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Kinda late to this thread but I have watched and played some of Wukong last week so I will note down my own thoughts about the game itself, isolated from broader cultural context. (I actually managed to completely miss the DEI kerfuffle it reportedly had, gonna look that up)
The good: The presentation is, as the young'uns say, absolute cinema - easily on par with Western hits like God of War (in fact I think it's fair to call Wukong "God of War but Chinese", the parallels broadly hold in most aspects) and imho exceeding them at some points. Major fights in Wukong are exactly what an unsophisticated rube like me pictures in his head when he imagines xianxia - the prologue scene/fight solidly establishes that the sheer spectacle is the main draw of the game, and so far it does not disappoint while still having the difficulty to match,
fuck White-clad Nobleyou are forced to git gud as soon as chapter 1. The game is gorgeous, the monster designs are consistently great, and I physically feel the cultural gap. After so many Western games that SUBVERT LE EXPECTATIONS, seeing a mythical power fantasy played entirely, shamelessly straight feels very refreshing.The great: Special mention to the animated ending scenes for each chapter, with every one having a completely different art style, and an interactive in-game "tapestry" afterwards that serve as loosely-related loredumps to put things into context. Those are universally amazing, with incredible effort put into throwaway 5-minute segments that aren't even strictly speaking related to the game itself - I checked the credits out of curiosity and every cutscene has a separate fucking animation studio responsible for it! That is an insane level of dedication to your storytelling - foreign as the subject matter is to my uncultured ass, the sheer passion to share your culture and get your point across is still unmistakable. This right here should be the bar for every Chinese cultural export going forward.
The mid: I'm conflicted about combat. On one hand it feels a little floaty to my taste, especially the bread and butter light combos, and you do not get the stone form spell (the parry button of the game) until quite a bit into chapter 2 so the only reliable defensive option you have is dodge roll spamming. On the other heavy attacks are very satisfying to charge and land, and the frequent boss fights are almost universally great and engaging, with very diverse movesets for every one. There don't seem to be any bullshit boss immunities either, the Immobilize spell (which completely stops an enemy for a few seconds) works on pretty much every enemy and boss I've seen so far. Hitboxes and especially delayed enemy attacks can be frustrating at times though.
The bad: The exploration is worse than even Souls games; no map, sparse bonfires and very few notable landmarks scattered over the huge levels are not a recipe for convenient navigation. Maybe it's a skill issue on my part but it's been VERY easy to lose track of where you are (and especially where you were) and miss side content - of which there is a lot, adding to the frustration. To be fair, this is also why Souls games aren't my usual cup of tea.
Overall I think it is a very solid game, especially for the first game of the company, and I think that all the hand-wringing about Chinese bots or whatever is misplaced. It's not a masterpiece - it's just a good, solid game, and "organic" breakout hits of this scale are not unheard of, we had one just earlier this year.
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