• Price: $17.99 USD
• Developer/Publisher: ChillyRoom
• Release Date: October 24, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by ChillyRoom. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warnings: violence, decapitated heads for bounties, swearing, bad men using pejorative terms for women (i.e. sl*t, c*nt), some skills requiring intoxication to use

I’ve always been interested in history and learning more about other cultures. Even if a piece of fiction isn’t 100% historically accurate, it’s still really cool to see what inspired it. So I was intrigued by The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle, a Wuxia (武侠) themed turn-based RPG that takes place in ancient China.

The game opens with a nice animated sequence on the title screen. When you start the game, you have a lot of decisions to make about your character’s design and build. Choose to play as a male or female, then customize your appearance.

You have a variety of skin tones, facial features, hair styles, clothing, and weapon options to choose from; this customization affects your character’s portrait as well as their character model in the field. I really like the art style for the portraits, and the little character models are so cute!

Next, you decide on your origin story, which affects your kung fu style and skills as well as your strengths and weaknesses. (It also impacts your starting funds.) You can unlock additional origin stories and benefits in New Game+ mode! (Seeing New Game+ makes me incredibly happy.)

Once you’ve finished customizing your character, you can begin your journey to learn new kungfu skills. The story begins in 1151 AD, ten years after the Song ceded their northern lands to the Jin State. The Song “was reduced from a once powerful empire to a mere “vassal state””; now different Kung fu sects and gangs are spiraling out of control in the streets.

As you travel through China, be sure to talk to everyone you see, as they might reveal rumors about recruitable characters or special items. You start out on your journey alone, but depending on your choices you can recruit many new teammates (seemingly up to 104?).

Choose to save someone (or decide against killing them), and they might be grateful enough to join your team. Other recruits require you to have a minimum level of morality; your morality decreases when you steal or do something else that’s immoral. The morality system adds another layer of complexity to the game.

The recruitment process reminds me of Suikoden a bit, although I don’t believe we get a base of operations in this game. (I’m 40 hours in and still haven’t gotten to the end yet.) I think that players who replay the game can have a different experience based on how they respond to situations in one playthrough versus the other.

Besides your character, your party members’ builds are somewhat customizable as well. When they level up, you get to choose which stats you want to increase. Stamina apparently affects the maximum number of kungfu skills you can learn, while the maximum level of a skill is based on your Power value.

My character currently has the ability to learn up to 13 skills, which can each be leveled up until level 12. I think skills at higher levels might affect its range and power? I’m not entirely clear on that.

I like the different skills and their animations – Goldie the dog can give you slobbery kisses to heal you, which is a cute idea. The Huyan Staff ability can hit multiple rows and columns of enemies around you, which I loved.

It was a nice touch to have Chinese characters appear in the animations for some abilities, as well as the yinyang symbol. While the dialogue isn’t voice acted, when characters get hit in battle they do have voiced grunts and yelps. I wasn’t expecting any part of the game to be voiced, so that was pretty nice.

There’s also a section on traits, but I don’t think they really explained that mechanic. From what I can gather, you can earn nicknames for your deeds, which can be equipped on the traits grid for a bonus of some sort. Putting several traits next to each other seems to provide you with additional benefits.

I ended up getting quite a few trait options for my main character, but didn’t know how to get more for my other party members. I wish I had a better understanding of how the traits system works. As far as weapons and kung fu skills go though, characters need to be at, below, or above a certain level in a specific stat in order to specialize in whatever they want to use.

As mentioned above, battles are turn-based, and they take place on a grid. Sometimes only a few enemies appear in random encounters, but there are many battles with around a dozen enemies or more. We only get to use a maximum of 5 party members in battle, so that adds to the challenge in those fights.

I enjoyed the battles, although I was a little dismayed that we don’t have a “free” attack option that costs 0 MP. There also doesn’t appear to be an option for reviving defeated characters in battle, although they do revive with 1 HP after the battle is over. It was just odd not having those standard options, but perhaps it was done intentionally to increase the difficulty?

We might not get basic attacks, but what we do have is the combo mechanic. When a character uses an ability, there’s a chance that they’ll use it again one or more times in the same turn. Enemies can also use combos for their attacks.

I really liked the Assist mechanic, but unfortunately I believe that can only be used by Goldie the dog. You can earn the “Good Owner”trait, which gives Goldie a 50% chance of using a follow-up attack during your character’s turn. I wish more characters would use Assist attacks.

There are a couple of convenient quality of life features that I liked, such as the ability to turn on auto battles. It’s not too much of a hassle to escape battles you want to skip.

Players can also save their team setups to speed up future battle proceedings. I was especially pleased about being able to restart battles when I lost instead of having to reload the save and lose progress.

Even outside of battle they included a lot of modern improvements, such as the time saving ability to “fast exit” dungeons instead of spending a lot of time leaving on foot. You can also fast travel to anywhere you’ve already been on the world map. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate features like these. (There’s also touchscreen support to a certain extent!)

One of my favorite parts of The World of Kungfu is the inclusion of a compendium with information on its different kung fu sects, short entries about historical and cultural elements, and more. They also track the rumors you’ve heard and check off any side quests you’ve completed already. Additionally, there’s a cool album with illustrations of the kung fu skills, gear you’ve found, and the characters you’ve recruited.

I think they did a pretty good job of fleshing out their version of China in 1151. While you can’t enter every (beautifully rendered) building in a town, there are a few standard facilities that you can go into for information.

The country is in turmoil, and so there are a lot of wanted criminals or creatures out there. You can check out the available bounties on the wanted posters in town, and find them in a random encounter in their last known location. Exchange their decapitated heads (😱) for much needed funds and special items.

If you want a little break from the violence, you can speak with the more “cultured” citizens in a town, solving their riddles and completing their couplets to earn even more items. Thankfully, similar to battles, you can retry these challenges if you get them wrong.

I will say that the actual story can feel a bit disjointed due to the non-linear nature of the exploration process. There are so many characters with their own storylines that I sometimes had a hard time keeping track of them all – even with the game tracking everything for me.

The stories and quests were still enjoyable; it’s just that the main story could have been more cohesive for me. I think the English script was translated well, with minimal issues.

Some of the dialogue could be a little formal or antiquated based on the time period and cultural norms, but not to the point that I couldn’t understand it. It was hilarious to then see these characters say more modern English phrases like “dude” or “eff off.”

I’ve played the game for close to 40 hours at this point and still haven’t finished it; I plan to finish it and update this review with any additional thoughts. For now, I’ll say that I’m very satisfied with my experience thus far. An important thing to note is that while everyone’s kung fu fighting, the game’s technical performance is fast as lightning. 🎶😉

I love the graphics and fantastic soundtrack, and the amount of customization and variation in playthroughs is great. If you enjoy turn-based RPGs, Suikoden-style recruitment, and historical settings, I think the price ($17.99) is more than fair for the content and overall quality of The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle.