[baja_blast]

What politics of today in any way fit with a 500 story about a magical Monkey fighting monsters? I just want a compelling game, no one is going to change their politics suddenly after playing a magical monkey game. For politics there is a time and a place, do you think there should be political messaging in Banana bread recipes as well?

[lawlessone]

>I just want a compelling game

K, instead of crying, can you give an example of a compelling story that isn't in some way political?

[talldayo]

What politics don't fit in such a story, besides the ones the developers are afraid of telling? Wukong is based on Journey to the West, a story which itself is rife with political allegory. If the developers want to faithfully adapt that story to a new medium, they have to either adapt the original message or update it with a new one. Otherwise you might not even bother basing it on a story at all and just name the main character Donkey Kong.

Being political doesn't mean ranting about Disney movies or trying to endorse political candidates. In Soulslike tradition, it means telling a story about classical conflict defined by postmodern fantasy. Dark Souls was about manipulation and illusion, set against the backdrop of a struggling (fictional) kingdom that grooms the player into supporting a horrible ritual. Sekiro tells a story about monks and clergymen giving up their ritual purity (kegare) to attempt a selfish religious transcendence. Bloodborne is about... well, feminist propaganda, and men ignoring it in order to unravel a science that makes them less human. Elden Ring is entirely propped-up by political intrigue, if you get to the end of the game you genuinely will not understand what has happened unless you understand the diagetic politics of the game's story. These are Wukong's contemporaries, whether the developers like it or not.

So... with that being said, I don't look at Wukong and think "Wow, these developers sure feel confident about the message they're trying to tell". It feels like another example in the far-too-long list of mediocre games released by a state-sponsored Chinese studio too afraid to excel. I don't want to play video games that compromise their storytelling because they're afraid of how the player might react. It's a disrespectful waste of my time.