So far, despite all the little bugs and technical issues, Kuro Games’ open-world action-RPG Wuthering Waves has proven to be an enjoyable romp. That said, as you may have guessed from the headline, there’s just one feature that would make the game infinitely more fun for me.
Wuthering Waves clearly wants to be the next Genshin Impact, or the “Genshin killer,” if you will. We’ve seen plenty of those. And it does this by trying to imitate everything that Genshin Impact — and Honkai: Star Rail too, for that matter — does, including lengthy story cutscenes and dialogue that can’t be skipped. For players like me who are just there for the dopamine hits that come with gacha games, and the fun action combat that Kuro Games has become known for, this is a total hindrance.
Just like in Genshin and Star Rail, Wuthering Waves features cutscenes where you must click through dialogue boxes to advance. As if to rub salt into the wound, there are instances where you can’t even click through the dialogue and you’re forced to wait for the line to finish playing before you’re able to click. This results in a rather frustrating experience where the pace of the game feels extremely sluggish because you’re constantly getting forced into cutscenes and conversations while you’re just trying to get through your quests as quickly as possible.
And yes. Before you ask, I am indeed outing myself as a story hater in gacha games.
You see, the thing is I enjoy gacha games largely for the team-building aspects and the ability to try to grind and min-max everything as much as I can without spending a dime. Being able to fly through quests to collect premium currencies so I can hit the slot machine is a big plus as well, and the main story is always at the bottom of the priority list for me. The same goes for Wuthering Waves, and I’m quite sure the same will apply to HoYoverse’s Zenless Zone Zero in July as well, even if that game’s budget looks insane.
Let’s not forget the fact that skipping cutscenes is a function that is present in pretty much every single video game outside of the gacha world as well, so really, Wuthering Waves is kind of the anomaly here. The good news is that Kuro Games has since stated that along with addressing the game’s technical issues, they’ll also be adding the ability to skip cutscenes and other story content for folks who just want to get to the gameplay.
And for what it’s worth, the gameplay is actually very good. If there’s one thing Wuthering Waves has over Genshin Impact, it’s that the combat feels much more fluid and satisfying. The bullet time effect paired with the dodge makes you feel like a total badass when you pull it off and, at least from what I’ve seen so far, the characters are all pretty viable across the various game modes.
Once the little kinks and issues get ironed out, I could absolutely see myself sticking with Wuthering Waves for a long time to come, assuming Kuro Games is able to push out updates on a regular basis. Just let me skip those pesky cutscenes, please.
