Black Myth: Wu Kong - a.k.a. "Sekiro 2: now YOU are the monkey"

[Multidirectional]

I mean i like the monke way better than the twink looking Pinocchio but Lies of P just gives me the feeling it's the superior game.

Don't need to play the twink. This is what I played as:

Spoiler

 

[Suicidal]

So what's the verdict on this thing?

Somehow i'm getting the vibe Lies of P was better and that if i decide to grab one i should hit that one first, but it's all based on instinct as i'm actively avoiding too much exposure from either. Gotta keep that first experience fresh.

I mean i like the monke way better than the twink looking Pinocchio but Lies of P just gives me the feeling it's the superior game.

-Fun and varied boss fights.
-Boring levels due to 99% of enemies being vegetables that can barely pose a challenge and most battles being 1v1. Also everything is just a really long corridor with tons of invisible walls.
-Fun combat system with some interesting mechanics like really powerful crowd control spells that work on everything but it truly shines only during boss battles.
-Decent amount of customization for your character, but there is only 1 weapon type.
-Good number of secrets to find, including secret bosses and abilities.
-At some point the levels become too long for their own good and the game turns into a slog.
-The last chapter is some truly mind-numbing shit.

 

[cruel]

So what's the verdict on this thing?

Somehow i'm getting the vibe Lies of P was better and that if i decide to grab one i should hit that one first, but it's all based on instinct as i'm actively avoiding too much exposure from either. Gotta keep that first experience fresh.

I mean i like the monke way better than the twink looking Pinocchio but Lies of P just gives me the feeling it's the superior game.

If you care about good skill-based combat, weapon variety and challenging difficulty, Lies of P is a better choice. Unfortunately some of the major bosses got nerfed, so you won't get the 'proper' difficulty now - unless there are ways to undo the patch, not sure if possible.

Not saying that Wukong was bad, but fighting with one weapon can become stale pretty soon, and some of the 'difficulty' comes from bosses flying above your head, disappearing from the arena range, questionable hitboxes and few other shenanigans. Plus a very valid point from Suicidal made above, the levels in-between the boss fights were pretty boring at times.

 

[Morality Games]

Black Myth Wukong has unique and entertaining bosses But fails to entertain in between the bosses. It is boss fest which becomes bore fest due to too many bosses.
Lies Of P is more balanced and the story is more simpler to understand.

"Better explained" would be the word I would choose, but yes.

That said, it's still a Souls-like and leans heavy into environmental storytelling.

So what's the verdict on this thing?

Somehow i'm getting the vibe Lies of P was better and that if i decide to grab one i should hit that one first, but it's all based on instinct as i'm actively avoiding too much exposure from either. Gotta keep that first experience fresh.

I mean i like the monke way better than the twink looking Pinocchio but Lies of P just gives me the feeling it's the superior game.

Lies of P is really good, although the system has a lot more features than most Souls-like (for better or worse). You've got the weapons upgrades from Dark Souls but also you can mix and match parts to get different weapons skills and effects. You have the prosthetic arm from Sekiro and you have a Final Fantasy 10 like upgrade system. You've got the grindstone to apply effects on your weapons and star fragments (as in wish upon a star) to apply special buffs to yourself or your summons for boss fights.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Lies of P is really good

I just gave it a try and found it really disappointing. Weapons don't appear to have running attacks or the like, so you've basically just got light and heavy attacks. Blocking is utter shit because you don't even block all the damage and it eats weapon durability, and enemies have unblockable attacks regularly to begin with. You've got special attacks, but they take forever to charge up. Like, I killed a dozen enemies before I could use one, and the effect was equivalent to 3 light attacks in the time it takes to do 2. Wooo.

Even assuming the upgrade system and prosthetics are really good (and I'm doubtful) or the level design gets better (I'm even more doubtful, it was doing the Skyrim thing of a single path with shortcuts back to the entrance over and over again) or the loot gets better (nothing but worthless consumables and lore tidbits for an hour) I'd still probably regret the purchase. Refunded.

LS might like it though, since it seems to be all about timing parries against jankily animated attacks.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Souls has good atmosphere (at least the early titles) but I'm not sure it reaches the point of 'oppressive'. Even in DS1, you've got goofy shit like Solaire, Patches, and a number of sparkly enemies.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

For those who care, it won GOTY at the Golden Joystick awards.

 

[Skinwalker]

Is it shit?

 

[Sweeper]

https://gamerant.com/black-myth-wukong-game-of-the-year-loss-reaction/

Taking to Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, Black Myth: Wukong producer Feng Ji addressed the game's Game of the Year loss to Astro Bot. According to a Google Translate translation of the post, the Black Myth producer said, "The games nominated this year were all exceptional, but honestly, I still can’t figure out what the criteria were for Game of the Year. I feel like I came all the way here for nothing!" Feng Ji then acknowledged the frustration some fans have expressed about Black Myth not winning Game of the Year. "It's normal to be a little angry when you are so confident but not recognized by others," he said. Apparently, Feng Ji wrote his Game of the Year award acceptance speech for Black Myth: Wukong two years ago, illustrating how confident he was in the game.

Notably, Black Myth: Wukong is the lowest-rated game ever nominated for Game of the Year. According to review aggregate site OpenCritic, Black Myth: Wukong reviews left it with an 82 overall score and a 90 overall player rating. Astro Bot, meanwhile, has a 95 overall critic rating and a 100 user player rating. All the other GOTY nominees had higher scores than Black Myth as well, and so while not everyone thought Astro Bot was going to win Game of the Year, many assumed one of the other, non-Black Myth nominees was going to win instead.

 

[GrainWetski]

This game really fucking upset the gameswhorenalists so regardless of the game's quality it's great that it exists.

Anal Pierce or whatever the whore is named claimed the devs/CEO were crying when Astrobot won instead of them even though it's on video and they're all smiling. When you Google for it, you can see all the gaming sites immediately regurgitating it.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I've been playing this and liking it.....right up until they introduced the fucking cloud mechanic in chapter 6. This game is janky as fuck when it comes to indicating which parts of the world are transversible, and it's very easy to get stuck (or get bosses stuck) inside invisible walls for the first 5 chapters. So brilliant idea to suddenly make the player navigate around a big, empty, level in 3 dimensional space looking for enemies without knowing whether or not you'll get stuck between a rock and an invisible barrier or just fall infinitely through empty space when you land.

Great game otherwise, though.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

So what's the verdict on this thing?

Somehow i'm getting the vibe Lies of P was better and that if i decide to grab one i should hit that one first, but it's all based on instinct as i'm actively avoiding too much exposure from either. Gotta keep that first experience fresh.

I mean i like the monke way better than the twink looking Pinocchio but Lies of P just gives me the feeling it's the superior game.

Lies of P is way better. Wukong is fun, but basically a boss rush where most of the difficulty involves figuring out which (slightly gimmicky) fighting style and abilities need to be used with which boss.

It gets way better once you get enough points to buy all of styles and switch between them at will. However, up until that point you will spend ages respecing your character to try different builds, which is incredibly tedious when you consider that you need 200 or so points to max out skills and when you respec you have to hold down the select button to assign every. single. point. individually.

It gets so tedious.

 

[Jinn]

Wukong has much better exploration and quests than Lies of P in my eyes. I feel a lot of people who claimed there was little exploration were actually just missing a lot of the exploration there was to be had, and assumed they were walking down a corridor. There are tons of secrets, quests, upgrades, fights, and characters off the most obvious paths. Now that the developers added a map system into the game, I think a lot of newer players won't feel the same as earlier ones did. Adding a map was pandering and a bad idea in my opinion, but I guess if the majority of your players are too impatient and unobservant to actually explore, then maybe it's necessary.

I think this "boss rush" sentiment is kind of overblown, and overall could have been avoided if they hadn't stuck a "boss" bar under so many mini-bossish encounters, which I viewed as just slightly more challenging normal enemy encounters. What I found is that it's not so much a boss rush, but a game with varied and unique encounters, and with a normal amount of real bosses that you'd find in a game of this sort. I appreciate that a combat-oriented game put so much effort into making so many memorable encounters that weren't just massive boss fights.

As for respeccing: never did it once. Was way more fun to go with the flow. There's a surprising amount of directions you can take your character though, if you lean into particular trees.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Adding a map was pandering and a bad idea in my opinion

Can you disable it at least? Haven't gotten around to this one yet.

 

[Jinn]

Can you disable it at least? Haven't gotten around to this one yet.

Yeah, luckily the maps are items you have to purchase for each area. It's actually a good way of implementing it, but the price is so minimal that it's essentially irrelevant.

 

[Whipping Post]

So what's the verdict on this thing?

Gameplay-wise it's a solid, high density action dodging simulator that's enjoyable in small doses like an arcade game. It's definitely fun but I have no desire to gorge on it for hours on end. Difficulty is well balanced, not hard enough to be frustrating but intense enough that beating some of the bosses feels really satisfying.

Aesthetically it's a masterpiece and not just because the graphics are good. Some of the enemies are a little strange but overall the designers show good taste and I never encountered any cringe which is a rare thing these days. Lots of Buddhist trappings. Feels like you're in a Chinese folktale but looks more like Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio than Journey to the West.