Review: Wuthering Waves, the New Open World Anime RPG

Wuthering Waves, released on May 22, 2024, joined the Free to Play Open World game options, with RPG aspects focused on combat, launched by Kuro Games and Kuro Game Studio. The title is a gacha, where the player can use the game currencies, Tide and Astrite to try to obtain level 5 class characters (the highest, therefore with stronger and more complex characters) in addition to signature weapons to them.

In this article, we will discuss which aspects Genshin Impact's direct competitor gets right, and which aspects require improvement.

Technical Aspects

Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Android, iOS, Windows, Mac OS

Developers: Kuro Games, Kuro Game Studio

Genre: Action RPG, Anime RPG, Gacha, Free-to-Play

Studios: Kuro Games, Kuro Game Studio

We start with a generic character who can be male or female, known as “Rover” throughout the game's story, who has just awakened in a dangerous region, full of monsters and with many war stories in its past.

The world in which the game takes place, called Solaris-3 (because it is the third planet in relation to the sun) is set in a post-apocalyptic scenario, as if it had already been inhabited by countless different civilizations, however, nature has already blossomed again. In practical terms, this means that buildings are advanced with cutting-edge technology, but the world still has old buildings, and the environment is vast.

Still talking about World Building, Rover awakens, but has no memories of who they are or their past, and so the story begins, and throughout the missions they establish a connection with this supposed new world.

Monsters, known as Tacet Discords, are the main enemies encountered when exploring regions, they generally awaken through Tacet Fields, areas where the player can face unique enemies (bosses). There is an organized army that suppresses these creatures; however, there are special people, known as Resonators, who can absorb Echoes from these creatures when defeating them, granting them extraordinary powers.

The Resonators are the characters that the player can have on their team, and can try to obtain through the gacha system.

The genre of gacha mixed with open world anime RPG is already well known, Hoyoverse, a Chinese company that develops games based on anime, was a pioneer both in its marketing team and in worldwide releases, with notable mention of the classic Genshin Impact and later Honkai: Star Rail, which is part of the Honkai game series.

Therefore, Kuro Games did not have an easy job when entering this extremely competitive market with already such renowned games, and chose to improve a basic but essential aspect of the genre: combat.

Movement during the game is fast-paced, and the player is rarely stopped by his stamina. The combat follows a similar line, a team of three characters is used, one of which is the DPS (damage per second) and two supports that can perform offensive and/or defensive functions, and be used in battle.

The title has dodge and parry mechanics with unique animations, and it is notoriously rewarding when you know the correct time to dodge an attack or use parry, which makes the combat really impressive. Moving quickly also helps, as you can often use the terrain during the fight, or there are mechanics such as throwing objects from the scenario at enemies.

We are also introduced to the mechanics of Intro and Outro Skills, which makes team building interesting. In short, during combat, when performing combos and dodges the support characters in the team fill up a bar, and when it’s completed, they can use the aforementioned skills.

When switching, the character leaving the screen uses his Outro Skill, while the one entering uses his Intro Skill, thus enabling absurd amounts of damage and buffs, if used synergistically. This makes the build challenging: you can choose to use a character to their full potential, or focus on their intro and outro abilities to assist others, or mix both styles, and so on.

As previously stated, defeated monsters have a chance of dropping Echoes, which can be absorbed. These are used by characters as a secondary skill, or echo skill, and can be improved. Here, variability is enormous, there are some echoes that transform you into the monster itself during the attack for a few seconds, while others only allow you to use an iconic ability from it. Again, another aspect that makes combat varied and diverse.

One of the highlights of the new game is that it is a rewarding experience for free to play players. Daily missions are easy, and exploring the world is also enjoyable. With some caveats, the side quests do not have voice acting and the plot is uninteresting, but there is the option to skip the lines, which brings a lot of gameplay quality.

As for the gacha system, 80 shots are needed to guarantee a 5-star character, and follows a usual 50x50 formula: when the player reaches this number, there is a 50% chance that the guaranteed character will be from the current banner, and 50% of being a basic 5-star character. If you “lose” getting a basic character, the next 80 shots are guaranteed to come from the current banner character. In comparison, in Genshin Impact there are 90 shots, it is also 50x50.

On the Weapons Gacha, in Wuthering Waves you need 80 shots to guarantee the weapon of your choice, while in Genshin Impact there is the 75x25 system, where every 80 shots is guaranteed a 5-star weapon, not necessarily the of the banner of choice, this is only guaranteed on the third pull.

Currently, the character on the featured banner is Yinlin, from the electro element.

Among the pros and cons that favor the title, we have:

Pros

Side quests without voice acting

SCORE: 7/10

Conclusion

Wuthering Waves has a combat system worth playing and seeing what it's like, as well as having an interesting exploration aspect for those who like the open world genre. Overall, the game's problematic issues have been constantly addressed by the developers, which is a positive point. It's also worth noting that co-op is available after a certain level, and the gameplay is solid. So, yes, it's worth playing, be it alone or with friends.