Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review (BrutalAce)
Okay so I know this game isn't perfect but it's far from bad either. People who are complaining about performance/crashes and other bugs probably don't know what it was when it got released. I played this on day one on Game Pass and it was a broken mess. Massive frame rate dips, random slow downs and crashes, horrible controls you pick your poison, all of this on top of a game designed to work with good reflexes is a recipe of frustration.
I gave up on it after playing first 3 - 4 areas and never looked back. Today I bought it on Steam at a sale price and decided to give it another go because I can easily say that behind all of the issues I mentioned above there is a great game waiting to make you enjoy and I am pleased to report that majority of the issues I faced on day one are gone, the game runs silky smooth and I haven't faced a crash in my 4 hours play but I am not counting that out yet.
One of the biggest areas where they improved are the controls, call me whatever you like but I play these games with Mouse and Keyboard and KB/M support was a total disaster on launch, they have a fixed all of that and while I won't say that it feels like it's designed for KB/M, it does feel like it has good support for KB/M now.
Speaking past that, this is a unique fusion of Nioh games and Sekiro while not being as difficult as Sekiro. The challenge and difficulty is still very much there but I can say that it's a lot more accessible than Sekiro due to having access to multiple classes, weapons, a whole ton of abilities and companions who are usually decent in distracting the bosses away from you.
Combat is fast paced like Nioh and doesn't rely on separate bars like Stamina and Mana instead it's simplified into one bar called spirit bar and this bar is like your currency to perform actions. The reason I call it currency is because it can be either spent and earned for example actions like special attacks cost you spirit while actions like deflecting incoming attacks gain the spirit, your goal is to manage your spirit bar in such a way that you don't run out (spend all) of it otherwise you will be posture broken resulting in your character running out of breath and not being able to perform any action for short duration of time leaving you open to attacks. The more spirit you earn the more special actions you can perform without running out quickly.
Overall this mechanic is more relaxed than managing your Stamina and makes the combat more action oriented such that sometimes you don't even have to watch your spirit bar unless you're fighting a boss or difficult enemy.
Like Nioh games Wo Long offers a lot of other weapons like Bows, Dual Swords, Spears and even throwing knives. It also offers you special abilities like summoning a mystical creature to assist you in battle with some serious damage to the enemy or buffs to your character and companions around.
The game also offers several gear pieces that look cool and detailed along with standard Souls like stats like defence, physical resistance, elemental resistances, weight and more. You can also earn your companion's armor by developing strong bond with them.
Graphics wise this game looks okay, like majority of Souls games it won't drop your jaw on floor when it comes to graphics but it looks decent and better than some Souls games. Sound design is also okay but I feel like a lot of stuff has been recycled from Nioh games.
The world design offers a lot of varied locations to explore and enjoy along with several unique enemies that can be both fun to fight or extremely frustrating to defeat. Like majority of Souls games the story is not a strong point of Wo Long but it does at least offers some story featuring historical characters in a fictional world during the fall of Han Dynasty.
Character design looks cool, I am a big fan of Asian characters and this game doesn't disappoint in that area. Along with rich and beautiful looking NPCs and companions you can also make your own character beautiful using the expensive character creator and unlike majority of Western games, the female characters don't shy from looking beautiful in this game, thank you Japanese developers.
All and all Wo Long Fallen Dynasty is an underrated Souls like game that deserves praise. Unfortunately it was marred by technical issues and glitches that stopped it from becoming an excellent game but I think devs have fixed a lot of issues from what I experienced on day one and therefore I think this deserves a chance. If you love Souls and Nioh games then you won't be disappointed.