BLACK MYTH WUKONG | Full Game Walkthrough | No Commentary
231Black Myth Wukong is one of the most anticipated games of the last couple of years. Everyone remembers the first trailer that was shown where it ran on the incredible Unreal Engine 5. We saw a tiny monkey warrior fight an enormous beast and four years later we get to play that confrontation ourselves.
Black Myth is a huge game for China as it tells a beloved tale of the Monkey King and also puts Triple A gaming by Chinese company on a global scale. Many believed this game to be a souls like experience, but it also shares elements of other genres and feels like its own, unique game. The real draw to me personally is the beautiful and mystical setting.
I have to admit I am not very familiar with Journey To The West or the Monkey King in general, but this game really made me want to dive into the lore and mythos of the Monkey King. It surprised me how much this old tale has inspired popular manga like Dragonball or even One Piece. There are plenty of other games, movies and comics depicting the Monkey King, so I definitely plan on delving deeper into this awesome setting, but Black Myth was an amazing introduction. It shows the power of gaming and what it can do to introduce certain audiences to cultures and history and make them interested in that certain subject.
The intro actually has us playing as the Monkey King Sun Wukong as we battle the armies of Heaven and get trapped into a stone. Then thereafter we play as a different monkey and have to collect six relics in order to become the new embodiment of Sun Wukong once more. Along the way we meet up with all kinds of mystical creatures and characters that take part in the original Monkey King story.
The game starts out a little light on story and actually jumps pretty drastically from chapter to chapter, but from chapter 3 and onward you actually get to meet some characters that stick with you and make the story easier to understand. For me the highlight was definitley the little pig Zhu Baije. He was so grumpy, but also so cute with his little posture. I loved seeing him waddle around and wreck enemies with his rake.
You traverse through different biomes and have to beat enemies, find treasure and help npcs on side quests. But the main attraction point of the game in my opinion are the bosses. And there are so many of them and almost all of them are unique and different. There's a few that get reused multiple times like the frogs, but almost all other bosses never get reused and have their own unique look and feel. In that way it does bosses even better than a game like Elden Ring where so many bosses get reused.
The creativity in the type of bosses are also amazing and you will fight things and creatures that go beyond your imagination. There are even many optional and secret bosses that are some of the most amazing boss fights in gaming period.
Probably the weakest part of the game is sometimes its level design where a lot of invisible walls make it confusing or obnoxious on where you can go explore or not. Later chapters have more open areas, but you will still run into an invisible wall around every other corner. But other than that the game had great pacing and every few minutes it had a new and awesome boss to offer. The game was quite difficult, but not impossible. There were maybe 3 bosses or so that were really difficult, but other than that it was all doable yet challenging and satisfying. I'm glad that Black Myth is doing so well and hope to see more awesome games with original settings like this!
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