Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty reminds me of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Nioh and Ninja Gaiden. It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that the Ninja Gaiden / Nioh team at home at Team Ninja are the creators behind this action saga. In the preview version we got to test two courses. Both featured Souls-inspired game mechanics. However, thanks to aspects such as double jumping, the feel of one of the developers’ previous series, such as Ninja Gaiden, was present. That mix sounds fantastic on paper and I can firmly claim that it materializes beautifully in game form as well. It’s difficult, interesting and very, very cliche.
You create your own character in Wo Long. There is not very much story in the preview version that we tested, but Tecmo throws you straight into the hot air in the role of a completely ordinary foot soldier. The scene is China during the Three Kingdoms era. There are rugged battlefields, besieged cities and beautiful green environments with protruding vegetation and Chinese architecture. Even though it’s a fantasy interpretation of the time period, the developers put a lot of time into how the world looks and navigates. You will also meet characters from the stories around the time period. These warlords can be used by you as help. You can summon these to facilitate your gaming session. The system is much better for lone wolves who like to play alone, than in Dark Souls. At the same time, it can make passages a bit simple. You are forced to use help in several missions in the story, but choose outside of these if you want extra help.
Once you’ve created your character with many appearance settings, it’s time to wander into this world. There are tons of weapons that all feel different and exciting to master. Staffs, swords, bows and much more. I liked the rods and spades pretty quickly, they felt flexible to tackle many situations with. A sign of a good combat system is that all forms of weapons feel useful. You also have the option to block and parry. This is an important instrument in many similar games such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. You are encouraged to block, parry and then use your powers. It is thanks to this that you build up your gauges which in turn allow you to perform more special attacks. Imagine a system that wants to balance defense and offense. The character we got to test also had access to magical abilities that were easy to use. It could be summoning spikes out of the ground and things like that. Unlike Fire Ring where you mostly use magic or weapons, Wo Long wants you to use both at the same time. Blocking, parrying, grappling and using special abilities (magic) in the heat of battle worked great. You can also sneak up on enemies and execute them with backstabs thanks to the character’s stealth abilities.
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What would a game like this be without bosses? In Wo Long I only got to meet a few during the trial version. Without giving too much away, these are big, well-designed and enjoyable challenges. However, the bosses were of very uneven difficulty. Some like a large wild boar were a bit too easy. A crocodile that was not mandatory was pure killing machine and took my life many times. The same thing of course also applies to the enemies. Some are easy and others are harder nuts to crack. It comes down to learning their attack patterns and what tools in your portfolio you need to hack down the opposition. For veterans of the Souls genre, this will be familiar. It took me many tries to find a weakness to a spiked and rolling enemy. Once that happened, the classic aha experience came. It is very clear where the inspiration from this adventure comes from and what is offered is qualitative. If you have an interest in the Three Kingdoms, Chinese mythology and the Souls genre, there is something here.
There is a good mix of what makes the developer’s previous titles good but also some exciting new thinking. One such is the flags you can place and get increased “fortitude”. Morale is what determines how strong or weak you are in relation to the enemies. Their morale doesn’t change much mine can decrease if you die, or increase if you defeat enemies. The flags enable morale to never go below the “fortitude” you got from flags. This means that if you explore and activate these, you can die without being too weakened. The flags also work as classic Souls bonfires. This means that the system encourages exploration in a smart way. Even if the exploration leads you to be murdered by monsters.
Visually, it can both shine and look dated. The same goes for both audio and voice acting which is uneven with English voices. Some of the bosses looked amazing like the aforementioned crocodile. At the same time, the environment can look flat in parts and the animations a little lacking. However, the decoding of attacks and other things worked well. This happens thanks to easy-to-read telegraphing of movements and other things to the player. The slightly flat textures can, after all, help the reading possibilities. Graphics that are too plot-rich and detailed can interfere with the ability to read what is happening. The balance between visibility and graphics is good. Based on the trial version, this adventure promises well. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty will be released on March 3rd for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, including day one on Game Pass.
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