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Wuthering Waves Review | MMORPG.com
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Wuthering Waves Review | MMORPG.com
Wuthering Waves is the next gacha RPG on the market, and Nick spent the last two weeks running through its sci-fi world to make heads or tails of it. Here's our review.
Comments
The game will drag you to much for to long. Just add the damn skip button and let me play!
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
That's certainly a spicy take coming from someone with a single post. It's a good thing you did some research on me before attacking my character, but if you did a better job you'd have realized I've been writing and reviewing about MMOs, MMORPGs, and mobile games for more than a decade, and was the editor-in-chief of a successful MMO website for 5 years.
First off, being a fan of a genre is a terrible criteria for reviewing a particular game and it automatically creates bias. I enjoy nearly every genre, but mobile games (and/or those built on mobile game mechanics) are objectively more flawed than most others. That doesn't mean amazing mobile games don't exist, but they're few and far between with most being bad and the rest mediocre.
The gacha rates in Wuthering Waves are some of the lowest in all mobile gaming, but you are correct that the pity system is at least on par, if not a little more forgiving than most. The game does throw a lot of currency at you in the start, but I guarantee that will dry up and it's not something you can rely on just like similar games. You don't even need to pull a 5* character/weapon to progress, but that doesn't make it not a predatory mechanic.
FF14 and most other true MMORPGs usually contain so many quests that the average player won't get through them all. Those that do are met with a fleshed-out endgame consisting of dungeons, raids, pvp, and open world means of progression, not to mention crafting and exploration systems.
I mentioned that the combat is good, but it's still only good for a mobile game. It's worse than true 3rd person action games like Devil May Cry, less challenging than Souls-like games, and not as interesting as action RPGs (Witcher 3, Tales of Arise, Dragon's Dogma). There is a lot to do and explore in the world, but it's still pretty shallow. Go here, kill this TD, absorb it, collect a couple items to cook or craft with. It's a far cry from something like Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The story is absolutely garbage and shouldn't take dozens of hours to start getting good, and it also shouldn't rely on supplements from new gacha characters. I stand that a 6.5 is a very reasonable score for a relatively boring game with a few good aspects.
Then you won't like this spicy take coming from another person with a single post.
I have no issue with a reviewer finding a game boring or giving it a mediocre review if it isn't their cup of tea. What I don't like to see is a reviewer talk about aspects like endgame and story without having experienced either to what I'd consider to be a reasonable extent. Again, I'd like to reiterate - if you haven't experienced these things, please don't mislead readers into thinking that you have taken those into account. Maybe I'm misunderstanding (and if so, I'd appreciate some clarification) but based on this response it really sounds like you haven't, and if you haven't, that's not an issue, but I really wish you would have mentioned that during the review.
In addition to the story (which substantially improves after the first three acts, as that one individual put it) one of the points here that does seem a bit strange to me is the "less challenging than Souls-like" piece. One of the endgame modes you'd mentioned earlier (Tactical Hologram) have even early bosses that can and will tear you apart with the ease of a Souls boss if you don't understand their moveset (and yes, I have played and beaten normal and modded Soulsborne games, so I speak from experience here).
And I'd add that if you're using Breath of the Wild, Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, Witcher 3, Dragon's Dogma, Tales of Arise, and MMORPGs as your measuring stick, you are no longer reviewing a mobile game and are not making a good comparison. You'd be better served using something like Genshin, Tower of Fantasy, Punishing Gray Raven, or Warframe as a reference point.
I'm sure you're plenty qualified, and I'm sure you have plenty of decent reviews. This review, in my opinion, did not feel like one of them.
Those are some fair questions, and I believe I played enough of the story and endgame to make a proper assessment. Did I 100% what's currently available? No, but I experienced enough to get a reasonable idea of how everything works and the quality of the writing.
I did play the endgame, and other than the Tactical Hologram I didn't really enjoy any of it. Most of it exists to create more grind, and I'm sure TH will eventually feel like this once you hit a certain difficulty wall. This mostly meaningless grind is less tolerated in what is essentially a single-player game compared with true MMORPGs.
For each game, I review it in a vacuum. I didn't measure it against the aforementioned games, but I did use them as a reference when considering how other types of games work. I didn't mark down points simply because this game is made for mobile first and thus has limitations. In fact, it got extra points for finally bringing a good combat system to the platform.
However, most mobile games do inherently come with intentional flaws that can't be overlooked. Gacha systems as a mechanic are almost always predatory, and WW's is one of the worst up there (along with Genshin's). Not all mobile games need a gacha and there are others with much better rates. Other true mobile MMORPGs, like Albion Online don't include a gacha system at all.
I've played all the games you've mentioned and significantly more mobile games. Warframe is incredibly F2P friendly (unless it has changed recently), while Genshin has an awful gacha system, and I feel like PGR and Tower of Fantasy had middling gachas, but I found the latter 2 games to be very mediocre. For example, I play Nikke and most banners have a 4% rate, the pity system is 200 draws but it carries over from each banner, and the game throws loads of draw tickets at you; I've never even come close to needing to pay for any of the characters I've wanted.
I simply didn't find any long or short-term redeeming qualities in WW other than the combat system, which I've mentioned multiple times. I honestly can't think of another game where I've been so bored for such long periods of time, and I play a lot of JRPGs which can have hours of straight dialogue.
Personally, I have enjoyed every minute in Wuthering Waves. I can't wait to see what else they add to the game. Jinzhou is beautiful, and the characters are all captivating.
The game won't be for everyone, so I understand the negative reviews. For myself, it has been a great experience so far.
I understand the need to give it a "good" note but this game its a 4.
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I'm thinking of trying this game.