Wuthering Waves Review

Kuro Games released the highly anticipated Wuthering Waves on May 22, 2024, with 30 million pre-registered. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, we play as “the Rover,” the main character who wakes up and sets out to venture into this new world.

Wuthering Waves is mostly known for its fast-paced gameplay with inspirations from Pokémon and their own game, Punishing: Gray Raven. Some unique mechanics to this game include Counterstrike and Extreme Evasion. When an enemy does a specific attack, a Flaw Circle may appear. If you hit the enemy during this, you can counterattack, which disrupts the enemy’s attack and provides additional effects. Dodging during an enemy’s attack triggers Extreme Evasion. During Extreme Evasion, you will not be injured and can provide additional damage to the enemy without being attacked.

Wuthering Waves has a mechanic called Echo System. Just like Genshin Impact with artifacts, these offer additional stats to your characters. One thing that makes this different is how you get these echoes. When you defeat enemies, you can sometimes absorb them, equip them on your characters, and upgrade them. The more you absorb these enemies, the higher your Data Bank level will get. You gain new rarities the higher the Data Bank is.

The art style in the game was the first thing I was enamored by while playing. Some cutscenes look like they could be illustrations, and it stays consistent throughout the entire game. I notice some games have in-game models that are not the same as the official art or cutscenes. However, in Wuthering Waves, this is not the case. During combat, the in-game model still looks the same as it does during cutscenes, and I appreciate that instead of a money-grabbing game, it seems like a game that wants the players to have fun instead.

Despite the intense gameplay and admirable visuals, the story falls short. The game makes it feel like you’re running an errand instead of doing a quest. Some quests, such as Jiyan’s Story Quest, were exceptional. However, this is one of the main problems. The story quests are either extremely lackluster, or mind-blowingly well done. The premise of the quests is that an NPC tells you to defeat 10 enemies, you defeat 10 enemies. You go back and get a reward, and then you’re brought into a string of random events and stretched out dialogue that have no genuine meaning. That’s not the case with some quests, but it is for most of them. I had high hopes for the story, as the first cutscene was eye-catching. It is not bad, however, as it follows the basic RPG script. You meet new characters, explore, fight bosses, and more. However, I did expect more, especially with the visuals you get right at the start.

Another issue is how long you need to grind sometimes. Grinding comes with RPGs, but it does get tiring. You need ascension materials to ascend characters to a higher level, however, some of these materials clash with the story. I had problems with the character Camellya. Up to level 40, the ascension materials get increasingly hard, which I had to go through two hours of grinding to get. It was not because it was hard to find or defeat, but because I had to unlock an entire map section to get it. Going through two-story quests to unlock the area was time-consuming, especially with the additional side quests.

Overall, Wuthering Waves is an amazing first choice for an immersive RPG that showcases unique features not seen in most games. Despite some issues I had, Kuro Games takes these issues and fixes them quickly, with updates constantly being released. Knowing more to come is exciting, especially with how much I’ve been playing it recently.