Screenshot by PC Invasion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We\u2019ve got spirit, yes we do<\/h2>\n

But the same goes for enemies. It\u2019s similar to the posture gauge in\u00a0Sekiro<\/em>. You want to attack enemies until they enter spirit disruption, at which point they\u2019ll show a red dot and you can hit them for an animation where you do a large amount of damage (again, like Sekiro<\/em>). This extends to boss battles, where you\u2019ll often be doing most of your damage by taking advantage of this, as you\u2019ll only chip away at their health with any other attacks.<\/p>\n

The combat, as is usual for Team Ninja games, is\u00a0Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty<\/em>\u2018s strongest element. But where\u00a0Nioh\u00a0<\/em>had multiple stances and dense skill trees that offered an enormous amount of depth to the proceedings,\u00a0Wo Long\u00a0<\/em>instead throws this away. Now weapons have skills, called martial arts, attached to them that can\u2019t be removed or applied, unlike any traits the gear may have (extra damage, less spirit consumption, etc). This means you\u2019re completely at the mercy of RNG to determine if you have a weapon with the skills you want.<\/p>\n

On one hand, this means that you\u2019re free to switch between weapons as you choose. You can have two equipped and cycle between them and, since they\u2019re so enjoyable to use, I can understand why this was done. But the depth of\u00a0Nioh<\/em>\u2018s combat was the main thing that kept the game compelling.\u00a0Wo Long: Fallen<\/em> Dynasty<\/em>\u2018s gets staler far earlier. Of course, for every five times you level up, you gain five skill points to allocate to each of the five elemental types. But a lot of these spells are highly similar and, depending on how into magic you are, you may not want to get that much use out of them. But since they\u2019re the only way to change things up, you may find yourself trying them out regardless.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot by PC Invasion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Not you again<\/h2>\n

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty\u00a0<\/em>is divided into levels just as\u00a0the\u00a0Nioh\u00a0<\/em>games were. You pick from a mission to travel to and then you\u2019re dropped at the starting point. The level design here is very similar to those games. The levels themselves aren\u2019t always super memorable, but they get the job done and have enough in the way of exploration that the combat isn\u2019t the sole star of the show.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that they don\u2019t get redundant, however. You\u2019ll reach certain levels and wonder if you\u2019ve been there before, as some of them can look extremely familiar due to some asset reuse, although it\u2019ll take a while before you notice this. But the real issue is the enemies. During the early hours of Wo Long<\/em>, levels are more exciting as you\u2019ll meet new foes and learn how to deal with them. But it doesn\u2019t take long before new enemies stop appearing and you\u2019re forced to confront the same ones time and again. Again,\u00a0Nioh\u00a0<\/em>is just as guilty of all of this, so it\u2019s not that surprising.<\/p>\n

But the lesser depth of the combat means that you\u2019ll be dispatching said enemies in the same way regardless of if you\u2019re in your 10th or 40th hour. Because of this,\u00a0Wo Long\u00a0<\/em>can become notably less interesting after a while. And that\u2019s not the only thing that makes the game less compelling. It\u2019s clear that Team Ninja wants this to be a more accessible adventure, but this isn\u2019t always the case. The difficulty curve ratchets between shockingly easy to being similar to\u00a0Nioh\u00a0<\/em>at the drop of a hat, which makes for a more uneven experience.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot by PC Invasion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The art of unbalance<\/h2>\n

Most levels in\u00a0Wo Long<\/em> strap you with one or two AI teammates straight out of\u00a0Romance of the Three Kingdoms<\/em>. Lu Bei, Zhao Yun, Cao, Cao, and more will fight by your side throughout the course of the game. But the game doesn\u2019t really compensate for their presence, as you\u2019ll often be wailing on enemies that are attacking your teammates. Levels are often safe and not all that challenging since your compatriots draw so much aggro. Mix this with the low enemy variety and boredom can result. But it\u2019s all so inconsistent. Sometimes levels will have you on your lonesome, which makes things more interesting but it also slaughters any sort of difficulty curve.<\/p>\n

Even bosses can be easily beaten in one or two tries due to your helpers. But then there are bosses that can be fiendishly difficult. The game\u2019s opening level is mostly akin to a tutorial, but the second phase of the first boss is a giant difficulty spike. I figured that this was\u00a0Wo Long\u00a0<\/em>announcing that the gloves were off and that things were going to be as tough as you\u2019d expect from Team Ninja, but then the next couple of levels were mostly on the easy side.<\/p>\n

The game ratchets back and forth between easy levels with easy bosses to moderately challenging levels with extremely tough bosses. During the campaign, one boss took me a lot of practice to beat and then the ensuing bosses were similarly tough. But then it was right back to beating bosses in one or two goes. Some of the tougher bosses aren\u2019t even all that good, either. One boss tasks you with fighting an enemy who summons a horde of clones. The game uses a similar camera system to other Team Ninja games, so you have to be locked on to attack enemies, which means you\u2019re going to be taking a ton of damage from projectiles and strong enemy attacks with little recourse.<\/p>\n

The fight compensates by having these attacks do little damage, but you\u2019ll still be watching as you get stunlocked repeatedly as if no one thought to ameliorate this with a more practical fix. While fighting multiple enemies in the levels, you\u2019ll find yourself parrying one you\u2019re not locked onto who then enters spirit disruption. You then have to manually switch targets to hit them with your strong attack, which is awkward.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot by PC Invasion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Can\u2019t see the forest<\/h2>\n

There are other bosses that are mostly easy to deal with, save for the fact that Team Ninja trots out one of its favorite pieces of artificial difficulty \u2013 the instakill grab move. One boss took me a while to beat solely because he kept spamming an instakill grab while he was right in front of me. It\u2019s mostly easy to parry these when enemies have to charge at you, but when they\u2019re right in front of you it can feel borderline impossible to parry. The boss in question used it over and over again too, which I found infuriating. You\u2019re supposed\u00a0<\/em>to get right in their faces, so this feels like an oversight.<\/p>\n

So does the wonkiness of the camera. I had to avoid fighting bosses near walls, as the camera would just make it impossible to see. This was occasionally a problem in\u00a0Nioh 2<\/em> as well, but I\u2019m just kind of flabbergasted that Team Ninja are still including these problematic elements. Another boss had a horse that ran around the arena in circles. On occasion, he\u2019d get in the way of the camera at the worst times. I do enjoy the Sekiro<\/em>-style additions, at least, but they don\u2019t always fit. On the good side, you\u2019ve got the fact that strong enemy attacks, called critical blows, can all be parried, which is highly satisfying when you pull it off.<\/p>\n

Parrying them will fill up a chunk of the red part of their spirit gauge. But there\u2019s also jumping now. The jumping feels okay, but navigating doesn\u2019t feel all that smooth and is a bit clumsy. There\u2019s \u201cstealth\u201d too, which is unfortunately just the same as in most Souls\u00a0<\/em>games and\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>Sekiro. Enemies have bizarrely bad eyesight and can\u2019t see you when you\u2019re mere feet from them. You can put points into an attribute that makes them detect you more slowly, but if you just hold the block button to keep yourself slow and then jump to move, they won\u2019t be aware of you at all if their back is turned, which feels like an oversight.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot by PC Invasion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Grinded up<\/h2>\n

Other than that, it\u2019s the same game structure as\u00a0Nioh<\/em>. You can do side missions and replay main missions to farm for rewards to upgrade your gear, but I mostly never felt like I needed to upgrade anything. I also didn\u2019t feel like the stats I was leveling up really built to much of anything, nor did the game punish me for allocating them based on whims. There\u2019s also a fairly bizarre morale system which forces you to plant flags around a level to become as strong as your foes. I like that this incentivizes exploration, but it does feel like it exists just to add a layer of unnecessary artificial difficulty.<\/p>\n

The game doesn\u2019t look particularly good either, with a lot of pop-in and some fairly bland environments. Some areas are very prone to frame drops for no good reason. The optimization just isn\u2019t all that good even though the game\u2019s visuals are fairly dated. However, despite all of my issues with it, I do like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty<\/em>. Waiting for openings and parrying enemy strikes leads to lively battles and there\u2019s a lot to do, but the wonky difficulty curve, lack of overall depth, and blatant repetition don\u2019t do the game any favors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After reviewing\u00a0Nioh 2 I swore I\u2019d never review another\u00a0Souls-like again. Yet here we are. While I found a lot to like about that game, a few of its design decisions royally got on my nerves. Most of these decisions, thankfully, are\u00a0not\u00a0present in\u00a0Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, which still has exciting combat, fun weapons, and offers some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.pcinvasion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/wo-long-review-1.jpg?fit=1200,675","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-news"],"yoast_head":"\n