Wuthering Waves is a new competitor against Genshin Impact in the realm of gacha gaming. The vibrant characters and ease of movement has me hooked, but the voice acting leaves a little to be desired. It isn’t the worst I’ve seen, it isn’t the best I’ve seen, but it has certainly made an impact on how I play video games.
Wuthering Waves is a free-to-play open world gacha game released on May 22, 2024 by Kuro Games, the same developer of Punishing: Gray Raven. Wuthering Waves has no known prequels or connections to any other release by Kuro Games.
The storyline starts with you awakening from your slumber as the amnesiac protagonist Rover. You’re surrounded by a trio of girls: Yangyang, Chixia, and Baizhi, your travel buddies and the first characters you receive for free. You learn about the looming crisis of dark creatures called Tacet Discords, and on your journey, meet a colorful cast of characters through the world of Solaris-3 starting in the frontier civilization of Huanglong with characters like JIyan, Jinhsi, and Changli.
Something I really like about this game is the vibrant and unique personalities of each playable character. Zhezhi, for example, is a shy artist compared to Chixia, an extroverted Jinzhou Patroller. Another thing the game does really well is the variation in female character design. Yinlin’s mysterious black cheongsam, Yangyang’s feathery hair, the plant motifs in Verina’s design, and Jinhsi’s overall white theme are some of my favorite design elements.
Another thing that impressed me is the ease of movement. You can run up walls, double jump, consume no stamina when sprinting, and swing in the air with a grappling hook. Moving around this world is much easier than the constant swimming and climbing in Genshin Impact.
A thing that disappoints me about Wuthering Waves is the lack of variation in male character design. Lingyang, Scar, Calcharo, and Aalto all have white hair. Except for Lingyang, all playable male characters in the game currently have black as the main color for their outfits. This doesn’t offer as much contrast as the female characters’ outfits.
The game features characters voiced by English voice actors such as Carina Reeves and Chris Hackney, and well known Japanese voice actors like Natsuki Hanae and Yui Ishikawa. The game has four language dubs in total.
The voice acting in games usually doesn’t bother me. However, the quality of the release-era English voiceover has some errors I can’t get over. Most of the voice actors in the game are from the UK since it’s geographically closer to China than the USA. It seemed the voice direction was the problem as the voice actors were forced to put on American accents and had only one take. I noticed the robotic tone characters were putting off in addition to the bad microphone quality with lots of breathy consonants and spliced sentences.
Despite its rocky start, this game has quickly become one of my all-time favorites. The puzzles are super satisfying, and the combat is smoother than a hot knife cutting through butter. The smooth open world mechanics are something I would have never expected out of a game like this. I’ve grown to love the character design even more with the 1.3 update, “To the Shore’s End.” Wuthering Waves has definitely set a new standard in gaming for me, and I’m excited to see what’s in store for future updates.
