{"id":80001,"date":"2026-06-08T09:37:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T01:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=80001"},"modified":"2026-06-08T09:37:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T01:37:02","slug":"where-winds-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=80001","title":{"rendered":"Where Winds Meet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I generally dislike online games but this is free and very popular, so I thought I should at least check it out briefly. After all, I rather the idea of a wuxia action game and it’s not like any Western game developers are going to offer something decent in that genre. Now more than fifty hours later, I’ve still playing and nowhere near the end. As far as I know, the main quest isn’t even complete yet as updates are still adding new content to the game. I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep playing because it’s very time consuming and there’s so much to do. But it is a fricking awesome action and it being free is a fantastically good deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The main story uses the fairly trope that you’re a child of mysterious parentage who is left to be raised at the village of Blissful Retreat under the care of Aunt Han. As the Young Master, you together with the little girl Ruby dream of venturing out into the jianghu. Every year the village hosts a festival for the new batch of Parting Tears wine it is famous for. One year an unusually large number of strangers show up and there are rumors that the famous bandit Killerblade is in town. Naturally there is more than meets the eye to Aunt Han when you discover an underground complex beneath Blissful Retreat containing both the faces of people and strange beings without faces. Running into Killerblade, you realize that he is here for Aunt Han but far from being an enemy, appears to be an old comrade bringing news about other friends. Meanwhile the strangers who have been seen around the village are revealed to be members of the Aureate Pavillion who are after an item in Aunt Han’s possession and are willing to kill everyone in Blissful Retreat to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the time of my writing, the above constitutes part one of the three parts of the main quest currently available. It’s very dramatic, draws heavily from the usual wuxia tropes and surprisingly affecting. In stories like this, you already know that the hero’s home village must be destroyed, freeing you to wander the jianghu. What’s great is that the hero run away in the night. You fight like hell to protect your home up to the very end so even though you don’t manage to save everyone, every loss is keenly felt. It’s pretty fantastic storytelling. One issue I had is that there are so many secrets and hidden identities that it’s difficult to figure out what the larger picture is. It doesn’t help that the hero seems a bit dim at times so facts that are obvious to the player are unknown to the hero. I don’t think I’m alone in being confused because there are YouTube videos explaining the whole story. I was also disappointed that while the hero’s primary motivation is to search for Aunt Han and discover secrets about your own past, that information is jealously guarded and only slowly dripfed to the player. The second part of the main quest takes you to the capital city of Kaifeng and is really about the internal conflict in that city rather than anything personally connected to your character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of mechanics, Where Winds Meet<\/em> bears similarities to the so-called Souls-like games but with important differences. Blocking, parrying and dodging for example all consume endurance and you’re defenceless when you run out of it. This really tripped me up as I have of preemptively dodging from playing Dark Souls<\/em> so much and this game really only wants you to dodge or parry at the perfect moment. It has much more in the way of offensive options however as you have two weapon slots and are meant to freely switch between them in battle. Furthermore each weapon can be used with different martial arts, effectively different movesets which includes special moves. Add to that the Inner Ways which provide mostly passive benefits and Mystic Skills which are very varied in what they do, and there are a ton of things you can do in combat. As this is an open world game, you fight mobs both in the wider world and against bosses in set arenas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As far I’m concerned, the graphics quality and the art direction are both fantastic. It’s not just that the game looks good, it’s that the world has a coherent look and the Five Kingdoms and Ten Kingdoms setting makes it distinct from the other fantasy games I’ve played. They take their role of showcasing many aspects of Chinese history seriously as there is an extensive compendium explaining everything. The game world isn’t actually that big but it is packed with content, things not only to do but to see. There are way, way more side activities than most other games, many of which aren’t clearly signposted. There are also plenty of mini-games, pocket dungeons, and little puzzles all over the place. You get access to some pretty amazing traversal abilities. Right from the start, you can pretty far, dash through the air and actually climb trees and cliffsides. Later you are unlock honest to goodness lightness kungfu which lets you zoom through the sky. I think it’s more spectacular than useful since it’s hard to control especially since you can more easily teleport from one place to another using the Boundary Stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite things about this is that its Chinese sensibilities make it so different from what a Western developer would make. One of bosses you encounter as part of the main quest is an evil version of the Chinese God of Fortune. One Reddit user described the side quests in this game as an exercise in asking if you’re getting scammed again, a totally valid take. Randomly talking to a bunch of drunken men could get you thrown into a surprise boss fight. It can surprising how so many quests have no combat at all while others throw you into a grueling endurance trial with no opportunity to heal in between. They’re following a totally different design bible so all of your usual expectations are thrown out of the window, resulting in a sense that anything really could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One very strange aspect is that character development is incredibly complex. You need to pass trials to break through key development bottlenecks. You need development materials to upgrade abilities. There are so many hidden attributes which can be prerequisites for equipping gear. You think you skip the mini-games? Hah, that’s how you increase those attributes. One of the most important ways that you can permanently boost your hero’s combat abilities is to collect Oddities. Yes, you heard that right. You need to pick up all those collectibles scattered all over the map. Want to learn new martial arts? Those are usually gained by sneaking into bases to secretly observe their practitioners. Mystic skills and inner ways? From doing quests. It’s bizarre. You might think you can skip side quests and optional activities, but the game gives you very good incentives to do them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, Where Winds Meet<\/em> also provides by far the most comprehensive and intelligent help system I have ever seen in a game bar none. For example if you’re missing some item to achieve a breakthrough, it can directly tell you where to go to farm the nearest mobs that will drop that item. It seems to actively observe your gameplay and suggest changes to your settings, reminds you of different combat options you can employ or send you to a training mode when you’re struggling against a boss. It has something like an in-game chatbot which must use some form of AI and is actually very helpful. It’s able to tell you the solutions to quests and even includes screenshots like an in-game wiki! If you’re worried that your hero is falling behind the power curve, the game also has tools to suggest what you should focus on. It might tell that you should enhance your gear or level your inner ways or something else. It’s honestly extremely impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some boss fights can be very difficult but in general the game wants you to succeed. You can pick various difficulty levels and even at the recommended difficulty, it gives you deflection assist which slows down time as needed. It’s a crutch though as I’ve found that it makes it hard to learn the timings of enemy attacks. If that’s not enough, you can summon help from either NPCs or other players like in the Dark Souls<\/em>. You can even safely learn boss movesets as much as you want in the training mode without costing any resources. That said, there is some friction in the game. There’s no free healing for example so you need to regularly stock up on their equivalent of healing potions or food, either by buying them or crafting them from gathered materials. Some level of farming seems inevitable as you try to develop your character even if the game gives excellent tools to tell you exactly how and where to farm. You can’t just play through the main quest and expect everything you need to fall into your lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my conclusion is that this is an excellent game that surpasses all of my expectations. It’s unbelievable that it’s free and as far as I can tell, payment truly is for cosmetic items only. That said, I’m probably not going to keep playing this because I don’t want it to take over my life and this is the kind of game that will just go on and on. I also feel that while I like the individual stories well enough, there’s little sense of a larger overall story or even personal quest going on. This really does capture the sense of being random adventures of a wanderer in the jianghu. Some gamers might love that, I feel that the personal story of the main character is one of the main draws and it’s disappointing to see it being sidelined. I probably will still pop in from time to time and I genuinely would recommend action fans to at least try this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I generally dislike online games but this is free and very popular, so I thought I should at least check it out briefly. After all, I rather the idea of a wuxia action game and it’s not like any Western game developers are going to offer something decent in that genre. Now more than fifty … Continue reading Where Winds Meet<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80001"}],"version-history":[{"count":71,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80341,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80001\/revisions\/80341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}