Wuchang: Fallen Feathers made me grapple with the parry vs. dodge conundrum
The development of the final decade is alive and effectively: Soulslikes are nonetheless all the trend. Even among the many restricted number of demos at Summer season Sport Fest 2025, I noticed quite a few video games that have been both Souls right down to their toes or took some extent of inspiration from them. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, a self-described Soulslike motion RPG, does really feel very acquainted in these methods, but it surely’s additionally attempting a couple of issues completely different that would finally make or break its probabilities.
I received to play about an hour of Wuchang, primarily ranging from the start. I noticed scattered specs of its influences: the intro space instantly gave me Zelda: Breath of the Wild vibes, with an overlook of the land and a title sequence segueing right into a climb down in direction of my first hub space. After slightly little bit of exposition, I used to be primarily left to wander and discover my approach via a harmful land, attempting to determine simply what was happening.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a little bit of historic fiction, set within the Shu kingdom of western China in the course of the late Ming Dynasty however infused with fantasy and the supernatural. The Ornithropy illness is plaguing the land, spawning monsters all over the place. The participant character, Wuchang, is an amnesiac pirate warrior stricken with the Feathering, and should work out each who she is and the right way to repair her feathery new downside within the course of.
This entails lots of monsters and preventing. There is a dodge button, mild and heavy assaults, and you’ll freely swap between two weapons. There are additionally two weapon strategies, tied to particular person weapons, mapped to the left shoulder buttons on a controller (LB and LT, or L1 and L2). At two-per-weapon and a good unfold of them, even inside weapon courses like swords, spears, and axes, that is lots of completely different potential strikes. These are metered by Wuchang’s large draw: the Skyborn Would possibly system.
Fallen Feathers prioritizes the dodge seemingly above all else. Whenever you efficiently execute a well-timed dodge, Wuchang powers up and will get a pip of avian power, permitting her to unleash certainly one of her weapon strategies. (You may nonetheless use weapon strategies with out them, they simply will not be as highly effective.) You can even expend some meter to Fast Draw, which switches out of your held weapon to your sheathed one and unleashes a particular transfer within the course of.
Dodge, unleash, repeat. The imaginative and prescient for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, as I see it, is to make a well-executed battle with an enemy really feel as clean as a choreographed dance, with the 2 fighters swinging round and transferring gracefully. When it does work, it is wonderful. The primary time I parlayed an ideal dodge into an enormous swing with my sword I used to be thrilled. It looks like developer Leenzee’s purpose is to reward execution, precision, and timing.
Whereas it will sound like different motion video games, Wuchang’s techniques really feel designed to primarily flip these fights into dazzling spectacles, each to look at and play.
In that respect, it is a terrific system. However within the moments the place you are not gracefully dodging and transferring, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers also can really feel a bit slender in what it asks of you. The flip facet of Wuchang’s dodge-centric system is that parrying and blocking are current, however much less emphasised. Each are there via weapon strategies, which suggests you will nonetheless want to interact with the feathered system to maximise their potential.
In the midst of an hour, I hit some excessive highs and low lows. Completely studying a bosses’ strikes and responding in type, shaving big chunks off his life bar within the course of? Excessive.
Struggling to unravel the right way to use those self same strikes in a trap-laden space? Low.
These persist via most Soulslike video games, however with Wuchang, I did really feel like I used to be being guided in direction of a particular playstyle. I did not get to see a lot magic or different options to the flowing dance of shut melee fight that feels just like the beating coronary heart of the sport. And people kinds of choices are sometimes what assist individuals fall in love with Souls video games.
The opposite lingering query I’ve is the story. Fashion-wise I benefit from the world and grim alt-fiction Leenzee goes for right here. The feathering impact is evocative, and there are some cool results if you drop too many souls and must combat a demon to reclaim them (which can also be a extremely neat mechanic). The character writing did not actually do a lot for me although. Only some designs for the assorted NPCs caught with me, they usually did not have an excessive amount of to say or supply by way of world-building, save the creepy man who put me in a demon-dream. He dominated.
However in any other case, I did not discover an excessive amount of to seize onto when it got here to increase the historical past and mysteries of the world round me.
After tussling with a number of bosses and exploring a great chunk of the opening space, I am left a bit torn on Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. I actually like seeing studios put their very own spin on the style, particularly in a setting distinct from the handfuls upon dozens of samey darkish fantasy video games.
Wuchang appears intent to do one thing just a bit completely different inside a well-recognized area. We’ll see if it really works out subsequent month.