Hey all! Thanks for all the positive and negative comments. For anything I got wrong, do excuse any mistakes as I followed the English dub version of the game and there could have been mistranslations, adding to the confusion. Otherwise, this very was very fun to make! Let me know what you think below ❤
Having read the original novels because there wasn't much to get my hands on in those days... I really dislike how the devs had zero appreciation for the deeply complex historical and spiritual roots of the books. The original saga was an allegory with countless nuggets of wisdom and insights despite its numerous plot holes (yes... original saga had plot holes galore). It's a pity all of that has been lost.
@@Tenelia Dude, the game is meant as a love letter to the original novels, not an exact representation to these novels with all their wisdom, you can't fit everything in a 40 hour game. The game was meant to pay tribute to the novel, and it surely did that and made people from around the world get interested in the story of the journey to the west
@@videogames1926 as a guy who only knew about waking because I heard that Goku from DB was based off of him, this game really made me invested and fall in love with the story. I've been watching a few videos here and there and figuring out the story piece by piece is pretty fun. In short I agree, this game perfectly gets others interested in the tale of sun wukong and a somewhat "what if" future timeline.
It's really fine! As a native chinese, there is an immense difference between the Chinese and English narrations. I believe the story has been translated to the best of the dev's abilities and anything not translated properly is just limited to expressions limited to the Chinese language. The video/game is impressive enough.
Actually，wukong(悟空) was given an unimportant job in heaven，which is feeding horses， so he feels cheated and angry.That‘s why he fought with gods and being under that mountain in the end. However, gods decided to let him help a monk(唐僧) to get true sutra，aka，journey to the west(西游记). The monk has four pupils, they are wukong(understand empty)、wuneng(understand ability)、wujing(undersdand clean)、wubai(undersdand white). In the game, final boss of the third chapter also has four pupils, they are bukong(not understand empty)、buneng(not understand ability)、bujing(not undersdand clean)、bubai(not undersdand white). This game is a diffrent story from the original book, but also a good one.
Game Science's CEO, states that this game originally had 13 chapters that contained many more stories. However, considering the time and money that have already been spent, the game has to be released early to raise funds or have a market test to see if they need to continue developing the story. Now the game is definitely a success and they will continue the development and probably release a few more DLCs to complete all the stories.
I normally don’t like DLC… but if they give us one or two new chapters with each piece of DLC and continue to develop it until the PS6 I can see this become the one DLC model I can agree with
Great game, but it feels like its lacking polish. There are way too many invisible walls. They don’t even try to disguise those walls with fallen trees or something. Makes sense that they ran out of money and had to release early.
They won't have any more dlc. How do you think they made a game about rebelling against gods and Buddhas in communist China? Their gaming career is over. It's a miracle that this game made it through communist censorship. If there weren't some Buddhas) helping them, they would have been a bankrupt gaming company. Some of them would have gone to jail.
The ending may confuse some western audiences, but during the ending of the game, you can see the Destined one getting some of WuKong’s memory back, while carrying all 5 relic pieces, the old monkey said there’s still the last piece of relic that’s missing which is his memories / mind that was lost. However, if you completed all the secrets in every single chapter, and have bested ErLang Shen 二郎神at the secret mountain of Mei etc, in the secret ending / true ending, you see the Destined one getting the final piece of lost memory back, which was the memory of his journey to the west in an anime style told from the ending of the story to the very beginning. Unlike the normal ending / bad ending, right before the crown was put on him, the Destined one is no more, he is now Sun WuKong, receiving the final piece of his memory back which was his lost mind / memory ( before the translation it makes a lot more sense in Chinese ) Holding all 6 relics and finally free of the control of the gods ( the crown was made by Buddha and put on by Guan Yin 观音菩萨 in order to control WuKong who was the lady / god at the end of chapter 1 anime ) Since no one can kill WuKong, and he can not remove the crown by himself, his desire for being free, fuck destiny and the gods in his fashion like he said during the anime talking to ErLang Shen 二郎神 he simply gambled, and killed himself in order to be free of the crown / gods control. And in the secret ending the Destined one which is one of WuKong’s clone all along ( judging by being a piece of WuKong’s fur everytime you die and respawn ) successed and now lives free and no longer be in control of the gods! Who looks exactly like him, fights like him and have all the relics and his memories. So WuKong wins at the end, he is the exact same WuKong but now no longer being controlled by the gods and without the crown! The celestial Symphony classic JTW theme song hits so hard during the ending anime! WuKong is many’s childhood hero, including me, glad to see the devs do him justice in a dark twisted new story, except he is missing a cape on his armour that says 齐天大圣, missing the epic scenes where he swings his mountain size staff and his real title, 花果山水帘洞美猴王齐天大圣孙悟空 / the handsome monkey king from the flower and fruit mountain, the Great sage equal of heaven!
Im a Chinese player myself, and as you might have guessed, it is absoultely AWESOME to see that a beloved mythlogy that you knew and loved from your chuldhood, finally get to become a AAA video game. Having blown away by deep, complex portrayal of other mythlogies in video games such as God of War or Wrath of Ashura, you have no idea how long a mytholgy geek like me have waited for a game to be made for Wukong. I had doubts whether a serious game could be made for Wukong, given the colorful background, quirky characters with animal heads, vague yet impressive magical properties... but this game ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT. It had even found a way to make them look realistic, yet rugged and dirty, with a hint of horror element, it's was the perfect blend. Respect to the creative team, and of course, the designer Yang Qi. I wish they are making a sequel, and hopefully we dont have to wait years for that, and maybe one day we can have a game that is based on my fav mytholgy material - the classics of mountain and sea.
To anyone who are not familiar with The Classics of Mountain and Sea, just think of Monster Hunter but in an ancient chinese mythology way that written around 400BC to 200BC
As for the Zhu Bajie story, I know everyone keeps saying he made a mistake and didn't recognize the Chang'e, and that's why he married a normal, human woman. However, based on a popular retelling of the story, Zhu Bajie was cursed to live over 1000 tragic love stories. Before he joins Tang Monk and Sun Wukong on their Journey to the West, in his most recent reincarnation, he gets reborn as a pig demon. The love story Yue Lao (the god of matchmaking) cooked up fro Bajie is that he marries a common and ordinary human woman. Bajie kept his disguise as a human and never let her find out his true identity. However, when Sun Wukong came through Bajie's village and sensing there was a demon, he ends up exposing Bajie as a pig demon. His wife sees his true face and dies from fear and shock. Guanyin revives her, but has Bajie promises to aid Tang Monk on his journey as his second disciple (this is the 1996 HK drama version). And then the love story between Bajie and the Spider lady happens. He recognizes her as the celestial maid he ran into in the heavens, and she recognizes him. It has been said, when she found out Bajie was banished to the mortal realm, she gave up her divinity to follow after him into the mortal realm. A funny joke that's been going around the Chinese forums is that she heard he got reincarnated as a "zhu", so that's why she chose a spider demon. Spider and pig sound the same in Chinese "zhu", but use different tones. Fun fact: the song that plays during Bajie and Violet Spider's animation, the woman singer says, "in our next life, lets us meet again", while the male singer says, "in our next life, lets not meet again".
Yes, because “一只猪”（yi zhi zhu）, which means a pig, sounds like “一蜘蛛”（yi zhizhu）, which means one spider. I think this is a clever play on words. I also agree that he recognizes his lover but does not want to admit it in fear of the consequences, as their love is forbidden. There are 3 clues to this: (1) in one of the cutscenes when the 6th sister first appeared, he gets unusually worked up, even to the point of insulting the little girl for no reason, saying "who would have fathered this hideous thing?" (definitely uncalled for and the girl is obviously not as he has described); (2) during the fight with Bajie, he says that he would not make the same mistake by leaving the place (The Webbed Hollow) behind and he is adamant to stay this time; (3) at the end of the the animation, he looks back at what seems like The Hut of Immortality (in the Webbed Hollow) as if in regret before rejoining the group to continue their journey to the west. When you put all of this together, it's clear that Zhu Bajie recognizes the spider guai as his lover.
@@seafood_hater Yea, I really like those '96 series, brings up childhood memories. IIRC, in those version, the reason why Bajie (called 'Cu Pat Kai' in my localization), banished from the Heaven is because his obsession with Chang'e (Moon Goddess) to a point of wanting to change his 'fate'. At one time, he saw Chang'e fell from the Moon and immediately trying to rescue her. But he's late a mere second to an another Court Admiral (Wu Kang) so they fall in love eachother, leaving Bajie heartbroken. Refuse to accept the lost he goes to the 'Wheel of Time', one of the sacred devices, to repeat the actions and save Chang'e. But no matter how & what he's done, he keep losing. To a point the Emperor caught and give punishment that 'suits' him well (1000 reincarnations & 1000 tragic love stories).
@@svdrevolver5109not, he was granted the title of 淨壇使者， while technically a Bodhisattva rank, it is basically a glorified janitor. The job is to clean the shrines and statues of Buddhist temples. He gets to eat all the sacrifices at the shrine which is the fitting job for a pig. I'm sure at this point, you can understand why he doesn't care about jt
I feel like this game deserves a sequel. With the true ending, Newkong’s journey has just started and he’s basically free to challenge the celestial court with nothing holding him back and the knowledge of Sun Wukong.
I totally agree with you 100% for the game to deserve a sequel but the new Kong have to control his attitude and be a good person because when he is out of control again and go against the god, the headband will squeeze his head again since at the end the newKong put the headband back on. That’s his weakness, everytime he do bad thing and out of control, that headband will squeeze his brain out. And that is why he got killed in this game. I notice he didn’t have that headband on when he’s fighting the 3eyes god from the beginning but he was out of control so the god make the headband appear again and squeeze his head. 😅😅 newKong have to be good also since he put on the headband at the end of the game.
Heres is some correction for chapter 3 yellow brow, the story its kinda deep. yellow brow was rescued from the sea by fishermen, who did not harm him. He did not think this was kindness. The fishermen benefited from yellow brow's flesh and blood, so they provided him with food, worshipped him as a god, and built a temple for him. He did not think this was kindness. The government did not embezzle wealth, but distributed jewelry fairly to the poor. He did not think this was kindness. When a person blinded by greed appeared in the crowd, yellow brow took the initiative to guide him to commit a crime (the collar of the man with a knife was pulled by yellow brow), and like an avalanche, he detonated the evil in the hearts of others. In the end, yellow brow proved his original theory: human nature is evil. Jinchanzi said that he was obsessed with winning and losing, and he was a pathetic guy. Because yellow brow first had a theory, and then got the result he wanted by guiding reality. Instead of practicing in reality and finally summarizing the theory through the results. Even if there are 100 parts of kindness, as long as there is one evil, yellow brow will make the result lead to evil.
Bajie could not admit violet spirder and her daughter are his family member due to fear of the celestial court, if they found out, they will kill them. This is also why Bajie went on the journey with Sun Wukong in order to gain some merit and buddahood so he could protect them. in the journey to the west, there already an example of ox king family being torn apart by the celestial court. It was his greatest sacrifice
Viewing stories from a foreigner's perspective is indeed intriguing, and as a Chinese, I appreciate your sharing immensely. To better facilitate understanding, let me add a detail to the closing animation of the first chapter. The first story revolves around the robe, which is not just the attire but also a symbol of the monk. Monks are required to renounce worldly desires, thus the robe embodies asceticism and virtue. However, when Jinchi, the monk, lays eyes on Tang Sanzang's precious robe, he is overcome with greed. This essentially represents a lust for "asceticism" itself, a paradoxical irony where obsession with something intended to promote detachment can lead to its opposite effect. This profound message-that clinging too tightly to an idea or thing can have the reverse outcome intended-is indeed nuanced and challenging to articulate in English, yet it underscores the complexities of human nature and the dangers of excessive attachment.
This recalls the saying "if you love something, let it go, and if it is destined to be yours, it will return to you". Maybe with the opposite effect here. Matthew 16:25: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. I don't have the words to draw the correlation, but hopefully you can see it.
By the way, the names of disciples of yellow-bow is literally a mock towards Tang monk's disciples (also Tang monk is the reincarnation of Jinchanzi as he was punished by the Buddha for having a snap in the lesson lol.) While Tang monk's disciples names include Wukong 悟空 (awaken to emptiness) WuNeng (Bajie's another name)悟能(awaken to what you should do and what you shouldn't) WuJing 悟净(Sandy.awaken to pureness) and Bailoong Ma白龍馬 (literally mean white loong horse,yeah the horse is one of Tang's disciples too), the four disciples of yellow-bow you will encounter named BuKong 不空( mean: not awaken to emptiness) , BuNeng 不能(not awaken to what you should do and what you shouldn't) and BuJing 不净(not awaken to pureness) and BuBai不白 ( not white. I am serious,hear me out) Also most of the Chinese player assume the Tang monk (Jin Chanzi) disguise as the old monkey and guide the players. In the game, only him will call Zhu Bajie as "Bajie" ,which is the phase used by Tang monk. Also only Jinchanzi and Old monkey is related to "gamble" Jin Chanzi gamble with yellow-bow and Old monkey was assumed by the Court that he is gambling that WuKong can get off the things on his head eventually. And both of them don't care about winning or losing but the truth. When you get the first bad ending, the old monkey will look up to the sky and sigh before he give you the band. When you start a new game,you will discover that the last relics is the head band. Here’s my theory: because you don’t get the true mind relics from erlang,the old monkey have replaced it by head band. The head band mean obeying while the true relics is freedom. It’s a punishment for the speed run player who don’t give a fuck about the storyline. And you get an ending you deserve:Speedrun it again till you get the truth ending.
Dang! I am a speed run watcher by watching this video before I even bought the game. Fux! What's the true story? Where's the true video?! Man, this is some awesome back story stuff. Thanks for the comment.
The melon guy is the future Buddha Budai or Maitreya. He helped Wukong defeat yellowbrow during his original journey. Interestingly every chapter, the main villain was defeated by Sun Wukong with the help of the Buddha. Chapter 1, the bear demon was defeated by Guanyin. In chapter 2, the headless monk Buddha help Wukong defeat the rat villain in original journey to the west. In chapter 3, Budai help defeat yellowbrow. In chapter four it was the chicken dude that pops up. He was one of a bodhisattva sons. In chapter 5 it was Guanyin again for defeating Red Boy. It’s interesting that the developers only choose chapters where Wukong had the help of a Buddha like figure to defeat these villains in the original story.
Cuz the Bodhisattvas and the Celestial Court are not really helping Wukong. Their only concern is to preserve the current hegemony/hierarchy of the world. They intend to let the Destined One to reincarnate as another Wukong with the circlet still on so they can control him again. The only ones in the game that are interested in really helping Wukong to reincarnate free and without the circlet are Erlang (and his gang) and The Future Buddha. Wukong has always been a symbol of rebellion and breaker of current order in Chinese culture. So the game is not about him getting the so-called "redemption" from the Heavenly Court and or attaining Buddhahood again, its about giving him his long-deserved freedom.
The crane dude is likely some sort of underling of Taishang Laojun(as you can see from the painting). The chicken guy you are talking about (one of the 28 stars) is the monster at the top of the purple cloud mountain. They did some kind of Hojo shit to him. Snake woman is his mother’s friend. Him and the Kangjin dragon lady are the two that are closest with Wukong among the 28, and both ended up badly. Makes you wonder if it’s some kind of conspiracy.
I come from China, and I want to add some knowledge to all foreign friends. Everyone thinks that Sun Wukong is just a stone monkey, but he is not just an ordinary stone monkey. He is created by the god named "Nuwa", the mother of human beings in Chinese mythology. Nuwa created all kinds of human beings with clay, but one day the world fell into a disaster. Nuwa created a sky mending stone to repair the sky in order to protect the life tower of the world, and Wukong is the remaining sky mending stone (the stone used to repair the sky). Since the disaster, the sky mending stone has stayed in Huaguo Mountain (where Sun Wukong was born)) The stone began to absorb the energy of all things in the world as nutrients to breed the Stone Monkey Sun Wukong, When Sun Wukong was born, a stone cracked open and a beam of light pierced through the heavens, shocking the gods of the heavens... (The story that followed is what you know)
As a Chinese, I feel your enthusiasm for Wukong, and your efforts to look up information to understand the plot are very commendable. This is not an easy thing to do, and it is normal to make some mistakes, after all, this is a new culture for you. China now has a tour based on this game (including dozens of locations), welcome to China to experience it
@@iloveans You mean the tour? These tours were probably already planned and ready to launch once the game is released (and proven to be a winner with the Chinese). Tourism money is BIG business in the less wealthy Chinese provinces and cities - and Shanxi province, the centerpiece, has had years to prepare for this moment.
I am a player from China. I have read interviews with Game Science before. They are sure that there will be DLC, and they initially wanted to make Black Myth: Wukong into a trilogy. You can stay tuned!
Just one thing. In the end of the game, the old monkey says that the "Mind" is the first to desintegrate, so Wukong's Mind is gone. The Destined One is replacing the old mind with his own, and by acquiring the other senses of Wukong and his memories from Erlang, the Destined one becomes both a successor and a reincarnation of the Monkey King. Tl;dr Monkey is like Theseus ship.
Fun fact: In the game, Yellowbrow has 4 disciples with names mirroring Tan Sanzang's 4 disciples. Non-Void for Wukong whose name means "Awakened to emptiness". Non-Able for Zhu Baije whose Buddhist name is Zhu Wuneng which means "Pig Awakened to ability". Non-Pure for Sha Wujing whose name means "Sand Awakened to purity". Non-White for Bai Long Ma (the horse that Sanzang rode on) whose name means White Dragon Horse. He was the son of the Dragon King of the West Sea, tasked with carrying Sanzang to the west.
so he's kinda like the avatar from TLA, except just reincarnating infinitaly, with different version of wukong kind of neat. I wonder if they were to ever make a sequel I'd be interested to see a reincarnation far far into the future and what that would be like.
In fact, as a Chinese, I also cannot understand many of the game's plots, because the story of Journey to the West we have learned since childhood has been beautified, while the story in Black Myth is truly a continuation based on the original work. The original work of Journey to the West is actually very dark. For example, immortals and Buddhas also engage in scheming and intrigue, and most of the monsters on the journey to retrieve the scriptures in the story are relatives of celestial beings. The beetles that plague the country in the second level are the mount of the Bodhisattva Lingji, and it is actually the Yellow Wind King who helps people defeat the insects. The people were turned into mice as a punishment for their disbelief in Buddhism. How to say this, the real original "Journey to the West" is very dark, just like the name of this game, "Black Myth".
Kind of how you can thank Disney for giving a better look for the Greek gods. If I remember correctly, Hercules did his labors to repent for killing his family in a rage. Only a few Greek stories had decent endings. Although probably the one underlying theme with the Greek gods is that they actually abide by contracts, god or mortal alike. Think Jason from the Argonauts had things turn around in the end for him because he abandoned his wife Medea for another women. Keep in mind Medea was kind of cursed by the gods to love him. Even went so far as to kill her own family for him, due to the spell the gods placed on her. After the breakup she didn't take it too well and even murdered their children. Medea was kind of a princess and a witch. Her family also had ancestry to a goddess of magic Hecate and that's who trained her. Hecate was the one that turned Odysseus crew into pigs and had him trapped with her for like a decade on her island in the Odyssey.
@@xanmontes8715you're right, but black and dark are used interchangeably in Chinese so they probably didn't get the nuance, we never say it's dark but always that it's black (when there's no light
it's must really hard for a non-chinese guy to put all these all together, thank you so much! It's indeed quite confusing without a understanding of the novel journey to the west
i had no idea what i was doing but i tried my best! Worked about 100 hours in the past 6 days to be as accurate as possible and it looks like i got a lot of stuff wrong haha. Oops! Thanks for watching!
@@NeddyTheNoodle but it was worth it right ? xD i been awestruck by this story a long time ago and i watch a lot of journey to the west chinese movies because i personally just like em i like the tale pretty much
I'm Chinese, and I don't understand its story. Then after some reading, I find out that it's not adapted from the 1592 journey to the west, it's merely adapted from a ridiculous conspiracy interpretation of journey to the west around 2000. I appreciate their effort to make the game, but I dislike their taste of story.
Let me revise on some details here for chapter 2. What happened to Huang Feng sage(the rat guy), he was once the disciple of some Vajra Arhat, but he escaped from Lingshan to do his own stuff, passing by Kingdom Shari he noticed that there were this huge beetle destorying the kingdom, so he offered help(which is what happened during the secret boss fight of chapter 2). However this beetle was actually sent down by Lingji Bodhisattva as the punishment to Kingdom Shari, due to the fact that the king ordered to not worship bodha anymore. This beetle was hinted to be Lingji's mount at the end of the chapter lore. Then there was the actual Journey to the west story: Tang monk and wukong reached to Kingdom Shari, the tiger vanguard(secret boss one) saw Tang monk and decides to kidnap him, because all yaoguais have been rumors that consumes Tang monk's flesh can grab you immortality. Huang Feng great sage doesn't want to mess with Tang monk nor wukong, butwhen he heard of the thing, Wukong and Bajie(pigsy) have already fought their way up to their place, so at the point of no return he had to stand out and fight. Eventually Lingji showed up and gave Wukong the vessel of Dingfeng pearl, in which perfectly counters Huang Feng's wind spell, therefore the rat was defeated, and Lingji took him away as disciple. After Huang feng left, kingdom Shari is destoried, everyone in the kingdom got converted into rats (probably done by Lingji to sabotage Huangfeng's reputation), and the first son of the previous Tiger vanguard stood up, maintaining the territories. After few hundred years, Huang Feng great sage returned back to this place after killing wukong in the prologue, this time holding the head of Lingji...
As an international Chinese I really like your background story more than others version. So hilarious 😂. I want to add the part I know about the pig bajie s love story: So the purple eyed lady as you described, after the pig got punished because he witnessed a goddess and jade god’s secret affair meeting, She also died because she wants to chase after him to the mortal world. Her soul is in love with him, But due to the incarnation to the mortal body she couldn’t recognise that pig is the one she loves. In this incarnation bajie loves her but apparently she doesn’t love him back. And then she died moves to the Next incarnation become a beautiful spider Yaoguai. because yaoguai are Demi immortal so she could recognise the pig is the one she loves and remember the first time they met in heaven. So yes, they did fuck in that pool, and gave birth to the small spider daughter. But in this incarnation Bajie has already joined journey to the west so he can not love her, Because he got a mission from heaven to protect Jinchanzi with wukong and kill Yaoguais. That’s why he killed all sisters of the purple eye spider girl, and spared her because she loves him. that’s why she has to eat all her sisters corpse to survive after beaten injured by sun wukong, while Bajie has to continue the journey with his fellowship. There her love and commitment to Bajie became love hate romance, But still wish to marry him because she had his baby. And finally in this game they meet again after another countless years she became old woman but she still wear the as same make up as the first time they met in heaven hopefully he can remember how they used to love. She expressed how much she hates him because he has been a coward not able to receive her love due to the fear for the heaven. But the truth is bajie joined the journey to the west. He decided to works for the heaven to regain his title back after the second incarnation of the purple eye girl is dead. It is too late now, coz he left no choice and now he cannot love her and his daughter so he had to let them go and this is the best way to protect them from heavens punishment. that’s the spider purple eight women cannot understand so it’s a big tragedy 😂
35:00 If I am not wrong this Melon Baby is Yellowbrow's master, Maitreya. Yellowbrow in the original novel stole some treasures from his master, and that was what he relied on to give our MC trouble. The master Maitreya often referred to in Buddhism as the Future Buddha. Basically he's predestined to be the successor of the current Buddha, the pretty powerful being who basically sealed Wukong under the mountains for 500 years. So yea, this melon baby is kinda a big shot. I think his demeanor somewhat stem from the Chinese depiction of him, since his statue is often a fat monk who's always smiling.
violet eye lady and bajie were in love in celestial court, when bajie got banished and turned into a pig, that lady misheard "pig" as "spider" (in mandarin haha), so she decided to reincarnated into a spider....bajie didn't recognise voilet eye lady at first, anyway long story 🥲
The monk needed to go "west" to acquire the scriptures because Buddhism originates in India and the monk was going to get the original source material instead of the corrupted translated versions they had in China. A real historical monk Xuanzang journeyed to India to recover the scriptures but without all the demons and monkeys and stuff. The original story was a fun reimagining of that historical journey.
In a nutshell, the Buddhism that spread over China since 魏晋南北朝 Wei/Jin Dynasty period are the beginner version only limited to how to discipline oneself 小乘佛法, so during Tang Dynasty, the emperor support Tang Monk on his dream to travel to the origin of Buddhism to obtain the complete philosophy of the Buddhism 大乘佛法 back to Tang Dynasty, because Tang Emperor that time are intrested to expand their territory and influence over the west side uncharted territory, so of course he would support whoever want to venture there to help obtain intel about the situation on the west side.
For chapter one, wokong found out about the plan and changed the spell to burn the temple instead. That’s why he’s just chilling watching the fire burn. As a reward for destroying evil. Of course, he didn’t let Tang know since Tang was a major pacifist and always scolded Wokong for using violence (which was a lot), even when it is to save him. To Tang dying wasn’t a big deal since he was a Buddhist and felt he would reincarnate anyway. Living up to hi beliefs was more important.
SanZang knows what happened, here is original in chapter 16: "If you were able to protect the meditation hall, why didn't you put out the fire in the other buildings?" Sanzang asked. Monkey laughed. "I'll tell you, master. What you predicted actually happened. They fancied that cassock of ours and planned to burn us to death. If I hadn't noticed, we'd be bones and ashes by now." "Did they start the fire?" asked Sanzang who was horrified to learn this. "Who else?" replied Monkey. "Are you sure that you didn't cook this up because they were rude to you?" Sanzang asked. "I'm not such a rascal as to do a thing like that," said Monkey. "Honestly and truly, they started it. Of course, when I saw how vicious they were I didn't help put the blaze out. I helped them with a slight breeze instead." "Heavens! Heavens! When a fire starts you should bring water, not wind." "You must know the old saying−−'If people didn't harm tigers, tigers wouldn't hurt people.' If they hadn't started a fire, I wouldn't have caused a wind." "Where's the cassock? Don't say that it's been burnt too." "It's all right; it hasn't been burnt. The abbots' cell where it was kept didn't catch fire." "I don't care what you say. If it's come to any harm, I'll recite that spell till it kills you."
So you see, at least in this chapter, Sanzang cares more about the cassock. In the novel, Sanzang often behaves selfishly and shirks responsibility, which makes the characters in the book more realistic.
37:30 To go to the secret area of Chapter 3 you must - go to every secret area available (1,2,4,5) and defeat the main boss of said area - Do Melon quest (the way you get spell binder) in chapter 3 - Have Wu Kong's entire armor set and weapon (don't need to wear it though, simply aquire)
@@MrRobot-xs5jf u can go in even if u dont do any of those secret area and full armor . Only do that if u want to get secret boss fight and true ending. And before going into stone then u can trigger a cutscene to cool fight
The dragon girl was a huge fan girl of wukong and in attempt to free wukong she was lured and captured by yellow brow and completely brainwashed to become his minion. And its a tragic story when she was eventually killed by the chosen one
No we just beat some sense into her not kill her out right leaving me to wonder will we see her again in the dlc and actually fight along side us this time?
The Black Bear in the 1st Chapter, is one of the disciples of Avalokitesvara(a Buddha). He was also a friend to JinChi Elder, and the source of greed to the Elder. Guangzhi and Guangmou are yaoguais, they wanted to be mortal human monks and living in the temple. The Wolf King and the White Cloak Snake guy are friends of Black Bear, but both of them were killed by SunWuKong aka Monkey King during "The Journey to the West" in the fire incident which was caused by GuangZhi and Guangmou in the favor of getting that cloak of Tang Sanzang(master of SunWuKong, the one he said saved at the beginning of the game) to their master, JinChi Elder. The Black Bear was recaptured by Avalokitesvara after the incident. In the game, it is centuries after "Journey to the West", the 1st Sage of Monkey King (his golden eye balls) after his demise ,was entrusted to the Black Bear by Avalokitesvara. He returned to the Black Wind Mountain and rebuilt the temple, Guangzhi and Guangmou also returned to the mountain. And Black Bear tried to resurrect his old friends, JinChi Elder(the spell failed, and the greedy ghost of the JinChi Elder, the blue big head guy, wandering and bring havoc to the land) and the Wolf King LingXuZi, but the method of doing so requires sacrifice of the small wolf yaoguais, and the old Wolf King refused to be the source of the sacrifice of his kins, thus he hung himself. The Black Bear had no other choice but to recruit another Wolf King(the one in the game) from another place, but this one has no interest of learning to become a monk, but remained his savage animal ways. The White Cloak Snake was actually sent by ErLang(the guy who fought Monkey King in the beginning) to test the Destined One.
I urge everyone to watch OverlySarcastic’s simplified telling/summary of JttW if you don’t want to entire the ENTIRE book It’s fills you in on all the main stuff it’s funny the graphics are extremely well done
Honestly, it's useless for understanding this story. Except for the character's name, the story of black myth wukong barely has anything to do with JttW. Instead, it is adapted from a conspiracy interpretation of the book.
True ending definitely supports a sequel or DLC story wise. Wouldn’t be surprised if we see one or the other in the next few years considering the record breaking numbers this game pulled. At least one can hope
To answer question asked at 7:27> Chapter 1: Why is Jinchi obsessed with Blankets / Kasayas? Just like how Catholic priest wear Robes in different colors, Buddhist monks of different rank wear different Kasayas. The robe is equivalent to a monk's attire, symbolizing their status. Moreover, since Buddhism in China often advocates that monks should stay away from materialism, from a religious and moral standpoint, monks are not supposed to possess money or wealth. Therefore, the robe they wear becomes one of the few possessions they can reasonably own. JinChi's defining trait is greed-he covets wealth and loves to collect various extravagant, jewel-adorned robes. He also craves status, using these luxurious robes to prove his rank. This ties into the final message of the story from Guanyin, which I interpret as: "People cannot see a monk’s devotion/faith; they only see the robe on his body. JinChi is not devout either, and he clings to wearing ever more lavish robes to prove his 'devotion' to the world.
Awesome video, can really appreciate the time you put in to learn the lore, reading the character entries and putting it all in a very well done and cohesive video. Real quick the fireproof mantle (34:14) is not the golden kasaya Elder Jinchi was after. Sun Wukong had found out the plan to set his and Tang Monk’s room on fire so he went to the heavens and got the fireproof mantle (gift from someone I forget) and used it along with a wind spell to keep Tang Monk safe, which in turn caused the rest of the temple to catch fire instead.
Finally i can understand what all the animated clips at the end of the chapters are trying to convey. Thanks for the video, love your storytelling! +1 subscriber
Seriously, it was not Yellow Wind Sage turn the Kingdom into rats, it was curse from Buddha because they abandon their faith. Yellow Wind Sage since left the Kingdom to Yellow Wind valley.
My poor sleep😢. I'm strong, I can resist playing the whole day and watch another 1h video about the story. Awesome vid! Thank you very much for putting every piece together
I loved the fact that you included your reactions when you we’re beating the boss fights! Its so raw and emotional because i think i can say that all of us are feeling the sameway when we’re playing it. I just finished the game yesterday! 1week exactly after it was released. Thank you for making this video and it made more sense to me now more than ever. Great work you guys!
AMAZING.. if there is a prequel to Black myth stories.. i wish we can see neza, the celestial dragon. the 8 immortals, jade emperor, guanyin and much more !!
In chapter 1 the Bear come back to the mountain and changed himself to the Monk which you fought first phase. He rebuilt everything and revived his 2 friend Goungmau and Goungzhi. Thats why they are still there. The bear still wants to practice and follow Buddhism
Watched quite a few sotry explaination videos on this game on youtube, I think this is the best one yet. Makes a lot more sense than the others when you explain both wukong and the destined one's story in each chapter.
Great video! I'm really impressed by the effort you put in. I can tell how deeply you explored the Journey to the West story, especially from a pure gamer's perspective. It may not be perfect, but it's excellent, and to me, your video offered a fresh way to understand the game line. Much appreciated.
The monkey you play in this game is actually urself. Understanding the journey of Ur fate, is Ur life. Understanding the end of understanding Ur existence into Ur spiritual choice, and the path you venture, remains up to urself ❤ The story is actually a incredible poem.❤
I don’t know if you mentioned this in the video (haven’t seen it all yet) but our character isn’t the first monkey to go on this journey to get Wukong’s Relic cause when we first meet Pigsy he says “oh great, another mute” which told me this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to retrieve his Relics
@@NeddyTheNoodle when you free him from the gold symbol after the dragon lady fight (forgot how to spell her name 😅) yeah when he talks to you directly and you don’t respond to him he says the line
@@NeddyTheNoodle the beginning imply that multiple monkey set off on the journey. But the one I notice is meeting the first spider lady and she says that the previous monkey body isn't even cold in the grave yet a new one appears already. And when meeting yellow brow in the beginning before he unleashed the dragon, he says that his seed sack is getting full from all the monkeys he's been catching. Only near the end I realised the macaque is one of our senior corrupted.
@@Chris4Battle I think he also meant that due to his appearance as well. The destined one (protagonist) have the spitting image of Wukong. Remember that there were many that have considered themselves as destined one (not only monkeys, this can be shown when the 3rd rat prince also thinks himself as the destined one) but fall short.
Bro, this was such an amazing video. Thank you for taking the time to put together such an incredibly detailed lore explanation video. 👏 Gained a follower for sure 💜
Well, actually there're a lot of mistakes in the interpretation, but still a nice bold try. The background story about the first chapter was that, the big head monster, who was then a monk, was on a crucial point to attain Buddhahood. All he needed was a tiny push, something to make him "more holy," and that particular blanket of Tang monk was, in fact, a relic from Amitabha Buddha, who was the Buddha who kinda controlled all Buddhas in the book.He got obsessed and tried to kill Tang monk and Wukong by setting a fire, but failed because Wukong overheard the plan and asked one of his old mates in the celestial court to cover them with a special clothing that prevents fire but lets burn everything else in the temple, something that you will get after defeating the big head boss. About the second chapter, only one mistake: it was actually the headless Buddha that gave the punishment to the people, turning everyone into rats, and that Buddha was before held responsible by the Amitabha Buddha to control the yellow sage. For the third chapter, the kid was actually the Maitreya Buddha, and he loved melons because in the book he managed to control yellow brow by asking Wukong to turn into a watermelon and seducing yellow brow to eat it. He's actually very powerful, but he just didn't want to do much to help, as all powerful gods do, probably. As to the fourth chapter, Bajie had actually no choice but to leave his lover and his kid alone; if not, the celestial court would find them and try to control them, and if failed, kill them, as no immortal should have a family of Yaoguais. He simply dared not to stay. So is the case with chapter five, when Wukong told the bull that he had no other choice, he meant by that the court only wants people under their control to be immortal or powerful. As for the last chapter, I don't really think that's open world-like; I think it's just that the map and the guide are poorly designed. Anyways, bravo job.
Wow, Never thought this channel the one covers it, I'm glad you branched to other game because your lore narrative is arguably the best on this platform.
Just finished the game today. Completed everything. Full journal. Last boss twice. One of my top of games of all time. The lore incorporated is so interesting and the devs did a fantastic job with gameplay and storytelling along with all those cool animations at the end of each ch. Wish I could play it again for the first time. Haven’t felt like that since RDR2.
Amazing editing!! This vid is sick & I just started watching. Thanks for the effort to bring us what we all needed who played this game, an explanation to wtf I’m playing lol waiting on my journey to the west to come in the mail.
The true ending made me teared up and happy at the same time knowing Wukong and his gang reached up a tragic ending and you as the destined one who became a reincarnation of Wukong will carry on the legacy of Wukong and his brothers and sisters probably to repeat the cycle of battling against the Celestial Court.
This explanation story has helped me a lot with understanding the game and it's cutscenes. (Also really love your game clips in chapter 5, hope that someday you'll post your playthrough of this game as well your yelling at chapter 5 was funny XD) So thank you for making this video. One question though, what song was playing when you showed the animation ending? It sounds REALLY good and I'd really like to listen to it!
Can we take moment to realize that this story was written in the 1500's???? amazing how this story has such an impact to this day with all of its iterations.
Chinese fan of Black Myth Wukong here and I spent about 48+ hours to get the good ending. Thank you for spending the time to connect the dots and figure out the stories behind the scenes. This is definitely not a easy work and requires huge amount of effort especially you haven’t read the original novel of “Journey to the West”. One minor comment on the chapter 2 that it is the Buddha who turned the people in Sandy country to rat as the punishment of worshipping HuangFeng sage. Also sharing my understanding of the Black Myth Wukong story here: The holistic view of this story is that in order to get rid of the hoop and get real freedom, Wukong killed himself by dividing into 6 parts and hopes one day there is a The Destiny who can collect the 6 pieces to truely revive WuKong or become a new WuKong. Erlang and MiLe are helping WuKong to execute this plan. Why Erlang helps us? Because he is one of WuKong’s good friends and also doesn’t like the Court. WuKong did what Erlang wants to do but couldn’t because Erlang also works for the Court(this comes from some background stories in JTW). Why MiLe helps us? Because MiLe is the future Buddha and he doesn’t like the current shape of the Court which is extremely brutal to normal people and YaoGuai. In the our entire Journey, you can see that there were actually more than one The Destiny who tried to collect the 6 pieces before us but all failed. In these centuries, Erlang sends his brothers to test and help The Destiny to collect the 6 pieces by leading the way to get the hidden quest. And MiLe ensured that The Destiny has the access to the 6 pieces by intentionally let HuangMei stolen his bug… there are more things happened before our The Destiny starting the Journey, and that is what the amazing part of this story
Really appreciate your enthusiasm to make this video! That's a lot effort for a non-chinese without back knowledge of JTTW to piece this story together! In fact, the original Journey to the West story is quite simple itself, but that doesn't mean there is no depth to it. What Game Science did here is explaining or reading the story in a rather interesting way, just as the title of the game indicates. So it's really hard to fully understand the whole story while playing the game, since you can easily think of what the story was in a different way. For example, in chapter 2, you may consider the yellow rat as the main villain, for he beheaded his master, occupied the land, and turned everyone of the kingdom into rats. However, if you thank him for standing up to you when you were fighting that giant bug, and are willing to believe in his goodness, the story can be interpreted differently. As you can see, there is a big Buddha head on the beetle's back, and also, the Wind Tamer. In the original JTTW story, when Wukong struggled against Yellow Wind Guai, he turned to Lingji Bodhisattva, who is the rat's master and also the headless guy in the game, for help, and Wind Tamer was exactly what Lingji offered. It turns out that the bug may relate to Lingji somehow, which was the punishment Lingji brought down to the kingdom, for they no longer worshipped the Buddha. Realizing that, our rat boy stood out for the people and decided to kill that bug, and that's what happened in the secret map of chapter 2. As for the rat-transforming curse, it might be another punishment Lingji brought down out of anger at the rat, because in the Yellow Wind Sage backstory he said it was him who led to the disaster, but not the one to create it. It's hard to tell which one is good or bad, but it leads you think more about Buddha and Yaoguais, which is just in tune with the gist of the whole story. Much love to your video, and pardon me if my wording is weird for English is my second language.
Thank you so much for this vid. I’m about to finish the game but wanted to make sure I really understood the story up to that point. After I beat chapter 4 and 5 I was legit stuck trying to find outlets to help explain what just transpired (ESPECIALLY chapter 4 after the cut scene). Kudos to you brother
The old monkey is a plant from the celestial court imo. In the last scene the circle-shaped ribbon he's wearing should only belong to members of the celestial court.
The burning of the temple in chapter 1 you missed the part why it the fire spread, it was Wukong who saw it coming but instead of straight up confronting them, he borrowed a magic relic (the fireproof mantle which we get to use later, infact alot of these optional assistant relics are straight up used by Wukong on his journey for each of these misfortunes against the bosses) from a deity to protect his master (since killing is forbidden and is one of worst sin in Buddism,so he let karma does its thing) and the fire deflected back and burned everything else
I know this took alot of work I commend you and I know you have to make it comical so its entertaining but I didn't care for this personally. Lots of errors and glossed over nuanced details. I do understand its very difficult tho. Even with my limited reasearch yesterday (a few hours online and off) the story is waaaaaay more Epic and absolutely incredible. Like MGS Epic lol. I could see why ancient China would get lost in and caught up in this. I wanted to know why the Chinese gamers were just absolutely going crazy for this story so I did a deep dive and was like ahhha. Yep...I get it. Absolutely Epic. And I probably still only scratched the surface
The Lingxuzi we fought isn't the actual real Lingxuzi who was the bear's friend, the real Lingxuzi was killed by wukong in his journey, which the bear didn't want to let the wolf die, so he pieced together his body and revived him. But in order to keep him alive he had to live on the sacrifice of other wolves. Lingxuzi didn't want his pack to keep dying to keep the weakened him alive so he hung himself on the tree, you can find his body on the last bell. In order to keep the wolf pack obedient, the bear helped another wolf to become the alpha wolf, which he also named Lingxuzi. The two Lingxuzi are actually different in Chinese but pronounced the same, one is 灵虚子，the other is 凌虚子
Hi Neddy, big props and kudos for your great work, I can’t help but to leave this comment to you. I am a Chinese Malaysian, and journey to the west has got to to be the childhood of every single Chinese kid!! (At least for 90’s kids) There are a lot of original lore, scriptures, Taoism, Buddhism concept, even the Chinese Mandarin language itself involved in BMWK, which is like a norm to us but very unfamiliar to western audiences. A lot of essence were missing after the translation, and I hate to say this but most of the westerner streamers don’t seem to understand the lore and backstory of the original story and also each chapter nor the characters, it’s understandable but it’s such a shame because they might have just experienced half of it or even lesser! I think this game was portrayed like GOW, making the Taoism and Buddhism gods dark entities with filthy secrets, I’ve gotta say it’s brilliant. Wukong went for the pilgrimage but in the end didn’t accepted the offer to become a Buddha. And the celestial courts is insecure about it and ordered Erlang to wipe out HuaGuo Mountain. However, as what’s mentioned in the original lore, Erlang is actually a closed friend to WuKong, they even called each other brothers. So in fact, the reason why Erlang mentioned regardless how, they will still wipe the mountain on the beginning of the game, he was actually giving Wukong hint what will happen next, stopping others and saying only he can duel with him, was to actually protect him from the other gods. Asking Wukong to kneel and admit the wrong doings, was actually trying to bring him back to the court so that he could be spared, but as we know, WuKong would not comply even if it meant his death. And fun fact, actually in the original lore, WuKong simply cannot die, because he went to hell and cancelled his name in King YanLuo’s (Eastern version Hades) death note. Some Yaoguais can even be resurrected even after the head chopped off (what you saw in Chapter 5 with the Bull King after he was tamed/killed by NuoZha but after that brought back to hunt WuKong). So the one who actually killed WuKong, is actually HIMSELF. Erlang mentioned the head band had always been on his head in the secret ending, and it can never be taken off, because the celestial court wish to control him, but Wukong decided to show him that he can take it off, which was to end his life and turn into 6 relics, and only the destined one who has been through 9x9=81 challenges can inherit the true spirit of the Winning Fighting Buddha and break the cycle from celestial court’s and Buddha’s control, and enjoy the freedom, which WuKong sought for after the pilgrimage. And erlang finally met the destined one after hundreds of years in the secret fight, in the end he finally understood what WuKong was trying to express, he’s even kind of envy of what WuKong belief in, because he was also part of celestial court and he can never have freedom, he has to do the dirty works. And that was just part of the whole big BMWK universe!!! If you understood the whole lore and secrets in chapter 4, that shit will blow your mind. I wish you can have a greater experience with this game because it was pieced together so beautifully and brilliantly fitting the original story. Nevertheless, this is one of the most well rounded videos among English explanations, WELL DONE!
I won't say it's wrong ,because journey to the west can be explained in different perspective , so still interesting to how westerners see the story, Bajie The pig was punished by Jade emperor because he busted Jade emperor having affair with other goddess ,love is somehow strictly forbidden in the celestial court ,not even Jade emperor can survived the consequences , so he punished bajie to keep secret ,And bajie can never reveal his love with spider girl because if jade emperor finds out, most likely will kill all his family ,bajie was a member of celestial court so he will live, but not his family .
Awesome and thanks for putting this together!❤ There’s still so much more about the lore to be found out. For example, Erlang Shen covered the “sunlight” using cloud at 58:16. Why? It’s because he knew someone is watching and wanted to hide the conversation from the Celestial Court. Also the Yellow Wind King is not the villain, but the Bodhisattva Lingji is the villain. The Red Boy is also not a villain - he wanted the relic to revenge the Celestial Court. Wish you could put an even deeper analysis on the dark side of the story 🧐
Yes, the creature was Yellow brow, he loved to manipulate human to prove his point, he is also a Buddha but kind of deviated , to be honest , he is supposed to be final boss.He called himself the future Buddha ,that's the title of the Messiah of Buddhism ,definitely not for him, so he is arrogant , it's interesting to see westerners understand this story in different perspective.
I might not be responsible for what I have heard. The reason that the games felt incomplete is because Game Science can only finish 6 of the 12 planned chapters before running into finance problems. Now with the unprecedented sales figures I am quite sure they will have enough resources to finish up the other 6 chapters. So no worries folks, it is a matter of time. I am only hoping Game Science can resist the pressure from the investors to rush the incoming game. I am sure they can as this is the sole reason why they quit Tencent to make the Black Myth game.
Great video,In the interview the SC guys mentioned there were 13 chapters, due to all kinds of reasons it has been reduced to 6, hope they will continue developing the remaining 7, now that they have got sufficient resources.
Do you really understand all these hidden plots in Black myth Wukong? The old monkey also has a very deep relationship with the gods and Buddhas. The purpose of guiding generations of the destiny ones is to create an obedient great sage with only five roots and no mind to resist. Back then, they killed Wukong and distributed his five roots as traps to the five demon kings who were recruited. The original plan was to wipe out the sixth root which is the mind, but Wukong secretly conspired with Erlang Shen to keep his mind when he died. Wukong's obsession is to remove the tight band on his head . So he took advantage of their plan, destroyed his own body, broke away from the band, and being reborn. Along our new journey, Erlang Shen arranged for his brothers to test the destined one, including the Snake Spirit from Black Wind Mountain, the yellow robed hippopotamu from second chapter and the Cuili martial artist from the third chapter. Finally, the destined one passed Erlang Shen’s own trial in the hidden area of Meishan and allowed the destined one to retrieve the mind. So in the end, the one who was resurrected in the true ending was Wukong, who had all six roots but no band. He woke up completely at the last moment when the old monkey was about to put a golden band on him. In the world of black myth, gods and Buddhas must rely on the support of the common people to achieve immortality. The so-called immortality also requires a steady supply of resources. The so-called Immortal Buddha's position is just the right to allocate resources for life-extending things. What Wukong wants to overthrow is the entire system. Black Bear has no talent, virtue or ability, but with full luck, he followed Jinchi into Buddhism, raised his status with Bodhisattva, participated in the strangulation of Wukong to obtain one root. His obsession is to rebuild the temple, occupy the mountain and become the king, so he can return to his comfort zone. But the resurrected wolf demon hanged himself, his old friend Elder Jinchi possessed in the copper coins, the snake demon brother was still spy of Erlang Shen, and the land god was arranged by Patriarch Bodhi to help the destined one. When Black Bear got the root, he didn't think about what it meant, nor did he know how to use it. He only used it as a tool to make money. When the destined one arrive, all that is left is the fate of being beaten. The fate of the black bear is the fate of most demon kings. The yellow rat’s obsession is to support justice, kill bad Buddha and bad demons, and its wish is much more superior than the black bear. He helped the people dispel the punishment imposed by the Bodhisattva, obtained the root and refined it for his own use, and cut off his master's head. However, he was helpless and could not be strong enough to beat the whole system so he could only hide in the yellow wind formation in fear all day long. The gods and Buddhas believed that he had messed up the system. He wanted humans and monsters to coexist. Once the destined one arrives, the gods and Buddhas will naturally be happy to see he was beaten. The rat must be killed and lose the root. Compared with the rat demon's philosophy, Yellow Brow's philosophy is more brilliant because he knows that breaking the old order cannot be achieved by one person. Yellow Brow has his master Maitreya as his hidden backing, and has his own theoretical system, so he can entangle a group of demons and gods. It's a pity that he is not strong enough to defeat the destined one. If he succeeds it will be another story. The one who hides the deepest is Maitreya. If Yellow Brow’s first attempt to kill the four in Journey to the West could be an accident due to Maitreya's neglect of supervision, the second attempt in our journey to kill the destined one clearly showed the plan followed Maitreya’s will. In Zhu Bajie's words, even a pig won’t believe it. Maitreya's purpose is to establish a new order. On the one hand, he supports Yellow Brow to implement it, and on the other hand, he secretly helps Erlang Shen resurrect Sun Wukong, who is dissatisfied with the old order. He hedged his bets and benefited no matter who won. Hundred Eyes plays his role as the white glove of Heavenly court. He help the court killed the Maori Star lord who has a Bodhisattva mother, and tried to kill the destined one under the secret orders of the Tusita Palace which is part of the court. It can be seen that even in heavenly court there are people who do not want Wukong to be reborn. His obsession was simply to break free from the seal of the purple talisman of Tushita Palace and become a member of the Immortal Class. However, the spider spirit was a victim from the beginning to the end and was destined to die trapped in the Pansi Cave by the talisman. Poor Hundred Eye was so pathetic. In game text it’s described as “A thread hung from the sky. He didn't know whether it was a blessing or a curse, he just climbed up. “ From the moment he refined the root, as long as he could not kill the destined one, he was destined to be abandoned by the heavenly court. He was still calling Master to save me until his death but no one came. The bull demon had seen so many conspiracy played by the gods so he was afraid of everything in his old age. He participated in the strangulation of Wukong and was awarded. But was warned by WuKong not to refine the root, so he hid it secretly. He knew that the root was just a trap. It was said to be a reward but was just for him to keep, and someone would come to pick it up sooner or later. When the time comes, if he will be able to give, he lives. And he will die if he cannot give. The bull demon’s obsession is just a complete family. But even such a simple hope was still at the mercy of others. His wife and his own land god were originally Taishang Laojun's disciples. Taishang Laojun betrothed Princess Iron Fan to the Bull Demon as a hidden clue. Princess Iron Fan was ordered to drink water from the Zimu River and gave birth to the last child of the Yasha clan which was the red boy. When the red boy grew up, he clamored to go to Lingshan for revenge to the budahas every day. He was exactly the same as the young Great Sage. So The bull demon dismissed his subordinates and asked his wife to go to various sacred and Buddhist places to see who was willing to suppress the Red Boy, but no one came. He then knew that it had been arranged for his son to revenge by the heavenly court, even through his son did not understand that. As long as the bull demon doesn't give his son the root, the Red Boy will be restrained in the Flame Mountain, which can be regarded as a protection for his son. But the finals will come sooner or later. If Red Boy kills destined one, then Wukong's resurrection will fail, Lingshan will be retaliated, and Heavenly court will win. If the destined one beats Red Boy, it seems to have nothing to do with Heavenly Court, and only the bull demon will be at loss. The Red Boy has a family, but Sun Wukong did not, so there are some things that only Wukong can do, but not Red Boy. What a destiny. Good story but terrible story telling.
That's a really good summary of the story! So I think what I got,is that the main thing here is Wukong's ploy with Erlang Shen's help,while everyone else has their own wants & conspiracies going on? Interesting. I agree with you though,this video could've been better if he didn't add in too much weird jokes and just focus on the lore,cause there's stuff that he misses (even the basic one from the book).
I believe the old monkey is actually shape shifted by the Buddha Guanyin. Because Guanyin is the Buddha of compassion, and he(yes its a he) usually has that Koromo (floaty cloth belt thing on Celestial being's clothing), which is worn by the old monkey. Guanyin was also the one that gave Tang monk the Band that which was put on Wukong's head. Him putting it back on the destined one would basically say you had one chance to change your fate, which many don't in the wheel of fate if only you struggled enough to break free. Symbolizing the destined one which is the culmination of Wukong's will wasn't cultivated/trained/experienced enough to break free and thus will go through the cycle once again until enlightenment is achieved.
i just copy paste from someone: For those wondering, yes he is wukong. Wukong split himself into 6 relics to prevent himself from being fully sealed. The character we play as is the embodiment of the 6th relic. In the end you absorb the other 5 and become the real wukong AGAIN. In the bad ending the destined one reject his past self and doesnt fully revive and chooses to become a pawn for the gods while the old wukong remains trapped in the stone. The original wukong couldn't get rid of that headband that weakened him so he came up with a plan with erlang to die and be reborn without the headband weakening him. His reincarnation is the destined one aka the mc for this game. He let erlang kill him and erlang kept his memori3s inside his 3rd eye and waited for him to be reincarnated. Erlang himself admitted in the game when u meet him again that no one could e killed wukong besides himself confirming wukong let erlang kill him. This reincarnation was born stronger because he didn't have the headband. My guess is they're gonna release a bug dlc continuing the story with wukong fighting heaven. I think the continuation will be a dlc because the creator said the next black myth game will be based on a different mythological story from Chinese novels. This is suppose to be the start of a series of different black myth games set in different chinese mythology stories. As to why erlang would help wukong eventhough they were rival. I have no idea and the game doesn't explain it
Erlang actually had a similar experience as Wukong before joining the gods, he screwed the god’s realm for his wife; Wukong also screwed the realm for some reason that I’m too lazy to translate. And in the original myth, Wukong and Erlang never hate each other, they’re both rivals and friends A rival who can truly understand Erlang. In game, ppl are guessing Erlang is mad at Wukong because he chose to give everything up for freedom while Erlang himself chose to bow and obey. That’s why he helped Wukong, to prove himself right, to prove the only way of serving is to obey.
You forgot to mention at the beginning that Wukong wasn't defeated by Erlang Shen because Shen was stronger, but because the circlet somehow activated, thus stopping his transformation and causing him immense distress. Anyway, initially I thought that the Destined One was the Six-Eared Macaque. But now I know that he is actually Wukong himself, or more like it a part of himself. Remember "The Forbidden Kingdom"? The monk was just a strand of Wukong's hair. Before "dying", Wukong sent multiple strands in the world and tasked them with restoring. This is what likely happened here.
Bruh. Thank you for this lol. I tried to understand it in other videos but the way you explain it, doesn’t bore me and makes me laugh. You earned a subscriber.
Hey all! Thanks for all the positive and negative comments. For anything I got wrong, do excuse any mistakes as I followed the English dub version of the game and there could have been mistranslations, adding to the confusion. Otherwise, this very was very fun to make! Let me know what you think below ❤
Having read the original novels because there wasn't much to get my hands on in those days... I really dislike how the devs had zero appreciation for the deeply complex historical and spiritual roots of the books. The original saga was an allegory with countless nuggets of wisdom and insights despite its numerous plot holes (yes... original saga had plot holes galore). It's a pity all of that has been lost.
@@Tenelia
Dude, the game is meant as a love letter to the original novels, not an exact representation to these novels with all their wisdom, you can't fit everything in a 40 hour game.
The game was meant to pay tribute to the novel, and it surely did that and made people from around the world get interested in the story of the journey to the west
@@videogames1926 as a guy who only knew about waking because I heard that Goku from DB was based off of him, this game really made me invested and fall in love with the story. I've been watching a few videos here and there and figuring out the story piece by piece is pretty fun. In short I agree, this game perfectly gets others interested in the tale of sun wukong and a somewhat "what if" future timeline.
It's really fine! As a native chinese, there is an immense difference between the Chinese and English narrations. I believe the story has been translated to the best of the dev's abilities and anything not translated properly is just limited to expressions limited to the Chinese language. The video/game is impressive enough.
Actually，wukong(悟空) was given an unimportant job in heaven，which is feeding horses， so he feels cheated and angry.That‘s why he fought with gods and being under that mountain in the end.
However, gods decided to let him help a monk(唐僧) to get true sutra，aka，journey to the west(西游记).
The monk has four pupils, they are wukong(understand empty)、wuneng(understand ability)、wujing(undersdand clean)、wubai(undersdand white).
In the game, final boss of the third chapter also has four pupils, they are bukong(not understand empty)、buneng(not understand ability)、bujing(not undersdand clean)、bubai(not undersdand white).
This game is a diffrent story from the original book, but also a good one.
Game Science's CEO, states that this game originally had 13 chapters that contained many more stories. However, considering the time and money that have already been spent, the game has to be released early to raise funds or have a market test to see if they need to continue developing the story. Now the game is definitely a success and they will continue the development and probably release a few more DLCs to complete all the stories.
Future DLC confirm then. I mean 10M COPIES!!
I genuinely hope they continue to develop and elaborate on this story..it really is an incredible game
I normally don’t like DLC… but if they give us one or two new chapters with each piece of DLC and continue to develop it until the PS6 I can see this become the one DLC model I can agree with
Great game, but it feels like its lacking polish. There are way too many invisible walls. They don’t even try to disguise those walls with fallen trees or something. Makes sense that they ran out of money and had to release early.
They won't have any more dlc. How do you think they made a game about rebelling against gods and Buddhas in communist China? Their gaming career is over. It's a miracle that this game made it through communist censorship. If there weren't some Buddhas) helping them, they would have been a bankrupt gaming company. Some of them would have gone to jail.
The ending may confuse some western audiences, but during the ending of the game, you can see the Destined one getting some of WuKong’s memory back, while carrying all 5 relic pieces, the old monkey said there’s still the last piece of relic that’s missing which is his memories / mind that was lost. However, if you completed all the secrets in every single chapter, and have bested ErLang Shen 二郎神at the secret mountain of Mei etc, in the secret ending / true ending, you see the Destined one getting the final piece of lost memory back, which was the memory of his journey to the west in an anime style told from the ending of the story to the very beginning.
Unlike the normal ending / bad ending, right before the crown was put on him, the Destined one is no more, he is now Sun WuKong, receiving the final piece of his memory back which was his lost mind / memory ( before the translation it makes a lot more sense in Chinese ) Holding all 6 relics and finally free of the control of the gods ( the crown was made by Buddha and put on by Guan Yin 观音菩萨 in order to control WuKong who was the lady / god at the end of chapter 1 anime )
Since no one can kill WuKong, and he can not remove the crown by himself, his desire for being free, fuck destiny and the gods in his fashion like he said during the anime talking to ErLang Shen 二郎神 he simply gambled, and killed himself in order to be free of the crown / gods control. And in the secret ending the Destined one which is one of WuKong’s clone all along ( judging by being a piece of WuKong’s fur everytime you die and respawn ) successed and now lives free and no longer be in control of the gods! Who looks exactly like him, fights like him and have all the relics and his memories. So WuKong wins at the end, he is the exact same WuKong but now no longer being controlled by the gods and without the crown! The celestial Symphony classic JTW theme song hits so hard during the ending anime! WuKong is many’s childhood hero, including me, glad to see the devs do him justice in a dark twisted new story, except he is missing a cape on his armour that says 齐天大圣, missing the epic scenes where he swings his mountain size staff and his real title, 花果山水帘洞美猴王齐天大圣孙悟空 / the handsome monkey king from the flower and fruit mountain, the Great sage equal of heaven!
Amazing info and yes, the song hits me hard too. I was watching the classic JTTW growing up. Amazing game ❤
btw the relics are directly called "Roots" of Wukong, or whatever's left of him
The destined one is the last relic. He is the mind of wukong and not a clone
@@ahlbiurgaid61 definitely possible, only fan theories so far for that one
bro sorta pulled off a light yagami
Im a Chinese player myself, and as you might have guessed, it is absoultely AWESOME to see that a beloved mythlogy that you knew and loved from your chuldhood, finally get to become a AAA video game. Having blown away by deep, complex portrayal of other mythlogies in video games such as God of War or Wrath of Ashura, you have no idea how long a mytholgy geek like me have waited for a game to be made for Wukong.
I had doubts whether a serious game could be made for Wukong, given the colorful background, quirky characters with animal heads, vague yet impressive magical properties... but this game ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT. It had even found a way to make them look realistic, yet rugged and dirty, with a hint of horror element, it's was the perfect blend. Respect to the creative team, and of course, the designer Yang Qi.
I wish they are making a sequel, and hopefully we dont have to wait years for that, and maybe one day we can have a game that is based on my fav mytholgy material - the classics of mountain and sea.
To anyone who are not familiar with The Classics of Mountain and Sea, just think of Monster Hunter but in an ancient chinese mythology way that written around 400BC to 200BC
As for the Zhu Bajie story, I know everyone keeps saying he made a mistake and didn't recognize the Chang'e, and that's why he married a normal, human woman. However, based on a popular retelling of the story, Zhu Bajie was cursed to live over 1000 tragic love stories. Before he joins Tang Monk and Sun Wukong on their Journey to the West, in his most recent reincarnation, he gets reborn as a pig demon. The love story Yue Lao (the god of matchmaking) cooked up fro Bajie is that he marries a common and ordinary human woman. Bajie kept his disguise as a human and never let her find out his true identity. However, when Sun Wukong came through Bajie's village and sensing there was a demon, he ends up exposing Bajie as a pig demon. His wife sees his true face and dies from fear and shock. Guanyin revives her, but has Bajie promises to aid Tang Monk on his journey as his second disciple (this is the 1996 HK drama version).
And then the love story between Bajie and the Spider lady happens. He recognizes her as the celestial maid he ran into in the heavens, and she recognizes him. It has been said, when she found out Bajie was banished to the mortal realm, she gave up her divinity to follow after him into the mortal realm. A funny joke that's been going around the Chinese forums is that she heard he got reincarnated as a "zhu", so that's why she chose a spider demon. Spider and pig sound the same in Chinese "zhu", but use different tones.
Fun fact: the song that plays during Bajie and Violet Spider's animation, the woman singer says, "in our next life, lets us meet again", while the male singer says, "in our next life, lets not meet again".
Yes, because “一只猪”（yi zhi zhu）, which means a pig, sounds like “一蜘蛛”（yi zhizhu）, which means one spider. I think this is a clever play on words.
I also agree that he recognizes his lover but does not want to admit it in fear of the consequences, as their love is forbidden. There are 3 clues to this: (1) in one of the cutscenes when the 6th sister first appeared, he gets unusually worked up, even to the point of insulting the little girl for no reason, saying "who would have fathered this hideous thing?" (definitely uncalled for and the girl is obviously not as he has described); (2) during the fight with Bajie, he says that he would not make the same mistake by leaving the place (The Webbed Hollow) behind and he is adamant to stay this time; (3) at the end of the the animation, he looks back at what seems like The Hut of Immortality (in the Webbed Hollow) as if in regret before rejoining the group to continue their journey to the west. When you put all of this together, it's clear that Zhu Bajie recognizes the spider guai as his lover.
@@seafood_hater Yea, I really like those '96 series, brings up childhood memories.
IIRC, in those version, the reason why Bajie (called 'Cu Pat Kai' in my localization), banished from the Heaven is because his obsession with Chang'e (Moon Goddess) to a point of wanting to change his 'fate'.
At one time, he saw Chang'e fell from the Moon and immediately trying to rescue her. But he's late a mere second to an another Court Admiral (Wu Kang) so they fall in love eachother, leaving Bajie heartbroken.
Refuse to accept the lost he goes to the 'Wheel of Time', one of the sacred devices, to repeat the actions and save Chang'e. But no matter how & what he's done, he keep losing. To a point the Emperor caught and give punishment that 'suits' him well (1000 reincarnations & 1000 tragic love stories).
But why Pigsy roaming around the realm in this version, wasn't he became a buddha by the end of JTtW
@@svdrevolver5109not, he was granted the title of 淨壇使者， while technically a Bodhisattva rank, it is basically a glorified janitor. The job is to clean the shrines and statues of Buddhist temples. He gets to eat all the sacrifices at the shrine which is the fitting job for a pig. I'm sure at this point, you can understand why he doesn't care about jt
“Zhu” for the word spider and pig don’t “use different tones”, it’s the same tone. It’s written as different characters
I feel like this game deserves a sequel. With the true ending, Newkong’s journey has just started and he’s basically free to challenge the celestial court with nothing holding him back and the knowledge of Sun Wukong.
Completely agree there
if there is a sequel i wish they put the 8 immortals story in this.. like the 8 of them are corrupted and sun wukong is on a quest
After selling 10 million copies in three days i'm pretty sure the sequel is guaranteed
I totally agree with you 100% for the game to deserve a sequel but the new Kong have to control his attitude and be a good person because when he is out of control again and go against the god, the headband will squeeze his head again since at the end the newKong put the headband back on. That’s his weakness, everytime he do bad thing and out of control, that headband will squeeze his brain out. And that is why he got killed in this game. I notice he didn’t have that headband on when he’s fighting the 3eyes god from the beginning but he was out of control so the god make the headband appear again and squeeze his head. 😅😅 newKong have to be good also since he put on the headband at the end of the game.
@@clarkwilliamRol How about giving a feature about good and bad karma like rdr2 so we can get two different consequences in the end 😂
Heres is some correction for chapter 3 yellow brow, the story its kinda deep. yellow brow was rescued from the sea by fishermen, who did not harm him. He did not think this was kindness. The fishermen benefited from yellow brow's flesh and blood, so they provided him with food, worshipped him as a god, and built a temple for him. He did not think this was kindness. The government did not embezzle wealth, but distributed jewelry fairly to the poor. He did not think this was kindness. When a person blinded by greed appeared in the crowd, yellow brow took the initiative to guide him to commit a crime (the collar of the man with a knife was pulled by yellow brow), and like an avalanche, he detonated the evil in the hearts of others. In the end, yellow brow proved his original theory: human nature is evil. Jinchanzi said that he was obsessed with winning and losing, and he was a pathetic guy. Because yellow brow first had a theory, and then got the result he wanted by guiding reality. Instead of practicing in reality and finally summarizing the theory through the results. Even if there are 100 parts of kindness, as long as there is one evil, yellow brow will make the result lead to evil.
very well put, kudos !
Did you basically copy this comment from another top comment in the video 'Black Myth Wukong This animation is actually deep' ?
@ZoiusGM yeah I remember reading this comment somewhere as well
This was so well explained wow thanks
Bajie could not admit violet spirder and her daughter are his family member due to fear of the celestial court, if they found out, they will kill them. This is also why Bajie went on the journey with Sun Wukong in order to gain some merit and buddahood so he could protect them. in the journey to the west, there already an example of ox king family being torn apart by the celestial court. It was his greatest sacrifice
你彻底看懂了这段剧情。如果八戒和她澄清关系，他会是下一个牛魔王。
Viewing stories from a foreigner's perspective is indeed intriguing, and as a Chinese, I appreciate your sharing immensely. To better facilitate understanding, let me add a detail to the closing animation of the first chapter.
The first story revolves around the robe, which is not just the attire but also a symbol of the monk. Monks are required to renounce worldly desires, thus the robe embodies asceticism and virtue. However, when Jinchi, the monk, lays eyes on Tang Sanzang's precious robe, he is overcome with greed. This essentially represents a lust for "asceticism" itself, a paradoxical irony where obsession with something intended to promote detachment can lead to its opposite effect. This profound message-that clinging too tightly to an idea or thing can have the reverse outcome intended-is indeed nuanced and challenging to articulate in English, yet it underscores the complexities of human nature and the dangers of excessive attachment.
This recalls the saying "if you love something, let it go, and if it is destined to be yours, it will return to you". Maybe with the opposite effect here. Matthew 16:25: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. I don't have the words to draw the correlation, but hopefully you can see it.
By the way, the names of disciples of yellow-bow is literally a mock towards Tang monk's disciples (also Tang monk is the reincarnation of Jinchanzi as he was punished by the Buddha for having a snap in the lesson lol.)
While Tang monk's disciples names include Wukong 悟空 (awaken to emptiness) WuNeng (Bajie's another name)悟能(awaken to what you should do and what you shouldn't) WuJing 悟净(Sandy.awaken to pureness) and Bailoong Ma白龍馬 (literally mean white loong horse,yeah the horse is one of Tang's disciples too), the four disciples of yellow-bow you will encounter named BuKong 不空( mean: not awaken to emptiness) , BuNeng 不能(not awaken to what you should do and what you shouldn't) and BuJing 不净(not awaken to pureness) and BuBai不白 ( not white. I am serious,hear me out)
Also most of the Chinese player assume the Tang monk (Jin Chanzi) disguise as the old monkey and guide the players. In the game, only him will call Zhu Bajie as "Bajie" ,which is the phase used by Tang monk. Also only Jinchanzi and Old monkey is related to "gamble"
Jin Chanzi gamble with yellow-bow and Old monkey was assumed by the Court that he is gambling that WuKong can get off the things on his head eventually.
And both of them don't care about winning or losing but the truth.
When you get the first bad ending, the old monkey will look up to the sky and sigh before he give you the band. When you start a new game,you will discover that the last relics is the head band.
Here’s my theory: because you don’t get the true mind relics from erlang,the old monkey have replaced it by head band.
The head band mean obeying while the true relics is freedom. It’s a punishment for the speed run player who don’t give a fuck about the storyline. And you get an ending you deserve:Speedrun it again till you get the truth ending.
Yellow-bow?
Dang! I am a speed run watcher by watching this video before I even bought the game. Fux! What's the true story? Where's the true video?!
Man, this is some awesome back story stuff. Thanks for the comment.
@@windslinker5694 brow
I put 90hrs and still got the “bad” ending. Played it without looking stuff up tho.
The melon guy is the future Buddha Budai or Maitreya. He helped Wukong defeat yellowbrow during his original journey. Interestingly every chapter, the main villain was defeated by Sun Wukong with the help of the Buddha. Chapter 1, the bear demon was defeated by Guanyin. In chapter 2, the headless monk Buddha help Wukong defeat the rat villain in original journey to the west. In chapter 3, Budai help defeat yellowbrow. In chapter four it was the chicken dude that pops up. He was one of a bodhisattva sons. In chapter 5 it was Guanyin again for defeating Red Boy. It’s interesting that the developers only choose chapters where Wukong had the help of a Buddha like figure to defeat these villains in the original story.
Sorta like a redemption arc of sorts, like "Wu Kong coulda done it and we'll prove it" type thing
pilanpo help wukong defeate the many eyes scorpion demon
Cuz the Bodhisattvas and the Celestial Court are not really helping Wukong. Their only concern is to preserve the current hegemony/hierarchy of the world. They intend to let the Destined One to reincarnate as another Wukong with the circlet still on so they can control him again. The only ones in the game that are interested in really helping Wukong to reincarnate free and without the circlet are Erlang (and his gang) and The Future Buddha.
Wukong has always been a symbol of rebellion and breaker of current order in Chinese culture. So the game is not about him getting the so-called "redemption" from the Heavenly Court and or attaining Buddhahood again, its about giving him his long-deserved freedom.
The crane dude is likely some sort of underling of Taishang Laojun(as you can see from the painting). The chicken guy you are talking about (one of the 28 stars) is the monster at the top of the purple cloud mountain. They did some kind of Hojo shit to him. Snake woman is his mother’s friend. Him and the Kangjin dragon lady are the two that are closest with Wukong among the 28, and both ended up badly. Makes you wonder if it’s some kind of conspiracy.
Because those yaogui didn't die in the original story.
I come from China, and I want to add some knowledge to all foreign friends. Everyone thinks that Sun Wukong is just a stone monkey, but he is not just an ordinary stone monkey. He is created by the god named "Nuwa", the mother of human beings in Chinese mythology. Nuwa created all kinds of human beings with clay, but one day the world fell into a disaster. Nuwa created a sky mending stone to repair the sky in order to protect the life tower of the world, and Wukong is the remaining sky mending stone (the stone used to repair the sky). Since the disaster, the sky mending stone has stayed in Huaguo Mountain (where Sun Wukong was born)) The stone began to absorb the energy of all things in the world as nutrients to breed the Stone Monkey Sun Wukong, When Sun Wukong was born, a stone cracked open and a beam of light pierced through the heavens, shocking the gods of the heavens... (The story that followed is what you know)
thanks for sharing man! very interesting!
我想实话告诉你，你说的一切全都是来自于香港电视剧，原作里头第一回稍微翻一下，看一看，孙悟空可不是什么补天石
同意楼上 怎么又跑到女娲去了..
Yeah he's a stone monkey although the stone is from the heaven.
😅have no idea what you are talking about
As a Chinese, I feel your enthusiasm for Wukong, and your efforts to look up information to understand the plot are very commendable. This is not an easy thing to do, and it is normal to make some mistakes, after all, this is a new culture for you. China now has a tour based on this game (including dozens of locations), welcome to China to experience it
Thanks for being so accepting!
This is besides the point but that's fast😂
@@iloveans You mean the tour? These tours were probably already planned and ready to launch once the game is released (and proven to be a winner with the Chinese). Tourism money is BIG business in the less wealthy Chinese provinces and cities - and Shanxi province, the centerpiece, has had years to prepare for this moment.
@@edukid1984why are you so annoying
@@uuuuuuuuiiiiiii I can say the same about you, random whiner
Jade Emperor’s tendency to banish people from his court is as strong as Zeus’ urge to make love with everything moving
I swear, you eat the peaches of immortality and everyone is out to get you...
What does the jade emperor and zeus have in common? Tjey both loooovveee fucking people over both literally and figuratively
million powerful yaoguai are waiting to fill their seats..
I am a player from China. I have read interviews with Game Science before. They are sure that there will be DLC, and they initially wanted to make Black Myth: Wukong into a trilogy. You can stay tuned!
Just one thing.
In the end of the game, the old monkey says that the "Mind" is the first to desintegrate, so Wukong's Mind is gone.
The Destined One is replacing the old mind with his own, and by acquiring the other senses of Wukong and his memories from Erlang, the Destined one becomes both a successor and a reincarnation of the Monkey King.
Tl;dr Monkey is like Theseus ship.
Wukong basically erase his old trait of the trickster monke, to attain the perfect buddhahood the sage equal to heaven and earth.
Fun fact: In the game, Yellowbrow has 4 disciples with names mirroring Tan Sanzang's 4 disciples.
Non-Void for Wukong whose name means "Awakened to emptiness".
Non-Able for Zhu Baije whose Buddhist name is Zhu Wuneng which means "Pig Awakened to ability".
Non-Pure for Sha Wujing whose name means "Sand Awakened to purity".
Non-White for Bai Long Ma (the horse that Sanzang rode on) whose name means White Dragon Horse. He was the son of the Dragon King of the West Sea, tasked with carrying Sanzang to the west.
so he's kinda like the avatar from TLA, except just reincarnating infinitaly, with different version of wukong kind of neat. I wonder if they were to ever make a sequel I'd be interested to see a reincarnation far far into the future and what that would be like.
@@SimonMorealwhere are you getting the Non from?
@@vulturepeak Playing chapter 3 of the game.
In fact, as a Chinese, I also cannot understand many of the game's plots, because the story of Journey to the West we have learned since childhood has been beautified, while the story in Black Myth is truly a continuation based on the original work. The original work of Journey to the West is actually very dark. For example, immortals and Buddhas also engage in scheming and intrigue, and most of the monsters on the journey to retrieve the scriptures in the story are relatives of celestial beings.
The beetles that plague the country in the second level are the mount of the Bodhisattva Lingji, and it is actually the Yellow Wind King who helps people defeat the insects. The people were turned into mice as a punishment for their disbelief in Buddhism.
How to say this, the real original "Journey to the West" is very dark, just like the name of this game, "Black Myth".
Wouldn't a better translation then have been Dark Myth?
Kind of how you can thank Disney for giving a better look for the Greek gods. If I remember correctly, Hercules did his labors to repent for killing his family in a rage. Only a few Greek stories had decent endings. Although probably the one underlying theme with the Greek gods is that they actually abide by contracts, god or mortal alike. Think Jason from the Argonauts had things turn around in the end for him because he abandoned his wife Medea for another women. Keep in mind Medea was kind of cursed by the gods to love him. Even went so far as to kill her own family for him, due to the spell the gods placed on her. After the breakup she didn't take it too well and even murdered their children. Medea was kind of a princess and a witch. Her family also had ancestry to a goddess of magic Hecate and that's who trained her. Hecate was the one that turned Odysseus crew into pigs and had him trapped with her for like a decade on her island in the Odyssey.
@@xanmontes8715you're right, but black and dark are used interchangeably in Chinese so they probably didn't get the nuance, we never say it's dark but always that it's black (when there's no light
it's must really hard for a non-chinese guy to put all these all together, thank you so much! It's indeed quite confusing without a understanding of the novel journey to the west
i had no idea what i was doing but i tried my best! Worked about 100 hours in the past 6 days to be as accurate as possible and it looks like i got a lot of stuff wrong haha. Oops! Thanks for watching!
@@NeddyTheNoodle but it was worth it right ? xD i been awestruck by this story a long time ago and i watch a lot of journey to the west chinese movies because i personally just like em i like the tale pretty much
I thought players except Chinese may be confused about the game story because they knew less about Journey to the West. Thank you for explaining that.
事实是:作为一个中国人，也不太能够了解游戏的全部剧情。这是因为，它是发生在《西游记》小说之后的一段全新的故事。并且，游戏中的许多人物或boss都与传统的小说截然不同。此外，这款游戏有许多隐藏线索，我们仍在探索表面剧情的背后秘密。
I'm Chinese, and I don't understand its story. Then after some reading, I find out that it's not adapted from the 1592 journey to the west, it's merely adapted from a ridiculous conspiracy interpretation of journey to the west around 2000. I appreciate their effort to make the game, but I dislike their taste of story.
Let me revise on some details here for chapter 2.
What happened to Huang Feng sage(the rat guy), he was once the disciple of some Vajra Arhat, but he escaped from Lingshan to do his own stuff, passing by Kingdom Shari he noticed that there were this huge beetle destorying the kingdom, so he offered help(which is what happened during the secret boss fight of chapter 2). However this beetle was actually sent down by Lingji Bodhisattva as the punishment to Kingdom Shari, due to the fact that the king ordered to not worship bodha anymore. This beetle was hinted to be Lingji's mount at the end of the chapter lore.
Then there was the actual Journey to the west story: Tang monk and wukong reached to Kingdom Shari, the tiger vanguard(secret boss one) saw Tang monk and decides to kidnap him, because all yaoguais have been rumors that consumes Tang monk's flesh can grab you immortality. Huang Feng great sage doesn't want to mess with Tang monk nor wukong, butwhen he heard of the thing, Wukong and Bajie(pigsy) have already fought their way up to their place, so at the point of no return he had to stand out and fight. Eventually Lingji showed up and gave Wukong the vessel of Dingfeng pearl, in which perfectly counters Huang Feng's wind spell, therefore the rat was defeated, and Lingji took him away as disciple. After Huang feng left, kingdom Shari is destoried, everyone in the kingdom got converted into rats (probably done by Lingji to sabotage Huangfeng's reputation), and the first son of the previous Tiger vanguard stood up, maintaining the territories. After few hundred years, Huang Feng great sage returned back to this place after killing wukong in the prologue, this time holding the head of Lingji...
This is very convoluted
true
As an international Chinese I really like your background story more than others version. So hilarious 😂. I want to add the part I know about the pig bajie s love story: So the purple eyed lady as you described, after the pig got punished because he witnessed a goddess and jade god’s secret affair meeting, She also died because she wants to chase after him to the mortal world. Her soul is in love with him, But due to the incarnation to the mortal body she couldn’t recognise that pig is the one she loves. In this incarnation bajie loves her but apparently she doesn’t love him back.
And then she died moves to the Next incarnation become a beautiful spider Yaoguai. because yaoguai are Demi immortal so she could recognise the pig is the one she loves and remember the first time they met in heaven. So yes, they did fuck in that pool, and gave birth to the small spider daughter. But in this incarnation Bajie has already joined journey to the west so he can not love her, Because he got a mission from heaven to protect Jinchanzi with wukong and kill Yaoguais. That’s why he killed all sisters of the purple eye spider girl, and spared her because she loves him. that’s why she has to eat all her sisters corpse to survive after beaten injured by sun wukong, while Bajie has to continue the journey with his fellowship.
There her love and commitment to Bajie became love hate romance, But still wish to marry him because she had his baby. And finally in this game they meet again after another countless years she became old woman but she still wear the as same make up as the first time they met in heaven hopefully he can remember how they used to love. She expressed how much she hates him because he has been a coward not able to receive her love due to the fear for the heaven.
But the truth is bajie joined the journey to the west. He decided to works for the heaven to regain his title back after the second incarnation of the purple eye girl is dead. It is too late now, coz he left no choice and now he cannot love her and his daughter so he had to let them go and this is the best way to protect them from heavens punishment. that’s the spider purple eight women cannot understand so it’s a big tragedy 😂
35:00 If I am not wrong this Melon Baby is Yellowbrow's master, Maitreya. Yellowbrow in the original novel stole some treasures from his master, and that was what he relied on to give our MC trouble. The master Maitreya often referred to in Buddhism as the Future Buddha. Basically he's predestined to be the successor of the current Buddha, the pretty powerful being who basically sealed Wukong under the mountains for 500 years. So yea, this melon baby is kinda a big shot. I think his demeanor somewhat stem from the Chinese depiction of him, since his statue is often a fat monk who's always smiling.
Maitreya is Messiah in Buddhism.
violet eye lady and bajie were in love in celestial court, when bajie got banished and turned into a pig, that lady misheard "pig" as "spider" (in mandarin haha), so she decided to reincarnated into a spider....bajie didn't recognise voilet eye lady at first, anyway long story 🥲
Eeehhhh... That was a joke... Not real reason
@@michaelkang891
So because it’s a joke, therefore it should not be criticised?
The monk needed to go "west" to acquire the scriptures because Buddhism originates in India and the monk was going to get the original source material instead of the corrupted translated versions they had in China. A real historical monk Xuanzang journeyed to India to recover the scriptures but without all the demons and monkeys and stuff. The original story was a fun reimagining of that historical journey.
in JTTW, the west refers to nepal not india
尼泊尔
起源地是尼泊尔，以前的古印度
Ancient India, not the current India, the main area was in Nepal
In a nutshell, the Buddhism that spread over China since 魏晋南北朝 Wei/Jin Dynasty period are the beginner version only limited to how to discipline oneself 小乘佛法, so during Tang Dynasty, the emperor support Tang Monk on his dream to travel to the origin of Buddhism to obtain the complete philosophy of the Buddhism 大乘佛法 back to Tang Dynasty, because Tang Emperor that time are intrested to expand their territory and influence over the west side uncharted territory, so of course he would support whoever want to venture there to help obtain intel about the situation on the west side.
For chapter one, wokong found out about the plan and changed the spell to burn the temple instead. That’s why he’s just chilling watching the fire burn. As a reward for destroying evil. Of course, he didn’t let Tang know since Tang was a major pacifist and always scolded Wokong for using violence (which was a lot), even when it is to save him. To Tang dying wasn’t a big deal since he was a Buddhist and felt he would reincarnate anyway. Living up to hi beliefs was more important.
SanZang knows what happened, here is original in chapter 16:
"If you were able to protect the meditation hall, why didn't you put out the fire in the other buildings?"
Sanzang asked. Monkey laughed.
"I'll tell you, master. What you predicted actually happened. They fancied that cassock of ours and planned to
burn us to death. If I hadn't noticed, we'd be bones and ashes by now."
"Did they start the fire?" asked Sanzang who was horrified to learn this.
"Who else?" replied Monkey.
"Are you sure that you didn't cook this up because they were rude to you?" Sanzang asked.
"I'm not such a rascal as to do a thing like that," said Monkey. "Honestly and truly, they started it. Of course,
when I saw how vicious they were I didn't help put the blaze out. I helped them with a slight breeze instead."
"Heavens! Heavens! When a fire starts you should bring water, not wind."
"You must know the old saying−−'If people didn't harm tigers, tigers wouldn't hurt people.' If they hadn't
started a fire, I wouldn't have caused a wind."
"Where's the cassock? Don't say that it's been burnt too."
"It's all right; it hasn't been burnt. The abbots' cell where it was kept didn't catch fire."
"I don't care what you say. If it's come to any harm, I'll recite that spell till it kills you."
So you see, at least in this chapter, Sanzang cares more about the cassock. In the novel, Sanzang often behaves selfishly and shirks responsibility, which makes the characters in the book more realistic.
Im Thai, so we called him Tung Sum Jung. Iirc he’s begging for pardon for all yokai and all sheit they done like hundreds of time lol
@@uncle-z5321 where can i read this?
@@abhishekkonda1060 This is the original novel “Journey to the West”, you can buy the book or read it online
37:30 To go to the secret area of Chapter 3 you must
- go to every secret area available (1,2,4,5) and defeat the main boss of said area
- Do Melon quest (the way you get spell binder) in chapter 3
- Have Wu Kong's entire armor set and weapon (don't need to wear it though, simply aquire)
i saw streamers going to the secret area without the armor set and weapon
@@MrRobot-xs5jf u can go in even if u dont do any of those secret area and full armor . Only do that if u want to get secret boss fight and true ending. And before going into stone then u can trigger a cutscene to cool fight
@iampower5547 I tried the secret boss fight in the great pagoda about 8 times before I went back to ch 6 for the armor and staff.
The dragon girl was a huge fan girl of wukong and in attempt to free wukong she was lured and captured by yellow brow and completely brainwashed to become his minion. And its a tragic story when she was eventually killed by the chosen one
die.从来没有她
she is never die, but injured.
No we just beat some sense into her not kill her out right leaving me to wonder will we see her again in the dlc and actually fight along side us this time?
The Black Bear in the 1st Chapter, is one of the disciples of Avalokitesvara(a Buddha). He was also a friend to JinChi Elder, and the source of greed to the Elder. Guangzhi and Guangmou are yaoguais, they wanted to be mortal human monks and living in the temple. The Wolf King and the White Cloak Snake guy are friends of Black Bear, but both of them were killed by SunWuKong aka Monkey King during "The Journey to the West" in the fire incident which was caused by GuangZhi and Guangmou in the favor of getting that cloak of Tang Sanzang(master of SunWuKong, the one he said saved at the beginning of the game) to their master, JinChi Elder. The Black Bear was recaptured by Avalokitesvara after the incident. In the game, it is centuries after "Journey to the West", the 1st Sage of Monkey King (his golden eye balls) after his demise ,was entrusted to the Black Bear by Avalokitesvara. He returned to the Black Wind Mountain and rebuilt the temple, Guangzhi and Guangmou also returned to the mountain. And Black Bear tried to resurrect his old friends, JinChi Elder(the spell failed, and the greedy ghost of the JinChi Elder, the blue big head guy, wandering and bring havoc to the land) and the Wolf King LingXuZi, but the method of doing so requires sacrifice of the small wolf yaoguais, and the old Wolf King refused to be the source of the sacrifice of his kins, thus he hung himself. The Black Bear had no other choice but to recruit another Wolf King(the one in the game) from another place, but this one has no interest of learning to become a monk, but remained his savage animal ways. The White Cloak Snake was actually sent by ErLang(the guy who fought Monkey King in the beginning) to test the Destined One.
I urge everyone to watch OverlySarcastic’s simplified telling/summary of JttW if you don’t want to entire the ENTIRE book
It’s fills you in on all the main stuff it’s funny the graphics are extremely well done
They're great and were super helpful in helping me fill in some context for this video :)
Honestly, it's useless for understanding this story. Except for the character's name, the story of black myth wukong barely has anything to do with JttW. Instead, it is adapted from a conspiracy interpretation of the book.
True ending definitely supports a sequel or DLC story wise. Wouldn’t be surprised if we see one or the other in the next few years considering the record breaking numbers this game pulled. At least one can hope
To answer question asked at 7:27>
Chapter 1: Why is Jinchi obsessed with Blankets / Kasayas?
Just like how Catholic priest wear Robes in different colors, Buddhist monks of different rank wear different Kasayas. The robe is equivalent to a monk's attire, symbolizing their status. Moreover, since Buddhism in China often advocates that monks should stay away from materialism, from a religious and moral standpoint, monks are not supposed to possess money or wealth. Therefore, the robe they wear becomes one of the few possessions they can reasonably own. JinChi's defining trait is greed-he covets wealth and loves to collect various extravagant, jewel-adorned robes. He also craves status, using these luxurious robes to prove his rank. This ties into the final message of the story from Guanyin, which I interpret as: "People cannot see a monk’s devotion/faith; they only see the robe on his body. JinChi is not devout either, and he clings to wearing ever more lavish robes to prove his 'devotion' to the world.
Awesome video, can really appreciate the time you put in to learn the lore, reading the character entries and putting it all in a very well done and cohesive video. Real quick the fireproof mantle (34:14) is not the golden kasaya Elder Jinchi was after. Sun Wukong had found out the plan to set his and Tang Monk’s room on fire so he went to the heavens and got the fireproof mantle (gift from someone I forget) and used it along with a wind spell to keep Tang Monk safe, which in turn caused the rest of the temple to catch fire instead.
This is an absolutely amazing video. Thank you so much for taking the time to pull all this together.
Finally i can understand what all the animated clips at the end of the chapters are trying to convey. Thanks for the video, love your storytelling! +1 subscriber
Seriously, it was not Yellow Wind Sage turn the Kingdom into rats, it was curse from Buddha because they abandon their faith. Yellow Wind Sage since left the Kingdom to Yellow Wind valley.
My poor sleep😢. I'm strong, I can resist playing the whole day and watch another 1h video about the story. Awesome vid! Thank you very much for putting every piece together
I loved the fact that you included your reactions when you we’re beating the boss fights! Its so raw and emotional because i think i can say that all of us are feeling the sameway when we’re playing it. I just finished the game yesterday! 1week exactly after it was released. Thank you for making this video and it made more sense to me now more than ever. Great work you guys!
Good to see you expanding your awesome storytelling skills!
More to come!
Best lore explained so far
the best explanation to the wukong saga.... thanks dude for this.. you made the story explained to everyone easy.. keep up the good work
AMAZING.. if there is a prequel to Black myth stories.. i wish we can see neza, the celestial dragon. the 8 immortals, jade emperor, guanyin and much more !!
I'm shock Buddha and the rest didn't protest about Wukong getting attacked.
@26:36 bro this is where the story begins !😂 great video . Ty !
In chapter 1 the Bear come back to the mountain and changed himself to the Monk which you fought first phase. He rebuilt everything and revived his 2 friend Goungmau and Goungzhi. Thats why they are still there. The bear still wants to practice and follow Buddhism
Watched quite a few sotry explaination videos on this game on youtube, I think this is the best one yet. Makes a lot more sense than the others when you explain both wukong and the destined one's story in each chapter.
Only bad thing about this video is you can only like it once. Th amount of effort you put into it is deserve more ❤
Great video! I'm really impressed by the effort you put in. I can tell how deeply you explored the Journey to the West story, especially from a pure gamer's perspective. It may not be perfect, but it's excellent, and to me, your video offered a fresh way to understand the game line. Much appreciated.
Creating a story video like this and not knowing that the "Melon Baby" is Buddha is mind blowing
The monkey you play in this game is actually urself.
Understanding the journey of Ur fate, is Ur life.
Understanding the end of understanding Ur existence into Ur spiritual choice, and the path you venture, remains up to urself ❤
The story is actually a incredible poem.❤
It's spelled "your" ;)
LOVE THE STORY OF WUKONG, THIS GAME HITS SO DEEP.
This 100% deserves more views, entertaining video bro.
Jinchanzi is Tang Sanzang btw, Jinchanzi is the second disciple of Buddha. Tang Sanzang is an reincarnation of Jinchanzi
The golden cicada?
I just LOVE this guy NARRATOR it so funny and hilarious. Keep up the good work.
I don’t know if you mentioned this in the video (haven’t seen it all yet) but our character isn’t the first monkey to go on this journey to get Wukong’s Relic cause when we first meet Pigsy he says “oh great, another mute” which told me this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to retrieve his Relics
oh I didnt think about that. Where does it say in game there were previous ones?
@@NeddyTheNoodle when you free him from the gold symbol after the dragon lady fight (forgot how to spell her name 😅) yeah when he talks to you directly and you don’t respond to him he says the line
@@NeddyTheNoodle the beginning imply that multiple monkey set off on the journey.
But the one I notice is meeting the first spider lady and she says that the previous monkey body isn't even cold in the grave yet a new one appears already.
And when meeting yellow brow in the beginning before he unleashed the dragon, he says that his seed sack is getting full from all the monkeys he's been catching. Only near the end I realised the macaque is one of our senior corrupted.
The baby Buddha also says this might just be the RIGHT monkey implying there were others that probably failed .
@@Chris4Battle I think he also meant that due to his appearance as well. The destined one (protagonist) have the spitting image of Wukong. Remember that there were many that have considered themselves as destined one (not only monkeys, this can be shown when the 3rd rat prince also thinks himself as the destined one) but fall short.
Bro, this was such an amazing video. Thank you for taking the time to put together such an incredibly detailed lore explanation video. 👏 Gained a follower for sure 💜
More coming your way! Cheers
Well, actually there're a lot of mistakes in the interpretation, but still a nice bold try.
The background story about the first chapter was that, the big head monster, who was then a monk, was on a crucial point to attain Buddhahood. All he needed was a tiny push, something to make him "more holy," and that particular blanket of Tang monk was, in fact, a relic from Amitabha Buddha, who was the Buddha who kinda controlled all Buddhas in the book.He got obsessed and tried to kill Tang monk and Wukong by setting a fire, but failed because Wukong overheard the plan and asked one of his old mates in the celestial court to cover them with a special clothing that prevents fire but lets burn everything else in the temple, something that you will get after defeating the big head boss.
About the second chapter, only one mistake: it was actually the headless Buddha that gave the punishment to the people, turning everyone into rats, and that Buddha was before held responsible by the Amitabha Buddha to control the yellow sage.
For the third chapter, the kid was actually the Maitreya Buddha, and he loved melons because in the book he managed to control yellow brow by asking Wukong to turn into a watermelon and seducing yellow brow to eat it. He's actually very powerful, but he just didn't want to do much to help, as all powerful gods do, probably.
As to the fourth chapter, Bajie had actually no choice but to leave his lover and his kid alone; if not, the celestial court would find them and try to control them, and if failed, kill them, as no immortal should have a family of Yaoguais. He simply dared not to stay.
So is the case with chapter five, when Wukong told the bull that he had no other choice, he meant by that the court only wants people under their control to be immortal or powerful.
As for the last chapter, I don't really think that's open world-like; I think it's just that the map and the guide are poorly designed.
Anyways, bravo job.
Wow, Never thought this channel the one covers it, I'm glad you branched to other game because your lore narrative is arguably the best on this platform.
Just finished the game today. Completed everything. Full journal. Last boss twice. One of my top of games of all time.
The lore incorporated is so interesting and the devs did a fantastic job with gameplay and storytelling along with all those cool animations at the end of each ch.
Wish I could play it again for the first time. Haven’t felt like that since RDR2.
Amazing editing!! This vid is sick & I just started watching. Thanks for the effort to bring us what we all needed who played this game, an explanation to wtf I’m playing lol waiting on my journey to the west to come in the mail.
The true ending made me teared up and happy at the same time knowing Wukong and his gang reached up a tragic ending and you as the destined one who became a reincarnation of Wukong will carry on the legacy of Wukong and his brothers and sisters probably to repeat the cycle of battling against the Celestial Court.
This explanation story has helped me a lot with understanding the game and it's cutscenes. (Also really love your game clips in chapter 5, hope that someday you'll post your playthrough of this game as well your yelling at chapter 5 was funny XD) So thank you for making this video.
One question though, what song was playing when you showed the animation ending? It sounds REALLY good and I'd really like to listen to it!
yes, me too
Can we take moment to realize that this story was written in the 1500's????
amazing how this story has such an impact to this day with all of its iterations.
yeah about same time as shakespear, but more epic
Chinese fan of Black Myth Wukong here and I spent about 48+ hours to get the good ending. Thank you for spending the time to connect the dots and figure out the stories behind the scenes. This is definitely not a easy work and requires huge amount of effort especially you haven’t read the original novel of “Journey to the West”. One minor comment on the chapter 2 that it is the Buddha who turned the people in Sandy country to rat as the punishment of worshipping HuangFeng sage. Also sharing my understanding of the Black Myth Wukong story here: The holistic view of this story is that in order to get rid of the hoop and get real freedom, Wukong killed himself by dividing into 6 parts and hopes one day there is a The Destiny who can collect the 6 pieces to truely revive WuKong or become a new WuKong. Erlang and MiLe are helping WuKong to execute this plan. Why Erlang helps us? Because he is one of WuKong’s good friends and also doesn’t like the Court. WuKong did what Erlang wants to do but couldn’t because Erlang also works for the Court(this comes from some background stories in JTW). Why MiLe helps us? Because MiLe is the future Buddha and he doesn’t like the current shape of the Court which is extremely brutal to normal people and YaoGuai. In the our entire Journey, you can see that there were actually more than one The Destiny who tried to collect the 6 pieces before us but all failed. In these centuries, Erlang sends his brothers to test and help The Destiny to collect the 6 pieces by leading the way to get the hidden quest. And MiLe ensured that The Destiny has the access to the 6 pieces by intentionally let HuangMei stolen his bug… there are more things happened before our The Destiny starting the Journey, and that is what the amazing part of this story
Now THAT is how you introduce a video
Really appreciate your enthusiasm to make this video! That's a lot effort for a non-chinese without back knowledge of JTTW to piece this story together!
In fact, the original Journey to the West story is quite simple itself, but that doesn't mean there is no depth to it. What Game Science did here is explaining or reading the story in a rather interesting way, just as the title of the game indicates. So it's really hard to fully understand the whole story while playing the game, since you can easily think of what the story was in a different way.
For example, in chapter 2, you may consider the yellow rat as the main villain, for he beheaded his master, occupied the land, and turned everyone of the kingdom into rats. However, if you thank him for standing up to you when you were fighting that giant bug, and are willing to believe in his goodness, the story can be interpreted differently. As you can see, there is a big Buddha head on the beetle's back, and also, the Wind Tamer. In the original JTTW story, when Wukong struggled against Yellow Wind Guai, he turned to Lingji Bodhisattva, who is the rat's master and also the headless guy in the game, for help, and Wind Tamer was exactly what Lingji offered. It turns out that the bug may relate to Lingji somehow, which was the punishment Lingji brought down to the kingdom, for they no longer worshipped the Buddha. Realizing that, our rat boy stood out for the people and decided to kill that bug, and that's what happened in the secret map of chapter 2. As for the rat-transforming curse, it might be another punishment Lingji brought down out of anger at the rat, because in the Yellow Wind Sage backstory he said it was him who led to the disaster, but not the one to create it.
It's hard to tell which one is good or bad, but it leads you think more about Buddha and Yaoguais, which is just in tune with the gist of the whole story. Much love to your video, and pardon me if my wording is weird for English is my second language.
Nice vid. 🖤Jin chanzi actually is just Tang monk :D
WAIT WHAT?! where does it say that??
@@NeddyTheNoodle it is part of the mythology - Tang monk is the reincarnation of Jin chanzi
Jin chanzi was banished into 10 reincarnations for falling asleep during listening to buddha
Tang sanzang was one of those
@@NeddyTheNoodle He's right
Thank you so much for this vid. I’m about to finish the game but wanted to make sure I really understood the story up to that point. After I beat chapter 4 and 5 I was legit stuck trying to find outlets to help explain what just transpired (ESPECIALLY chapter 4 after the cut scene). Kudos to you brother
The old monkey is a plant from the celestial court imo. In the last scene the circle-shaped ribbon he's wearing should only belong to members of the celestial court.
I didnt catch that!!
可能是唐僧或者是观音
Grew up watching the novel. Ahh bring back so many good memories. Glad westerner trying to understand the story
The burning of the temple in chapter 1 you missed the part why it the fire spread, it was Wukong who saw it coming but instead of straight up confronting them, he borrowed a magic relic (the fireproof mantle which we get to use later, infact alot of these optional assistant relics are straight up used by Wukong on his journey for each of these misfortunes against the bosses) from a deity to protect his master (since killing is forbidden and is one of worst sin in Buddism,so he let karma does its thing) and the fire deflected back and burned everything else
I know this took alot of work I commend you and I know you have to make it comical so its entertaining but I didn't care for this personally.
Lots of errors and glossed over nuanced details. I do understand its very difficult tho.
Even with my limited reasearch yesterday (a few hours online and off) the story is waaaaaay more Epic and absolutely incredible.
Like MGS Epic lol.
I could see why ancient China would get lost in and caught up in this. I wanted to know why the Chinese gamers were just absolutely going crazy for this story so I did a deep dive and was like ahhha. Yep...I get it. Absolutely Epic. And I probably still only scratched the surface
Awesome work man❤❤❤❤didn’t even feel like watching an hour long vid thanks to ur humorous kinda trait of orating the story❤❤❤❤❤
The Lingxuzi we fought isn't the actual real Lingxuzi who was the bear's friend, the real Lingxuzi was killed by wukong in his journey, which the bear didn't want to let the wolf die, so he pieced together his body and revived him. But in order to keep him alive he had to live on the sacrifice of other wolves. Lingxuzi didn't want his pack to keep dying to keep the weakened him alive so he hung himself on the tree, you can find his body on the last bell. In order to keep the wolf pack obedient, the bear helped another wolf to become the alpha wolf, which he also named Lingxuzi. The two Lingxuzi are actually different in Chinese but pronounced the same, one is 灵虚子，the other is 凌虚子
Hi Neddy, big props and kudos for your great work, I can’t help but to leave this comment to you. I am a Chinese Malaysian, and journey to the west has got to to be the childhood of every single Chinese kid!! (At least for 90’s kids)
There are a lot of original lore, scriptures, Taoism, Buddhism concept, even the Chinese Mandarin language itself involved in BMWK, which is like a norm to us but very unfamiliar to western audiences. A lot of essence were missing after the translation, and I hate to say this but most of the westerner streamers don’t seem to understand the lore and backstory of the original story and also each chapter nor the characters, it’s understandable but it’s such a shame because they might have just experienced half of it or even lesser!
I think this game was portrayed like GOW, making the Taoism and Buddhism gods dark entities with filthy secrets, I’ve gotta say it’s brilliant. Wukong went for the pilgrimage but in the end didn’t accepted the offer to become a Buddha. And the celestial courts is insecure about it and ordered Erlang to wipe out HuaGuo Mountain. However, as what’s mentioned in the original lore, Erlang is actually a closed friend to WuKong, they even called each other brothers. So in fact, the reason why Erlang mentioned regardless how, they will still wipe the mountain on the beginning of the game, he was actually giving Wukong hint what will happen next, stopping others and saying only he can duel with him, was to actually protect him from the other gods. Asking Wukong to kneel and admit the wrong doings, was actually trying to bring him back to the court so that he could be spared, but as we know, WuKong would not comply even if it meant his death. And fun fact, actually in the original lore, WuKong simply cannot die, because he went to hell and cancelled his name in King YanLuo’s (Eastern version Hades) death note. Some Yaoguais can even be resurrected even after the head chopped off (what you saw in Chapter 5 with the Bull King after he was tamed/killed by NuoZha but after that brought back to hunt WuKong). So the one who actually killed WuKong, is actually HIMSELF. Erlang mentioned the head band had always been on his head in the secret ending, and it can never be taken off, because the celestial court wish to control him, but Wukong decided to show him that he can take it off, which was to end his life and turn into 6 relics, and only the destined one who has been through 9x9=81 challenges can inherit the true spirit of the Winning Fighting Buddha and break the cycle from celestial court’s and Buddha’s control, and enjoy the freedom, which WuKong sought for after the pilgrimage. And erlang finally met the destined one after hundreds of years in the secret fight, in the end he finally understood what WuKong was trying to express, he’s even kind of envy of what WuKong belief in, because he was also part of celestial court and he can never have freedom, he has to do the dirty works. And that was just part of the whole big BMWK universe!!! If you understood the whole lore and secrets in chapter 4, that shit will blow your mind.
I wish you can have a greater experience with this game because it was pieced together so beautifully and brilliantly fitting the original story. Nevertheless, this is one of the most well rounded videos among English explanations, WELL DONE!
3:57 thumbs up for Eyegina!
The only comment that made me laugh
You've done alot of background research; props to you!
I won't say it's wrong ,because journey to the west can be explained in different perspective , so still interesting to how westerners see the story, Bajie The pig was punished by Jade emperor because he busted Jade emperor having affair with other goddess ,love is somehow strictly forbidden in the celestial court ,not even Jade emperor can survived the consequences , so he punished bajie to keep secret ,And bajie can never reveal his love with spider girl because if jade emperor finds out, most likely will kill all his family ,bajie was a member of celestial court so he will live, but not his family .
Awesome and thanks for putting this together!❤
There’s still so much more about the lore to be found out.
For example, Erlang Shen covered the “sunlight” using cloud at 58:16. Why? It’s because he knew someone is watching and wanted to hide the conversation from the Celestial Court.
Also the Yellow Wind King is not the villain, but the Bodhisattva Lingji is the villain.
The Red Boy is also not a villain - he wanted the relic to revenge the Celestial Court.
Wish you could put an even deeper analysis on the dark side of the story 🧐
Honestly though,I've gathered that something's off with the deities,but I'm still waiting for someone to sum it up.
To gamers who never read the Chinese stories, it is analogous to God of Wars, a mortal challenging gods
Thank you for your efforts! Most of the plot is well analyzed and understood by yourself!
Yes, the creature was Yellow brow, he loved to manipulate human to prove his point, he is also a Buddha but kind of deviated , to be honest , he is supposed to be final boss.He called himself the future Buddha ,that's the title of the Messiah of Buddhism ,definitely not for him, so he is arrogant , it's interesting to see westerners understand this story in different perspective.
Adding this the my wishlist. I love folklore based games and if done right, it turns epic.
I might not be responsible for what I have heard. The reason that the games felt incomplete is because Game Science can only finish 6 of the 12 planned chapters before running into finance problems. Now with the unprecedented sales figures I am quite sure they will have enough resources to finish up the other 6 chapters. So no worries folks, it is a matter of time. I am only hoping Game Science can resist the pressure from the investors to rush the incoming game. I am sure they can as this is the sole reason why they quit Tencent to make the Black Myth game.
Wait, there's 12 chapters initially? So sequel is basically confirmed then...
yeah, I though we saw many things in older trailers that didn't put in the game
Great video,In the interview the SC guys mentioned there were 13 chapters, due to all kinds of reasons it has been reduced to 6, hope they will continue developing the remaining 7, now that they have got sufficient resources.
Do you really understand all these hidden plots in Black myth Wukong?
The old monkey also has a very deep relationship with the gods and Buddhas. The purpose of guiding generations of the destiny ones is to create an obedient great sage with only five roots and no mind to resist. Back then, they killed Wukong and distributed his five roots as traps to the five demon kings who were recruited. The original plan was to wipe out the sixth root which is the mind, but Wukong secretly conspired with Erlang Shen to keep his mind when he died. Wukong's obsession is to remove the tight band on his head . So he took advantage of their plan, destroyed his own body, broke away from the band, and being reborn. Along our new journey, Erlang Shen arranged for his brothers to test the destined one, including the Snake Spirit from Black Wind Mountain, the yellow robed hippopotamu from second chapter and the Cuili martial artist from the third chapter. Finally, the destined one passed Erlang Shen’s own trial in the hidden area of Meishan and allowed the destined one to retrieve the mind. So in the end, the one who was resurrected in the true ending was Wukong, who had all six roots but no band. He woke up completely at the last moment when the old monkey was about to put a golden band on him. In the world of black myth, gods and Buddhas must rely on the support of the common people to achieve immortality. The so-called immortality also requires a steady supply of resources. The so-called Immortal Buddha's position is just the right to allocate resources for life-extending things. What Wukong wants to overthrow is the entire system.
Black Bear has no talent, virtue or ability, but with full luck, he followed Jinchi into Buddhism, raised his status with Bodhisattva, participated in the strangulation of Wukong to obtain one root. His obsession is to rebuild the temple, occupy the mountain and become the king, so he can return to his comfort zone. But the resurrected wolf demon hanged himself, his old friend Elder Jinchi possessed in the copper coins, the snake demon brother was still spy of Erlang Shen, and the land god was arranged by Patriarch Bodhi to help the destined one. When Black Bear got the root, he didn't think about what it meant, nor did he know how to use it. He only used it as a tool to make money. When the destined one arrive, all that is left is the fate of being beaten. The fate of the black bear is the fate of most demon kings.
The yellow rat’s obsession is to support justice, kill bad Buddha and bad demons, and its wish is much more superior than the black bear. He helped the people dispel the punishment imposed by the Bodhisattva, obtained the root and refined it for his own use, and cut off his master's head. However, he was helpless and could not be strong enough to beat the whole system so he could only hide in the yellow wind formation in fear all day long. The gods and Buddhas believed that he had messed up the system. He wanted humans and monsters to coexist. Once the destined one arrives, the gods and Buddhas will naturally be happy to see he was beaten. The rat must be killed and lose the root.
Compared with the rat demon's philosophy, Yellow Brow's philosophy is more brilliant because he knows that breaking the old order cannot be achieved by one person. Yellow Brow has his master Maitreya as his hidden backing, and has his own theoretical system, so he can entangle a group of demons and gods. It's a pity that he is not strong enough to defeat the destined one. If he succeeds it will be another story. The one who hides the deepest is Maitreya. If Yellow Brow’s first attempt to kill the four in Journey to the West could be an accident due to Maitreya's neglect of supervision, the second attempt in our journey to kill the destined one clearly showed the plan followed Maitreya’s will. In Zhu Bajie's words, even a pig won’t believe it. Maitreya's purpose is to establish a new order. On the one hand, he supports Yellow Brow to implement it, and on the other hand, he secretly helps Erlang Shen resurrect Sun Wukong, who is dissatisfied with the old order. He hedged his bets and benefited no matter who won.
Hundred Eyes plays his role as the white glove of Heavenly court. He help the court killed the Maori Star lord who has a Bodhisattva mother, and tried to kill the destined one under the secret orders of the Tusita Palace which is part of the court. It can be seen that even in heavenly court there are people who do not want Wukong to be reborn. His obsession was simply to break free from the seal of the purple talisman of Tushita Palace and become a member of the Immortal Class. However, the spider spirit was a victim from the beginning to the end and was destined to die trapped in the Pansi Cave by the talisman. Poor Hundred Eye was so pathetic. In game text it’s described as “A thread hung from the sky. He didn't know whether it was a blessing or a curse, he just climbed up. “ From the moment he refined the root, as long as he could not kill the destined one, he was destined to be abandoned by the heavenly court. He was still calling Master to save me until his death but no one came.
The bull demon had seen so many conspiracy played by the gods so he was afraid of everything in his old age. He participated in the strangulation of Wukong and was awarded. But was warned by WuKong not to refine the root, so he hid it secretly. He knew that the root was just a trap. It was said to be a reward but was just for him to keep, and someone would come to pick it up sooner or later. When the time comes, if he will be able to give, he lives. And he will die if he cannot give. The bull demon’s obsession is just a complete family. But even such a simple hope was still at the mercy of others. His wife and his own land god were originally Taishang Laojun's disciples. Taishang Laojun betrothed Princess Iron Fan to the Bull Demon as a hidden clue. Princess Iron Fan was ordered to drink water from the Zimu River and gave birth to the last child of the Yasha clan which was the red boy. When the red boy grew up, he clamored to go to Lingshan for revenge to the budahas every day. He was exactly the same as the young Great Sage. So The bull demon dismissed his subordinates and asked his wife to go to various sacred and Buddhist places to see who was willing to suppress the Red Boy, but no one came. He then knew that it had been arranged for his son to revenge by the heavenly court, even through his son did not understand that. As long as the bull demon doesn't give his son the root, the Red Boy will be restrained in the Flame Mountain, which can be regarded as a protection for his son. But the finals will come sooner or later. If Red Boy kills destined one, then Wukong's resurrection will fail, Lingshan will be retaliated, and Heavenly court will win. If the destined one beats Red Boy, it seems to have nothing to do with Heavenly Court, and only the bull demon will be at loss. The Red Boy has a family, but Sun Wukong did not, so there are some things that only Wukong can do, but not Red Boy. What a destiny.
Good story but terrible story telling.
That's a really good summary of the story!
So I think what I got,is that the main thing here is Wukong's ploy with Erlang Shen's help,while everyone else has their own wants & conspiracies going on? Interesting.
I agree with you though,this video could've been better if he didn't add in too much weird jokes and just focus on the lore,cause there's stuff that he misses (even the basic one from the book).
I love that you're expanding your horizons but using your skills to your advantage.
Keep it up!
0:10 had me laughing hard
wow. thank you for this recap. looks like A LOT of work went into this vide.
thanks again.
I believe the old monkey is actually shape shifted by the Buddha Guanyin. Because Guanyin is the Buddha of compassion, and he(yes its a he) usually has that Koromo (floaty cloth belt thing on Celestial being's clothing), which is worn by the old monkey.
Guanyin was also the one that gave Tang monk the Band that which was put on Wukong's head. Him putting it back on the destined one would basically say you had one chance to change your fate, which many don't in the wheel of fate if only you struggled enough to break free. Symbolizing the destined one which is the culmination of Wukong's will wasn't cultivated/trained/experienced enough to break free and thus will go through the cycle once again until enlightenment is achieved.
Agreed. The old dude know too much. He's also enter the end zone which he himself said no one else can enter
It was pure epic, the way you made me understand this beautiful beautiful game and made it even more phenomenal. Thank you for this gem video.
i just copy paste from someone:
For those wondering, yes he is wukong. Wukong split himself into 6 relics to prevent himself from being fully sealed. The character we play as is the embodiment of the 6th relic. In the end you absorb the other 5 and become the real wukong AGAIN. In the bad ending the destined one reject his past self and doesnt fully revive and chooses to become a pawn for the gods while the old wukong remains trapped in the stone. The original wukong couldn't get rid of that headband that weakened him so he came up with a plan with erlang to die and be reborn without the headband weakening him. His reincarnation is the destined one aka the mc for this game. He let erlang kill him and erlang kept his memori3s inside his 3rd eye and waited for him to be reincarnated. Erlang himself admitted in the game when u meet him again that no one could e killed wukong besides himself confirming wukong let erlang kill him. This reincarnation was born stronger because he didn't have the headband. My guess is they're gonna release a bug dlc continuing the story with wukong fighting heaven. I think the continuation will be a dlc because the creator said the next black myth game will be based on a different mythological story from Chinese novels. This is suppose to be the start of a series of different black myth games set in different chinese mythology stories. As to why erlang would help wukong eventhough they were rival. I have no idea and the game doesn't explain it
Erlang actually had a similar experience as Wukong before joining the gods, he screwed the god’s realm for his wife; Wukong also screwed the realm for some reason that I’m too lazy to translate.
And in the original myth, Wukong and Erlang never hate each other, they’re both rivals and friends
A rival who can truly understand Erlang.
In game, ppl are guessing Erlang is mad at Wukong because he chose to give everything up for freedom while Erlang himself chose to bow and obey.
That’s why he helped Wukong, to prove himself right, to prove the only way of serving is to obey.
@@leohsieh3335 not for his wife. To make it right, FOR HIS MOM.
@@leohsieh3335yea this is why he says he’s at peace and had understood wunkongs way of living
bro first time wathcing ur vids and i subbed in the first 15 secs purely based off your energy, keep it up!
You forgot to mention at the beginning that Wukong wasn't defeated by Erlang Shen because Shen was stronger, but because the circlet somehow activated, thus stopping his transformation and causing him immense distress.
Anyway, initially I thought that the Destined One was the Six-Eared Macaque. But now I know that he is actually Wukong himself, or more like it a part of himself. Remember "The Forbidden Kingdom"? The monk was just a strand of Wukong's hair. Before "dying", Wukong sent multiple strands in the world and tasked them with restoring. This is what likely happened here.
"Conveniently looking just like him.." LOL I laughed so loud. Thank you for this.
15:21 mr. beast 🤣
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
This is a damned good video. Would love for you to make separate videos on each bosses' lore or perhaps vids on the abilities and costumes.
i suddenly want to watch monkey magic xD
Bruh. Thank you for this lol. I tried to understand it in other videos but the way you explain it, doesn’t bore me and makes me laugh. You earned a subscriber.
fukkkking !! LMAO i was so into the story and you brought joe biden up out of nowhere.... omggg im laughing like crazy
Thank you so much for this breakdown! This was useful to me!
My condolences