The madness system is what sets Wuchang: Fallen Feathers apart from other games in its genre, and you’ll need to learn how it works, how to cure it, and how to use it to your advantage in order to survive.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is the latest Soulslike looking to make a name for itself in the crowded genre dominated by Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Black Myth: Wukong. With so many to choose from these days, games need to do something to stand out from the crowd.
While Wuchang certainly does that with its Ming Dynasty setting and protagonist, it’s the Madness system that really sets it apart.
Over the course of your journey, you’ll need to both battle against and harness the power of your ever-slipping sanity to overcome the many challenges in your way. So, here’s a full breakdown of everything you need to know about Wuchang’s marquee feature.
What is Madness in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers?
Madness reflects Wuchang’s current state of mind as the battles against The Feathering, the mysterious disease that has infected her and the other inhabitants of Shu, and threatens to turn her into a gruesome monster.
Dying or defeating non-feathered enemies slowly increases your Madness, as displayed by the meter on the left of the screen. Meanwhile, killing feathered enemies or clearing a key target, like a boss, reduces your madness.
If the Madness bar is less than 50% full, you only lose a small amount of Red Mercury, the game’s currency and upgrade material, upon death. If it’s between 50% and 90% you’ll lose a significant chunk, and dying at 90% or above will cause you to lose it all.
Once the meter is full, “Madness Descends” on Wuchang, meaning you’ll do more damage but also take more for as long as you’re in the maddened state.
If you die while at full madness, your Inner Demon will appear wherever you were defeated, unless in a boss fight. This powerful enemy will attack you and everything around it, and being defeated by it will cause you to lose all of your madness, but also any resources you dropped.
How to reduce madness
There are many ways to reduce your madness in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, the first of which is simply being killed by your Inner Demon. However, this means you have to die twice in the same location, and you’ll lose all of your Red Mercury.
The best way is to pray to the God of Shu, which can be done at the statue in the Shu Sanctum. You’ll visit this location pretty early on your journey, and you can fast travel back there from any Shrine scattered around the map.
However, you’ll need either Divine Gifts or Divine Gift Shards, a resource found by exploring the various nooks and crannies of each area.
These will both bring your Madness back down when you’ve hit the maximum level, but if you want to stop yourself from getting to that stage, defeating any feathered enemy or major target will also slightly reduce it.
That being said, this can be quite tricky to force, unless you’re deliberately backtracking and seeking out the right opponents.
Best ways to use Madness to your advantage
If you’re new to the soulslike genre or just finding your footing, the Madness system might seem like a punishment at first. One that actively makes you easier to kill and spawns a feral demon to hunt you down if you die too often.
However, to really take your build to the next level, you need to use Madness by unlocking skills and buffs that make you even stronger once it accumulates.
If you head to the Impetus Repository at any Shrine and follow the branch to the left, you’ll see a number of special effects directly tied to Madness. For example, one increases the Feathering Attack Power of your weapon once you go beyond 50%.
Others are tied to specific weapon classes. So, if you prefer to use Longswords, you could have the ability to regain stamina with a Blink Kick when above 90%.
If you fully embrace the Madness, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you actually want to lose your sanity in order to make your character as powerful as possible, especially during boss fights. For this, you can use Maddening Incense or use the Invoke feature to immediately increase your level.
Of course, you can choose to keep your Madness down if you want a more level-headed approach, but the damage buffs and extra effects on offer will make life much easier in the late game.
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