and Chinese mythology. New realms wait to be discovered while you play as the descendant of the fictional character Sun Wukong from the story “Journey To The West” by Wu Cheng’en. Travel through six mountains for ancient relics held by members of the celestial court, and conquer gods and demons in a quest to bring back your ancestor, Sun Wukong. Set in the 7th century Tang Dynasty China, build your character in this legendary journey.
“Black Myth Wukong” starts with a small tutorial that shows the grandness of the game’s graphics, world, and character design. A series of cutscenes with mixed-in gameplay commence, in which players harness their many abilities and deal high damage, allowing them to fully understand the game’s combat mechanics without much struggle, until they are finally put in as your character, The Destined One. The character has abilities and appearance similar to the book’s Sun Wukong, as the player follows in his footsteps and ventures on a journey to resurrect him.
What instantly drew me to “Black Myth Wukong” is the hype surrounding the game and its contribution to the “souls-like” genre. Upon starting the game for the first time, I was greeted by amazing visual graphics and performance. I played on a first-generation PS5 with active performance settings and throughout my 40+ hours of gameplay, I experienced little frame loss and great picture quality.
The game combines role-playing game (RPG) mechanics with beat ’em-up-like gameplay to create difficult, immersive, and satisfying combat. Having played many action RPG and souls-like games, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time playing it. With great puzzle-solving through dialogue and secrets waiting to be discovered, each region feels like it has boundless secrets. For example, after completing the first two chapters I found a secret item that allowed me to travel back and fight secret dragons in chapters 1 and 2.
Additionally, the progression, story, and interface feel magnificent; everything is easy to navigate and learn. The story moves forward amazingly well with your character and creates a great balance between how strong your character seems to be and how strong they actually are. The gameplay is much like “Bloodborne” or the “Dark Souls Trilogy,” but the progression and amount of story are similar to games like “God of War.” The gritty environment feels reminiscent of “Ghost of Tsushima” being set in war-torn East Asia.
With so many positives and few complaints, it’s extremely easy to want to play again and recommend to others. The major critique I have is that the game is meant to be played in Mandarin, meaning the characters’ lips don’t match the English dubbing, though this hardly matters when everything else is great.
To gamers who are new to the genre, or aren’t great at fast-paced RPGs, “Black Myth Wukong” does come with many challenges concerning its boss fights. It may be frustrating to play, some fights took me over an hour to complete, although that hardly compares to games like “Elden Ring” or “Bloodborne.” “Black Myth Wukong” still has its challenges, but it has taken the crown for me and cemented itself as my new favorite game. Yeah, it’s that good.
Though, with the difficulty of the game and its longevity, it’s not for everyone. If you’re up for a challenge and have the time I highly recommend picking this game up, especially with more downloadable content (DLC) to be released in the near future.
