Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a new souls-like from Team Ninja that seems to be attempting to combine the systems that made the Nioh and Ninja Gaiden games so successful. Wo Long does find success in through the visceral feel of its combat and the agility of the nameless protagonist, but these are the only real standouts. Overall, the two chapters provided for this preview felt surprisingly hollow in its world and bloated in its systems, resulting in a confusing experience that doesn't leave much of an impression.
The Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty preview begins in the rubble of a village attacked by demons and the Yellow Turban Rebels. After saving a mysterious blindfolded boy, players are given control of a nameless militia soldier who has been granted supernatural abilities. This marks the start of Wo Long's tutorial, which introduces the basics of combat, platforming, and important objects such as battle flags, which are this game's version of Dark Souls' bonfires. However, this tutorial section overstays its welcome by introducing more and more systems throughout the first and second chapters, causing players to quickly lose track of what's going on.
For example, in addition to learning the basics of attacking, dodging, and parrying, players are then introduced to martial arts attacks, spirit attacks, and wizardry spells. Martial arts attacks are like special heavy attacks for staggering, but spirit attacks are also heavy attacks that stagger and do critical damage. Wizardry spells are elemental attacks that use spirit energy, but this spirit energy has nothing to do with the spirit attacks or the player's spirit, which is essentially their stamina, but is instead referring to the elemental spirit that players can summon after filling up enough spirit energy. This is one of many examples of confusing systems that blend together in unintuitive ways.
Because of this, combat became reliant on learning how to parry and counterattack, which feels great to successfully pull off thanks to the mix of Sekiro-like rhythm to parrying and a combination of effects that make successful counterattacks feel visceral. The downside is that this reliance doesn't encourage aggressive gameplay, instead it rewards the player for waiting and attacking in small bursts.
While these systems, as well some of the U.I., feel bloated and confusing, the world itself feels hollow. Each Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty area is beautifully crafted in its visuals and layouts, with sub-areas that provide extra challenges and rewards before looping back into the main path. Despite some beautiful video game locations presented in this preview, none were memorable or stood out, resulting in the sense that the player was moving from one series of basic wooden homes to the next without any variation. Additionally, there aren't any notes, personal belongings, or any other signs that anyone lived in these places.
Even the boss battles struggled. This preview only gave access to three boss fights and while the combat was still enjoyable, it was unclear as to why the latter two bosses had to be fought at all. The first boss makes sense for story reasons, but the other bosses were just big monsters that had really cool designs and animations, but had no clear attachment to the main character or story.
Despite these unique designs, animations, and offensive kits, the fights were always completed quickly and somewhat easily by parrying, countering, dodging, and repeating. It's disappointing to fight video game bosses that look stunning but have no obvious weak points, elemental interactions, or unique approaches. While Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty may have some great surprises in store as the game continues, the opening two chapters aren't very inviting and leaves one wanting more.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty releases March 3 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox GamePass, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a Steam digital download for the purpose of this preview.
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Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
- Platform:
- PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, Steam
- Released:
- 2023-03-03
- Developer:
- Team Ninja
- Publisher:
- Koei Tecmo
- Genre:
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash, Soulslike
- Multiplayer:
- Online Co-Op
- Engine:
- Proprietary Team Ninja Engine
- ESRB:
- M
- Summary:
- Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a new action-soulslike game from Team Ninja, the developers of Ninja Gaiden and Nioh. Set during the Later Han Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, players will create their own military soldier battling within a great war, trying to survive and repel the Yellow Turban rebellion. Inspired by ancient Chinese mythology and history, players will learn to master various weapons and magic spells as they face legendary soldiers and powerful and monstrous beasts on their quest. To even out the difficulty, players can choose to face foes at their level for a more careful path or face greater foes for even greater rewards.
- Mode:
- Single-Player, Multiplayer
