Speaking of the most popular single-player games in China right now, Black Myth: Wukong claims to be the second, and no one dares to claim to be the first.
Amid countless discussions, praise, encouragement, and doubts, the developer Game Science does not seem to be too affected by the outside world. In the past few years, it has continued to produce and promote at its own pace.
And finally this summer, Black Myth: Wukong came to everyone in a complete posture.
At this moment, there is probably only one question in everyone’s mind:
Is it worthy of our four years of waiting?
Excellent graphics may be the first good impression that Black Myth: Wukong brings to users.
The size of the PC version of the game is far more than 100G, and much of this huge capacity is used to store high-quality image materials. In order to bring everyone a more realistic visual experience, Game Science has done its best to restore the natural mountains and rivers in Black Myth: Wukong through on-site scanning by dedicated personnel, and reproduced many architectural monuments that exist in reality.
From the green Black Wind Mountain to the desolate and dilapidated Yellow Wind Ridge, and more subsequent levels that are inconvenient to disclose details, Black Myth: Wukong has created a rich and varied beautiful scene. The overall picture quality level of the game is firmly in the upper reaches of the industry. Relying on Youke’s own artistic strength and the blessing of UE5, it is not surprising that such an effect can be achieved in the end.
Fortunately, despite its outstanding picture performance, Black Myth: Wukong has not had a major “rollover accident” at the optimization level. The test machine I used was equipped with an RTX3070 graphics card. Under full high special effects, the game maintained a relatively stable high frame rate for most of the process time, and only occasionally stuttered and dropped frames in very few complex processing scenes. Switching to a machine with a slightly lower configuration did not cause any serious optimization issues that would affect the game, which really relieved all the players who were paying attention to this game.
As one of the four great classics, the main storyline of “Journey to the West” is well-known in my country and has a solid mass base. But for the script creation of “Black Myth: Wukong”, this is a difficult problem in front of us.
First of all, many famous plots in the novel have become fixed in everyone’s mind. It is inevitable to be lazy to reproduce them as they are, and if you want to make some extensions and breakthroughs on this, the room for play is really limited. If you are not careful, you may be accused of “making up nonsense” with too much effort.
Secondly, many people’s cognition of the characters in “Journey to the West” comes from the eternal classic 1986 TV series. But in order to ensure that it is suitable for all ages, the TV version has made a lot of changes in the character’s personality and behavior compared to the original. If some characters are portrayed as they are in the game, they may not be accepted by all players.
In addition, based on the extremely high attention of this game, countless creators on the Internet have interpreted and predicted the possibility of many game plot development directions based on the sporadic publicity information that has been released. These contents not only provide ideas for the authorities, but also form creative constraints.
Fortunately, the screenwriter team of “Black Myth: Wukong” finally found the right option.
Due to the restrictions of the evaluation agreement, the details of the plot cannot be described here. But what is certain is that the game adopts a narrative approach that is easier for most players to understand and accept, while adding a lot of eye-catching ingenuity.
Although the gameplay is very similar to “soul travel”, “Black Myth: Wukong” does not use obscure fragmented narratives. From the beginning to the end, players can understand the main thread of the story through relatively straightforward and clear cutscenes.
The whole script is not as tortuous and earth-shattering as the Internet speculates. The ups and downs are slightly conservative, but it can bring people an unexpected and reasonable sense of harmony, and the timing is just right.
Under the premise of smooth storytelling, the screenwriter deliberately leaves blank space in some details, or uses symbolic fuzzy processing techniques to provide fans with free interpretation space. After playing the game, everyone may have different understandings.
Another thing that must be mentioned is the Shadow God Map function. Around the various gods, Buddhas, humans and demons that appear in the game, from miscellaneous soldiers to demon kings, almost all characters have long text records in the Shadow God Map menu.
Some of these short stories talk about the origin of the image, some are about past experiences, and there are even simple dialogue records, which are extremely rich. It takes one to two hours just to read all the entries.
In addition to the main storyline, Game Science has split a lot of hidden lines and side plots and hidden them in these Shadow God Map records. Just by playing the game, you may only be able to figure out what happened on the surface. Only by reading the content of the Shadow God Map, plus some of your own analysis and understanding, can you understand the behavioral logic of many characters and the foreshadowing hidden under the surface.
The combat system of Black Myth: Wukong looks quite standard at first glance, but it has unique features in the core logic of light and heavy stick attacks.
The light stick and heavy stick constitute the main axis of Tianmingren’s attack, which is similar to the light and heavy attacks in similar products, but not exactly the same.
The light stick attack supports a maximum of five stages, but it is not a simple five-shot burst. From the third stage, the attack action becomes a two-shot swing, and the fourth stage is a slightly exaggerated all-round stick spin, and finally a fierce smash is used as the end.
After hitting the enemy with a light stick, you can accumulate the stick force slot indicator at the bottom right of the screen. A full bar counts as one point, and the maximum can reach four points after upgrading. As for the use of stick force, it is closely tied to the heavy stick.
There are two application scenarios for the heavy stick. The most common is “single shot”. When the player presses the heavy stick button, Tianmingren will have a short preparation time and use up all the accumulated stick force points during this period. After preparation, different levels of heavy stick skills are played according to the consumption. The higher the level, the more powerful the moves are, and the longer the pre-swing range of the moves is.
Even if the stick power reserve is insufficient, the system also provides a charging function. When activating the heavy stick, if the player does not release the button, the stick power slot will be accumulated out of thin air at the cost of the continuous reduction of energy. Even if you start from zero, you can eventually use the full-level big move.
The heavy stick can be said to be the biggest difference in combat logic between “Black Myth: Wukong” and other ARPGs. On the one hand, the accumulated state of the stick’s power determines the power of the heavy stick after it is used. Whether to use it immediately or accumulate it first and then use it again depends on the player’s understanding of the situation. On the other hand, the amazing pre-swing stiffness of the heavy stick makes it easy to be forcibly canceled by the enemy’s attack before the damage judgment is triggered. The three-stage stick that has been accumulated with great effort is missed or interrupted, which can be called the biggest nightmare of the destiny man on his journey.
Another mode of using the heavy stick is called “cutting hand technique”, which is simply to connect the light stick with the heavy stick, focusing on a smooth and smooth attack.
The advantage of the cutting hand technique is that it is seamlessly connected, eliminating the preparation stage, making the attack more compact, and the disadvantage is that the overall damage is not as high as that of a single attack.
“Black Myth: Wukong” provides three stick systems, which mainly affect the action modules of heavy stick and hand-cutting skills.
In fact, it can be seen from the initial default unlock that the stick-cutting will undoubtedly become the most mainstream player choice. Take myself as an example. In more than 90% of my playing time, I rely on the stick-cutting method to subdue demons.
Intuitively, the overall output of the stick-cutting is the highest, and the action is extremely powerful. When the player uses a fully charged four-stage heavy stick and successfully hits the top of the enemy’s head with a thousand pounds of force, accompanied by a significant reduction in blood volume, positive feedback erupts instantly, and the sense of refreshment is full.
The unique “see through” of the stick-cutting is also an irresistible feature. Compared with the dodging, or the similar “precision defense” design in similar games, the see through very wonderfully combines the attack and defense systems into one.
The previous article has introduced the concept of “hand-cutting skills” to everyone. In fact, only the hand-cutting skills of the stick-cutting have a short invincibility judgment when it is activated. If the enemy happens to hit us at this moment, the damage will be completely offset, and the screen will show a flashing red light. Although this hand-cutting skill will not increase the power, it will greatly enhance the knockback effect, and can directly interrupt the opponent’s follow-up and create a stagger.
It sounds pretty good, but in reality, it is very difficult to accurately launch the see-through.
To use the dodge, you only need to see the enemy’s moves clearly, and press the roll when the damage is determined, and you will often succeed.
This is not the case with see-through. Because the hand-cutting skill has a pre-light stick preparation, the time point that the player needs to grasp has changed from “instant” to “the moment after”.
For example, when the Tiger Vanguard launches a pre-shake attack on the destiny man for about one second, if you want to dodge, you can press the roll after one second.
But if you want to show off the see-through, you must estimate that you have played at least one light stick in advance, and ensure that the time point of pressing the heavy stick to launch the hand-cutting skill after the light stick action is completed coincides with that “one second later”. It is easy to fail if it is earlier or later. The prediction requirements for players are greatly increased.
Moreover, see-through cannot be launched continuously like dodge, and the action of the hand-cutting skill itself cannot be canceled. If you encounter high-frequency continuous damage, you will still be hit head-on.
It is also based on so many unfavorable conditions that if players can use it even once in actual combat, it can bring great psychological motivation.
However, it is obviously not what Game Science wants to see that one trick can do everything. In order to encourage everyone to try other stick methods, the planners have given performance advantages to the standing stick and the poking stick from various angles. In different situations, flexible switching of stick methods will indeed improve the efficiency of attacking levels visibly.
For example, when facing an enemy with a shield, using the heavy stick attack of the standing stick method can directly cause damage to the blood volume through the shield defense.
The poking stick highlights a defensive counterattack. Because the telescopic distance is far enough, in many situations, the opponent can be eliminated while ensuring its own safety. When fighting some late-stage ADHD bosses, using the split stick method to play the heavy stick is often nine out of ten, but switching to the poking stick method can ensure that every move hits.
Therefore, it is recommended that you light up all three stick methods at the beginning of the game and try the feel. If you are used to the split stick method, you may feel a little difficult to switch later.
In addition to weapons, the Destiny Man also has spells and transformation systems as auxiliary strategies.
The total number of spells in “Black Myth: Wukong” is not too many, but each one is very practical and cannot be replaced by each other. For example, the first spell you learn, the immobilization method, can completely stop the opponent in front of you for a period of time, and the player can use this gap to comfortably perform a whole set of combos. The invisibility effect of the gathering and dispersing of qi is quite useful when avoiding the continuous moves of certain enemies, and it also serves as an emergency measure when the life is low. The body outside the body method will call out a large group of clones, turning the battle from a one-on-one fight into a gang fight, and many times a wave can completely cripple the boss.
Strictly speaking, the transformation system should be divided into two types. The first is the continuous transformation that everyone already knows, such as the red tide that was made public a long time ago. After the activation, the person of destiny directly changes into the appearance of the corresponding monster, and the attack mode completely changes. You can fight in this form until the transformation duration ends or the transformed physical strength is exhausted.
The other is the “incarnation skill” that was not shown until the last trailer. It only supports one transformation attack and is usually used as a combo finishing skill. Compared with continuous transformation, the number of incarnation skills supported in the game is much higher, and you can learn it by challenging specific enemies and absorbing their spirits.
In terms of character growth, Black Myth: Wukong provides an internal system for upgrading points by beating monsters, as well as an external system for wearing more powerful equipment and accessories, which complement each other.
Let’s talk about the former first. When you defeat an enemy in the game, the person of destiny will get “Dao Xing”, which is equivalent to experience points. When the Dao Xing accumulates to a certain value, you can get 1 spiritual point. The spiritual point can be used to unlock the talent skill tree items in the practice menu to obtain the corresponding bonus effect.
Practice is mainly divided into two categories: foundation and stick technique. Among them, the foundation focuses on reducing the energy consumption of various actions, as well as improving the performance of basic actions such as light stick attacks and stick flowers. Traditional numerical improvements, such as maximum life, maximum energy, attack power, defense power, etc. are all included in the “body segment practice” project of the foundation. The stick technique is related to the performance of the three major stick techniques in the game, unlocking more action moves. The way to increase the upper limit of the stick is to light up a certain number of items in the stick method list, which will unlock the second-stage stick, third-stage stick, and fourth-stage stick functions in turn.
In addition to the above two items, various spells and transformations support aura point upgrades, which will enhance their effects to varying degrees. For example, if you invest enough resources in external body skills, the duration and vitality of the clones transformed by the destiny man will be higher. If you add more points to the immobilization skills, the time to immobilize the enemy will be significantly extended.
External equipment includes weapons, armor, and treasures. On the basis of providing additional value bonuses, most of them come with special effects. By allocating points and equipment, players can put together some practical build systems according to their own playing habits, such as flash builds, critical hit builds, poison damage builds, etc. In the later stages of the process, the importance of builds will even exceed the value.
Finally, let’s talk about the level and monster design, which is the area where many people are most worried about the quality of the game. It can be said with certainty that the scene scale and comprehensive volume of “Black Myth: Wukong” far exceeded my imagination. Compared with the overall, the content of the “Ziyun Mountain” level in last year’s test can only be described as the tip of the iceberg. Just a little exploration in the first round may take you dozens of hours.
The game is not just a large “Boss Rush” as previously speculated. Nearly a hundred kinds of miscellaneous soldiers of various forms run through the process, which will cause considerable obstacles to the destiny man. Of course, the total number of boss battles in the game is amazing enough, and some powerful bosses may become stuck points. Fortunately, the essence of this game is ARPG. Even if you are temporarily trapped by an enemy, you can suppress it through the level and equipment upgrade, not to mention the various tricks brought by spell transformation. Even for players with limited operating skills, it is not difficult to pass the game.
Having said so many good things above does not mean that Black Myth: Wukong is a perfect work. After all, this is the first attempt at such a large-scale stand-alone development, and there are objective shortcomings in game science experience. After experiencing almost all the content of the game, some design points do make people feel that they can be raised a little higher and optimized a little more. And some system functions, such as perspective and lock, occasionally have small problems that make me unhappy when using them. However, these small problems are not enough to shake the excellent overall quality of the game.
From the release of the first trailer four years ago to today, both the project itself and the developers behind it have been constantly experiencing various positive and negative public opinions, and the pressure can be imagined.
But no matter what, the final landing of word of mouth still depends on quality. Now, the finished product in front of me fully meets my definition of “good game”, and even exceeds expectations in some places. It is no exaggeration to say that it is absolutely qualified to represent Chinese games and compete head-on with overseas first-tier manufacturers on the world industry stage this year.
As a media practitioner and an ordinary Chinese player, although my power is meager, I am not reluctant to give “Black Myth: Wukong” a full score here.
As for whether its birth can bring a different situation to the development of the entire domestic stand-alone industry, I am also willing to witness it with everyone.