Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, which has already received positive reviews from the Western press, is a continuation of the ideas of Nioh. Not surprising, because the developer is the same. But Wo Long has become better than its predecessor, if not in everything, then in many ways. We decided to figure out who should play the new project from Team Ninja and collected the distinctive features of the game in one place.
Run for Wo Long if…
Are you waiting for the new part of Nioh?
As mentioned above, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a direct follower of the ideas of the previous Team Ninja project. The games are similar in many ways: the equipment, combat and magic systems are taken directly; building levels from a gameplay perspective rather than realistic design. But Wo Long also has improvements to the mechanics from Nioh – a modified combat system with combinations of attacks by enhancing attacks with “spirit” magic, a different approach to placing the player’s spawn points after death, a “morality” system that influences the damage of the player and opponents.
Love slashers, not clumsy Souls-likes
Compared to Nioh, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has taken a step forward. The local combat system no longer looks as “wooden” as before: weak attacks are interspersed with blows from spirit powers, the fatigue bar flows into stronger attacks, the main character jumps around the screen like a grasshopper, and there are an abundance of effects from the magic used – it all looks exciting.
Plus, the combat system has acquired a new technique – reflecting an attack, which, although reminiscent of parrying from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, is made more convenient for the person behind the screen. Each reflected blow increases the enemy’s fatigue and fills the character’s spirit bar – this is a new mechanic with which the player changes the strong attack and deals more damage.
You play on consoles
Having tried the demo version of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty on PlayStation 5, I had positive impressions about the technical state of the project. A couple of graphics modes (performance, quality), convenient control and use of DualSense, a nice picture. And if you’re playing on Xbox Series X, you’ll also get the game on day one of Xbox Game Pass, which is a great deal unless the Xbox version performs worse than the PlayStation version. Such incidents, unfortunately, are becoming more and more common.
Online play in these types of games is important to you
There is no shame in using the help of good Samaritans to help you overcome difficult bosses. Team Ninja thought so too and made the right choice by adding the ability to play with friends and strangers – this will also help expand the base of players who want to play something cooperative.
Wo Long Dynasty will also feature invasions into the worlds of other players, and with the presence of co-op for three people, no one forbids organizing “fight clubs” – like in Dark Souls. Plus, with the local loot system, you will have to prepare for such battles for a long time.
Pass by if…
Don’t like hardcore games
Like Nioh, Wo Long is a difficult game. This can be understood if you start the demo and reach the first boss of the location – the General of People. Its first phase is easy, even beginners in such games can handle it. But the second, when the boss turns into a huge monster with a red hand, will make even hardcore fans of the Souls and Nioh series sweat – even the slightest mistake of the player is punished. And this is just a warm-up – it will only get worse. Bosses on horses, spearmen with long-range attacks, monsters from Chinese mythology with a bunch of tentacles – you will have to spend a lot of nerve cells.
You’re denying the grind
The new “morale” system literally pushes you into monotonous runs of killing enemies in an area until the player reaches the maximum “morale” level. The fact is that opponents are also endowed with this system – a kind of attempt to give the player an understanding of which zones are not worth exploring yet. But the player can “pump up” and gain level 25 of “morale”, reducing incoming damage to himself and increasing damage to opponents. This also works with bosses – in reviews of Western journalists, the main bastards slightly exceed morality level 20. Death at the hands of the enemy lowers the level of morality, but no one bothers you to go “swing” again.
It’s better not to start talking about grinding equipment at all – each element of armor has separate characteristics that the player will have to transfer to recently acquired weapons, bracers, armor or a hat. Of course, for resources and local currency. And this means only one thing – grind, grind, grind.
Not familiar with Chinese mythology
Western reviewers note the problematic presentation of the local plot – it seems that Team Ninja seemed to hope that the person playing Wo Long already knew the story of the Three Kingdoms. The characters are not introduced to the player, their stories are not told. But they are stuffed with color, the names of military leaders and their accomplishments. They also do not explain the appearance of monsters, dead people and other paranormal things – as if this was a matter of course for China of the 3rd-4th centuries AD.
You only play on PC
I would like to warn PC users – be careful if you intend to purchase Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. The game is terribly optimized and manages to slow down even at low graphics settings – with a picture not much different from Nioh 2. This also includes the complete lack of support for non-standard resolutions and terrible keyboard and mouse controls – Team Ninja’s previous creation suffered from similar problems, but they did not fix them.
If you have Xbox Game Pass, it’s best to try the Microsoft subscription version first. But personal acquaintance with the PC version and player reviews are not encouraging – it seems that we are facing the first technical failure on personal computers this year.