The Soulslike genre is one of gaming’s most fascinating emergences from the last decade. What FromSoftware’s works have unwittingly birthed is a genre that has in many ways defined the medium, for better or worse, depending on your tolerance. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the latest action RPG in the Soulslike vein to step up to the plate, and as Leenzee’s first published work, it’s a bold and ambitious one to be sure. Preview material has shone a decidedly exciting light on Wuchang — so can it live up to the hype?
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers instantly casts a mesmerising spell, and it’s a spell that only grows in power as this rich experience lengthens and expands in scope. The journey begins with the titular hero, Bai Wuchang, awaking in a darkened cave and tentatively stepping out to behold a lush green vista (why does that sound familiar?). This view is Wuchang’s — and the player’s — first taste of the land of Shu: a beautiful and dangerous region ravaged by an arcane plague known as the Feathering.
Wuchang herself is a pirate warrior with a severe bout of amnesia and an even worse bout of said Feathering disease. Many of the land’s other inhabitants are also affected by the Feathering, but where it has merely robbed Wuchang of her memories, it has transformed others into hostile creatures equipped with malevolent magic. In Wuchang’s case, it has caused literal feathers to sprout from her arm and bestowed her with great powers that form the basis of some varied and highly enjoyable combat. The result is one of the most brilliant gameplay experiences the Soulslike genre has ever seen.
The combat here feels like a beautiful and brutal dance, a veritable weaving between enemies with blade and magic that is unspeakably satisfying when executed with precision. Wuchang has five main weapon types at her disposal — longswords, short swords, dual blades, spears and axes — and two weapon slots in which to equip them. The move sets for each of them are immaculately animated, particularly in the case of the spear and short sword, which has a marvellous Wushu-inspired move set. Wuchang can execute light and heavy attacks, mapped to the right shoulder buttons as usual, as well as two weapon skills mapped to the left shoulder buttons. Every weapon in the game also has its own unique ability on one of those buttons, so the variety is honestly staggering, and all of these moves can be chained into each other, resulting in a dance-like flow to combat.
Where Wuchang: Fallen Feathers really distinguishes itself, though, is in the mechanics that enable Wuchang’s strongest abilities. Skyborn Might is a resource that enables magic attacks and enhanced special weapon attacks, and is charged by executing a perfect dodge or, in some cases, meeting certain conditions with a given weapon in the middle of a fight. Wuchang can have five charges at a time, and skilled players must carefully manage this resource to ensure they’re executing their strongest attacks at the perfect moment. It’s a simple but brilliant mechanic that incentivises precise dodging to gain access to your strongest abilities, and while some weapons do have a parry option, dodging almost always feels more rewarding.
That may sound daunting for players who prefer some good ol’ sword-and-board action, but fear not: the perfect dodge and parry windows are very generous and tuned to perfection. Many enemies have ruthless attack patterns that necessitate swift dodging, but the timing feels finely balanced to remain satisfying without being redundant.
The combat truly starts to sing once you’ve grasped each enemy’s move set and divined when to unleash Wuchang’s own arsenal, culminating in a glorious dance as she weaves around enemy attacks and gets in satisfying hits when space opens up. When pulled off on a boss after multiple attempts, it feels as satisfying as any Soulslike experience has ever felt, resulting in a rich sense of freedom that is remarkably accomplished for the work of a brand new studio’s first foray into the genre. Be warned, though: fights are as punishing as the genre’s ever been, so careful understanding of Wuchang’s abilities is vital.
Despite the brilliantly fresh enemy encounters, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is truer to the legacy Soulslike formula than the majority of its recent contemporaries. Like the best of those contemporaries, though, it takes some daring liberties with this formula to refresh and evolve the status quo. Players will still navigate through mostly linear but nevertheless labyrinthine areas, fighting enemies and resting at shrines to restore their health and level up. Wuchang can collect and equip unique gear pieces, too, most of which are beautifully designed. Each outfit has head, chest, bracers and leg armour pieces, and all have unique damage mitigation stats tied to them, ensuring they all play a pivotal role in every eventual build.
Those builds are bound to be varied, too. One of the big shake-ups to the formula offered by Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the process of levelling Wuchang, which takes the familiar Soulslike formula and deftly refreshes it. Wuchang collects red mercury — this game’s iteration of souls — from slain enemies, using it as the primary method of accruing XP. However, instead of putting this XP into single stat increases, red mercury is used to acquire upgrade tokens that are then applied to one of the many upgrade trees on offer. Each weapon type has its own sprawling upgrade tree filled with passive boosts to Wuchang’s core stats as well as active weapon abilities, with relevant passives mostly tied to their relevant skill tree. For example, the short sword and dual blades trees have an abundance of nodes dedicated to agility — the primary stat upon which these weapons are levelled.
As far as character progression goes, this design choice is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise formulaic genre. Levelling in this way encourages build experimentation and makes it easy to plan your path towards progress. There’s also a free respec option, allowing players to test different pathways without needing to commit to one build for the entire game. This lack of restriction makes experimenting in Wuchang a delightful experience.
Another neat mechanic is the Inner Demon system, which is this game’s means of “punishing” repeat deaths. With every death, Wuchang’s Inner Demon meter builds. Once it passes its threshold, her damage output is vastly improved — but she takes more damage from enemies, too. On top of that, when venturing to the spot where she died and lost her red mercury, a ghostly spectre will spawn and indiscriminately attack anything in sight — be it Wuchang herself or any nearby enemies. Defeating the Inner Demon resets the meter and regains Wuchang’s red mercury, beginning the cycle anew.
It’s a very clever system that freshens up the die-and-retry routine without being unnecessarily punishing, and the Inner Demon can even be lured towards powerful enemies in order to give Wuchang a helping hand in tricky encounters — as long as she stays well out of the way.
Elsewhere, the story and world crafted here by Leenzee is truly special, filled with rich history and folklore. The late Ming dynasty aesthetic is superb, delivering an authentic atmosphere steeped in meaning and clearly crafted with passion. It’s also a lot more colourful than the typically dark palette ascribed to the genre, which again is a welcome change.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers consists of five chapters, each introducing a sprawling, interconnected environment full of hidden treasures and secret shortcuts. Unlike its obvious comparison, Black Myth: Wukong, there are no isolated missions in Wuchang, the world instead being connected by clear pathways between areas. This is a much better format, one that’s more true to the Soulslike formula, even if it is ultimately linear at the end of the day.
Does Wuchang: Fallen Feathers live up to the hype, then? The easy answer is no… It exceeds it. This is a masterful Soulslike, one made all the more brilliant for a new studio’s first attempt at the genre. Leenzee clearly has an academic understanding of the Soulslike blueprint, and their creative vision in bringing Wuchang to life demonstrates a profound command of what makes the genre so wonderful — and what can make it even better.
It’s not without a few pet peeves: shrines can occasionally be poorly spaced out, and the item mapping is straight up bad. There are four slots in the item hotbar, and one of those is taken up by the Manna Vase for healing, so it never feels like every critical item is quickly available in a fight. Still, these are the only gripes in an otherwise exceptional action RPG — one that is challenging, beautiful, well optimised, and lingers long in the memory even after the controller has been laid down.
