
HoYoverse has, by and large, had the console gacha market all to itself – but a couple of new contenders have entered the arena.
Infinity Nikki, a game we awarded a 9/10, already appears to have established itself on PS5, and now Wuthering Waves is available on the console, a little under a year after it first launched on mobile and PC.
This game is a lot like Genshin Impact, with a massive anime open world and a colourful cast of characters to meet. But it has some twists on the formula: there’s a monster collecting component to it which feeds into the tried and trusted character-building elements, and its combat is much more refined.
Systematically, though, you’ll find a lot of similarities between Wuthering Waves and the aforementioned HoYoverse games. Its story is stuffed full of proper nouns – it may be the worst of the lot for that – and it’s all about accruing in-game currency in the hope of attracting time-limited characters to your team.
This console version launches alongside the game’s v2.0 update, which introduces an entire new area and storyline, set in an Italian-style environment. You can skip directly to the new story if you want to, or catch up with all of the quests you may have missed.
We’ve spent around an hour testing the port out this morning, and it feels rock solid from what we’ve played so far. The performance seems slick, aside from a few frame rate drops here and there, and visually it’s an impressive looking game.
We’ll play through the new content and bring you a full review as soon as we can, but this game is free to download, so take a look for yourself if you’re curious about it.
Comments 13
Played it for about an hour and it seems fine. I'm really not a fan of how similar it is to Genshin Impact. I had the same issue with Tower of Fantasy.
I hate playing catch up on games like this. Not doing a simultaneous release like ZZZ did really killed my interest.
How does the monster collecting work? Does it only give new skills or do you use the actual beasts in combat?
Downloading it now. I hope it's as good as some people say it is.
It's a MASSIVE upgrade from high-end phone and tablet. Biggest complaint is trying to unlearn and re-learn the controls. First world problems. lol
@AFCC There is a random chance of collecting monsters (echoes) after you kill them and there are other ways to get Echoes. Each character equips 5 different echoes which each have stats and sub-stats that are added to your character stats.
ONE Echo is equipped in a slot that can be used during combat as a skill. Each Echo, there are around 60 right now, has a unique animation and skill.
@Khwarezm89 Just a heads up: Storywise the beginning is kinda meh but it gets better later. Exploration and combat is great though
I download every big gatcha game that comes out, but I'm beginning to develop a revulsion reflex to gacha UI.
As soon as they send you to that shop screen where there are ten tabs, with two mini tabs in each, and every single one has it's own currency, with a bunch of 'sales' and per month capped purchases, I'm out.
Played about 4h and so far so good. Genshin clone for sure but does enough differently combat wise to be its own thing. Not bad at all.
I'll give it a try but I bounced off Genshin, Zenless and Nikki pretty hard, so will see if this does enough to keep me.
Looks great but i'm a one gatcha man and Nikki is my current gatcha for now.
@ATaco One thing I don't like is limited timed events where you need to be a certain level to play it. I wish they would just keep all the events available so you don't feel rushed. Some of my favorite events are limited time
Another gatcha huh? I only played Genshin for about an hour, the sidekicks voice in English was just too annoying, so at least this would be sort of new for me. Maybe when I finish the main story in Nikki.
@mariomaster96 “ Storywise the beginning is kinda meh but it gets better later.“
I feel that way about Inifinity Nikki. First 3 or 4 chapters were ok but the game really got me interested when the first new area opened up. Just opened up the second new area. Feels like I’m playing more of a fantasy JRPG now than a dress up life sim.
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