Black Myth: Wukong – Hands-On With an Impressive First 2 Hours

ign.com:

The list of impressive looking soulslike games on the horizon is long, with games like Phantom Blade Zero, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, and Wuchong: Fallen Feathers all having solid showings this summer event season. But there’s always been something extra special about Black Myth: Wukong. It’s stunningly gorgeous, the animations are incredibly fluid, it’s steeped in rich Chinese culture, and there’s just something immensely satisfying about playing as a Monkey King and beating up all sorts of mythical creatures with a giant extendable staff. While this isn’t the first time IGN has gone hands-on with the game, it is my own personal first time with it – and after two hours of playtime with the opening chapter, I somehow walked away even more excited for its August 20th release.

IGN China has already done an extensive preview on what Wukong plays like on a late game build with many techniques, stances, and transformations already unlocked, which is great because my two hours covered pretty much the very start of the game. The first thing that I noticed as I started playing was how fluid and fast Wukong feels to control. Many soulslikes are built on a foundation of slower and more methodical combat, but Wukong feels exceptionally quick and agile. From the beginning, there’s actually no block button. Wukong can twirl his staff to block projectiles, but as far as melee attacks go, everything must be dodged. To that end, there’s a Bayonetta-style dodge system where you can dodge up to three times very quickly, but after the third one, you’re punished with a lengthy recovery time to try and curb people from just mindlessly mashing the dodge button.

Perfectly timed dodges will reward you with extra focus, and once your focus bar has been filled, you get a focus point that allows you to chain a strong attack into your light combo string for a big chunk of damage. Later on, those focus points can also be spent on different types of special moves that you unlock in the skill