I vowed I would never review another Souls-like after finishing Nioh 2. And yet, here we are. Although there were many aspects of the game that I like, some of its peculiarities really annoyed me. Fortunately, the majority of these problems are absent from Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, which nonetheless has thrilling action, enjoyable weaponry, and some amusing twists on Romance of the Three Kingdoms and its (relatively) historical characters. However, in comparison to Nioh, it also provides a great deal less fighting depth and requires players to repeatedly engage in battle with the same few opponents.
To begin with, I can inform you with great happiness that you are no longer experiencing Ki Pulses, continual stamina management, or the loss of most of your persistent healing if you relocate. Instead, standard-issue healing items and a new stamina system modeled by Sekiro are available. Nowadays, the Spirit system is used to properly balance attack and defense while parrying enemies. Running, leaping, and basic strikes don't require any Spirit; but, employing martial arts techniques, spells, blocking, evading, and deflecting do.
Combat seems like a push and pull as a result of this. Your Spirit level is shown in the dead center of the gauge by default. Spirit is gained by hitting an opponent with your basic attack or by successfully parrying an attacker. You lose it if you engage in any of the activities mentioned as using Spirit in the preceding paragraph. The gauge fills in the blue area if you have an excess. The red area will be a deficit. When you are struck when the red area is completely filled, you undergo Spirit disruption, which is essentially a kind of shocked state. As a result, before employing abilities and spells on enemies, you must first maintain a high Spirit by performing simple strikes and parries.
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Yes, we do have Spirit
.However, the same holds true for adversaries; it resembles Sekiro's stance gauge. As foes enter Spirit disruption, you should assault them until they reveal a red dot, at which time you may strike them to trigger an animation that does a lot of damage (again, similar to Sekiro). This also applies to boss fights, as you'll often be using this to your advantage to deal the majority of your damage since you can only use other strikes to erode their health.
The main feature of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is the battle, as is typical for Team Ninja games. However, Wo Long<< tosses this away, while Nioh\had several stances and intricate skill trees that added a great deal of complexity to the proceedings. Contrary to whatever characteristics the equipment may have, weapons now have skills—known as martial arts—attached to them that are permanent (more damage, fewer Spirit consumption, etc). This implies that the RNG will decide whether or not you have a weapon with the desired abilities.
This implies that you may swap between weapons whenever you'd want, on the one hand. Since they're so fun to use, I can see why this was done. You can have two equipped and switch between them. What kept the game interesting, however, was the richness of Nioh's fighting.Wo Long: Fallen IntelligentIt becomes staler much sooner. Naturally, you get five skill points to use on each of the five elemental kinds for every five times you level up. However, a lot of these spells are similar, so you may not want to use them too frequently depending on how into magic you are. However, because they're the only method to make a change, you could find yourself experimenting with them nonetheless.
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Never again you
Levels in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty are identical to those in the Nioh games. After selecting a task to complete, you are left off at the beginning. These games' level designs are very similar to this one. Although levels don't always stand out, they accomplish their objectives and provide enough exploring opportunities to make battle not the only highlight of the game.That's not to imply they go stale, however. It may take some time before you realize that certain levels may seem similar to you because of asset reuse, so you'll question whether you've been there before. However, the opponents are the true problem. Levels are more thrilling in the early hours of Wo Long because you'll encounter new enemies and discover strategies for defeating them. It doesn't take long for new foes to cease showing up, forcing you to repeatedly face the same ones. It is hardly unexpected, given Nioh is also guilty of this.
However, since the fight isn't as deep, you'll still be eliminating the same opponents whether you're on your tenth or fortyth hour. As a result, after some time, Wo Longmay start to seem noticeably less intriguing. Not only that, but there are other factors that detract from the game's appeal. Though this isn't always the case, it's evident that Team Ninja intends the game to be a more accessible journey. The experience is more uneven since the difficulty curve suddenly ratchets between astonishingly simple and being akin to Nioh.
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Unbalance as an art
The majority of Wo Long levels pit you against one or two AI companions directly from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Throughout the game, Lu Bei, Zhao Yun, Cao, Cao, and others will battle with you. However, because you'll often be venting your frustrations on opponents who are assaulting your allies, the game doesn't exactly make up for their existence. Because your other players attract so much attention, the levels are often safe and not too hard. When you combine this with the limited adversary diversity, boredom may ensue. It's all so inconsistent, however. While being alone yourself for a while adds intrigue to a level, it also completely destroys any kind of difficulty curve.
Thanks to your allies, even bosses may be easily defeated in one or two attempts. However, certain bosses might be really challenging. The first boss's second phase represents a massive difficulty bump, yet the majority of the game's initial stage is similar to a tutorial. Though the following few levels were mostly simple, I assumed that this was Wo Longannouncing that the gloves were off and that things would be as difficult as you'd expect from Team Ninja.
The game alternates between really difficult stages with very tough bosses and simple levels with easy bosses. I had to train a lot to defeat one boss throughout the campaign, and the others were just as challenging. However, it quickly returned to defeating bosses in one or two attempts. Even some of the most formidable bosses aren't all that exceptional. One boss puts you in charge of combating an opponent who calls forth an army of clones. You must be locked on to attack adversaries in this game since it has a camera system similar to previous Team Ninja games. This means you will be receiving a lot of damage from missiles and powerful enemy strikes with no way to defend yourself.
Although the battle makes up for this with these hits doing less damage, you will still be watching as you are repeatedly stunned, as if someone had not thought to address this with a more sensible solution. As you battle through the stages, you'll often have to parry an enemy that you're not locked onto so they may enter Spirit disturbance. It is uncomfortable to then have to manually swap targets in order to strike them with your powerful assault.
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The woodland is hidden
Other bosses are rather simple to defeat, however Team Ninja sometimes uses the instakill grab technique, one of their favorite pieces of fabricated difficulty. Because he kept repeating an instakill grab when he was directly in front of me, one boss took me a long to defeat. When adversaries are charging at you, parrying them is usually simple; but, parrying one that is directly in front of you might be almost difficult. I was annoyed by the fact that the manager in question kept using it. This seems like an oversight since you're supposed to get right in their faces.
Likewise, does the camera's crookedness. Bosses near walls had to be avoided since the camera would make it hard to see them. Although this was also an infrequent issue in Nioh 2, I'm still sort of shocked at how persistent it is. An additional boss had a horse that circled the arena. He sometimes got in the path of the camera when it was least expected.
At least, I like the Sekiro-style embellishments, albeit they're not always appropriate. The fact that powerful opponent assaults, often known as critical blows, may all be parried is a plus since it feels great to successfully block one of them.
A portion of the red portion of their Spirit gauge will fill up if you parry them. However, today there's also jumping. While the leaping feels decent, the maneuvering is a little awkward and unnatural. Additionally, there is "stealth," which is regrettably identical to that of the majority of Souls games and not Sekiro. Even when you are just a few feet away from an enemy, they are blind due to their strangely poor vision. If you just press the block button to stay slow and then leap to move, they won't even notice you if their back is turned. However, you may put points into an attribute that lets them detect you more slowly.
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Crushed to a powder
Apart than that, the game structure is the same as that of Nioh. Although you may farm for prizes by replaying major missions and completing side tasks, I never felt the urge to improve anything. Furthermore, I didn't think that the stats I was leveling up actually stacked up to anything, and the game didn't penalize me for assigning them arbitrarily. Additionally, there is an odd morale system that requires you to place flags across a level in order to outshine your opponents in strength. Although I appreciate that this encourages investigation, it does seem like it's there only to provide an extra degree of needless false complexity.
The game's visuals are also a little off, with a lot of pop-in and a few quite boring settings. Certain regions are very vulnerable to unjustified frame decreases. The game's graphics are very antiquated, but the optimization is simply not that excellent. But even with all of my criticisms, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a game I like. There's a lot to do, exciting fights result from waiting for opportunities and blocking opposing hits, but the game suffers from a jumbled difficulty curve, shallow total content, and obvious repetition.
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