REVIEW: ‘Wuchang: Fallen Feathers’ Elevates The Genre With Exploration And Creativity

Souls-like is an ever-growing genre that challenges players’ skills to the max. You’ll need to be on your A-game constantly to make sure you see the credits. WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers, by Leenzee and 505 Games, does just that and more in a beautiful setting full of cinematic fights in every direction.

With the expanding landscape, the difficulty in introducing a new game is that it must stand out and burst through the noise. It needs to prove to the soulslike and gaming community at large why this one is different, deserves your attention, and what hasn’t been explored yet.

You follow Wuchang’s journey, from awakening in a strange land with complete memory loss. Wuchang wakes up in a cave with her arm slowly growing feathers. It appears she’s been infected by the affliction affecting the land of Shu, known as feathering.

Challenge is balanced with thoughtful creativity in WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers.

Not much is known about feathering beyond its supernatural ties, and once infected, your fate is all but sealed. You will be doomed to a fate worse than death as you forget everything that made you human and transform into a monstrous beast.

Wuchang must fight this illness and get to the bottom of not only the warring factions of the land, but also why the spiritual have encroached on Shu. All this while discovering who exactly she is before she succumbs to the feathering.

In a way, WUCHANG‘s story may be its weakest aspect. There’s a lot of vagueness regarding Wuchang’s true purpose, and occasional reminders of her past. Every time it’s brought up, I always have an “Oh yeah, that’s a part of this” moment. As for the grander story of Shu, that’s what was more attention-grabbing. 

Being pulled into a third faction from the jump was a great idea to make the world be against you. A faction that leads to the first area after bandits attack it. This leads to hints of a grander army that needs to be taken care of as it grows stronger and ravages the land.

Every character is memorable in WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers.

Why this all falls onto Wuchang is still pretty confusing. But overall, it is satisfying and left me aghast as I reached the credits, as each character was memorable. Every major fight and lead-up had big reveals that, even if just mildly paying attention, can lead to you piecing certain bits of the story together quite well without spelling it out. 

And like many soulslikes, the lore deep dives will be gripping. Primarily because its easy to tell how much care Leenzee had with building out Shu. There’s no feeling like everything just began when Wuchang woke up. There was a past and there is an uncertain future that you get to explore as you journey through Shu’s mountains, forests, caves, military camps, and more. 

Speaking of these different environments, they are jaw-droppingly beautiful. It’s hard to imagine just how much time was invested in making a land this picturesque. And the hazards are clear from the jump. You can quickly visually tell what will be a problem for you. And most importantly, the options you have on where to go or what to do next slowly increase as you play. And exploring is key to making it to the end.

Throughout Shu are numerous chests and collectibles to find. Finding these is almost a requirement to get upgrades for your weapon types, flasks, and Temperance beyond more weapons, armor, and spells. Even though every area feels linear, their depth is what makes running around to find everything so enjoyable. 

Exploration is as, if not more, important than leveling up in Leenzee’s souls-inspired game.

But again, exploration is about as, if not more, important than leveling up. If you find a chest that you can’t reach yet, looking around and thinking outside the box may be necessary to find the secret pathway that leads to it. Once found, it’s almost a sigh of relief. You will soon have more heals or more powerful weapons to get through this hell. 

Leveling is tied very closely to a weapon. Each weapon type has its own dedicated leveling tree in the leveling menu. They come with different stats and skills that are most tied to the use of that weapon. But it’s not exclusively for that weapon. It all builds out Wuchang as a whole while specializing in that weapon. So if you increase strength under the Axe tree, Wuchang’s overall strength stat goes up, and will improve other weapons that have an affinity for strength.

Same for different discipline attacks or skills. While they are seen as more tied to that specific weapon, they can be equipped to others. You basically build out your ultimate weapon with matching specific weapon-specific abilities to different discipline attacks. But it is a little annoying that parrying is locked behind this system rather than being a base ability. Guess that’s why there is such a push to dodge rather than block right from the start. 

Puzzle-solving and creativity help WUCHANG elevate the genre.

Later on, you’re basically required to look down different trees to find more of those stats. And respeccing is free! This aligns with some of WUCHANG‘s key focuses: creativity and puzzle-solving from a strategic standpoint. Some bosses are weak to certain damage types, or push more elemental affinities that encourage you to try something new. The boss at the end of the first area, Commander – Honglan, is a great example of this.

She’s quick, unrelenting, and needs more of a counterattack approach than the bosses before her. Axes and longsword work best. Axes because they come with a block discipline attack, and longswords for an early discipline art for sword counters, which is similar to a parry in other games. My previous strategy of dodging for quick openings to stun her wasn’t working. Using these and changing my gear up to protect more from slashes and blunt damage made the fight much more bearable.

There are two other things that must be mastered that take everything mentioned before to an even deeper level: Skyborn Might and Madness. Skyborn Might is another resource that must be managed while in combat that is as key as stamina and health. This is achieved by dodging enemy attacks perfectly, completing combos (once unlocked in the weapon trees), and executing specific actions in combat. And once gotten, Wuchang’s attacks and abilities become much stronger.

For instance, with the longsword and with a charge of Skyborn Might, her heavy attack charged changes from a stab to a heavy, arching slash. The whip sword, the weapon I used the most during my playthrough, created way more openings on human-like foes for major damage. Skyborn Might is also needed to cast spells, which are also vitally important. Spells are the best and most consistent way to add different debuffs to enemies. 

In other words, staying in the fight, being nimble, and keeping the pressure on foes is how you enter a flow state between landing bigger hits and casting spells. Then there’s madness. This is a resource that you don’t particularly use, but must manage to get more out of your skills and combat. It’s lost by defeating monster-like foes, and gained through dying and killing humans. 

At different levels, certain abilities become stronger or have different interactions. At max, you will take and deal more damage. It’s a risk-reward system that can at times be forgotten about until you need that advantage through being at certain madness levels to get the edge. 

However, that risk is also very high. Your madness level determines how much red mercury, WUCHANG‘s currency to level and purchase items, you lose on death. If you’re at about 50 percent madness, you’ll lose 50 percent of your red mercury when you die.

Madness drives everything in WUCHANG’s level system.

And will have to recover that 50 percent back. Plus, at max madness, dying to a normal enemy will lead to a visage spawning once you return to where your mercury was left. If you die to this visage, you lose all that mercury. If you win, you get it all plus some more. Thank goodness bosses don’t have the same effect. 

Every part of WUCHANG could have led to a complicated mess. But it doesn’t, and instead, leads to a synergy that can be mixed and matched for every challenge. While I mainly used longswords, it was everything else that was regularly being changed, from disciple attacks, to gear, to even Temperance affinities, or a charge that enhances your weapon with an element, and stat priorities. It wasn’t until I understood the importance of all this that fights evolved from being aggravating to puzzles with several solutions.

How are the boss fights, though? These are what players remember most about soulslike experiences. There are so many excellent fights here that they regularly are cinematic experiences. Even with some that are more exposition-based, if unlocking the associated summon for that fight via side quests, they too are still beautiful and memorable just by enemy design and attack patterns alone. 

However, some aspects of WUCHANG are annoying. Some mimics are unclear about what they are. Some shrines, which are your save points, are actually mimics. It’s not always the case, and there’s no clear indication as to which ones are mimics and which ones aren’t.

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers is elevated by its many fantastic fights.

After a hard-fought boss fight or long sections of a level, and you’re running on fumes, coming across one of these is just draining. Be wary, and plan to attack the shrines when you start to suspect one may be a mimic. They aren’t the hardest fights, but they are very annoying if you get caught slacking. 

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers is about problem-solving as much as mastering skills and opponents’ patterns, showing there’s more to the soulslike genre than just hard fights. Plus its unique take on leveling, death punishments, and weapon customization leads to a truly bespoke journey. In other words, there are no wrong answers when it comes to every one of its breathtaking and nail-biting encounters. 

Encouraging the player to experiment at this level is rare. Tweaking your loadout is a constant, especially as any pathway can lead to a new challenge or extraordinary discovery. With deep customization and vast exploration even in semi-linear levels, WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers is a can’t-miss. 

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.