Black Myth: Goku is good game with unlimited potential, but still needs polishing

With the upcoming global release of the highly anticipated Chinese action role-playing game Black Myth: Wukong, overseas game bloggers have already conducted their initial reviews of the game. This article summarizes the views of some of these overseas bloggers, aiming to provide Chinese gamers with an objective reference to help them better understand the game's strengths and weaknesses. Below is a summary of some of the key points based on these reviews for Chinese players' reference.

I've also summarized some of the overseas players' reviews of Black Myth: Goku before, so you can take a look at them, and I hope to make it into a series (at least 5 articles) to lend Chinese players a reference:

Black Myth: Goku in the eyes of foreign players ①: the confusion and amazement of an epic gaming masterpiece

At its core, Black Myth: Goku is a good action role-playing game with great combat mechanics, mind-blowing cinematic boss battles, and top-notch audiovisuals in modern gaming. Unfortunately, it fails to reach true excellence due to bland map design, monotonous enemy types, and a redundant equipment system.

Pros.

+ Exciting, cinematic boss battles

+ Excellent combat system with plenty of build options

+ Beautifully rendered graphics

+ Compelling storytelling

+ Overall excellent performance

Cons

- Bland, uninspired map design

- Insufficient enemy variety

- Redundant equipment and drop system

- There are some noteworthy performance issues

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After a six-year development cycle, and after GameScience first announced it to the world four years ago, Black Myth: Goku is finally coming to Windows PC and PS5 in a matter of days, with an Xbox version in close development. It promises to be one of the most anticipated games of 2024, especially for action-adventure gamers who love action-adventure games with RPG elements.

Thanks to its amazing boss battles and visually stunning environments, gamers have been eagerly anticipating Black Myth: Goku for months - as evidenced by its top spot on the Steam wishlist. But can GameScience's high-powered action RPG really live up to the hype? Does it truly belong among the best PC games of the year?

Image Source: Sourced from the Internet
After a week of gaming, I'm a little torn on the answers to the above questions. There's no doubt that Black Myth: Goku is a good game - a very solid action role-playing game with engaging boss battles, interesting combat mechanics, flawless audiovisual presentation, and an enjoyable and exciting story. Unfortunately, the levels between those boss fights, the enemies within them, and a portion of the game's progression system feel underwhelming, ultimately preventing it from being truly great.

Disclaimer.

This review is based on the Windows PC version of Black Myth: Goku, with a review code provided by Game Science via Steam. The company did not see the review before it was published.

While Black Myth: Goku is undoubtedly a good title overall, its disappointing map design, lackluster enemy variety, and redundant equipment system keep it from reaching true excellence. Even so, it's still worth getting, especially if you can buy it on sale.

Introduction to Black Myth: Goku

Before I go any further, I'll give a general overview of what kind of game Black Myth: Goku is and what you can expect if you decide to buy it.

Price: $59.99 | $52.69 at CDKeys (PC, Steam)

Developer: Game Science

Publisher: Game Science

Genre: Action Role Playing Game

Installation Size: 128.57GB (PC)

Game Length: 25-30 hours

Platform: Windows PC, PS5 (Xbox version in development)

Review Platform: Windows PC (Steam)

Release Date: August 20, 2024

Xbox Game Pass: No

Black Myth: Goku is a single-player action role-playing game developed and published by GameScience, a studio that has been working on the game since 2018. since it was first revealed in 2020, it has become one of the most anticipated action games and could be one of the biggest game releases of the year. Like many other action role-playing games, it features stylized melee combos, dodging, skill trees, spells, equipment unlocks, and other upgrade systems.

Compared to open-world and non-linear games such as Eldenfalcon, Black Myth: Goku is much more straightforward and fastidious, with its grandiose boss battles interspersed by simple levels and smaller enemy encounters. Indeed, the game can be described as a series of boss battles, each of which is engaging and challenging. While it's not the hardest action role-playing game I've ever played, it's by no means easy to get through.

Narratively, the game is based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, and the player takes on the role of the “Chosen One” - a character modeled after the Monkey King. Like the original novel, the game's story and setting are heavily influenced by Chinese mythology.

Black Myth: Wukong will officially release on August 20, 2024, but later on August 19 in the United States. The game is available for Windows PC and PS5, and you can buy it on Steam, the Epic Games Store, WeGame, and the PlayStation Store. It's worth noting that the Steam version is only $52.69 right now at CDKeys as a result of a special offer.The Xbox Series X|S version will also be available at some point, but the exact date has yet to be determined.

Speaking of boss battles, they're another highlight of Black Myth: Goku, with each chapter featuring several topsy-turvy showdowns with mythological creatures and warriors that are filled with mind-blowing audio-visual extravaganzas. With a few exceptions - the third stage of the boss at the end of Chapter 2 gave me a headache, and one of the main bosses encountered midway through Chapter 3 seemed incredibly unfair due to camera issues and overly high blood counts - each opponent's attack moves are designed Each opponent's attacks are beautifully designed and easy to anticipate, and learning their movesets is an intuitive and fun process, as well as effective at defeating them no matter how you configure your Destiny's attributes and skills.

Unfortunately, in the areas between boss battles, Black Myth: Goku is noticeably lacking, with bland maps that often don't give the player any interesting routes to explore, and a very boring variety of monsters. I don't mind maps with linear progression, but if there's nothing meaningful to find on those maps, or if there's not enough variety in the enemies, then it becomes quite boring to play. It's not that there's absolutely nothing to find - you can still find some spells, core attribute upgrades, and optional mini-bosses through exploration - but compared to last year's similar game, Crouching Dragon: Fall of Cthulhu, Black Myth: Goku's shortcomings are pretty obvious.

Image Source: Sourced from the Internet

Most of what you find are chests containing crafting materials that relate to Black Myth: Goku's redundant equipment system for crafting new armor, weapon upgrades, and consumables at checkpoints. Equipment and dropped items are usually a big part of most ARPGs, but in Black Myth: Goku they feel completely irrelevant, just there to trigger a dopamine release when you see the green attribute boost arrow. Since you don't need to think about gear burden mechanics, there are no gear bonuses that really make an impact, and the overall gear variety is poor, so why include craftable gear?

In the end, I'd like to see Game Science either simplify away this part by not including gear progression like FromSoftware did with Only Wolf, or take what Team Ninja did with Renwang and Crouching Dragon and give players a variety of unlockable items to weigh the pros and cons. When combined with more interesting map design, this approach would take Black Myth: Goku to a whole new level.

Black Myth: Goku Review - Plot (No Spoilers)

There's only so much I can discuss about Black Myth: Goku's plot (no spoilers), but as someone who has never read Journey to the West (and now desperately wants to), I think it's a great storyline, with likable characters coupled with great over-the-top animations that make for a very entertaining adventure throughout. However, I can't comment on how good the quality is as an adaptation.

The best parts of the plot are the game's transitions, which play seamlessly between tense and exciting gameplay segments with excellent animation. There are also some particularly great transitions animated between each chapter of the story, and I won't spoil what they are here except to say that they're an absolute treat.

Image Source: Sourced from the Internet

In addition to this, plot details are presented in an abstract manner, similar to the Souls series, where important information is hidden in cryptic dialog, environmental details, or “portrait” files of defeated bosses and enemies. Admittedly, there's nothing earth-shattering here, but I still enjoyed delving into the backstory.

Black Myth: Goku Review - Graphics and Sound

Black Myth: Goku was developed on the Unreal Engine 5, and after experiencing this journey through the mythical world, I can safely say that it really does reflect that. Filled with vibrant colors, detailed visuals, gorgeous lighting and excellent animations, this is one of the best new games I've played in recent years in terms of graphics - and coupled with the game's scientifically amazing art direction, the game's graphics are an absolute feast for the eyes.

In particular, the game's environments are spectacular, numerous and beautiful. Players will traverse everything from sun-dappled dense forests and colorful autumn woods to extreme environments such as blazing deserts and frigid snow-covered mountains. Scattered throughout these environments are elaborate interior spaces and man-made structures, including cave systems, underground tunnels, temples, and more.

Black Myth's graphical excellence is also reflected in its sound, with powerful and satisfying sound effects during combat, and the Chinese voice acting sounds great (I used subtitles, so I can't comment on the quality of the English voice acting). The game's soundtrack is also great, and the action-themed soundtrack is energized by many traditional Chinese instruments.

Black Myth: Goku Review - Performance

In terms of performance, Black Myth: Goku performs well overall (make sure to check its system requirements and if it will run on Steam Deck/ROG Ally). On my PC with an NVIDIA RTX 3070, Intel Core i5-12600K, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM, with AMD Super Resolution and Frame Generation Technology turned on at high settings, I was able to get a solid 70-80 FPS most of the time when playing the game on my ultra-wide 3440x1440 monitor. the overall gaming experience was smooth and enjoyable! , although I did run into a few issues.

The first issue was a certain amount of frame rate drop that sometimes occurs when bosses use a lot of particle effect attacks, dropping my frame rate down to the mid-twenties every time this happened. While this didn't affect my ability to dodge the attacks too much, there were a few times where I got hit because I was distracted by the sudden drop in performance or wasn't sure when to hit the dodge button.

Secondly, I also experienced some slight lag and delay, which occurred both during the aforementioned particle effect-heavy attacks and at other times. These were relatively infrequent and not severe enough to interfere with my gaming experience, but could be very annoying if they happened to occur at critical moments.

Black Myth: Goku Review - Summary

Black Myth: Goku Review - Summary

Overall, Black Myth: Goku is a very solid action role-playing game with exciting cinematic boss fights, varied and polished scenarios, a rich combat system and an excellent plot. However, it's limited by bland map design, disappointing enemy variety, a redundant equipment system and some noteworthy performance issues.

If you're the type of gamer who enjoys challenging ARPGs, stunning graphics, and a great story, this game is definitely worth checking out-especially if it's on sale (remember that the PC version is available at a small discount on CDKeys). Even so, I can't help but think about how great this game would be if these mediocre elements had more depth and substance.

Black Myth: Goku is scheduled for a worldwide release on August 20, 2024, first on Windows PC and PS5, followed by Xbox Series X|S at some point in the future.