Wuthering Waves Review: Must-Play Gacha Game But Has A Room For Improvement - Screen Plays Mag (2024)

Wuthering Waves is an action RPG by Kuro Games that is new to the Gacha segment and carefully watched by its fellow competitors, Genshin Impact, HSR, and Granblue Fantasy.

Just over a month after its release, Wuthering Waves has already generated over a hundred million dollars in revenue, and it seems like it will not stop anytime soon.

One of Wuthering Wave’s highlights is its flexibility; launching the game on multiple platforms has offered something to its competitors.

The game is quite story-driven, with combat in every other zone, and it has fascinating companions. But is the overall mechanism strong enough to survive in the long term?

Genre

Action RPG

Fighting

Game Mechanism

WuWa has also included companion quests, rather than basic main quests or side quests, to deliver companion stories to the players.

If you compare it to Genshin Impact, one of the best gacha games, you will find many similarities, from gameplay mechanics to dialogue options.

Gensshin Impact had little to no competition for a long while, but it has a serious rival with the release of Wuthering Waves, which has exploded in no-time.

Yes, there are quite a few improvements to be made, but kudos to Kuros for offering the game for free.

Like most gacha games, Wuthering Waves also uses an Energy/stamina system, which is the waveplates, which are recoverable every six minutes.

The waveplates will max out every 24 hours, which seems to have the upper hand over its competitors.

If you are someone who likes to play main as well as side quests, there’s good news for you if you are willing to play the game.

Most of the quests seem relatively easier in the early to mid-stage, and if you encounter an enemy in one of those, you will likely get an echo, which will help in progression.

You can summon it for combat against the tougher of enemies or use it as a stat when you level up gradually.

The progression also directly impacts the rarity of echoes you can get; for instance, you may struggle to get five-star echoes when you reach higher levels.

This feature can be a handful for someone who explores and kills enemies to upgrade their character rather than fighting for the sake of it.

Farm Echoes To Progress Faster

You can farm the Echoes without having to deal with the daily stamina, which is rare, and even tune them to add sub-stats and level up faster.

While farming echoes, if you come across and lose against the formidable boss, you will still get the rematch and take revenge.

Unfortunatley, there is a problem with the system as well, as you will need a high number of waveplates, but there are plenty of things to upgrade as well.

One of the major aspects that I think Wuthering Wave lacks is the bright and colorful environments with vibrant music with each exploration.

The exploration can be pretty dull at times and doesn’t have the places that exist in real life. For the genre of games, players would be more willing to explore the places.

Wuthering Waves Storyline

The storyline and story plot in the early stage of Wuthering Waves pretty much revolves around one and only thing, Tacet Discords.

The game is set in a future-apocalyptic universe after an unfortunate Lament disaster, which formed numerous TCs around the locations.

After decades pass by, humans slowly adapt to the situation, and an Amnesiac Rover emerges to save the world.

Rover emerges from the upside-down sea into the World of Solaris 3 and is awoken by Yangyang and Chixia, the former midnight ranger and Patroller.

Both the characters are questioned about their existence and past, tacet fields, and the phenomenon of Sentinel Resonators.

Amid the circ*mstances, the characters emerge into the Tacet Field and are given tokens by Jinzhou and Jinshi to explore Huanglong and other cities.

The dialogues and information sometimes seem excessive and monotonous, which is probably the major negative part of WuWa, which can be turn-off for many

It would have been better if the narration had flown smoothly with the tiny progression rather than addressing all the stories at once.

The Game Is Highly Rewarding

While exploring the location, you will find a few easier enemies to tackle against, including some elites who are too hard to beat.

You can die from them in a split second, and you don’t even have time to trigger a shot or slash the sword.

One thing I personally love about The Wuthering Waves is the loot table; the game is highly rewarding, even if you play simple side quests or the main storyline.

Most of the rewards seem to be separated into early, mid, and end games, respectively, which can be useful for upgrading yourself.

Vendors For Missing Items To Upgrade Characters

If you are missing a few items even after investing several hours, vendors can sort out your problems.

But you should have the currency or item that specific vendors use, and some of the items can be quite limited, so you won’t have a chance to purchase them again and again.

The developers have also provided a large number of characters to choose from, each with unique abilities and a progression system.

You have a total of eighteen playable characters to choose from, including, Jinshi, Changli, Jiyan, Rover Havoc, and Rover, meaning no room for separate character creation.

I personally picked up Rover; any of the characters in the game are basically resonators, which are upgradable by collection-specific items and ascension materials.

Rover is the five-star character in the gacha game, but the stars mean nothing if you rather prefer four-star or low-tier characters.

While many of the characters may have the same elements and weapon types, the upgrading items while leveling up may vary.

However, all the characters have unique abilities, so switching between one to another can be tricky if you usually play with a specific character.

Another feature I like about Wuthering Waves is the regular updates. It has just been released for over a month and has already provided tons of updates.

The update ranges from banners to exploration events and even companion updates with several quests.

The gacha game features three companions, Yinlin, Jiyan, and Lingyang, whose rewards are pretty identical.

Items And Consumables

Wuthering Waves has hundreds of items in different categories, including supplies, development materials, valuables, and currencies.

Some items feel relatively invaluable, whereas most still play a crucial role in your progression depending upon your characters, whether it be currencies including Astrite, Shell credits, or just consumables.

If you are new to gacha games, you will find Wuthering Waves pretty engaging, thanks to its narration and combat.

The character selection seems pretty decent, and the tutorials are extremely helpful if you are struggling with some events on quests.

However, as you progress through, you may get frustrated due to exceptionally high dialogue time, which is unskippable.

For instance, in Act 4, in the battle against Scar, you get over 15 mins of unskippable dialogue, which seems enough to get a short nap.

Nonetheless, the dialogue should be alright for someone who focuses on an in-depth storyline of characters.

Another aspect Kyro Games has worked incredibly on is balancing the acts and the prologue.

You will get two prologues: Utterance of Marvel I and II, with six different chapters in Act 1: First Resonance, Echoing Marche, Ominous Star, Clasing Blades, Rewinding Raindrops, and Grand Warstorm.

While some of the quests in the act are Walk over the Park, some will take numerous tries, especially when you are against red elite enemies.

Upgrading Characters

But when you have echoes and upgrade your characters, you will have a high chance to get past them. You will be required to beat the Tacet Discords to obtain the lost echoes.

Again, to progress through the storyline you will requite a specific union levels, which can be increased by the union exp.

You can usually get Union exp from quests, daily tasks, spending waveplates, tidal heritage, or spending milestones.

When you progress through, you will uncover many activities and side quests and learn about the story of Huanglong.

If you wish to just explore the open world instead of playing quests, you will still get consumables or collectibles, which are handy right in progression.

You can wall run for a specific time, sprint as much as you like, or even use grappling hooks or gliders to save time.

While the open-world challenge, including puzzles and tricky riddles, may be confusing, you will eventually be rewarded for your work.

Connecting the light signals to generate electricity lets you engage in multiple simple yet fun puzzles simultaneously.

Combat And Skills

One of the best things about Wuthering Waves is the combat, which is a must for battle gotcha games.

You start fighting the enemies with heavy or basic attacks by using resonance skills, which have a cooldown period, and resonance liberation, which is basically the ultimate.

You can also use dodge and counterattack the enemies and wish to parry to leave them stunned and gazing for a while, increasing your win chances.

Players can also use intro and outro skills and switch between three resonators if they feel like one’s ability may not be enough to finish off the enemy.

Also, you can even practice picking the character when you are already in a better position while fighting, and the next resonator can get an attack bonus of over 35%.

However, the factors may also differ depending on the character you pick; they can have different cooldown periods or get a bonus for an outro skill.

At the end of the day, the mechanisms depend on the characters you pick and the characters upgrade you make.

During exploration and progression, you can also focus on obtaining five-star weapons or characters besides collecting echoes, extracting materials, and combats.

You can search for secret weapon shops and get a five-star weapon selector or elite materials for your build.

For the five-star characters, players can use the Novice Convene Banner, which allows them to select any one of five characters in 50 pulls.

Wuthering Waves Graphics And Performance

Wuthering Waves may look a bit dull at times, but it is filled with detailed locations and minimalistic designs.

While I didn’t face performance issues, many players have complained about the issue, which can be a deal breaker.

But I still faced bugs where enemies were stuck during fights, battles not starting while playing as Rover, sound issues, and Tasks not displaying at all.

While minor updates or troubleshooting can fix these minor bugs, it can be a frustrating experience for many users.

Kuro games should focus on optimization alongside updates to maintain the smooth flow and consistency, and beat Genshin and HSR for the top spot in the coming days.

While the combat is highly engaging and satisfying, the sound or music in the Gacha game is not pinpointed, even if we compare it to Kuro’s own Punishing: Sound Raven.

While the requirements for Wuthering Waves are not demanding, as expected for Gacha games, you will still face some issues on low-end PCs.

If you have NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD RX 5700XT, it would be more than enough to avoid stutters or lags.