Black Myth: Wukong was a game I’d been eagerly waiting for since it was first revealed in 2020. Like many others, I was skeptical about whether the developers could deliver on such an ambitious project. I don’t think the Steam reviews and player counts accurately reflect the reality. The overwhelmingly positive reviews and high player counts are largely driven by nationalistic support from China, where the game is celebrated as a major achievement. While my review is positive because I do believe the game is good, I also think it is kind of overrated. As always, I aim to provide honest opinions and a truthful assessment of my experience. I am writing this review after actually completing this game, unlike every review with 2 hours and claiming it GOTY.

Graphics and Optimization

The game’s graphics are outstanding. The visual fidelity, from the breathtaking environments to the intricate character designs, is top-notch. The animations, visual effects, and render distance are all impressive, adding to the game’s overall looks. The sound effects are equally well done, though the soundtrack leaves much to be desired. While the game runs smoothly for the most part, Chapter 3, particularly the snowy maps, does suffer from performance issues. Despite this, the overall optimization is solid, and the game manages to maintain its high graphical standards without too many hiccups.

Bosses and Combat

The bosses in Black Myth: Wukong are a real feat to play against. When it was revealed that the game had 81 bosses, I was sure that at least half of them would be replicated, similar to what we saw in Elden Ring. But it's shocking and great to say that more than 90% of the bosses in the game are unique, each one fun to play and mostly well-designed. However, most of the bosses are surprisingly easy. Speaking of difficulty, I’ve seen some people argue that Wukong isn’t a Soulslike, but I would definitely consider it one. It has everything a Souls game offers, except for the corpse-run mechanic. It has some similarities to God of War and Bayonetta, but I believe it’s much closer to Soulsborne titles than that.

Game Feel and Combat Mechanics

The game feels and combat is initially great and fun to play. The fluidity of movement and the responsiveness of controls are great. However, as I played through the game, I found that it became too repetitive for me, even with the large variety of bosses and enemy types. Once you discover which combos and moves work best, there’s little need to change them. The same goes for the Spirit mechanics. The game provides you with a ton of spirits, but once you find a good one and upgrade it, there’s really no need to use others, just like how most people only played with the Mimic Tear in Elden Ring. The spells, while fun to use, also feel limited in variety. Only having four spells for a 40-hour game made the experience feel stale over time. Additionally, the spells cost mana, which restricts their usage, especially during boss fights. Since the most fun aspect of Wukong is using these spells, this limitation is quite a shame.
The big skill trees in the game primarily change your passive stats and your heavy attack, which you use rarely. This adds to the repetitiveness of the combat since the skill trees don’t significantly alter how you engage in battles, making the combat feel even more repetitive as you progress.

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Story and Characters

When it comes to the story, Black Myth: Wukong seemingly tells the story of Journey to the West. I have no prior knowledge of this story or the movie, so I didn’t get much out of it. The mute protagonist doesn’t help either. The game seems to expect players to be familiar with the original story, which made it hard for me to connect with the narrative.

Level and Map Design

The level and map design is by far the worst part of Black Myth: Wukong and the major thing that severely impacted my experience, reducing the enjoyment I got from the game by miles. In Chapter 1, the level design is very linear. You kill a few enemies, 30 seconds later comes an amazing boss fight, you kill another bunch, and a minute later, another spectacular boss fight. This pattern repeats until the end of the chapter. At first, I wasn't sure if I liked this; it felt odd and almost made the game seem like a boss rush experience. But since I was enjoying the heck out of the bosses, I loved this design choice, and fighting new bosses every 10 minutes was such a joy. This continued the same way until I reached the Tiger Vanguard boss fight, which is the peak of Black Myth Wukong in terms of game design tempo. The boss was one of the best in the game. At that point, I was sure I was playing the Game of the Year 2024 and possibly one of the best action games I've ever played.

Unfortunately, that's when the game began going downhill. By Chapter 3, the game started to feel very repetitive, with the same combat mechanics being reused over and over. In Chapters 2 and 3, you start playing in huge, open world-ish maps. Now, is that a bad thing? Elden Ring did the same, right? No, because Wukong's maps are filled with limiting invisible walls everywhere. There are hundreds of the same enemies throughout the map, and you often go in a direction unsure if it's worth your time. You never know if you’ll find a new boss, an invisible wall, a little XP, or just nothing at all. I found myself sprinting around the huge maps only to find nothing most of the time, as there was no indicator if the journey was worth it. What adds to the frustration is that the game doesn’t guide you to your main objective, or even clearly define what it is. So, if you’re bored of aimlessly wandering around, you can't simply rush to the main quest. This lack of direction makes the game feel even more disjointed and tiresome. The issue peaks in Chapter 6, where the game becomes a frustrating slog. There’s never an indoor-level design to alleviate this, except for one extremely linear and frustrating dungeon. The lack of a map or compass is a particularly bad decision, especially since even FromSoftware addressed this with Elden Ring. The graphical quality of the maps is insane, but they look extremely bland and uninspiring compared to the art design of Elden Ring. This detracts from the game’s atmosphere and overall enjoyment.

Music and Soundtrack

The music and soundtrack are also quite poor, which significantly affects the atmosphere of the world. The only song I liked was the one sung by the headless dude; nothing else stood out. No Soulsborne or Soulslike game has ever come close to the level of Dark Souls 3's soundtrack, and Wukong doesn’t change that.

Bugs and Glitches

Many bosses and enemies have a tendency to freeze during fights, some even becoming invincible. These bugs made me replay the same enemies several times.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Black Myth: Wukong is a good game, even though it’s far from meeting all of my expectations. Despite its shortcomings, it is a very solid entry from Game Science. I will be highly looking forward to their next game as much as I did for Black Myth: Wukong, hoping they will improve upon these shortcomings and deliver an even more polished experience. I don’t have a definitive Game of the Year candidate for this year, but I can confidently say that Black Myth: Wukong isn't it. For me, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown stands out as a better title.


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What do I mean by that? Most online multiplayer games are released unpolished, with many issues, little content, and greedy anti-consumer practices these days. That's what I mean by that title. Marvel Rivals is the opposite of that and I am genuinely impressed.


The game came out with 33 characters ready for the players to enjoy. That's insane! I remember when Apex Legends came out with just 8 characters at launch. That number is still at 26 after 6 years. Not to mention that Apex Legends, being the best Battle Royale in the market still to this day, has been destroyed by terrible decisions made by EA over the 6 years and is now almost dead. Same goes with games like Battlefront II (another legendary game destroyed by EA), Overwatch, etc. And the thing is, unlike other hero-based games, in Marvel Rivals, every character is unlocked at the start for the player to enjoy. You are almost always expected to grind the characters if you don't want to spend real money to unlock them.

What's more is that the battle pass is 4.99$ and is not timed, so you can always purchase and get the old battle pass items. And you can literally earn in-game currency without spending a dime. So after seeing these examples, I can only admire Marvel Rivals more.


It's crazy how well they nailed this at launch, if every character is OP, every character is fun to play and balanced! So easy yet so effective. Great job. There are a handful of weak characters but I am sure they'll adjust them. Optimization should be a little bit better.


Marvel Rivals is a great game that feels complete on day one. Its consumer-friendly practices make it one of a kind in the gaming world and prove that you don't need to have greedy money-making strategies to make a successful game. I hope they don't screw it like many other examples before.


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In an ocean of ♥♥♥♥, even the most mundane rock will be viewed like a diamond.

Some developers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are ex-Ubisoft developers (and everyone loves to hate Ubisoft these days), and these devs left Ubisoft because they were bored there and made a decent, no DEI, not anti-consumer game and suddenly it's a masterpiece? So let's all rate this as a 10 without finishing it so that'll give Ubisoft a lesson. What does these have to do with the quality of the game? Just look at the floods of 1, 2, 5 hour reviews on Steam calling it the GOTY. 9.7/10 User Score on Metacritic? So that means, according to players, this is the best game of all time? These days, a game just needs a strong first hour to fool everyone.

Recency bias is an extremely dangerous problem right now and is killing game criticism.

This is exactly why I say Metacritic and Steam reviews have no credibility anymore. This kind of shallow hype cycle lowers the standard for games every day. Finish your games. Experience them for yourself - not by watching your favorite YouTuber or streamer, then drop a 10/10 review if you still think like that. When did people forget to form their own opinions without even experiencing the whole thing? When did people's standards get so low?


Contains Major Spoilers

The prologue instantly caught my attention with its presentation, and the characters were genuinely interesting. The dialogue felt natural, and I enjoyed seeing them interact and getting to know about Lumiere and its people. Seeing Sophie's story unfold was pretty amazing, it was well told. I liked the main character, Gustave, too. Just a normal adult trying to survive for his people. He's strong, but also fragile in ways that made him human. Ben Starr did a great job voicing him, and honestly, so did most of the cast, especially Maelle's VA. Overall, Act I was well told, not flawless, but it genuinely worked for me.

But then Act II happens, and it falls apart fast. It's rushed. A new major character gets introduced without proper build-up. The problem is that this new character's relationship with the rest of the crew is rushed as hell. You can even speed-run through the persona-like conversations with them one after the other, which is a terrible idea for storytelling. Worse, the crew stops interacting naturally, which they already didn't do much in Act I. Outside of a few cutscenes before or after a boss fight, it's like the characters forget each other exists. All the charm and dynamics I loved in Act I are just... gone.

The finale of Act II tried to be shocking, but by then I was losing interest because of the bad storytelling. Then comes Act III, and that's where it really lost me. Suddenly at the 80%- ish of the game, we learn that there's a confusing parallel canvas world / multiverse-ish plotline. And honestly? I rolled my eyes. It's not exactly a multiverse, but it's a similar "worlds inside worlds" concept.

Worse yet, major side characters like Lune, Sciel, and Monoko end up playing no real role. They're irrelevant by the end. Turns out the 30+ hours you spend with these people didn't matter because the story decides it's actually about the Dessendre family. Oh, and that world you explored? It's not even real. It's a painted illusion. None of it matters beyond this one family's drama. We get introduced to the details of that story way too late, and only for a short time. It's honestly kind of tragic. This was a promising narrative that got butchered 3 quarters of the way through. What started as an intriguing, character-driven expedition devolved into a rushed, undercooked multiverse plotline with a bunch of wasted potential.


The art direction is pretty good. The graphics look decent, and some environments are genuinely beautiful... when you can actually see them. Because here's the thing. This is another Unreal Engine 5 game with awful optimization. Performance is rough, the image quality often looks blurry and muddy, and there's no frame generation support in 2025. The visuals aren't sharp, and the framerate doesn't hold up.


Now, here's what impressed me most. The turn-based combat system, clearly inspired by Persona, is actually pretty good. And honestly? I think it beats Persona's system. Each character you recruit brings unique mechanics and abilities. Building your team and strategizing around their skills makes battles feel quite fun.

The enemy variety is also impressive. Unlike most JRPGs, you don't get stuck fighting the same monsters in the same biomes for 10+ hours. This game constantly introduces new enemy types, keeping battles fresh and forcing you to adapt your strategy.


The music is easily the best thing about this game. There are tracks here I'll be listening to for years. Even if I forget the story, characters, or world - the music will stay with me. Massive respect to Lorien Testard, Alice Duport-Percier, and the rest of the audio/music team at Sandfall.


Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is obviously a work of passion and talent. It is a good game, but nothing about this game is extraordinary or something new. It's nowhere near a GOTY candidate this year, and frankly - it's not one I'd recommend. The reason is simple: this is a story-driven RPG, and while the premise hooked me, the story's quality drops over time, and that was the one thing keeping me in it since the rest wasn't particularly fresh or amazing, even though the combat was cool. In a game like this, where the narrative is supposed to be the heart of the experience, that's not something I can overlook.

That said, I'll be keeping an eye on Sandfall Interactive, because they clearly have talent and the game turned out to be a success story. If they learn from this (I doubt it with this overhyped reception) they could deliver something special.


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