Wuthering Waves Review: Is It Worth Playing?

Wuthering Waves is a free-to-play action role-playing game developed and published by Kuro Games. It was released on May 22, 2024 and with 30 million pre-registered players. A lot of people are comparing it to Genshin Impact and as a player who played both of them, I have to admit that there are a lot of similarities.  

But before we dive into the core gameplay and the nitty-gritty, I’ll talk about the storyline of Wuthering Waves, the characters, and the events happening currently that you could participate in. 

Story 

Wuthering Waves begins with the first cut scene, where your character gets the epic farewell with their beloved and then get sent somewhere far away. There, they are saved by Yanyang and Chixia (free characters you get in the game) but unfortunately, your character doesn’t remember who they are or how they got there. 

Yanyang and Chixia are there to save you and tell you where you are, which is the outskirts of a place called Jinzhou. From there, the story unfolds, you meet all sorts of people, and you start to discover pieces from your past. The world is overrun by monsters called Tacet Discords and the world needs a savior now more than ever. I guess I have no choice but to save it. 

Characters

There are 15 characters that can be summoned, and 6 of them are 5 stars. Some of them are given for free and for the rest of them, your luck will be tested. Currently, I’ve obtained 10 of them, with two of them being 5 stars. 

My main party currently consists of Rover (protagonist/close combat character), Encore (semi-ranged), and Verina (support). And I’ve had a pretty easy time dealing with all the challenges set my way. 

If I’m going to be completely honest, there is no real need for the proper setting of the party, you can just use whatever you think is the most fun for you. That’s what I did at least, it just so happened they were all 5 stars.

Events

If you were planning on checking Wuthering Waves out, there’s no better time than now. Since it’s freshly out, there is a fair amount of free stuff given out. For the actual events, there isn’t anything significant that you would be missing except maybe for the summon banner (Jiyan). I’ve had a chance to use him as an extra on a couple of missions and I’ve gotta admit that he seems OP. Reminds me of Venti from the Genshin, he was the first banner there and I’ve missed getting him.

Gameplay

Now finally we get to the gameplay of Wuthering Waves. When it comes to the exploration of the game and roaming the open world, I can’t say that I enjoyed the scenery particularly much.  

I was more focused on chasing and capturing the next echo. Also, there were some minor bugs that I’ve encountered (like climbing/running up to certain places) while exploring which didn’t really make me keen on exploring more. 

For the fighting portion of the game, I didn’t encounter any major issues. I’ve become very proficient in dodging enemy attacks. When it comes to the list of things to do in the game there are plenty and the grind never stops. 

The one thing that I personally find bothersome most of the time is cutscenes. If I want to skip some of them, let me have that option. The amount of time where I listened to the story and then there was nothing significant, and I couldn’t skip is absolutely ridiculous. Hopefully, it will be fixed in the future.

Summoning

If you want to acquire more characters that aren’t given out for free, you’ll have to summon them. In Wuthering Wave it’s called Convene. The base 5-star Resonator/weapon drop rate is 0.8%. The pity in the game is at 80 Convene, which will guarantee at least 1 5-star drop. But if I’m going to be real with you, we are hitting the pity 99% of the time unless you are one of those lucky people who were blessed and get something unbelievable every 10 pulls. 

Bosses

The one thing that you’ll do more than anything is fight those high-class echo bosses. Not only do they provide the resources needed for leveling your characters, echoes, weapons, ascending characters, and a few other things but they also have a chance to be a wonderful echo with great stats and effects.

Echoes

When defeating Tacet Discords there are chances they leave a trace that you can absorb and that’s how you get echoes. The absorbed echoes can be equipped on the characters that you own. Each character can equip up to 5 echoes, and there is a main echo that you can equip and use as a skill on the designated character. 

Depending on the echo, you can either transform into them or they are summoned next to you. There are set effects for echoes that get activated once you equip either 2 or 5 echoes from the sets. 

In early game, it doesn’t really matter but once you progress more, that’s when it matters. Also, one thing worth mentioning is that each echo has different stats and substats. You want to focus more on getting the right stats later in the game when you start getting better rarity echoes. 

I like this concept but I also feel like something is missing. Like if the transformations were a bit longer or if you can choose to have unlimited transformation while you are outside of the battle. 

Graphics and audio 

Wuthering Waves is a fairly good-looking game. It won’t really wow you but it definitely isn’t that bad. The design of the characters is on the cuter side and skill animations are unique for each character. I think I’m more impressed with the audio than the graphics. Especially when it comes to some of the voice lines of the characters. My favorite one for sure is the Encore. I’ve found myself on more than one occasion repeating her lines or just saying it same time as her. 

Final thoughts

I’m kinda torn apart about the Wuthering Waves. I like it and I hate it at the same time. It’s a nice game that can be played for hours — but on the other side, it becomes too grindy for my taste. Maybe if I tone it down and try to slow down my progress, I’ll enjoy it for a longer time. And I have no doubt that with future updates, it will become even more interesting. So I guess I’ll have to keep playing it but with a lot of moderation and less obsession.