- Vast content and frequent updates from developers
- Authentic Wuxia experience with engaging quests
- High degree of freedom in gameplay
- Numerous, impactful, and persistent bugs
- Poor optimization leads to severe performance issues
- Lacks guidance; confusing systems and unbalanced combat
Verdict
Mixed
Summary
Positive 65% · Negative 35%. Score: 35 / 100
Positives:
- The developers are dedicated and responsive, consistently updating the game, fixing bugs, and listening to player feedback. This commitment has led to significant improvements and a positive player experience, making the game worth supporting. The update frequency is faster than many online games.
- The game offers a substantial amount of content, including a rich storyline, side quests, and a large open world to explore. The base game provides excellent value, with free DLCs adding even more gameplay and story content. This makes the game highly engaging and addictive, with many players spending hundreds of hours playing.
- The game strongly evokes the Wuxia genre, immersing players in a martial arts world filled with classic skills, sects, and adventures. The open-world setting allows for exploration and discovery, fulfilling fantasies of becoming a martial arts hero. Many reviewers express nostalgia for classic Wuxia games.
- The game offers a high degree of freedom, allowing players to explore the open world and engage in various activities. This freedom encourages exploration and experimentation, creating a unique and engaging experience. Some reviewers compare the freedom to games like The Elder Scrolls.
- The game features multiple storylines and character identities, each offering a unique experience and perspective on the game world. Engaging side quests and adventures further enhance the immersive experience, with many quests connecting to the main storyline and offering generous rewards.
Negatives:
- The game is plagued with numerous bugs that severely impact gameplay. These bugs range from minor graphical glitches to game-breaking issues that halt progression, corrupt saves, or cause crashes. Many reviewers express frustration that updates often introduce new bugs instead of fixing existing ones, leading to a cycle of instability.
- The game suffers from significant optimization issues, resulting in lag, stuttering, frame rate drops, and long loading times. These performance problems occur even on high-end hardware, making the game unpleasant or even unplayable. Reviewers note that optimization has worsened with updates, and that the developers prioritize content over performance.
- The game lacks sufficient guidance and tutorials, leaving players feeling lost and confused. Complex systems are poorly explained, and essential information is missing, forcing players to rely on external guides. This lack of onboarding makes the game unfriendly to new players and contributes to early frustration.
- The combat system is unengaging and lacks impact, often relying on stat-based mechanics rather than skill. Reviewers criticize the awkward animations, unresponsive controls, and unbalanced difficulty, where enemies are either too weak or too strong. The combat feels like a generic MMORPG experience without the social aspects.
- The game features repetitive and unrewarding quests, often involving tedious fetch tasks and dialogues. These quests lack depth and meaningful impact, making the game feel like a grind. The rewards are often meager, and the tasks themselves become monotonous.
Gameplay:
- The game is packed with content, including side quests, encounters, and explorable areas, but some reviewers feel it resembles an MMO in a single-player format. Some suggest adding more repeatable endgame content and personal side quests to increase replayability.
- The game features a seamless open world with a high degree of freedom, allowing players to explore a large map and engage in various activities. The open-world design is a core element of the game, providing a sense of exploration and discovery.
- The game features sect-based gameplay, allowing players to join or develop their own sect and engage in sect wars. Players can also build relationships with various factions and resolve conflicts, adding depth to the game world.
- The game includes familiar crafting and gathering mechanics, but they are considered basic and unengaging. The life system, while rich in content, lacks engaging activities.
- The game offers diverse gameplay with different choices and actions leading to different outcomes. This creates a dynamic world where the player's actions have consequences, enhancing the sense of immersion and agency.
Performance:
- Many players report long loading and saving times that interrupt the flow of gameplay. The auto-save feature is also problematic, causing lag spikes and freezing during critical moments like combat. Save loading can also get stuck.
- Players frequently encounter bugs that disrupt the game world. These include characters clipping through environments, falling through the map, getting stuck, and NPCs floating in the air. These issues break immersion and can impede progress.
- The game suffers from slow map loading times and short draw distances. This results in environments loading in belatedly, which can be jarring and negatively impact exploration.
- The camera is frequently obstructed by trees and foliage during combat. This makes it difficult to see what's happening and hinders the player's ability to fight effectively.
- Some players report that the game frequently fails to launch after clicking the start button. This can be a frustrating initial experience.
Recommendations:
- The game suffers from significant technical issues, including poor optimization, numerous bugs, and AI-generated content. Reviewers consistently suggest prioritizing bug fixes and optimization over new content. Many reviewers are holding off on recommending the game until these issues are resolved, with some even requesting refunds.
- Many reviewers feel the game is unfinished and unpolished, with some comparing it unfavorably to older or simpler games. They suggest focusing on refining core elements, simplifying systems, and improving the overall quality of existing content before adding more features. Some reviewers feel the developers are trying to do too much without mastering the basics.
- Despite its flaws, many reviewers find the game enjoyable and worth its price, citing the developer's dedication to updates and the amount of content available. Some suggest waiting for further improvements before purchasing, while others recommend it as a change of pace from AAA titles. The game's rustic charm and potential for future polish are also mentioned as positive aspects.
- The game is primarily recommended for players with a strong interest in the Wuxia genre and open-world exploration. Reviewers suggest that those without a passion for martial arts themes or those seeking a polished experience should consider other titles. The game's appeal lies in its authentic Wuxia setting and the freedom it offers, despite its flaws.
- Reviewers express optimism for the game's future, anticipating further development, updates, and content additions. There is a desire for more techniques, gameplay options, and story content. Some reviewers are also looking forward to the release of paid DLC and express a willingness to support the developers.
Miscellaneous:
- The game shows potential but feels outdated and unpolished. Reviewers point to outdated graphics, long unskippable cutscenes, and a framework that needs refinement. Despite these issues, the game's open-world freedom and martial arts system are promising, and the developers are actively updating the game.
- The game receives frequent updates, but some reviewers find the update plans overly complex and feel like empty promises. The updates often involve bug fixes and can be quite large. While the developers are actively working on the game, the impact of these updates is debated.
- The game is developed by a small studio, and the developers are responsive to feedback. Some reviewers find the small bugs acceptable given the price and the studio's dedication.
- Some reviewers bought the game to support domestic game development. This suggests a sense of patriotism and a desire to see the industry grow. The reviewer from cluster 28 states that they never refund domestic games.
- The game features a seamless map design and multiple character origin stories. While the reviewer appreciates the intention to create a complete Jianghu world, they find some aspects of the game frustrating, without providing specific details.
