Story is messy

[oz Helix oz]

I finished chapter 1 and in chapter 2 you wake up in the sand with a lot of arrows... not continuing the trajectory of Chapter 1. I thought the game was going to focus a little more on the story than other soul games. The graphics are great, combat is great and every 10 seconds a boss fight is great. The only thing that is not great is the story.

[Neyreyan_Youtube]

They didnt explain a few things, its based on a book but it follows certain parts if it.
You are a normal monkey having the spirit of the monkey king in you and are searching for his dissmembered human senses, technically in chapter 3 when you reach the zodiac village they say that the journey cant be done alone without support.
The monkey with gourd upgrades and some other character mentions that many monkeys try to do the passage/travel but failed.
They are just saying the road is dangerous and that you are not special(even if you are).

[Homeless.]

The story didn't hook me at all unfortunately

[Adam__86]

Unfortunately it doesn't do a good job telling The Journey to the West story which is already confusing to Western audiences

[Satori]

Main plot seems u are just a monkey and need 6 essences or whatever to maybe revive the real wukong. Seems there is so much side-story nuances, but 95% wont understand almost any of it.
it would have been way more engaging if they explain the characters before u fight or interact with them. The char stories are mostly rly cool, but u mostly have to read about em after u kill em to understand somewhat about em. U mostly dunno wtf is going on and why u fight em thil after u beat em, so u not that engaged before and while u fight em.
Also, i dont feel like reading most times. Its a lot.

Like most non-chinese, i am not familair with journey to the west. But there is a 3 movie series about wu kong that is decent. came out in 2014,2016,2018. 1st movie was great, 2nd is kinda meh. am halfway through the 2nd movie. didnt get too much out of it... since the story is after the journey and seems they changed a lot.

[Playforfun]

the story is complicated, and is not told in a normal fashion. The story itself is not the original Journey to the West, but events happening after it. Even those with knowledge of the book will get confused. However, from what I can tell, it's all there, just chopped up into pieces hidden behind secrets and lore texts of all the mobs, even the normal ones. If you want to know the full story, you will have to unlock all the secrets and piece it together on your own.

The main story only tells 50% to 60% of it, so there are large missing chunks you have to fill in on your own. It is by design, and I personally like the way they are doing it, gives it more of a detective feel to it.

I personally think the story is well done. Take the duel at the start of the game for example. There are many parts of that entire scene that doesn't make sense when you first watch/play through it, but as the story unfolds, and you unlock the some specific secrets, it answers those questions you had at the beginning, And you get to fight the 4 giant celestials. Gives you that feeling of "oh that's why!".

[Adam__86]

Originally posted by Playforfun:

the story is complicated, and is not told in a normal fashion. Even those with knowledge of the book will get confused. However, from what I can tell, it's all there, just chopped up into pieces hidden behind secrets and lore texts of all the mobs, even the normal ones. If you want to know the full story, you will have to unlock all the secrets and piece it together on your own.

The main story only tells 50% to 60% of it, so there are large missing chunks you have to fill in on your own. It is by design, and I personally like the way they are doing it, gives it more of a detective feel to it.

I disagree this type of storytelling is why I am not invested in the dialogue or characters. I don't have the excitement of discovering what is next which is why I don't play religiously and just pop in and out randomly

[Neyreyan_Youtube]

If you read all the journal notes it will make more sense, watching a monkey king movie will also help.
Everything has its own story but its a collection of stories.
It would be equally confusing if a chinese read about greek mythology.

[Playforfun]

Originally posted by Adam__86:

Originally posted by Playforfun:

the story is complicated, and is not told in a normal fashion. Even those with knowledge of the book will get confused. However, from what I can tell, it's all there, just chopped up into pieces hidden behind secrets and lore texts of all the mobs, even the normal ones. If you want to know the full story, you will have to unlock all the secrets and piece it together on your own.

The main story only tells 50% to 60% of it, so there are large missing chunks you have to fill in on your own. It is by design, and I personally like the way they are doing it, gives it more of a detective feel to it.

I disagree this type of storytelling is why I am not invested in the dialogue or characters. I don't have the excitement of discovering what is next which is why I don't play religiously and just pop in and out randomly

yup, I can understand, this style of story telling is certainly not the norm, and not everyone will like it. I personally dig it, and can't wait to find more secrets and read new lore texts to fill out the story on my own.

Kind of reminds me of the feelings I had when I first played the first XenoGears game many years ago where you are kept in the dark about the actual story for 80% of the game before it's revealed to you.

[Adam__86]

Originally posted by Playforfun:

Originally posted by Adam__86:

I disagree this type of storytelling is why I am not invested in the dialogue or characters. I don't have the excitement of discovering what is next which is why I don't play religiously and just pop in and out randomly

yup, I can understand, this style of story telling is certainly not the norm, and not everyone will like it. I personally dig it, and can't wait to find more secrets and read new lore texts to fill out the story on my own.

Kind of reminds me of the feelings I had when I first played the first XenoGears many years ago where you are kept in the dark about the actual story for 80% of the game before it's revealed to you.

Don't get me wrong I don't think they shouldn't do it this way, its just not the way I like

[Zogtar]

I feel like the devs did their own creative thing, and you shouldn't literally connect it to the Journey to the West literature.

Idk, feels like they re-did some of the things that had already happened in the literature.

1. WuKong getting the magic headache circlet while fighting Erlang is different from Journey to the west. In the literature he's tricked into wearing it by monk Tang Sanzang
2. Buddha did trap Sun Wukong in a mountain and fed him iron pellets and molten copper until he was freed in Journey to the West. In this game, his body is stuck in a rock on the mountain.

[Playforfun]

Originally posted by Zogtar:

I feel like the devs did their own creative thing, and you shouldn't literally connect it to the Journey to the West literature.

Idk, feels like they re-did some of the things that had already happened in the literature.

1. WuKong getting the magic headache circlet while fighting Erlang is different from Journey to the west. In the literature he's tricked into wearing it by monk Tang Sanzang
2. Buddha did trap Sun Wukong in a mountain and fed him iron pellets and molten copper until he was freed in Journey to the West. In this game, his body is stuck in a rock on the mountain.

What you are referring to is the original Journey to the West story though, this game's story happens After that, it's an entirely newly made up story. So you are correct, the devs definitely did their own creative writing here :D

[AshDeekEmPusi]

The story telling is trash, very disappointed. Chapter 5 was so bad I was like WTF.

[Zogtar]

Originally posted by Playforfun:

Originally posted by Zogtar:

I feel like the devs did their own creative thing, and you shouldn't literally connect it to the Journey to the West literature.

Idk, feels like they re-did some of the things that had already happened in the literature.

1. WuKong getting the magic headache circlet while fighting Erlang is different from Journey to the west. In the literature he's tricked into wearing it by monk Tang Sanzang
2. Buddha did trap Sun Wukong in a mountain and fed him iron pellets and molten copper until he was freed in Journey to the West. In this game, his body is stuck in a rock on the mountain.

What you are referring to is the original Journey to the West story though, this game's story happens After that, it's an entirely newly made up story. So you are correct, the devs definitely did their own creative writing here :D

I reckon, I'm just seeing a lot of Journey to the West being re-tread by the Chosen Monke.

Not complaining, it got me in a rabbit-hole from the literature to the stories original inspiration, Hanuman.

[Shady_Milkman]

The story is all over the place, trying to tell lots of different fables at once. The presentation is 10/10 though.

[Mad Marduk]

1. Start reading your yaoguia portrait entries
2. The game follows after the events of Journey to the West. Good chunks of the relevant parts are retold through the portraits as well but if you haven't read the novel I recommend at least finding some cliff notes or even a youtube video giving a summary of it.

I do feel like the story isn't as prominent in Chapter 3 as the previous 2 at first but a lot of it gets backloaded towards latter part of the chapter.