Wuthering Waves Review - My Echo Ate a Bear

I showed up for the anime swordplay. I stayed because my ghost-bear uppercuts people through trees.

Nobody tells you your first big fight might be against a howling slab of rock that drops a ghost. Or that the ghost is collectible. Or that the ghost hits harder than your actual sword. Wuthering Waves doesn't ease you in, it flings you into a gorgeous fever dream full of rhythm-fighting and rule-breaking movement. I figured I'd try it out for half an hour. Three hours later, I was ziplining off a skyscraper while my pet beetle flew headfirst into a mini-boss. Wild moment.

Boss Fight? Got Smashed. Still Smiling.

I've died in games before. Plenty of times. Some were brave. Some were just bad. This one? Felt like interpretive dance. I was halfway up a cliff (yes, wall-running is a thing and yes, it's ridiculous) when I saw this truck-sized beast breakdancing on a bridge. Naturally, I charged in with nothing but hubris. It launched me into the stratosphere.

And somehow, I laughed. It earned that win.

Combat in Wuthering Waves doesn't wait for you. You cancel animations. Parry by instinct. Unleash Echo skills mid-combo. Swap characters mid-air like a stylish maniac. It's messy in the best way. Less chill-and-click, more button ballet.

I came back, baited a swing, parried with a snap, then lit up the arena with my lightning katana girl. Meanwhile, ghost-bear came in swinging like he had beef. I finished the fight mid-glide, drifting off the bridge like I'd planned the whole thing. I hadn't.

Built a Haunted Zoo. It Slaps.

Echoes. You kill a monster. Sometimes it drops itself. A ghostly mini-me you can equip. They boost your stats and give you new moves. Slam stuff? Gorilla. Speedy dash punch? Beetle. Yes, really.

Each character holds five Echoes. Builds get spicy fast. Crit stacking, support setups, pure chaos. Want to look like your whole squad's haunted by forest spirits? Go for it.

And honestly? Chasing them is addictive. I stopped exploring for the scenery and started scanning for weird wildlife. I made a wishlist. A haunted checklist. My favorite Echo right now? Giant mushroom that crop-dusts poison gas. He's gross. I adore him.

This Movement System Should Be Illegal

At some point, someone on the dev team asked, "What if movement was actually fun?" Then they gave us sprinting with no stamina, ledge grapples, wall runs, cliff glides, and just... let it happen.

Exploring feels like screwing around in a parkour sim. I saw an Echo monster across a massive canyon, and instead of going around like a sane person, I spent 45 minutes wall-jumping up cliff faces. Made it. Not proud of it.

There's a whole skill tree that just makes you faster and weirder. In a game overflowing with systems, movement still somehow steals the spotlight.

The Story's There. Ish.

You're the Rover. You've got amnesia. World's busted because of a mysterious cosmic temper tantrum called the Lament. Everyone you meet has a vibe: edgy swordsman, tech girl, fashion disaster with secrets. You're trying to fix stuff. Maybe.

The thing is... the writing kind of drags its feet. Dialogue dumps hit like homework. Voice acting feels like a school project. I wanted to care. I really did. But after the third monologue about quantum resonance entropy or whatever, I just noped out.

Weirdly though, the world design tells a better story. You get lore from ruins. Echo types hint at local disasters. There's flavor in the silence. Sounds fake, works great.

Free-to-Play? Surprisingly Generous.

Yep, it's a gacha game. There are banners. Pity counters. Currencies with names that sound like bath bombs. But early on? It throws you some real bones.

Within a few hours I had a full team, a couple solid 4-star weapons, and enough rolls to snag a powerful unit. You can even choose your 5-star at one point. No joke.

Sure, things tighten up later. The resource drip slows. But the start? Way more generous than most. And here's the kicker, none of the fights I tackled needed meta gear or paid pulls. I beat bosses with Echoes I found while chasing a mushroom through the woods. No gacha gods required.

The Grind Loop (But Not in a Bad Way)

Once the opening hand-holding ends, Wuthering Waves becomes kind of cozy. You unlock a loop: explore weird zones, collect creepy ghosts, power up your squad, clear dailies, dive into events. Puzzle rooms? Check. Boss arenas? Yep. Echo-on-Echo violence? Absolutely.

The menus are a mess at first. I opened three tabs just trying to upgrade a pair of boots. But once the rhythm clicks? It's surprisingly smooth. Build a loadout. Test it. Swap something weird in. Accidentally find a busted combo. Repeat.

Events rotate in pretty quick, and they don't all feel like filler. Some shake up the combat rules, others toss you trial characters to mess around with. If min-maxing your build makes your brain happy, this game hands you the tools and says "Go nuts."

Launch Woes, Bugs, and Ghost-Glitches

Okay yeah, launch day was crunchy. Frame dips. Invisible textures. Bosses clipping through the floor like haunted bowling pins. One fight ended when my enemy just left. Vanished through geometry. Total panic.

That said, patches have been landing fast. Performance is way better now. And the devs? Seem to be paying attention. Still, if you're playing on a phone from 2017 or your GPU wheezes when you open Chrome, maybe turn down the settings.

Final Verdict: Echoes, Yes. Cutscenes, No.

I've got a beetle main-DPS, a haunted mushroom sidekick, and a squad of misfits who punch way above their star rating. Wuthering Waves might be weird, but it works.

Sure, the story's limp. And yeah, the voice acting sounds like it was recorded in a broom closet. But the combat? The movement? The Echo system? Chaos in the best way.

You don't get drip-fed dopamine here. You crash headfirst into it. Worth it.