Where Winds Meet Impression
The game is at its best when players are able to explore the world and undertake activities at their own pace.
Where Winds Meet is the latest action RPG drawing heavy inspiration from Chinese mythology and history. Developed by Everstone Studio and published by NetEase Games, the game launches this week as a free-to-play title. The free-to-play elements thankfully never get in the way of any progress and appear restricted fully to cosmetic elements, even if familiar holdovers of such games, like an unnecessary amount of different currencies and excessively nested menus, do exist. During the early review access period, we had time to check out the game's first story chapter and the beginning of the second, the latter of which takes players to the city of Kaifeng itself as they begin their quest in earnest. What remains is a solid open world that has lots to do and is fun to explore, even if its narrative elements frequently get lost in the jumble.
The game is ostensibly set in a version of the chaotic Ten Kingdoms era of tenth-century China, in the region around Kaifeng. It comes with its fair share of mythological elements and certainly features wuxia -- fiction focusing on martial artists in ancient China -- stylings in full force. It begins with an introductory scene where a warrior escapes from pursuers while carrying a baby. Things then skip forward in time, with players creating their own character, strongly implied to be said baby grown up. Raised in an idyllic small rural village, they harbour dreams of becoming a famed hero and following in the footsteps of their guardian, who left the village under unknown circumstances a few years ago.
[caption id="attachment_179295" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Where Winds Meet has all of the appropriate wuxia stylings.[/caption]
The narrative's biggest stumbling block is its general inability to give players a fully coherent chain of events to follow. There may be a bit of a culture gap at play, but many of the conflicts in the game feel entirely arbitrary, especially references to various characters and factions that get no explanation. Things are further exacerbated when events suddenly leap into and out of the metaphysical for no clear reason, either at the time or afterwards. The localisation doesn't help, though it is worth noting that it was not finalised for the early review build, with many cases where the English audio did not line up with the subtitles, which makes it hard to determine how much has been lost in translation or if the game is naturally incredibly obtuse. It must be said that the game's cutscenes all have lots of style and plenty of choreographed fight scenes within them, but there's not much of substance in the actual events.
Where Winds Meet' s strongest element is its exploration of its open world. The environments look great, and there's a ton to find and do within them. These range from simple mini-games such as fishing and arresting criminals, to short puzzles that players can use their abilities to solve, and up to longer event chains and side stories involving dungeons and potentially a climactic boss fight. These side stories sometimes suffer a bit from the same narrative unclarity of the main story, though being supported by more interesting puzzles and explorative elements makes it much less of an issue, and others provide enjoyable short, self-contained tales. There are many mini-games and activities to find, some of which are more effective and enjoyable than others, but there most definitely isn't a lack of things to do.
[caption id="attachment_167337" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Wrestling is just one of a whole host of mini-games and activities.[/caption]
Unfortunately, while there is a huge amount to find and unlock, the UI makes it hard to decipher quite how everything connects up and belies the game's free-to-play nature, even if it lacks the usual roadblocks. The sheer number of progression messages is incredibly hard to follow, especially as the game throws around currencies like confetti, before even trying to figure out what each goes towards and the tangible benefits they offer the player. There's nothing to prevent players leaving and coming back to it later, but the sheer complexity of the UI makes it doubly frustrating when coming upon certain quests that require unlocking something else to progress. In addition to being able to choose between players in solo mode or an online mode where they can join up with other players, the game includes a signpost system, which is quite handy. This allows players to leave messages to others, providing potential hints on how to solve certain puzzles or highlighting a potential secret ahead.
Fortunately, the systems surrounding character level progression, skill unlocks, and builds are easier to follow. The game's combat comes with a good selection of difficulty options for players to tailor the experience to them. Players can equip two different melee weapons and switch between them on the fly in fast-paced action combat. It makes use of dodge and defend/parry buttons, with players able to turn on various assist modes to help with the defensive aspects, though these use a meter that needs recharging, and so don't guarantee victory if activated. Otherwise, players make use of a mixture of light and heavy attack combos or charged attacks, special weapon skills, and mystic martial arts -- which can be learned by exploring the world and completing missions -- while trying to avoid enemy attacks.
Combat is generally fun, although there's not a huge amount that differentiates it from many other action RPGs out there. Its most enjoyable moments come in its one-on-one fights against bosses and powerful enemies. Facing of groups often invites annoyances, as the combat and skills available are more clearly suited to engaging enemies singularly; when there are multiple foes, it often interrupts many of the stylish animations and abilities that make the combat interesting. The weapons and skills available offer a decent amount of flexibility in combat style, although it can be easy to forget that some of them exist in the heat of battle.
[caption id="attachment_167336" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The game doesn't skimp on providing excellent views.[/caption]
Environments are a big win for the game's visuals. There are fantastic views to be found all over the place, but also a huge amount of small details in the world and town designs that make all of the locations interesting to behold. Character designs benefit from detailed work on their outfits and hairstyles that match stylish combat animations and backgrounds. The PlayStation 5 preview build did suffer from some areas where the frame rate dipped noticeably or there was obvious texture pop-ins, plus one brief amusing scripted event following the protagonist on horseback when the camera kept spinning around. Audio is also solid, with the music utilising traditional instruments as it takes a strong supporting role in backing up the visuals and further enhancing the wuxia elements. The English voice acting is fine, even if the script is fairly stilted, though it also suffered a few technical issues in the build with lines getting out of sync.
How successful Where Winds Meet will be for players depends on what they want to get out of it. The game is at its best when players are able to explore the world and undertake activities at their own pace. There are definite times when the game stumbles, largely with its UI and a lack strong direction in its main narrative, largely with its UI and a lack strong direction in its main narrative, but it has depth and breadth enough to satisfy many with its stylish wuxia elements and an enjoyable open world with lots to do.
Disclosure: This article is based on a build of the game provided by the publisher.
The post Where Winds Meet Impression appeared first on RPGamer .
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