It can be hard to stand out in a crowded space like a genre like Souls, but after two hours in Uber-Difficult Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, the people at Leenzee Games seem to be in something. Taken in a rethinking of Chinese magic in the dynasty, you play a pirate warrior with some serious moves, taking advantage of complex and deadly spells, weapons with powerful move sets, and upgrade trees that are far more complicated than your typical action-adventure game. This often becomes an adventure that I felt that other worlds should be afraid of, not other ways. Of course, the limit of how much I can feel myself like an overwhelming dynasty warrior character was my own skill level, and Ushan’s understanding of extremely complicated systems. But what I’ve seen so far is that I’m very optimistic.
Wuchang: The main way that Fallen Feathers seem to distinguish themselves from their colleagues is that they are given here a rather extensive toolkit of scary tools to play, instead of a few basic sword movements, a few small spells and abilities, and a small health bar. Each weapon allows you to unleash unique attacks. This allows you to soar into the air, cross the map, and perform flexible cleverness far beyond what most soul pickpockets are possible. It reached the point where the bosses in the area felt like they were stomping on my enemies flat, rather than the scary, careful adventurers facing incredible odds.
That sense of superiority may have something to do with how those abilities are acquired by harvesting them from fallen enemies. That’s right! All enemies that have been defeated are more than a handful of upgrade material. You will actually learn their moves and use them against future opponents, and ultimately turn them into a fatal reflection of everyone you base in the battle. And this was also the opening area of the adventure. When you square against a more powerful enemy and perhaps unleash even more insane abilities, I can only imagine how wild things will be obtained later.
Don’t get me wrong: There were still many cases where my lack of enthusiasm and consciousness destroyed me absolutely, but I felt like there were more options to reduce the enemy to size. For example, one movement I was given while swinging around a giant x would jump straight into the air to a level of smooth anime, then break the opponent and stomp flat, leaving an impression of the shape on Earth. Another weapon, the fast-moving dual blade, gave me the ability to fire lots of small, sticky explosives with every evasion I evade.
These abilities and weapon combos combined with spells that allow me to do things like setting fire from a deadly fire disc, allowing me to play a lot more aggressively than I’m used to. I didn’t have enough time to completely envelop the various skill trees, customization options for abilities. This allows you to change how the weapon works.
It’s very helpful as it’s very aggressive and reinforced as well as the flashy move set for the two bosses I’ve taken on in Ushan. It took quite a few attempts to master the timing of accepting her attacks, especially in the second half of the fight where she learned her quick and complicated attack patterns, especially with every swipe of her blade, knocked my ass and sent a massive gust of wind that caused more damage than she thought the wind was capable of. But in the end, I won against her demonic tricks. Ushan’s boss battle felt like a companion trapped in a duel with strong weapons and destructive abilities, rather than a weak goon hopelessly struck by an enemy who was clearly above my power level.
If there are parts I didn’t read completely strongly, it’s Ushan’s story. It centers on diseases that spread across the land that drive people crazy and blow their wings away. I wasn’t enough to say if this could go far, but I say I’ve lost a number of Soulslike numbers in the past few years when I leaned over that incredibly tired trope. Having a disease that turns people into monsters provides a very simple reason why everything in the world wants to kill you. As for fighting styles, I really hope Wuchang is free from some story cliches, just as it appears to be switching things around.
It is also worth noting how impressive the visually impressive Wuchang is. This is by no means the standard for this genre. Even if I had almost died six times to the same boss, or died in the sea of disgusting, mutated enemies, I was at least able to be content with how visible all the gorgeous things are, like the world, and how devastated and deeply troublesome. That being said, I noticed it during a rather long load every time a humiliating defeat called me back at the checkpoint. And I wondered how much of that hangtime owes to the world and the characters look so good. To be fair, there’s very little chance that this will be optimized to represent the final product, but I’ve been playing on a PC that seems pretty powerful and I’d like to keep an eye on when I check out future builds.
There was only a bit of exploration area, and in the battle between two bosses, I got a little glimpse of Ushan: Falled Feather, but I already feel pretty good about the chance to be something like another soul that adds to the incredibly overflowing mountains. Movesets are complex and interesting, and the RPG mechanics look deep and offer a lot of freedom (even if you can’t argue that you’ll fully understand some of them). It’s already pretty exciting for me to play more.
