Wuthering Waves

Finally here. It's time to Review Wuthering Waves! I have always wanted to write this review blog since months ago when Wuthering Waves was still version 1.0. But damn, I am too lazy and this blog is lacking several components to display information the way I want. So I dedicated this last week to building all of those missing components. You should see all of the components in this blog already. 2 weeks later here I am writing the blog because the game introduced version 1.2 at the moment and I almost completed creating the missing components. I guess Kuro Games ships faster than me lol. Thanks to that, I decided to play Wuthering Waves for some time again until I finished playing the entire story update 1.2 has to offer.

Fast forward, let's go to the Wuthering Waves, The Review!

A bit about Wuthering Waves

Wuthering Waves is a free-to-play Online RPG. This game features characters, monsters, items, weapons, and anything you expect from an RPG (with additional currencies of course. Haha just kidding). The game was developed by the Kuro Games company, the same company that developed Punishing Gray Raven.

Enter The Prologue

Alright, enough about the game introduction. Let's go into the Prologue. Before we get into the prologue, let me update my game.

Rip my 20MBPS internet lol. The game for some reason, each update requires me to re-download all the assets. This is the same when I update to version 1.1. I don't know why the developer made it this way... I believe even in Game Development you can split the update into chunks so that users would only re-download the actual part that gets updated? But hey, I am not a Game Developer so this is not my place to say a lot.

As the download is complete, I finally can enter the game. In the welcome screen, we can choose register (if not already) and choose which server to play/register.

On the same screen, we will also be able to select our characters. Female or Male.

A fine gentleman, and a lady! I myself pick the male but honestly, I think I would prefer the Female one more. She's so pretty that I would rate her S already. I just feel that Female Rover is more suitable in some cutscenes too. Again it's just personal preference. Here I give you a video online that helps you play if you are interested:

Again this is just my preference, maybe because the main character in the cutscene often appears with a flat or confused expression.

When talking about male expression I keep thinking about the serious Kiryu face lol.

Alright, we should continue. As soon as we finished choose a character we will enter the game. These are some of the first visuals you get in the prologue:

+1 images

Look at the visuals! Quite stunning for starters!

In this Prologue, the game introduced some of the mechanics and its system. Basically, a tutorial.

Later on, the game will also introduce the combat mechanics and we will have our first combat all the way to our first boss as well.

Look at the enemy, being so smug to me! Huh! I'll give him a lesson. That should be all about the prologue. Let's jump to the review now!

Graphics

I'll start with the order I saw from the game and that is, Graphics which is what I saw first. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, the same engine that has powered popular titles like FF7 Remake, Gears 5, Borderlands 3, Stellar Blade, and the list goes on. How did I know? Obviously because of a crash lol:

Notice: The image above occurs in Wuthering Waves version 1.0. At this point, it may become obsolete.

Okay jokes aside, considering the engine and background of the Kuro Games, we got pretty niche graphics. The art style is similar to the anime kind of style. You could say it is somehow similar to Genshin or Legend of Zelda too. I can't say a lot in terms of Graphics since I can only play at low settings lol (Rip Vega 8). Performance-wise to my potato pc (Ryzen 3 3200G, Vega 8, 32 GB RAM) the game could run between 25-40 FPS. In some cases, it may get into 20 FPS haha.

The game looks good to me, but I just don't like how the shadow is being rendered. The shadows also move quite fast resulting in me getting dizzy sometimes. So I prefer to shut them down most of the time.

The image above is not mine. I took the screenshot from here

Why would we have a shadow on a cliff like that?

Anyway, here are some screenshots I captured:

UI

Alright enough about Graphics, now let's get into UI!

The UI of Wuthering Waves is quite simple and generic. At the bottom, you can see your health bar, the right side is some action (I think for mobile devices?), a few shortcuts, a map, and an active team.

As for the whole menu:

Feel free to add my ID hehe

That's quite a while, luckily Wuthering Waves includes a commonly used menu inside the wheel that you can trigger with TAB or LB:

Combat Mechanics

The game has plenty of mechanics, but for now, let's discuss the Combat Mechanics. Wuthering Waves features Attack & Parry with Dodge. This mechanic is quite common in Souls-like games. But it's also here, in Wuthering Waves! Let's discuss them.

Concerto Energy

This is an attack that occurs when a character enters/leaves battle (when you switch characters). Depending on the character doing so is often beneficial. You can have effects such as damage buff, continuous damage, buffs for the new character (the character you switch into), or negative effects/nerfs for the enemy.

Rover continuous damage when leaving (outro skill)

Dodge

Dodge is like its name, to dodge the attack from the enemy. Prevent any damage to your character if you manage to dodge it in split seconds. There's also Dodge Counter (is that what it's called?) you can use this the moment you just finished dodging, just strike back. Your character would deal a ton of damage and it will be True Damage as well (which means the enemy's damage reduction/defenses).

Counterattack

Counterattack is yet another mechanic that I highly suggest that you master it. By performing counter-attack you can stun the enemy for a few seconds. Cancelling their attacks and more. The game also shows a light yellow circle indicating the time for you to attack the enemy

TIP: Consider wait a while the moment the yellow circle appear and your rate of successfully hitting it will be higher, alternatively once the yellow circle appear make sure to have concerto energy stacked and switch into character that have attack type intro skill to have higher success rate of countering attack.

That should be all, the rest are just skills and ultimate skill also some passive that depend on the character you are playing.

TIP: For the above reasons, I would suggest you build a ranged attack character (preferably Chixia). Ranged Characters are often easier to perform mechanics such as Dodge Counter and Counter Attack where both are powerful mechanics and can be changing factors when fighting tough enemies.

Gameplay

Map

The Game Map is rather huge, for a size of 20GB. Of course, there are costs. Most of the map content is only a deserted open world with monsters and a bit of structural venue. However, I still like the map design where each of the areas has its own atmosphere.

The video above can be a good reference!

I would prefer the map to have been more lively maybe adding some more villages? or cities? attractions, etc!

Quests

Images above are based on version 1.2

Just like any other free-to-play online RPG, there are plenty of quest types here. Dailies (including the Guide book tasks), Companion, Exploration, Side, and finally Main Quest.

Quests like daily and side are more like chores. I found them boring and not important to the story. You can play them for rewards.

Exploration Quest can be quite fun because you will explore and ultimately unlock the area. I would say this quest is must must-play, but I found a lot of Exploration Quests to be so lengthy and time-consuming. This makes the quest quickly become boring later on.

Main Quests are as you can expect, the quests that are related to the story. Sometimes, to play these quests you need to level up your union level first.

Companion Quest. I'll consider this as my favorite quest. In this quest, we will listen to the story of a specific character. Unfortunately, this quest is for limited-time characters only. It's such a shame that we don't have Companion Quest for characters that are truly important to the story like our first partners, Yang Yang, Baizhi, and Chixia. I would love it if Kuro Games decided to make a companion quest for them but alas they're just 4-star characters.

Story

The story in this game is relatively short. As of Version 1.0, the story stuck to the after-event of defeating the final boss. That is.

I feel the story is written in a hurry. In the prologue, we were just introduced to the game basics, soon after we got introduced to the universe, and then suddenly we fought a tough enemy that I thought we would encounter later on. Most of the story quests are just fighting, solving puzzles, and chores. We are then introduced to some important characters in the story and things go quite fast.

Characters

At this time of writing, Wuthering Waves has 21 characters. Most of the characters are DPS-type. The gap between 4 to 5-star characters is quite huge, moreover for upgrades and their maximum stats. With some trade-off, you might find 4-star characters worth using. Of 21 of these characters, 12 are 5-star and 9 left are 4-star characters.

Also of those 21 characters, only 2 of them have strong enough healing support (Baizhi 4-star and Verina 5-star). Most of them are sword-type DPS and some are ranged. This makes it more annoying because you would need support and you already have a lot of DPS characters... So I honestly think the game needs to rebalance. This matters because the game features Tower of Adversity, a challenge with limited energy for each character.

Tip: If you are new to the game, you might have a chance to be at an event where you can choose a 5-star character to draw. In this case, do pick Verina. I don't even have her at this point and could only relay to Baizhi

One thing that is good in this game is the art design!

As of 1.2. I still think that Jinhsi is one of the best damage dealers compared to other characters.

Upgrades

Just like any other free-to-play online RPG, upgrading is sucks and time-consuming. The same case, for this game. Let's break it down.

Resonator Upgrade

In Resonator Upgrading, the important point is level up and ascending. Depending on your character stars and type also the level, the upgrade materials required vary. Usually, 5-star characters are often twice as expensive when compared to 4-star.

Also depending on your union level, you might need fewer grinds as a higher union level grants you a higher rate of rewards.

TIP: Priotioze your Union Level and only upgrade the character that you put in the party frequently. You can upgrade the rests once you reach high enough Union Level, this can save the amount you need for grinding. Or if you don't have anything to do again, you can consider upgrading the other character.

Weapon Upgrade

Similar to Resonator Upgrade, the sword also has ascension and level-up. With additional rank, where you can merge 2 weapons into one. But rank won't level up your weapon star lol.

I would suggest you open YouTube and search for 4 or 5-star weapon locations and survey them. Until you run out of options you can use 3-star weapons. Higher star weapons have better effects which contributes to overall stats.

Echo Upgrades

Now for the echo part, congratulations, you have 5 separate things to upgrade. In Echo Upgres, there are just levels up and turning. No more ascension! Level-up is straightforward, but tuning is not. In tuning you would gacha again! Oh let's not forget that to unlock tune slots, you have to level up the echo first. So if you have bad luck and got a bad tune, then simply do it all over again with the new echo replacement.

I would suggest you reach level 18 in Data Bank at minimum (level 15 at the bare minimum) before upgrading echoes. Once you reach them, it will be easy for you to farm 5-star echo. Reaching level 21 will even allow you to have a 100% enhanced rate of 5 stars.

Skills Upgrades

Wuthering Waves characters have a skill, ultimate skill, and basic attack. But for some reason in skill upgrades, they decided to split it too many. Resulting in you having to grind to your tears just to upgrade them all. Oh, they also cost a lot of credits! So fight on! Go there and waste your time for a game!

Resonance Chain

Not only do other upgrades cost a lot of time and credits, but an online RPG is not complete without this kind of upgrade. Resonance Chain is character merging. If you draw a character you already have it will be converted to one of this chain. To fulfill my Jinhsi I just had to draw her again 6 more times! Great!

Resonance Chain is one of the most powerful upgrades, usually getting 4-star character resonance is not so hard. If you got them consider comparing them to your other 5-star. It might be more worth it to focus on upgrading.

Gacha System

For 10 pulls you will need 1600 asterites. On average you might be able to get 50-100 asterites daily by doing Guidebook and Daily Missions. With the event, you could have Radiant Tide (for limited banner pull) and Lustrous Tide (for normal banner pull).

As of the time of writing this blog, I am only unable to get Yinlin's character as part of the Limited Time Banner. Also Xiangli Yao is free. I played Wuthering Waves as F2P this far, and have never pulled 5-star weapons. So I guess the Gacha system is pretty fair.

Sound and Music

Now about Sound and Music, the game offers quite a soothing soundtrack and they match well with the ambiance depending on which part of the map you are on. The battle effects sound quite well too. The game lacks the Original OST though, most of the music is ambiance and serves as background music only. Luckily on Update 1.1 I would say we got decent music and I like that quite well too

I also like the music on the title screen!

If only we have a longer version, Kuro Games.

Now, as for Voice-over, the game provides 4 languages!

I personally like the Japanese, but Mandarin and English are not bad tho! As for Koreans, I don't understand what they're talking about... But I think it's fitting too.

Update 1.1: Thaw of Eons

In this update, Wuthering Waves introduces a new map and a new chapter to the story. Chapter 1.7, Thaw of Eons is about a new place called Mt. Firmament, a place where some of our characters Jinhsi and Changli grow up.

The map is quite huge and contains some new stuff, chests, and fast travel to explore. Before getting into this map, we will have to go to a City Hall since Jinhsi (The Magistre of Jinzhou) has been reported missing and hasn't gotten in touch with her guard (Sanhua). Therefore, the main character decides to look for her together with the "Wayfinder" which turns out to be Changli!

Together with her, we venture to the lands of Mt. Firmament encountering some problems related to time and eventually discovering the truth of Sentinel Jue's well-being. At the same time, Changli will also figure out that Jinhsi is not well too since she's somewhat connected to the Sentinel's well-being. Soon after, it won't take long for us to regroup with Jinhsi, we will then discover the truth about Jinhsi's past, the sealed sentinel, and finally mandate transfer to Jinhsi. Finishing the story for Thaw of Eons.

This update also introduces Changli Companion Story and bought both Jinhsi and Changli to draw for! Perfect!

TIP: Jinhsi is a must have resonator, if she got re-roll make sure to check adjustments notes and get her (assuming no nerf applied to her). As for Changli, I don't think you need her if you already got Jiyan. But hey choice is yours.

Update 1.2: In the Turquoise Moonglow

In this update, Rover will attend the Moon-Chasing Festival. Right there, we will be meeting Xiangli Yao. Together with him, we will do yet another chore again. About fulfilling other's wishes. After that, we will be introduced to the Festival Management

This update is quite similar to the previous update, where the main story feels like a companion story for some reason haha. Anyway, the main quest here won't be registered as part of the Main Story Gallery, I think it is because the festive is a limited-time event. Either way, the Moon-Chasing festival is a great festive for bonding. In this update, we will encounter most of the characters featured in Wuthering Waves (Except Calcharo, yet again. He's the only 5-star that got zero portion of the story lol). Here are a few screenshots I managed to gather!

+2 images

I believe there are still a lot of characters we can take pictures with, but I don't have the chance to meet them yet. This update also features new characters, previously mentioned, Xiangli Yao, and Zhezhi. Also the companion quest for Zhezhi. By reaching the right amount of popularity in the festive you may have the chance to get a free 5-star Character, Xiangli Yao later on after the banner of Zhezhi. Oh, of course, I got Zhezhi as well. My F2P luck is still with me

TIP: If you got Jinhsi, you better pull for Zhezhi. Combined Jinhsi + Zhezhi + Baizhi and you'll get Jinhsi forte quickly charged up. Which is why, I also decided to pull for her.

Issues and Bugs

Alright, I would like to discuss the review and bugs related to version 1.2 only. So I will forget about the issues on the previous version since it might be fixed.

Launcher often fails to start

Okay, I played Wuthering Waves through Epic Games. Quite frequently, when I opened Wuthering Waves from the shortcut I got the cursor loading indicating that the game did start. However, nothing is shown on the screen, and the same thing for the taskbar. Yet I can see the process running in Task Manager. If I tried to relaunch, Epic Games would tell me the game already started. Leaving me only one choice, that is to force end the process.

Enemy health randomly resets

I am not sure if this is an issue or not since it might be related to the boundary. However, I often found the enemy lost interest in the middle of the fight, and even if I hit them on their way back to their base they would simply ignore it. This is annoying since it can happen randomly or if the boundary is the cause, some enemies also have wide movements and they move out of the boundary by themselves! My suggestion for this is to add a visual for the boundary, perhaps an opt-in option defined in the settings?

How to quit the game properly?

Whenever I tap quit from the menu, I will get logged out. I will have to input my account credentials again which again annoying. I hope you can add remember me button or something. But the game could indeed remember my login credentials. I just have to go to the menu and send a kill signal (alt+f4. This is not forcing close, read this) haha

Conclusion

Alright, the blog is getting lengthy, I just want to keep it short but here I am. Well lesson learned, I'll try to compress the material for the next review. Thus far we have discussed the graphics, story, gameplay, updates, and many more.

So would I recommend this game? The answer is Yes or No. For a short gameplay, maybe yes? but for the long-term, it's fully up to you. Remember that this is a free-to-play Gacha RPG Online Game, if you are into free-to-play like me then you should be ready to dedicate a lot of time to materials gathering and character building. If you only want to play it for fun I guess you still can.

Is this game-friendly with F2P? Yes, based on my experience. You only need to learn about the exchange system and you should be able to pull the character you want (unless you got a bad luck). By doing dailies, events, and world hunts you should be able to save tons of asterites already.

Do you have any recommendations for P2W? Indeed, if you want to save your money consider buying Pioneer Subscription. The store also has subscriptions that guarantee asterites every day. You should also consider buying a bundle since they often come with discounted prices.

So what is my overall experience with this game? I would say, B. If only we got more stories and companion stories about our close partners (Yang Yang, Baizhi, Chixia) it would be a big plus to me. But overall, I found the game enjoyable and good to play to help me spend my time.

That should be all. Congratulations on reading all of this. Really.