Black Myth: Wukong Is Garbage and Here’s Why (Dialog Choices Podcast  

"Just wait until you get to the next level" immediately followed by "No! I won't! Because I won't play it again!" that's true self-care

Make sure you guys don’t express feminist beliefs or criticize chinas game industry in this podcast episode

you know something is wrong when even the furry bait couldn´t persuade keith to keep playing it.

Holy shit I don’t expect Kieth to kill a playthrough so that is a big minus by itself

tbh, Black Myth Wukong being a souls-like was already a turn off for me and the artsyle disinteresting but hearing this just makes it sound so much worse. Honestly, this would have been way better if they just focused on making it a DMC or a Bayonetta where you have all these wacky abilities in linear stages and the fun and replayability comes from learning and mastering these skills to create crazy combos, like using clones and transformations to extend or finish combos. You could even still do the hidden unlockable encounters for like a second playthrough. Honestly, that feels more in-line with a character as powerful as Sun Wukong like seriously

Oof... I was enjoying the conversation until the sickening elitism at about the 1:55:00 mark.

That opinion on spoilers fails to take into account the person-being-spoiled's experience. Are spoilers a big deal to someone who isnt concerned about them? No of course not. Are spoilers a big deal to someone who wants to preserve their own experience? Yes. Both of these statements are true and not mutually exclusive. The appeal of watching a blind lets play channel for me is to experience the genuine surprise at the moments that Im familiar with and by doing that relive that experience vicariously. That only works if: I know what is coming because I already experienced it, and the lets player has no idea what's coming so they can react first-hand. Spoiling the player robs the viewer of the experience. If I wanted to watch a non blind lets play I would seek out a non blind lets player.

I think Andrew might be onto something when he says there is cultural context that Americans are missing. I got a very strong impression I was watching a fan-created adaptation for a fandom I wasn't in or even knew existed.

There are people out there and look up a let’s play and then blame the creator of the let’s play for “spoilers” That baffles me how why ???

can't believe that I finally hear a fair criticisms of this game from furrys when I initially thought Wukong was made for furrys because of my poor knowledge in furry culture and chinese mythology 😭

I have this really bad complex where I immediately assume that if I'm not enjoying a video game then its because I'm doing something wrong... But Wukong showed me the light, so thanks I guess. I stopped blaming myself at least partially and recognised when something was just actually horrific. y a y

People like Genshin Impact because it's a genuinely good game. Same with a lot of the other Hoyoverse games. But that's *despite* the gacha elements.

Not only is my youtube front page almost exclusively content by people I'm not subscribed to, but it's constantly showing me the same 10-15 videos like "hm maybe NOW she'll want to watch the thing she didn't want to watch the other 600 times we showed it to her." But I also use youtube the ame way Keith said where I use my subscriptions tab like an inbox, watch most vids, and hide the ones I'm not going to watch - or throw them into the watch queue if they're long vids I don't have time to watch in full in one sitting but want to come back to without losing track of them (like a certain 9 hour Wukong vod that I've been chunking my way through lol). I guess at that point youtube isn't going to take up space on the homepage showing me vids I'm definitely going to watch anyway, but it would be nice if they were relevant to my interests or, at the very least, not the same exact vids over and over

I think Toaster had it pretty solid: It was marketed/set up as an epic, girthy Soulslike but delivered a mid-road, overproduced God of War 2018 experience. It even had all of the hallmarks for it - awkward equipment tooltips and crafting, the chest animation is almost one-for-one, the general linear feel with the occasional diversion... except GoW-2018 was competent to a point. Whereas Wukong aimed high and hit "average" - which is not a bad score by any means, but *is* disappointing when you see how much potential it dropped on the floor in the attempt. And I find that *baffling.* Truly, utterly baffling.

1:26:15 Mage run in morrowind and you have intelligence being drained

Do you have feeling that Chinese games don't feel uniquely designed? They look pretty visually but you don't see uniquely designed stuff like Pathologic and Stalker, you see it take cues from other games instead

Wukong is China's first standalone AAA game that isn't a live service one like Genshin Impact, I get the appeal for China. Anyone who ties it to a culture war really doesn't understand it fully. It was so impactful that restored confidence in China's gaming industry. I think a Chinese investor fired the Vision of Mana devs because of it.

Im baffled by the fact that Wukong is rated better than Elden Ring on Steam.

The spoilers discussion is ancient and never-ending, but the ideas behind spoilers have definitely shifted. The Monster Hunter anti-spoilers thing is ... I dunno, I only understand it with brand new monsters or maybe the sparse story beats. Even then, seeing an image of a monster doesn't really tell you about what it does in gameplay, and the game is happy explaining that, and all other details, in-game. Even a name barely tells you anything and...can be hard to remember. And some of the mechanical changes amount to 'this time the farm is a submarine!' 'this time we put an old feature BACK into the game!' 'this time talismans are random and you can craft decos!' ...though I can say that the communities I've discussed MHWilds in have been pretty free with just sharing the latest press releases and such. If it's on the official website, the devs want you to see it, and usually more important "twists" are kept to secret late game anyhow? I used a thumbnail blocker so I just never see thumbnails. I just pay attention to titles now. I still see thumbnails when I click on a video so I can appreciate the commissioned art you (and others I watch) have for some of your videos though. But I'm also NOT a standard youtube user, obviously, and before I blocked thumbnails I liked unique overall ones a little more but my annoyance would come from when people stopped putting numbers in their thumbnails. I can understand why people don't put numbers in their thumbnails -- how likely IS someone to click on Episode 3 when it gets recommended to them? Maybe they'll go 'oh hey, maybe I'll look for the playlist or look at the channel for Ep 1' but I doubt that's a big number. And you can just put the number in the title, though some videos just don't have numbers in titles now anymore too, maybe there's a meta here?

It's nice to hear that Toaster enjoyed Visions of Mana. I think it's a charming game. I liked the remaster of Legend of Mana, and the remake of Trials of Mana, so I was looking forward to Visions, myself. Not really related, but the upcoming remake of Romancing Saga 2 has a graphical style that makes me think of Trials/Visions. I've come to like that style.

Glad that you quit for your own happiness and sanity, don’t like the game myself. Still gonna be watching Toaster's series for support.

Sorry chaps, your low score of this masterpiece has lowered your sesame credit score. Please proceed to your nearest police station for your new ankle monitors. Futher promotion of sensible game design or mechanics will not be tolerated. 😂

I definitely have problems with the game, most of them having to do with performance, loading times and some specific bosses, but I personally wouldn't agree that the game is garbage. I've had really fun so far (I'm a few bosses into chapter 4). The game feels fresh compared to many many games that have released in a while Edit: While I do really like the game, the mini-Adolfs on twitter who glaze its "anti-woke agenda" really don't help my case

I did not watch Fight Club unspoiled, only because I READ THE NOVEL Fight Club miraculously unspoiled, even at age 20-something. That twist hits different when you read it. (Not necessarily better or worse, but DEFINITELY different.)

Cultivation Simulator, is a rimworld like wusha game, that I think looks pretty good for an early access game.

I wanna make a dating husbando tier list with the bosses

While a lot of the criticism surrounding Wukong for the first two hours is rather valid I am greatly entertained by the snobbish, elitist, silly, goofy, pretentious nonsense that this podcast derailed into near the end. Like... this is literally a kind of discussions that people conjure in their heads when they try to imagine snobbish, artystyc, eliteists art critics talking about paintings or movies or books. Like I wonder how would they react if they would hear some in-depth art commentary and whatnot. It is funny to me that every art form that humanity develops ultimately leads to creation of elyte groups of connoisseurs that know what is truly truly good and what is truly truly bad with disregard to the opinion of the masses because the masses just have bad taste. It kind reminds me of vine experts sneering at everybody who can't properly appreciate good vines and dare to be unable of telling a difference between cheap sweet vine for the masses and aged bourbons. Ultimately there is no reason for the masses to even care about opinions of critics because enjoyment that critics have is derived from some arcane standards that are just completely irrelevant to the average human being. As such just like literature, painting, sculpture, music, cinema and even brewery video games are just another medium that gets diverged into mass media and elite media. Things like this make me think that culture was a mistake, we should have just limited ourselves to science and philosophy in regards to intellectual pursuits.

I am someone who beat the same. I am also someone who hates soulslike games -- the farthest I got was in Sekiro but I never finished that because I found it way too difficult and completely directionless that I had no idea where to even go or what to do. I didn't know about this game at all until it came out. I had a good time with it. Yea, definitely did not enjoy falling off some beams, I did not enjoy the lag I experienced through all of chapter 3. To be honest, I feel like the game being described in this is not the same one I played. I had to do zero grinding to proceed to the end of the game. I probably only had to replay a boss at most 10 times before I killed them. Just really confused about the grinding thing.

There's something kind of funny about how both Elden Ring and Black Myth Wukong, highly anticipated games that I personally really like, have a huge drop-off in quality and fun factor once you reach the snow area. And even then, I'd argue Mountaintops is still better in some ways. The big problem in Elden Ring's case is that to me it felt like they were running out of steam- no unique enemies, same-y open world content, and the scaling got really out of hand past Leyndell. I'll at least give Chapter 3 the benefit of the doubt when it comes to enemies, there's a lot of them and they're pretty unique. But that doesn't mean much when the levels they inhabit just aren't good. I absolutely DESPISED Irithyll Dungeon with a passion, those jailors are probably my least favorite dark souls enemy. But it was at least short, and I can't say the level itself was horribly designed. I think even if Black Myth isn't a 'true' soulslike or something, the comparison in level design can be very eye-opening. It felt like they wanted it both ways, where levels are sprawling but also contained at the same time. And in the process it loses what makes the compact design of souls levels engaging to navigate. Even as a diehard fan of the game myself, I think it's very important to be critical of it. The whole culture war nonsense surrounding the game has resulted in far too many people giving the game perfect scores and a ton of leeway because they believe it's 'anti-woke'. And while I love seeing support for the game, the honeymoon phase can't last forever. At some point you have to be real with yourself.

Bujingai remains undefeated in wuxia games Im cautiously optimistic about Phantom Blade Zero because of it having a similar premise to like the main dev's first game Rainblood so at the very least maybe a passion project? It is a shame Chinese games often have really poor translations, this happens with Sword and Fairy and Xuan Yuan Sword too.

I am enjoying wukong a lot. However I will admit it fails to properly inform the player on how basic system work and how best to enjoy it. It's easy to not understand the most efficient ways to deal damage and some things are just straight up not told to you 😂.

I have been saying that spoilers don't matter _forever_ at this point, thank you. no truly good story is made a worse experience by knowing how it ends ahead of time, I'd argue that many are actually quite a bit better. further, if you actually like a story or piece of art, you're going to revisit it, possibly many times, in the future. that initial "blind" reading is such a tiny part of the overall experience. the only sort of stories that can truly be spoiled are "mystery box"-style affairs. but that's because those stories typically lack depth or meaning or really anything of interest outside that one, central (almost never satisfactorily answered) question. aka: they're hack shit, do yourself a favor and just skip.

1:36:00 my guess is that they had a global boolean of some sort. What the game does is teleport you back instead of reloading the entire scene, but it doesn't reset the player variables

I cannot wait for the Souls fad to die out so I can actually enjoy them again

oh no, here comes the wukong glazers

Actually valid commentary on ethics in game journalism, haha!

I did mods, just to get thru the story

It's so bad keith made a podcast about it.😁🤣

Dynasty warriors games are one of my favorite Game series Dynasty warriors 3 is my favorite in the Series Dynasty warriors 9 was my personal disaster of a game 0/10

I agree with most of the issues. Esp the unidirectional corridors that's the levels when the world seems more open visually. Also the input lag. I had conformation B on PS5 so my input lag was in taking the pills esp the poison and scorch pills. I loved the game because I love anything wukong and I liked how much of Buddhist daoist stuff was in the lore. Who am I kidding. I play d because there were extremely hot furry dudes everywhere. I even had a fight with my husband because he isn't literally a nude tiger man even though he is shaped roughly the same

Isnt Rock Solid the parry mechanic?

I enjoyed this game but boy it has issues. that whole aliens made this rings so true. it also has a feel of throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it. A thing that baffled me in this game of linear corridors with invisible walls is the last level. A F***g open world where did that come from. Also having seen the end credits I think it was made by a relative small team.

I thought this was a parody of Lily Orchard’s “X is garbage and here’s why” videos

I never got the hype. It looked like artless, themeless slop even in its own advertising, and given its provenance the grind seemed unavoidable