Black Myth: Wukong

[Mr Momentum & the Sidesteppers]

On Aug 20th 2024, we are all Chinese.



In the immortal words of Dalauan Sparrow, "I'll be that monkey."

[Mr Momentum & the Sidesteppers]

I'm being completely unironic when I say this: Black Myth: Wukong made me believe Chinese people have souls.



For most of my life I assumed all Chineses were soulless golem. Unlike the Japanese and the Koreans (the "soulful" asians who make kino anime, film, music etc.), there seemed to be no such soulfulness from China. Even the Filipinos, Viets and other assorted jungle asians all seemed to have some level of soulfulness to them. And while I had read Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a teen, I assumed that this was from a time when the soul of China was still intact. Communism, as it naturally does, sucked the very souls out of Chinese people and left them all as soulless automaton desperately seeking to escape from China, where slowly but surely their souls could time over time reenter their bodies under freer, capitalist societies. Much of this I attribute to the Chinese government censoring and controlling everything with any kind of soulfulness, even killing the soulful and rebellious as they did in Tiananmen Square.



As strange as it may sound, the story of the rebellious hearted Sun Wukong fighting against a divine bureaucracy seems to resonate even today after hundreds of years. I now am willing to admit I was wrong and am converted. My friendship with Japan is ended, China is my new best friend.



Seriously and I can't emphasize this enough, every single thing about Black Myth: Wukong hollers S O V L from the rooftops. From arguably the single greatest introduction sequence to a game I've ever seen in my life, to the music and presentation, the ridiculously robust skill tree and abilities, the Chinese fables in all the character and enemy descriptions, the kino animations at the footend of every single chapter, the brilliant illustrations of the events of Journey to the West in the Great Pagoda.



Also, can we please stop pretending Hidetaka Miyazaki knows how to make a good game, or tell any kind of cohesive story? Wukong completely fucking blows Elden Ring and Sekiro out of the water. Whereas I barely had fun playing those games and had to force myself to beat them (just so I could tell people in good faith that I didn't enjoy them and they couldn't accuse me of not being able to beat the games), I think I'm probably going to start crying when the story of Wukong is over. I haven't felt this invested in a game's story and world since the last "actually next generation" game, Cyberpunk 2077. This is, for the record, the third next-gen game. Cyberpunk was the first, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was the second, Wukong is the 3rd.

Seriously though: read every single entry in the journal. Some of these tales might even make you genuinely feel something. Some are horrific tales that will keep you thinking about the character you had just fought. Others are more like a very long fortune cookie with some moral lesson at the end.





I really think if this game does not win Game of the Year, I'm never watching The Game Awards ever again. This is a very crucial point for gaming journalism in general. They are decrying the gravedancing over Concord's corpse, while they themselves were attempting to gravedance Wukong before it became one of the fastest selling games of all time.



Black Myth: Wukong is the People's GotY 2024. The praise from anyone who doesn't work from some journalistic media umbrella corporation has been overwhelming. YouTube reviewers can't believe how good the game is or how much information about the actual scale and depth of the game was withheld from those reading Western reviews. If this game does not win Game of the Year, it spells the complete and utter loss of any journalistic integrity or meaning The Game Awards is meant to stand for. If any other game is crowned GotY, the revolt from players around the world will be remarkable. No other game this year deserves the crown.

[Mr Momentum & the Sidesteppers]

Yeah after beating this shit, all I can say is "holy fuck bro.". Erlang and OG Wukong are fucking rough but I did it with Spellbinder. This is a goddamn video game. I'm going to fucking read Journey to the West, all 2000 pages. Can't believe it but I jumped straight into New Game Plus. Unlike Miyazaki-slop where by the time I'm done I never want to think about the game ever again. Ch1 on NG+ is this cakewalk where you just get to assrape the game with mind synced duplicates. Haven't done the runback with a game right after beating it since MGS3. Damn.