Recent reviews by Necrilem

Amazing game, absolutely hoping for content DLC and sequels to this.

Took me 55.4 hrs to reach 100% achievements and finish NG and NG+ at the point of writing this.

Overall heavily inspired by Nioh's mission structure, having a hub from which you choose to go on missions, level design and the equipment having different types of stats, randomized and fixed with different rarities, set bonuses and so on. They even have little collectable dudes called "Jarlings" that hide in jars that are reminiscent of the Kodama in Nioh. Burst Attacks are similar to those attacks in Nioh you can Yokai Counter and the abilities kind of feel like Yokai Abilities in Nioh 2.
You can also feel a distinct Sekiro influence with this games stagger mechanics.

Lot of QoL features I hope will become gold standard in soulslikes. For example, when you die at a boss, your dropped xp is placed in front of the boss arena, so you can just pick it back up without triggering the boss. Even more so, you actually get xp for the amount of time and progress you make in a boss fight, even if you die.

Loading times are super quick. When you die and respawn at the last checkpoint/bonfire/nexus, there isn't even any loading time at all, it just immediately happens.

Very fun and action-heavy combat with dodges (Dodge), perfect dodges (Brink Dodges), blocking (Guard), perfect parry (Brink Guard), special parry (Reflection) and counter parry (Counterattack on Burst Attacks).

Devs seem to be very communicative and receptive to feedback, so I am hoping for more QoL updates in the future, like skill presets you can switch between.

Tldr; game is super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ edgy, basically edgelords vs super edgelords, so 10/10

Stop beating around the bush and start... beating around the bush!

Award-worthy narrative of existential proportions questioning the meaning of life in this green world.

A truly groundbreaking experience. It will leaf you perplexed and in a state pondering your past, present and future.

Great narrative experience.
Definite recommendation.

I love this game. As you can see from my hours played.
I WANT to play this game. So why am I recommending against it?

Every damn update breaks half the game and I am not talking about bugs introduced with the new content that get ironed out. Every time they release an update, the matchmaking and servers get incredibly scuffed.

Right now, thanks to patch 7, the game is borderline unplayable for me. If you solo matchmake, if it works at all, you will only find 1 other person and have to play with a bot as a third. The servers are crapping themselves, I have button delays and unresponsiveness, receive damage literally out of nowhere, sniper warriors either instantly shoot or charge up for like 0.2 seconds, making it impossible for you to react to it. Everything is scuffed to varying degrees, but not even once since the update it was as it should be. One match I even had nearly a 1 second delay on my inputs. What even is this, man.

If this all wouldn't happen pretty much every patch, I would gladly recommend the game. But as it stands, it is just immense frustration. I want to play the game I bought. Why are they constantly breaking everything again and again?

Finally, after around 75 hours I completed 100% achievements and can now make my review.

Black Myth: Wukong to me is a phenomenal game making me reminisce about why games are so amazing. Most importantly, the game takes you on an adventure, a journey, showing you awe-inspiringly detailed environments, creative enemies and incredibly badass bosses and encounters. Plenty of moments make me think back to one of my favourite games: Asura’s Wrath, which in a similar manner strikes awe into you with how cool the things are that are happening on your screen.

The production quality of this game is through the roof. The animations in this game are some of the best I can remember, from how enemies and bosses move, to dynamically chaining together different moves and creating a fast-paced flow of combat with the enemy. The environments are incredibly detailed and authentic.

Game Science went above and beyond going extra mile after extra mile to achieve this.
Aside from regular motion capture, for some enemies and bosses (Tiger Vanguard for example), they even went so far as to motion capture literal cats with a custom software they had to develop alongside this process. This is why some of the animations, like the Tiger Vanguard drinking from the pool of blood you find him in seem so authentic. Not only that, but they supposedly travelled across China to different cultural sites to analyse and scan temples and other places so they can accurately recreate these structures in the game. If you look at comparisons between the game and the locations they are based on, you will notice the love for detail and amount of effort that went into this.

Now, the narrative of the game can be a bit confusing, if you are not at all familiar with the Journey to the West. Yet despite not necessarily knowing what is happening exactly on screen, the game does a phenomenal job at providing a very cinematic and fun experience.

Black Myth: Wukong is actually not a retelling of Journey to the West, but rather takes place some time AFTER the events of the novel, in a “what happened after?” scenario thought up by the devs. Several characters you encounter during the game are from the original story.
It gives you a basic foundational quest of “go on this journey to collect these 6 relics” and takes you on this incredible adventure showing you amazing and unexpected things one after the other.

On this adventure, you can encounter a wild variety of enemies, without seeming repetitive whatsoever. Even the bosses are not repeated except for 2 instances, despite there being a whopping over 90 bosses. Yes, you read that right. There are over 90 bosses in this game. With only 2 minor instances of having a base model be reused. A lot of these bigger bosses are incredibly cinematic, having moves, mechanics and moments in cutscenes that make you feel like you are in the middle of an epic movie.

The enemy designs in this game are very creative and varied, providing a breath of fresh air from all the typical and stereotypical types of enemies you can find in a lot of games. Bipedal snake-necked tiger monk? Check. Giant skeletal chicken mash with a Cubone summoning blood blades? Check. There are things happening in this game so wild, I am not even sure how to accurately describe them.

The combat in this game feels very fluid and deliberate. To me, it just “clicked”. You have to be very deliberate with what you are doing, because depending on the actions you take, you will lock yourself to that action without being able to dodge out of it, meaning you have to decide when to commit to what by observing what is happening around you.

There are a lot of progression systems in this game, from skill points, to equipment, to spirit skills (like yokai abilities in Nioh 2), set bonuses, vessels, curios (like rings), celestial medicines (max stat increases) to the gourd (I will mention this one later).

With all these systems, it would be nice to be able to respec right? Want to redistribute your skill points to change your build? Different staff stance? Different spell setup? No biggie, just head to a shrine and move them around for free. This game gives you a lot of agency to play the way you want to play without locking you into one chosen path.

Your gourd is basically your heal (Like an estus flask). But not only are there different gourds with slightly different effects, but you can also change the actual drink and so called “soaks” that are infused into the drink. All of this allows for an incredible amount of customization where you can adjust your gourd to fit your specific build.

This game is not designed to follow trends or be a safe product to profit from. This game is designed to be fun. There are quite a few moments that make you go “Wait, I’ve never seen anything like this before”. From all these things mentioned, to minor QoL features like having the UI actually change a bit depending on whether you use a keyboard and mouse or a controller, you can feel the passion and care put into this game. The devs wanted this to be good and fun. And oh boy, fun my journey with this game was.

Let us go over to a simple Pros and Cons list.

Pros:

• Highly detailed and authentic environments.
  
• Creative and varied enemy designs featuring all kinds of animal-esque monsters.
  
• Incredible and dynamic animations.
  
• Amazing boss designs that make you go wow.
  
• No reused bosses outside of 2 instances (and even then, it is not that bad).
  
• Very fluid and deliberate gameplay (If you don’t just button mash that is).
  
• Lots of progression systems giving you a lot of agency to fine-tune your builds.
  
• Free respecs.
  
• Fascinating glimpse into Chinese mythology.
  
• Amazing music throughout the whole journey.
  
• Good game length. Took me around 35h to fully complete my first playthrough with most bosses killed (except 2 minor side bosses iirc), 75h for 100% achievements. Will definitely play the game more in the future just for fun.
  
• Makes you become monke during intense fights, having you let out monkey-like noises.

Cons:

• Invisible walls (Could have hidden a lot of these with natural barriers like impassable rocks etc).
  
• Clunky pickups/interactions (You can interact with things that are right in front of your character, so if you are sprinting and going too fast, you might need to turn around to interact. A small 360 degree radius would have been better).
  
• There are items with random drop chances from enemies or plants that are needed to get 100% achievements. I spent over 10 hours farming 2 specific plants before finally getting my final achievement. This was incredibly frustrating. I’d hope for “skewered rng” in the future, slowly increasing the drop chance the more times it does not drop. This way, they could control the maximum amount of kills/pickups needed to get the items.

Technical issues that will probably be ironed out (I played on high preset at 80% upscaling with frame gen and usually had 100+ fps in most cases throughout the whole game):

• Thumbnails of items not properly loading in menus.
  
• Sudden but short stutters presumably when loading in something big.
  
• Sometimes had issues with shadows/clouds seeming…pixelated for some reason.
  
• Framedrops when using bound items/spells when it opens the “radial”-esque menus for them.

All in all, a lot of the issues I have with this game are things that can improve with experience for future projects. This is the first major self-developed title this studio made, so they have plenty of chances to improve on these things in the future.

It is a feature complete game. No paid content. No corporate influence or agendas noticeably influencing the games narrative or game systems. The devs had a vision and they focussed on that vision with full creative freedom, wanting to share what they love and have players enjoy it.

This game reminded me why I love video games.

I 100% recommend this game.

I love Tekken. Loved Tekken since I played 1 & 2 when I was a child.

But...two monetisation updates adding monetisation systems after release that weren't known about?
First a premium shop with obfuscating premium currency...now FOMO Battle Passes?

None of this was known when consumers made their economic decision to purchase the product before/when it came out.
As a consumer, I feel scammed, betrayed and exploited. If this was known beforehand, I would not have purchased the game.

It is a major red flag to release a game, wait a month+ and then add monetisation system. Waiting out the reviews, weathering the initial storm, cashing in on release money and then, when the good reviews have been established? Add monetisation features to drain wallets long-term.

I regret buying Tekken 8. This should be illegal.

Nice little puzzle game with fun and creative puzzles.
Took me 42 minutes and I enjoyed every single one.

𓏏𓉔𓇋𓋴 𓎼𓄿𓅓𓅂 𓇋𓋴 𓄿𓅓𓄿𓊃𓇋𓈖𓎼.
𓇋 𓅓𓅲𓎢𓉔 𓊪𓂋𓅂𓆑𓅂𓂋 𓏏𓉔𓇋𓋴 𓅱𓆯𓅂𓂋 𓊪𓉔𓄿𓋴𓅓𓅱𓊪𓉔𓅱𓃀𓇋𓄿.
𓏏𓉔𓅂 𓋴𓅂𓏏𓏏𓇋𓈖𓎼𓄼 𓄿𓅓𓃀𓇋𓅂𓈖𓎢𓅂𓄼 𓋴𓅱𓅲𓈖𓂧𓋴𓄼 𓋴𓎢𓄿𓂋𓇌 𓅂𓆯𓅂𓈖𓏏𓋴 𓄿𓂋𓅂 𓄿𓃭𓃭 𓏏𓅱𓊪 𓈖𓅱𓏏𓎢𓉔.
𓆯𓅂𓂋𓇌 𓎼𓅱𓅱𓂧 𓄿𓈖𓂧 𓎢𓅱𓈖𓋴𓇋𓋴𓏏𓅂𓈖𓏏 𓂧𓅂𓆯𓅂𓃭𓅱𓊪𓅂𓂋 𓋴𓅲𓊪𓊪𓅱𓂋𓏏.
𓇋𓅓𓊪𓂋𓅱𓆯𓅂𓋴 𓅃𓇋𓏏𓉔 𓅂𓆯𓅂𓂋𓇌 𓋴𓇋𓈖𓎼𓃭𓅂 𓅲𓊪𓂧𓄿𓏏𓅂.

𓅂𓇨𓏏𓂋𓅂𓅓𓅂𓃭𓇌 𓆑𓅲𓈖 𓏏𓅱 𓊪𓃭𓄿𓇌 𓅃𓇋𓏏𓉔 𓆑𓂋𓇋𓅂𓈖𓂧𓋴 𓄿𓈖𓂧 𓎢𓄿𓈖 𓃀𓅂 𓆯𓅂𓂋𓇌 𓂧𓄿𓂋𓈖 𓋴𓎢𓄿𓂋𓇌.

𓄿𓇋 𓅱𓆑 𓄿 𓆑𓅂𓅃 𓅓𓅂𓆓𓄿𓇋 𓋴𓏏𓇋𓃭𓃭 𓈖𓅂𓅂𓂧𓋴 𓏏𓅃𓅂𓄿𓈎𓇋𓈖𓎼𓄼 𓃀𓅲𓏏 𓇋 𓄿𓅓 𓎢𓅂𓂋𓏏𓄿𓇋𓈖 𓏏𓉔𓄿𓏏 𓅃𓇋𓃭𓃭 𓉔𓄿𓊪𓊪𓅂𓈖.

𓎢𓄿𓈖𓂕𓏏 𓅃𓄿𓇋𓏏 𓆑𓅱𓂋 𓏏𓉔𓅂 𓂋𓅂𓆯𓄿𓅓𓊪 𓅱𓆑 𓏏𓉔𓅂 𓃀𓄿𓈖𓇋𓋴𓉔𓅓𓅂𓈖𓏏 𓋴𓇌𓋴𓏏𓅂𓅓.

𓉔𓇋𓎼𓉔𓃭𓇌 𓂋𓅂𓎢𓅱𓅓𓅓𓅂𓈖𓂧𓅂𓂧𓄎 𓃉𓂂𓂅𓃉𓂂

Tldr; Game good, highly recommend. 9/10 good fun with friends.

OMG, its the thing! The game from the ads! And its actually fun? :O
Bit of a slow startup but gets really fun. Looking forward to future updates.
Really want this with guns now tho to fulfil the ad feel :D

Switched over to EOS (Epic Online Services), broke plenty parts/features of the game.
Noone asked for this, consumers are NOT benefiting from this. Opposite in fact, as some downgrades were introduced, making features worse.

Shameful and disgusting move by dev. Definitely not gonna redownload the game, since I don't want to install malicious spyware on my system that is proven to check files it has no right to touch.

For an in-depth look at the situation, I refer to this amazing review: https://steamproxy.net/id/jaco909/recommended/218620/