It would be an understatement to say Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is an anticipated game for many, having been tweaked greatly from its first appearance in 2021, garnering awards like Surprise of the Year at the 2024 UCG Game Awards, and themed controllers being made by brands like 8BitDo. There’s no more need to wait, for the beautiful yet brutal Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has finally arrived. With the last FromSoftware Soulslike released in the form of Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion in 2024, the question is, does Wuchang: Fallen Feathers fill in that gap? Dozens of hours and many, many, many deaths later, I can’t say it does.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
Developer: Leenzee
Price: $49.99 for Day 1 Edition, $59.99 for Deluxe Edition
Platform: PC (reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review
Note: Wuchang: Fallen Feathers opens with an epilepsy/photosensitivity warning.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers starts you off as Bai Wuchang, a lady pirate. Wuchang awakens in a cave, as clueless as the player is due to her amnesia. As she stumbles out of that cave under the presence of stone statues and lit candles, she realizes she is hurt. A mysterious bandaged feminine figure approaches Wuchang, driving a sword in the ground between the two before leaving. Wuchang picks up the sword, and the title card displays prominently. In short order, Wuchang encounters a Taoist named Xuanzangzi who says he saved her and left her to recover in the Burning Cavern. Unfortunately, her amnesia is a side effect of The Feathering, a plague that is spreading through the land of Shu and has no qualms about infecting people, animals, or even the land itself. She finds herself lucky that, unlike many other Feathering victims, she has not lost her mind or transformed into a monstrous being that craves human flesh. Wuchang journeys out to seek a cure for her Feathering that has eluded everyone so far, and to figure out why she’s come to these seemingly cursed lands.
This setup is going to be familiar to most who’ve enjoyed a Soulslike game, and the hits don’t stop there: characters who speak in riddles, if at all. Children who make squelching sounds instead of talking. NPCs whom you may start questioning if they’re really your ally at all. An early boss who will make short order out of a fledgling player, only for your death to be intentional. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers doesn’t just test you in combat — it does so in every aspect of the game.
While I found much of the game to be learnable, I started to feel the game was extremely hostile to not just Wuchang, but me as a player. Enemies who will wait to ambush you, even if you don’t actually approach from that ambush point. “Instant” death mechanics in the form of Despair, most armor and weapons, if I’m being generous, are sidegrades at best. Then there’s the bosses. While I can’t imagine being a gamer in this day and age and not at least hearing about how infamous Soulslike bosses are through memes like “Let me solo her”, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers takes it to the extreme.
While bosses initially had me swapping my builds to deal with them, some bosses have virtually no windows for the player to attack them, and embody the term SNK Boss Snydrome with how unreasonable they are. While the player does have access to blocking and parrying should they choose to pick up those skills, the default and necessary skill to deal with attacks from particularly monstrous enemies is to dodge, which, when done correctly, turns your dodge into a Shimmer, avoiding the move completely and gaining a stack of Skyborn Might. Blocking, which becomes a deflection with the right Skills and timing, is a great tool, but truly only effective against weapon-wielding humanoid enemies. You can also choose to pick up skills which make your moves harder to interrupt, have invincibility, or the ability to clash with enemy weapons. There are also Obliterate strikes that activate when you perform a charged heavy attack on a weak enough enemy, or in the process of relentlessly attacking an enemy. While all these tools are great, it’s almost as if Leenzee specifically made boss encounters that the player can do almost nothing in as a melee fighter, ultimately becoming a battle of attrition.
Bosses move around the arena as if they were a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate character, easily and effortlessly out of the player’s reach. While you do have magic and throwables, you must build Skyborn Might charges to cast magic, which often does not even deal a percent of damage to bosses. I at first found myself using a spear because I could not seem to reach the boss I was facing at the time with my axe, and eventually found a longsword called the Lashing Whip that could extend as if Wuchang were a character in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War. I found myself relying on that weapon for multiple reasons: even in the endgame, I could not find a weapon more powerful, and because of its Whip Dance Weapon Skill, it allowed me to actually damage bosses as they flitted about. While it is stated every boss has a weakness, and respeccing Wuchang costs no resources, players shouldn’t have to imitate Doctor Strange looking into the Eye of Agamotto by looking at every possible combination of skills, weapons, and magic just to take down a boss.
Even if you might think that players should be able to expend stamina to reach the boss, these boss arenas are huge. I admit I have not combed through every part of the Impetus Repository (think Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid) to see if there was a Disciple Skill to close the distance, but even if I took the strategy of rushing to the boss, I would be out of stamina by the time I reach them, if at all possible. While I understand bosses are going to be unfair, especially in a Soulslike, this seems like a massive oversight or is approaching sadism. If you were thinking you might be able to build up to Obliterate-striking a boss, if your defense isn’t perfect or they decide to use a dangerous enough move that you will be put on the defensive, or even if they abuse their high movement speed, their Obliterate value resets more often than not. Just to confirm I wasn’t looking at predecessors to Wuchang: Fallen Feathers with rose-tinted glasses, I looked at some other Soulslikes where bosses do not move this much and have actual openings. If we look at other games in a similar category: Dante has Stinger, the Dragon’s Dogma series has the Burst Strike move, Bayonetta has Stiletto, and Kratos has his chain pull. Additionally, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is single player, but you’re still able to call for assistance based on where the story is and very rarely at that. Unfortunately, you have to wait until you’re in the boss arena to call for help, which usually results in the boss getting a free hit if not outright killing you. Speaking of bosses getting free hits, as you enter the boss arena, Wuchang is not immediately controllable, resulting in enemies attacking you as soon as you gain control, which makes it hard to do things like activate Temperance.
I even tested all of this by going back to an optional boss whom I was massively overleveled for, named Ai Nengqi. I was offered help by an NPC at one time, but apparently missed that window as he didn’t respond when I went back to fight Ai. In fighting Ai Nengqi, I probably could’ve killed him in 10 hits if didn’t constantly jump out of my range, and even stranger, as a big character, I had trouble reaching him with a majority of my strikes unless I was to put myself inside his character model, which endangered me to the strikes he’d make that apparently reach all the way around his body. It probably comes as no surprise that you end up confronting your dark double in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, called your Inner Demon. This fight happens a number of times, culminating in a late boss fight. This fight is one of the more fair ones, as she mostly follows the rules you do, and deflecting her weapon or striking her with a charged heavy attack actually causes her to recoil. The Inner Demon fight is definitely an exception to the rule, though.
I would also briefly like to talk about Wuchang: Fallen Feathers and its strange push with its female protagonist. While I’m sure articles will be written about this, Wuchang is obviously a beautiful woman, but the outfit choices are ill-suited to a pseudo-historical game. I found most outfits quite boring, but bizarrely, she can also equip lingerie from killed enemies. Considering the context of how you came upon these items, and some of the item descriptions of how The Feathering became a relief compared to what these women had to deal with, makes it feel grossly inappropriate. I was even able to purchase Leg Armor in the form of shoes resembling Cinderella’s glass slippers. I was astonished to find out that when equipped, Wuchang does not wear any form of pants or skirt — white bottoms are completely visible. I’m no expert on women’s fashion choices in the present day or during the semi-historically accurate Ming Dynasty, but I have a feeling this doesn’t draw from that. Exploring more of her pirate theme, or having fashion that would tie into the Feathering and bird themes of the game, would have been much more tasteful.
The Final Word
You’ve heard the story of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers dozens of times before, and ultimately, though she is the protagonist, you’ll discover she may not even be a good person (if the “pirate” bit didn’t clue you in). This is a gorgeous game, and not just because of its graphical fidelity. Much of the environment is so strong and distinct, it tells a story and is clearly authored very carefully. However, the gameplay is punishing and seems more focused on imitating a PlayStation 3 era tech demo than an enjoyable experience for the player.
MonsterVine Rating: 2.5 out of 5 – Mediocre