Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Review | Worth Enduring

I often like to begin my reviews with context, as it’s important to understand what I’m about to say. My experience, or, in some cases, lack thereof, informs the reader about what kind of critique they’re about to read. For example, for a long time, I’ve stated that I’d never beaten a Souls-like. That changed when I rolled credits on Lies of P back in 2023. I’ve also stated that I’ve never played a FromSoft game. That changed earlier this year when I sank over 20 hours into Elden Ring: Nightreign with some friends and strangers. This should give you some much-needed context as you read my thoughts on Wuchang: Fallen Feathers and why I’m happy to include it in my short but impressive lineup of Souls-likes that I’ve endured.

Set in Ancient China during the late Ming Dynasty, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers follows the story of the titular pirate. She awakens at the start of the game with no recollection of her past and feathers growing out of her left arm. The stage is quickly and briefly set with a supernatural plague called the Feathering, which causes people to lose their minds and grow violent. For some reason, despite having amnesia, Wuchang retains her humanity and also discovers that the Feathering gives her some unique abilities.

Much like Wuchang’s feathers, the game wears its influences on its sleeve, resulting in fairly familiar base mechanics. You attack with the right shoulder buttons, dodge with circle (B on Xbox), there are a limited number of healing flasks at your disposal, and resting at shrines restores your health and respawns enemies. However, Wuchang builds on that with a number of other gameplay systems that help shape the game’s identity.

At the heart of the game’s combat is a combo system called Skyborn Might. Executing successful combos or perfect dodges triggers a shimmer and nets you a stackable booster on the bottom left of your screen. And just to clarify, you don’t need to land every hit of a combo to get it either. Just particular hits. On a sword, it can be the second hit, and on an axe, it can be the third or fourth. The stored Skyborn Might (SM) can then be used in combat to perform Weapon Disciplines, use spells, and Swift Draw.

What does all that mean? Well, Weapon Disciplines are essentially special attacks that are triggered with L1 and L2. Some require just 1 SM while others can cost more, but activating it can perform a move that’s cooler and more powerful than regular attacks. While Wuchang does have spells, there is no mana bar, and as someone who rarely runs magic builds, the implementation of SM made spells feel less like another bar to monitor and more like a reward for perfect dodges or combos. Swift Draw is triggered with L3, and it uses 1 SM to bring out your second weapon with a flourish. In the heat of combat, Skyborn Might is a fairly intuitive system that gives the gameplay a lot of flexibility without being too convoluted.

The same cannot be said for the skill tree, however, and while it was a negative for me, depending on the sort of player you are, it might be the opposite. When praying at shrines, you can access the Impetus Repository, which is the fancy term for Wuchang‘s skill tree. It starts out simple with a few core abilities unlocked and branching nodes that let you progress down the path that suits your playstyle. I really enjoyed using axes and longswords, and so I invested my points into those routes. The issue is that for someone who doesn’t like to delve into the details of skill trees, the Impetus Repository is quite expansive, and deciding which path to upgrade is not particularly enjoyable. Furthermore, skill tree unlocks are not just one-to-one. Sometimes, you need special items that are picked up in chests or by killing formidable foes to unlock corresponding upgrades. Much like the game’s level design, I wish the skill tree was a bit more linear to navigate.

Speaking of level design, it’s a crucial part of a Souls-like. The way the linear routes twist and turn, with branching paths tempting investigation, before winding back to an area you’ve already been to in satisfying ways, is as integral to the genre as the combat. Thankfully, Wuchang really hits the mark in this regard. Levels overall are sizeable, and exploring them comes with a sense of equal parts excitement and dread. To help a bit with this, on the bottom right of the screen, surrounding your item hotkey, is a compass. This generally shows direction as you play, but when you are near a shrine, it will gain a red marker to point you in the right direction. Same thing with NPCs you can interact with, though they get a yellow arrow instead.

As is customary to the genre, Wuchang‘s narrative is pretty murky to begin and only by taking the time to talk to NPCs and read letters dispersed throughout the map can you really begin to understand the story. While I am not well-versed in Ancient Chinese history to comment on its authenticity here, the world of Wuchang is a rather dark one. Finishing optional side quests by doing favors for people and generally exploring the world will give you glimpses of an oppressive world. Character backstories are often grim and don’t always have happy endings either. The cost of this mystery, however, is pacing. Wuchang is a rather long game, and it doesn’t always have the narrative hooks to draw you forward. This is where the game relies on the combat to do the carrying.

There are a few ways to tweak Wuchang to your desired playstyle that can be accessed at the shrines. First, there are Benedictions. These are relics that can be attached to weapons to provide buffs or debuffs. Then there is the Temperance. This is an ability that allows Wuchang to give her weapon a temporary status boost, like burn. Stacking the Temperance with weapon Benedictions, wearable Pendants, equippable items, and all the other systems is key to mastering the combat. If you’re getting stomped by a boss, taking the time to reevaluate your strategy is as important as going around and leveling up some more. To help in this, the aforementioned skill tree can be reset at any time, so you can get all your points back and reallocate them as you want.

The last gameplay system to highlight is Madness. As a byproduct of your Feathering, every time you die, your Madness increases. The higher it goes, the more damage you do and the more damage you take. This makes for an added risk/reward that you have to manage at your discretion. The added wrinkle to this comes in the form of the Inner Demon. When you die with heavy Madness and return to the location of your death to pick up your lost Red Mercury, you will find a cloaked woman waiting there for you. She will attack you and anything else on sight. Only once the Inner Demon is killed can you recover your lost RM. The twist here, though, is that you can sometimes use your Inner Demon to your advantage by luring her to another strong enemy and having them attack each other, leaving the weaker opponent for you to mop up. It can feel like you’re outsmarting the game by doing this, but it is very much so implemented by design.

I also want to briefly touch on the good-looking elephant in the room. Wuchang is a rather eye-catching protagonist, and it’s clear that a lot of time went into creating her. As such, the game has transmorg right from the get-go. This means that you can equip an item of clothing based on its stats and change its look to any other piece of clothing you have. No need to sacrifice form over function or vice versa. Also, as a fan of Start Screens, I have to mention that the main menu for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers changes based on what area you were in when you saved and exited, and Wuchang herself appears on the screen wearing whatever attire you have equipped.

Continuing on the point of visuals, the game looks pretty good. While it may not impress on a granular level, the design of the game world is nice, and the game makes a point to switch color palettes as you progress through different areas. Feel like you spent a lot of time in a desaturated tunnel system full of rotting corpses? There’s probably a vibrant view around the corner. Similarly, the game also sounds pretty nice. Sound effects are crisp, and music is fitting of the time period. Although only a few boss tracks caught my ear.

The game has three different performance modes. One that prioritizes framerate, one that prioritizes resolution, and a balance of the two. I tried all of them on the PlayStation 5, and I think that the framerate mode with the sharpness turned up provided the best results. I started the game with English narration, but about ten hours in, I didn’t feel it captured the atmosphere very well, so I switched to Chinese voice-over. While this meant that I had to read subtitles to follow the dialogue, I recommend it as a better alternative.

Before I wrap it up, there are a few more quick notes that I want to share. It should be clear by now that I like Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and I would be curious if developer Leenzee returned to this world for a sequel. In that case, there are some minor issues that I think can be improved upon. The first is weapon variety. I wish there were more weapon drops throughout the game. For a good fifteen hours of Wuchang, I was essentially using the same weapons with different Benedictions, and while that was fine, I would have enjoyed experiencing new types of longswords and axes (among others) in my time. The other is enemy variety. Don’t get me wrong, you do encounter unique enemies as you explore new areas, but they are mostly reused enemies with slightly tweaked looks and stat buffs to make them absorb more damage.

After over 25 hours into Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, I keep looking forward to returning to it. It’s undeniably challenging, but in a way that makes it fun to keep trying. Some bosses might seem insurmountable until that one attempt, where the experience from your previous efforts aligns for a dream run. While there are some rough edges, Wuchang is a great action RPG for anyone looking to test their solo Souls-like skills this year. In a market so constantly flooded with FromSoft-inspired games, don’t let this one fly under your radar. And you can’t ignore the price tag either. At a time when game prices keep trending up, Wuchang is a $50 game, which makes some of the inconveniences bearable. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. The game is also available on Xbox Game Pass. A code was provided to us for review.