Wukong’ Steam Deck Review (in Progress) – PC Port Impressions and More – TouchArcade Leave a comment
I nonetheless bear in mind the Black Fantasy: Wukong gameplay video from again in 2020, the place I wasn’t even certain if the ultimate sport would look remotely nearly as good. Since then, we’ve had a number of trailers and showcases for Recreation Science’s motion RPG impressed by Journey to the West, and it felt like a sport I’d solely actually play on PS5 or Xbox Sequence X given the visuals. I used to be very curious to see how it could really feel on Steam Deck assuming it even ran there. Within the final 12 months or so, we’ve had some current-generation video games battle on Deck like Dragon’s Dogma 2, however others run very properly like Tekken 8. I had no thought what to anticipate once I booted up Black Fantasy: Wukong, however I’m stunned by the way it appears to be like and runs on Valve’s handheld. I haven’t had sufficient time to see it by means of but, so this Black Fantasy: Wukong overview is an in-progress one. I hope to have my full ideas and comparisons with PS5 within the close to future.
Black Fantasy: Wukong is just not a soulslike. Let me put that on the market proper now. It’s an motion RPG that has some parts from motion journey video games, some points of soulslikes, however does its personal factor whereas delivering a shocking expertise with incredible music. For those who’ve not likely adopted it and are curious what the absolute best level of comparability can be from current motion RPGs, I’d say this has bits from Nioh 2 and God of Conflict (2018) however nonetheless manages to really feel distinctive in its personal means. Having gotten by means of many bosses, totally different areas, and seen fairly a little bit of the improve choices accessible, I can say that Black Fantasy: Wukong is a wonderful motion RPG up to now, however I would like extra time with it to offer a full scored overview. For at present’s overview embargo, I wished to no less than provide you with an thought of the way it appears to be like and feels on Steam Deck. I’ve not performed it on PS5 but, so I can not touch upon that model, however I hope to have some impressions on that once I replace this with my full rating.
After a grand opening cut-scene, you’re thrown into the multi-phase tutorial the place you be taught the fundamentals of fight and get an introduction to the Destined One. I say fundamentals of fight since you don’t even be taught your first fundamental ability till an hour or two into Black Fantasy: Wukong. I replayed the opening 4 hours with English and Chinese language voice performing, and whereas I most well-liked the latter initially, I ended up taking part in with English for my fundamental save to see the way it felt in a while in essential story moments. The Chinese language voiceover choice is excellent, and I feel you need to give it a shot at first to see how you discover it. The embargo prevents me from exhibiting screenshots from some cut-scenes proper now although. What I can say is how I just like the construction of the sport up to now. The sport is cut up up into respectable sized areas, and this doubtless allowed the builders to actually up the visuals. Even on Steam Deck the place I’m taking part in on the low preset with TSR upscaling enabled, Black Fantasy: Wukong appears to be like excellent on the hand held.
In terms of the bosses up to now and even enemy encounters, I discovered the issue curve a bit inconsistent. It began out comparatively simpler than I anticipated, however I hit two partitions that felt like huge spikes up to now. I have to see how the remainder feels, however the bosses up to now have been wonderful, together with some that felt a bit hidden.
Black Fantasy: Wukong PC controls
On PC and Steam Deck, Black Fantasy: Wukong has full controller assist along with keyboard and mouse enter choices. You’ll be able to customise the bindings and consider a dwell format of the keyboard and mouse to see what key does what. I performed Black Fantasy: Wukong on Steam Deck utilizing the Deck itself and my 8BitDo Final controller. You’ll be able to set the sport to show both PS5 or Xbox button prompts, use two management presets, and modify vibration depth.
Black Fantasy: Wukong PC show settings and choices
Primarily based on my time with it on Steam Deck OLED, Black Fantasy: Wukong lets you choose show (monitor), calibrate brightness, show mode (borderless and windowed with seemingly no fullscreen), side ratio (16:9, 21:9, and auto (no 16:10 or 32:9 but)), body fee cap (30, 60, 90, off), toggle v-sync, modify movement blur power, and digicam shake (I turned this off).
Black Fantasy: Wukong PC graphics choices
Black Fantasy: Wukong has fairly a couple of graphics choices. Firstly, you’ll be able to let the sport apply advisable graphics primarily based in your {hardware}. On Steam Deck OLED, this was a mixture of low and medium initially, however after a patch or once I tried it on the opposite Steam Deck, it defaulted to low for every little thing with 90 decision scale, FSR, and body technology on. You’ll be able to then modify tremendous decision (upscaling) for picture high quality boosts from 45 to 100, select upscaling choice (FSR, XeSS, and TSR), toggle body technology, modify ray tracing (low, medium, very excessive), and select from a couple of graphics presets.
These presets allow you to modify view distance high quality, anti-aliasing high quality, post-effects high quality, shadow high quality, texture high quality, visible impact high quality, hair high quality, vegetation high quality, international illumination high quality, and reflection high quality. Most of those settings have a dwell preview picture to indicate you modifications and in addition a textual content warning telling you the present settings would possibly trigger efficiency points as a result of they exceed the advisable settings on your {hardware}.
The advisable graphics settings embody FSR with a decision scale of 90 and body technology on. I wished to attempt Black Fantasy: Wukong with all upscaling strategies, and ended up liking the consequence utilizing TSR probably the most out of the three.
Black Fantasy: Wukong Steam Deck gameplay impressions
I truthfully didn’t anticipate Black Fantasy: Wukong to even be remotely playable on Steam Deck, however it’s greater than that. When utilizing the advisable preset with no change, I replayed the opening hours (whereas testing the opposite voice choice) and noticed wherever from the mid 20s to excessive 40s after disabling body technology. Body technology and FSR are enabled utilizing the advisable settings with the scaling decision set to 90. I discovered Black Fantasy: Wukong doesn’t look too dangerous taking part in on low with these, however I enabled TSR since I’ve had higher visuals with TSR than FSR.
For those who flip every little thing to low, tremendous decision to 45, TSR on, and body technology off, anticipate to see 40 to 50fps early on. This may increasingly not sound nice to some people, however given the sport’s necessities, I truthfully didn’t even anticipate to hit 30fps with every little thing turned off and FSR on. Since this can be a very heavy sport, on my Steam Deck OLED, the efficiency overlay reveals about 22W of energy utilization which provides me slightly below 2.5 hours of battery life at full brightness going by the estimate. I don’t often measure battery life, however given the visuals, I wished to make a remark of that.
Given my early experiences with body technology taking part in video games like Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered the place I ended up forcing the GPU clock to 1200 MHz initially, I additionally determined to attempt that right here when taking part in on the lowest settings. I enabled the “permit tearing” choice, pressured GPU clock to 1600 MHz, and had the v-sync off in-game to see the way it feels. It did really feel higher initially with body technology, however I’m but to search out the candy spot for the perfect compromise of visuals with efficiency in Black Fantasy: Wukong. I shall be updating this with extra outcomes as I get to the latter half of the sport. The screenshot above with the HUD ought to provide you with an thought of the way it runs and appears in movement.
Black Fantasy: Wukong additionally ships with a superb picture mode. This allows you to modify FOV, roll, depth of subject, brightness, distinction, vignette, use many filters, toggle headgear, toggle stains on physique, use frames, add a brand sticker (with a couple of choices), sticker place, sticker measurement, and save these settings. I fairly just like the picture mode even now. It isn’t as in-depth as the perfect implementations, however it’s a lot nicer than what we often see from builders.
One final thing to notice is that Black Fantasy: Wukong is a giant sport relating to its footprint. It takes up over 127GB on Steam Deck. In case you have a 256GB Steam Deck, that is price protecting in thoughts. Proper now, it additionally seemingly doesn’t avoid wasting settings just like the management choices, however I think about this shall be mounted quickly. I didn’t run into different bugs or crashes within the time I’ve put into it on my Steam Deck OLED and LCD fashions.
I would like extra time to see it by means of, however Black Fantasy: Wukong is a formidable motion RPG with incredible music, nice visuals, and one I wish to replay on console after Steam Deck. It’s surprisingly playable on Valve’s handheld already, and I think about issues will solely enhance with updates and as soon as each Valve and Recreation Science optimize it for the {hardware}. I’m curious to see how the PS5 model feels once I get entry to it.
Black Fantasy: Wukong Steam Deck overview rating: TBA
