Info about Wuthering Waves:

Official game description:
Wuthering Waves is a story-rich open-world action RPG with a high degree of freedom. You wake from your slumber as Rover, joined by a vibrant cast of Resonators on a journey to reclaim your lost memories and change the world.
◆Introduction◆
Welcome aboard, roving voyager.
Upon the shores lay the silent embers of a world during the Ebb Tide.
Desolated by the Lament, the erstwhile creations and earthly beings are left static.
But they strike back, strong enough to penetrate the silence.
Humanity has risen anew from the ashes of the apocalypse.
And you, Rover, are poised for an adventure of Awakening.
Companions to meet, enemies to conquer, new powers to gain, hidden truths to unveil, and unseen spectacles to behold... A vast world of endless possibilities awaits. The choice rests in your hands. Be the answer, be the leader, and follow the sounds to arrive at a new future.
As Wuthering Waves echo endlessly, mankind set sail on a new journey.
Rise and embark on your odyssey, Rover.
◆Features◆
*   Desolated by the Lament, civilization is born anew / Delve into an expansive world
Embrace high degrees of freedom in immersive overworld explorations. Utilize flight, grapple and wall dash to travel great distances and overcome obstacles with little strain for stamina consumed.
*   Strike fast and unleash your inner warrior / Engage in smooth & fast-paced combat
Avail against enemy attacks in smooth and fast-paced combat. Apply easy controls of Dodge, Counterattack, Echo Skill, and unique QTE mechanisms that allow the fullest possibility of battle experience.
*   Forte awakened, journey alongside your companions / Encounter Resonators
Compose a harmonious battle concerto with Resonators of different abilities. Their unique Fortes revealing distinctive personalities will be your strong assets for the journey ahead.
*   Power of your foes at your command / Collect Echoes to aid you in battle
Capture lingering phantoms of Tacet Discords to harness your own Echoes. Upon this mystic land of everlasting reverberations, master a diverse array of Echo Skills to defeat formidable enemies.

Release date: 28 Apr, 2025

Categories: Action RPG, Open-World Exploration, Real-time Combat, Gacha System, Character Management, QTE-Driven Combat, Parkour Gameplay, Equipment Customization


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- High-quality graphics, fluid combat (weight 0.98): The game boasts impressive graphics, fluid combat, and detailed character designs. Reviewers praise the world's immersive design, the engaging story, and the high-quality animations and cutscenes. The game also offers a fair gacha system and generous rewards for free-to-play players.
- Responsive developers, QoL improvements (weight 0.37): The developers are highly responsive to player feedback, consistently implementing quality-of-life improvements and addressing issues quickly. This dedication to the community enhances the overall player experience and fosters a sense of trust and appreciation.
- Top-tier gacha game (weight 0.27): Many reviewers consider this game to be among the best in the gacha genre, often surpassing competitors like Genshin Impact. It's praised for prioritizing gameplay and offering a less predatory gacha system, with features like guaranteed weapon banners and lower pity counts.
- Skill-based, engaging combat system (weight 0.21): The combat system is skill-based, rewarding precise timing and strategic thinking. It offers a dynamic mix of dodges, parries, and combos, appealing to both casual and hardcore players. Boss fights are challenging and require understanding enemy patterns, making victories feel earned.
- Engaging, cinematic story progression (weight 0.18): The story is mature and cinematic, with brilliant writing that improves significantly as the game progresses. Reviewers highlight emotional involvement, well-written scenes, and entertaining characters, especially from version 2.0 onwards.
- Excellent, immersive soundtrack (weight 0.16): The game features an excellent soundtrack that enhances immersion and emotional impact. The music is well-composed, atmospheric, and fits various situations perfectly, with some tracks comparable to those in Nier Automata and Elden Ring.
- Positive Steam release (weight 0.11): The game's availability on Steam is a positive development, offering easier access, playtime tracking, and Steam Wallet support. The Steam version often runs better and doesn't require a separate launcher, enhancing the overall user experience.
- Fluid, varied open-world traversal (weight 0.11): The game offers fluid and varied open-world traversal mechanics, including wall-running, grappling hooks, and flying. These features enhance exploration and make movement enjoyable, allowing for parkour-style gameplay and easy access to secrets and challenges.
- Superior to Genshin Impact (weight 0.09): The game is often compared favorably to Genshin Impact, with reviewers praising its superior gameplay, more mature character designs, and better quality of life features. The combat is more enjoyable, and character progression is faster and easier.
- Improved exploration with flying (weight 0.09): The 2.0 update significantly improved exploration, particularly with the introduction of flying mechanics. New areas are visually stunning and rewarding to explore, with clear map markers and a lack of stamina restrictions outside of combat.
- AAA quality gacha game (weight 0.08): Reviewers describe the game as a high-quality AAA or AA anime game, a breath of fresh air in the gacha genre. It's praised for its focus on quality, community feedback, and superior mechanics compared to other gacha games.
- Guaranteed weapon banner (weight 0.06): The game guarantees weapons on promotional banners, ensuring that 5-star units have signature gear. This system is praised for being more generous than other gacha games, making character building more accessible.
- No power creep, older characters viable (weight 0.06): The game avoids power creep, with older characters remaining viable and capable of clearing endgame content. This ensures that players' investments in characters retain their value over time.
- Strongly positive emotional connection (weight 0.05): These points express strong affection for the game, with reviewers praising its design and unique elements. Some reviewers share personal experiences, such as bonding with family members through the game, indicating a highly positive emotional connection.
- Positive personal gameplay experience (weight 0.04): The reviewer shares their personal experiences with the game, highlighting their success in obtaining characters and weapons. They also express enjoyment of various aspects of the game, such as the characters and the gacha system.

Common complaints:
- Predatory gacha system (weight 0.25): The game's gacha system is a major point of contention.  Many reviewers find the rates abysmal, the monetization predatory (especially with FOMO), and the system generally unfriendly to free-to-play players. Some consider it a drawback or even a deal-breaker, while others acknowledge it as a standard gacha element.
- Slow, weak early story (weight 0.25): Many reviewers found the initial story to be slow, confusing, and poorly written, making for a weak first impression. Some suggest skipping the early story content altogether. However, some reviewers noted that the story improves in later acts.
- Missing language localizations (weight 0.11): The game lacks localization for several languages, including Russian, Portuguese-Brazilian, Indonesian, and Turkish. This is a significant barrier for players who are not fluent in English. Some reviewers also noted poor communication from developers regarding localization requests.
- Tedious, RNG-heavy Echo system (weight 0.08): The game's Echo (equipment) system is criticized for its heavy reliance on RNG for substats and the tedious grind required to level up Echoes. The stamina system further limits progression. Some reviewers find the system frustrating and potentially leading to player burnout.
- Repetitive, uninspired endgame content (weight 0.08): Reviewers criticize the endgame content for being repetitive, uninspired, and poorly balanced. Some find the difficulty artificially inflated through HP sponges and timers. The open world is also criticized for feeling bloated and uninspired.
- Buggy, unoptimized launch (weight 0.07): The game had a rough launch with various bugs, performance issues, and optimization problems. While many of these issues have been addressed through patches, the initial state of the game left a negative impression on some players.
- Lack of viable 4-star options (weight 0.05): Reviewers note a lack of new 4-star characters and weapons, which limits team composition flexibility and makes endgame content more difficult for players who don't have access to 5-star options. Some characters also require specific other characters to be usable, further restricting team options.
- Underwhelming anniversary rewards (weight 0.05): The anniversary rewards were considered underwhelming and disappointing by many players. Some felt the rewards were insufficient for a game with numerous rerun banners. This led to some controversy and criticism of the developers.
- Clunky, unpolished combat system (weight 0.05): Some reviewers find the combat clunky, slow, and unsatisfying, with issues related to camera control, dodging precision, and parry mechanics. Some bosses have erratic movesets and near one-shot attacks. There is a general lack of polish in the combat system.
- Generic story, lost identity (weight 0.04): Some reviewers feel the game has lost its darker, post-apocalyptic vision from the beta and is becoming a Genshin Impact clone. The story is criticized for being generic, poorly translated, and filled with clichés.
- Imbalance of male characters (weight 0.03): There is a significant imbalance in the number of male and female characters, with a lack of male characters. Some reviewers wish for more male characters to be added to the game to broaden the audience appeal.
- Inconsistent voice acting quality (weight 0.03): The quality of the English voice acting is inconsistent, with some reviewers finding it awkward or poorly directed. Some feel the dialogue is stiff and unnatural, which negatively impacts the voice acting.
- Potentially toxic community (weight 0.03): Some reviewers describe the game's online community as toxic, with drama and controversies. However, others note that the community can also be helpful.
- Character dependency concerns (weight 0.02): There are concerns that new characters may require specific other characters to be usable, limiting team options and potentially impacting F2P player viability. The latest character, Zani, is heavily reliant on Phoebe.
- Overpriced in-game shop (weight 0.02): Some in-game shop bundles are considered overpriced and not worth the value. The prices are not regionalized, making purchases expensive for players in some countries.
- Complex, unintuitive UI (weight 0.02): The user interface is criticized for being complex, unintuitive, and difficult to use. Some reviewers feel the UI sacrifices functionality for style.
- Significant time investment needed (weight 0.02): The game requires a significant investment of time and materials to progress. Some reviewers feel there are pay-to-win elements, although skill is still required in some combat scenarios.
- Potential censorship concerns (weight 0.02): There are concerns about censorship issues related to the game's Chinese developers and regulations. This includes potential censorship of characters and content.

Gameplay feedback:
- Standard gacha system with improvements (weight 0.12): The game utilizes a gacha system for obtaining characters and weapons, similar to Genshin Impact, with pity mechanics in place. While the gacha system can be polarizing, the game provides a decent amount of currency for free-to-play players and base characters are viable for most content. The weapon banner guarantees a drop, which is seen as an improvement over other gacha games.
- Vast open-world with engaging exploration (weight 0.08): The game features a vast and well-designed open world that rewards exploration with secrets, puzzles, and hidden bosses. Traversal is enhanced by mechanics like wall-running, grappling hook, glider, and eventually free flight. The world is fun to explore and offers scenic views.
- Challenging modes for varied skill (weight 0.05): The game offers multiple challenging modes that test player skills, including boss fights and the Tower of Adversity. These modes cater to both casual and hardcore players, providing a variety of content to engage with, including endgame content.
- Optional and limited co-op mode (weight 0.02): The game features optional co-op events, but it is primarily designed as a single-player experience. The co-op mode is limited and not essential for enjoying the game.
- Guaranteed weapon banner drops (weight 0.02): The weapon banner in the gacha system guarantees a drop, avoiding the 50/50 chance associated with character banners. This is a positive aspect of the game's monetization.
- Synergy-focused team building (weight 0.02): Team building typically consists of a Support, a Sub-DPS, and a Main DPS, where the Support and Sub-DPS buff the Main DPS. The game sometimes forces specific team compositions to maximize performance, locking damage behind dev-mandated synergies.
- Unique character kits and animations (weight 0.02): Characters have unique kits and animations, with some having aerial combos. Movement options include a glider, grappling hook for aerial pulls, and wings for gaining altitude.
- Skippable early story (weight 0.01): The early story feels lacking, but there is a story skip button. The game provides a story summary with images when entering the 'Rina City' area after skipping the initial story.

Performance notes:
- Ray tracing and DLSS support (weight 0.17): The game supports advanced graphical features like ray tracing and DLSS, enhancing visual fidelity and performance. Ray tracing is now available for a wider range of graphics cards, including the 20 and 30 series. Some users are requesting updates to FSR for AMD cards.
- Improved, but not perfect optimization (weight 0.17): The game's optimization has significantly improved since its initial release, with many players reporting smooth performance on various hardware configurations. However, some players still experience occasional stuttering, especially on mid-range systems. An SSD is highly recommended for stable performance.
- Demanding hardware and SSD required (weight 0.08): The game requires decent hardware to run smoothly, and an SSD is essential for playable performance. While some players report smooth performance even on older systems with adjusted settings, others struggle to maintain stable frame rates, especially with ray tracing enabled.
- Good audio, unremarkable soundtrack (weight 0.01): The game features a soundtrack with melancholic melodies and epic themes that complement the game's atmosphere. The English voice acting accurately conveys the intensity of the dialogues. However, some reviewers find the soundtrack unremarkable compared to Kuro Games' other title, PGR.
- Good controller support (weight 0.01): The game has good controller support, especially on Steam.
- Fast load times (weight 0.01): The game features faster load times and no loading screens mid-open-world.
- Not working on Steam Deck (weight 0): The game is currently not working on the Steam Deck.

Recommendations:
- Strongly recommended; try it yourself! (weight 0.59): Many reviewers highly recommend the game, especially for gacha fans or newcomers to the genre, citing its free-to-play nature, quality, and potential. Some consider it the best gacha game available, surpassing competitors like Genshin Impact. Reviewers suggest trying it to form your own opinion, ignoring negativity.
- F2P-friendly; respects player time (weight 0.49): The game is praised for being very free-to-play friendly compared to other gacha games. It offers guaranteed character banners, generous currency, and allows progression without spending money. Some reviewers highlight that it respects the player's time and wallet.
- High scores; "peak" game quality (weight 0.06): Many reviewers gave the game high scores, with many scores of 9/10 or 10/10. Some reviewers state that the game is "peak" and their current #1 game. One reviewer stated that the game changed their perspective on the quality that 'garcha' games should offer.
- Spend cautiously; avoid gambling (weight 0.04): Some reviewers advise caution regarding spending money in the game, recommending players only spend what they can afford and avoid gambling. Some reviewers advise against playing if you are anti-gacha or can't resist spending.
- Pull based on preference (weight 0.03): Some reviewers recommend pulling for characters based on personal preference or account needs, and not being swayed by negative expectations. Some reviewers state that the game requires a specific mindset and a bit of forgiving due to its jankiness and gacha elements.
- Improves with each update (weight 0.03): The game is consistently improving with each patch and update. Some reviewers note positive changes based on previous feedback. Some reviewers are willing to change their review to recommended once the mentioned issues are fixed.

Other player notes:
- Positive outlook, dedicated playerbase (weight 0.05): Many reviewers have extensive experience with the game, often playing since launch and spending money to support it. They appreciate the developers' commitment and look forward to future story updates, suggesting a positive outlook on the game's ongoing development.
- Generous pity and exchange system (weight 0.02): The game features a pity system where 5-star characters and weapons are guaranteed within 80 pulls, with soft pity starting at 66 pulls. Weapon banners guarantee the featured weapon, and players receive Afterglow Coral for duplicate characters/weapons, which can be exchanged for pulls or character dupes.
- Steam release for payment processing (weight 0.02): The game's release on Steam allows players to make in-game purchases using their Steam Wallet and track playtime. However, the primary benefit is Steam's payment processing, as some players may prefer using standalone launchers or other platforms.
- Not a Genshin Impact clone (weight 0.02): The game is compared to Genshin Impact but is not considered a clone, with some reviewers noting similarities to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Players who may have been traumatized by Genshin in 2020 may miss out on one of the best ARPG combat systems in recent years.
- Mixed but generally positive community (weight 0.01): The game's community is a mixed bag, with many helpful players but also some elitists and haters. Despite occasional controversies, the overall vibe leans positive, and the developers are generally receptive to community feedback.
- Free to play with ample content (weight 0.01): The game is free to play and offers a lot of content to new players. This makes it an attractive option for players looking for a new game to try without any initial investment.
- Unique post-apocalyptic cyberpunk aesthetic (weight 0.01): The game features a unique art direction that blends a post-apocalyptic universe with techwear and gothic influences. Characters have sophisticated designs with slender silhouettes and cyberpunk costumes, creating a visually appealing aesthetic.
- Anticipated Cyberpunk collaboration (weight 0.01): There is anticipation for a collaboration with Cyberpunk: Edgerunners next year. This collaboration is expected to bring new content and features to the game, appealing to fans of both franchises.
- Good graphics, gameplay, and audio (weight 0.01): The game has very good graphics, gameplay, and audio, creating an immersive experience for players. However, the game has decent PC requirements and a big game size, which may be a concern for some players.
- Steam Tax on in-game purchases (weight 0.01): Steam purchases are subject to Steam Tax, increasing the price of items like the $5 monthly sub to $5.50. Players can use Kuro's site to top up without Steam taxes, but it is limited to Monthly Sub, BP, and Top-ups only.

Emotions:
No emotions}