Black Myth: Wukong is a drop-dead gorgeous action RPG that features fun and challenging boss fights. The in-between moments of exploring levels and fighting normal enemies don’t live up to those big moments but don’t fully drag it down either. A few technical hiccups and a story that only fully delivers if you have the prerequisite knowledge hold it back from hall-of-fame status, but it’s still a fun journey that never runs out of gas.
Black Myth: Wukong
Developer: Game Science
Price: $60
Platforms: PlayStation 5 (reviewed) and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PlayStation 5 code for review
Journey to the West Meets Action-RPG
Black Myth: Wukong is a fast-paced action RPG, that takes heavy inspiration from modern God of War and FromSoftware’s many RPGs. While it distinguishes itself enough to not be a full on Soulslike, it does take plenty of design cues from those titles. Black Myth: Wukong’s is a visual feast that shines the most during boss fights, but poor level design, uninteresting regular enemies, and strange technical hiccups hold it back from masterpiece status.
Following the story of Sun Wukong and taking heavy inspiration from Journey to the West, Black Myth: Wukong follows a nameless monkey destined to collect Wukong’s missing relics and return them, so Wukong may rise from his slumber. Without in-depth knowledge of Journey to the West, I found myself missing out on what felt like appearances by exciting characters but it never goes into full required-reading territory. Even without that context, I knew exactly what was happening, even if it wasn’t always clear why or who was involved. That said, I got enough for the final fight and story conclusion to still land with me, instilling a sense of triumph as the credits rolled.
This mythology also informs much of the character design in Black Myth: Wukong, which has an endless stream and new characters and designs throughout the journey, bringing a level of excitement every time I ran into a new boss fight. This is all amplified by the incredible visuals, which look phenomenal at pretty much every moment. The game moves through different environments and levels at a fast enough pace that I never had time to get over the visuals, leaving me stunned until the final moments.
When it comes to the layout and design of the levels from a gameplay perspective, they range from serviceable to downright confusing. Each level in Black Myth: Wukong is relatively linear, with a few branching paths. Some of these paths are dead ends with upgrade materials to gather, but in some of the later levels, the paths are circular and meet up at story bosses. These circles, along with a lack of map and no real sign-posting to help you find your way, result in some confusing levels where the only thing to tell you you’re on the right path is a new cutscene.
Another downside here is that the normal enemies found in these levels are really weak, with most enemies going down in a single light combo, sometimes even before the combo ends. Boring and weak enemies create two issues, the first is that the game isn’t particularly engaging in between boss fights and you really only get to use combos and new moves during boss fights. I spent a lot of time trying out moves during boss fights since most enemies would die too quickly for me to get a good feel for the combat.
The boss fights themselves also drive home how boring the normal enemies are since the combat really shines during these fights. The bosses are tough and much of your time is learning attack patterns so you can dodge big hits. This is also where you can use all of your spells and special abilities to their fullest, which really provides a good range of abilities. The main attack combos are super simple, but mixing in spells that freeze the enemy or turn you into a rock to block attacks creates dynamic fights. You can also use spirits, which are quick summons that typically do one big attack. There are a ton of spirits to collect, so you can mix it up frequently.
Boss Fights Steal the Show
Most bosses are hard, but not frustratingly so. The hardest boss fights are saved for the final fight of a chapter, but a few of them rely too heavily on the same tricks to make them more difficult. The two tricks are extended sequences where you have to dodge a ton of projectiles and the enemy flies into the air, out of reach, so you can’t deal damage. Both of these things make boss fights harder, but not in a particularly interesting way. When it’s done multiple times, each time these sequences are extended, it becomes annoying. Luckily, Black Myth: Wukong doesn’t rely on these for the final fights of the last two chapters, which happen to be the best boss fights in the game.
Outside of those few fights that go overboard, most boss fights feature a ton of unique enemy attacks and moves, providing a unique challenge each time. Even when a boss seemed similar to a previous one, they still had a few surprises to keep things fresh. The majority of boss fights are incredibly fun, providing just enough challenge that you need to have a mastery of your abilities, but not so much so that you transition from a fun frustration into pure frustration.
When it comes to equipment and progression, both offer minor boosts. You regularly unlock new weapons and equipment to craft, but it’s pretty linear as the new unlocks almost always have better stats, removing any need to think about your armor or weapon. Curios provide a bit of personal customization, but again these are small boosts and don’t impact gameplay. There are some new moves to unlock in the skill trees, but there are more skills that provide small boosts, like more health or a spell lasting longer. You can certainly feel the boost, but you won’t be dynamically changing your move set.
Performance and Technical Issues
Technical problems do pop up frequently, along not in the way you might expect. Playing on PlayStation 5 in performance mode, the game only lost frames on rare occasions in a few boss fights with one exception. There is a transversal mechanic in Chapter 6 that causes frame drops whenever it’s used, but you don’t really need precision with it, so it’s not a huge problem. Black Myth: Wukong also never crashed for me during my time.
Where the technical stuff rears its head is in some of the smaller places. Each level has an aggressive amount of invisible walls, which highlights the level design being visual first. There are so many instances where a path that looks traversable is actually blocked off by nothing, which breaks the immersion hard. There are other small issues, like one optional boss in Chapter 2 whose actual boss arena is smaller than its physical arena, so if it goes too close to the edges, it despawns, regaining all of its health. This happened four times with this boss, which was very frustrating.
Black Myth: Wukong also doesn’t handle flying or floating enemies very well. If an enemy is floating, even when they are on “ground level,” most of your attacks won’t land, since half of the light combo is made up of horizontal swings, that just miss these enemies. Bosses’ hit boxes can be quite finicky, with there being several instances where I would immobilize an enemy, freezing them in place, where my hit wouldn’t land, despite my staff physically hitting them. Despite the incredible visual polish, Black Myth: Wukong is rough in several places, although most boss fights don’t feature too many technical issues.
Black Myth: Wukong features incredible visuals and great combat, although it only gets to shine its brightest during boss fights, but those do happen frequently. The level design and normal enemies leave much to be desired and there are plenty of technical hiccups throughout the experience, but the overall journey hits high enough highs to forgive these shortcomings. While not perfect, Black Myth: Wukong does live up to the visually stunning trailers that garnered it a ton of hype.
The Final Word
Black Myth: Wukong delivers incredible boss fights with stunning visuals, but the in-between moments don’t reach the same heights. Technical hiccups and poor level design hold it back for greatness, but the boss battles make it all worthwhile.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
