Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Review: Team Ninja Continues To Soar

Amongst a sea of cheap imitators, Team Ninja’s Nioh series always stood head and shoulders above the competition for me regarding souls-likes. By infusing the genre with the studio’s trademark lightning-quick combat, randomized loot, and incredible build diversity, the developers showed that they weren’t content with simply imitating the fantastic work coming out of From Software, and instead wanted to carve out a niche of their own. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, thankfully, is a successful continuation of the formula established by Nioh that also manages to expand upon that recipe by drawing inspiration from From Software’s most significant departure from the traditional souls-like, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Three Kingdoms

As expected, Wo Long continues Team Ninja’s preference of drawing from East Asian history and mythology, this time leaning on a Chinese mythological and historical framework. Set against the backdrop of the Three Kingdoms period at the fall of the Han dynasty, players pick up the role of an anonymous militia soldier, aiding in the struggle against the Yellow Turban rebellion. Of course, being a Team Ninja title, there is a heavy dollop of fantasy included, and soon the protagonist is rushing headfirst into a conspiracy involving a search for a mythical elixir that has the ability to bestow great power and immortality on anyone who dares drink it, which spells disaster should it end up in the wrong hands.

Narratively speaking, Wo Long is a mixed bag. Great lengths have been gone to in ensuring that the Chinese mythology shines through as you battle dragons, gain the ability to summon divine beasts, and encounter like-minded allies who also share this ability. However, the flip side of this is how disjointed everything can feel at times. Missions usually begin and end with cutscenes, with very little in between, with the game throwing countless characters into the fray before pulling them again before you truly understand their place in the story or their motives. I have no doubt that there is a great story here somewhere, but unfortunately, it just doesn’t get time to breathe or give the player time to breathe, for that matter. In the end, if I’m to be completely honest, I tuned a lot of the story out, and due to the way in which it’s delivered, I expect a lot of players to do the same.

Peak Team Ninja

So the storytelling leaves a bit to be desired, but Wo Long is so strong in almost every other area that, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. This is a studio clearly at the top of its game, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the combat system.

At its core, this is the same brutally difficult, pacey, and variety-filled combat that has always underpinned Team Ninja’s work, only this time, the difficulty and speed have been dialed all the way up to eleven. If you’ve played Nioh or its superb sequel, things will initially feel familiar as the core pillars of fast-paced combos with magic attacks weaved in for good measure remain perfectly intact. Where Wo Long manages to differentiate itself, though, is through its new parry system, which shares a lot of similarities with Sekiro. 

Much like Sekiro had its posture meters that could gradually be broken down via deflecting attacks, Wo Long has a spirit gauge. Deflect enough of the enemies’ attacks, and the spirit gauge begins to fill, with enemies opening up for huge fatal strikes once their spirit has been broken. In addition, the player also has a spirit gauge which can enter both positive and negative states. Deflecting attacks and landing normal attacks sees it enter the positive state, with your attacks dealing more damage the further into the positive you climb. Not only will your attacks deal more damage, but this positive spirit also then acts as the resource players need in order to launch special martial art attacks and spells. Using these special abilities sees your spirit deplete, as does taking damage from enemies, with full depletion leaving you open to the same fatal strikes as you are able to land on your opponents.

I cannot emphasize enough the amount of tension these interlocking systems inject into battles. Team Ninja’s combat systems have always been tough and daunting, and initially, adding the spirit system into the equation on top of what is already a typically difficult affair seemed like overkill as I tried to wrap my head around it. Once it clicks, though, my gosh, it is glorious. Each encounter becomes this strategic tug of war. Do you push with attacks and build that meter up, or do you patiently wait and time your deflections, waiting for that spirit to break, leaving you with the perfect opening? Now your spirit is built up, do you risk unleashing your special abilities in an effort to demolish the enemy’s health bar, or do you play it safe, knowing that doing so will see your own spirit deplete and potentially lead to a devastating attack from your opposition?

It’s in the boss encounters that these decisions become most important. For most bosses, once you’ve progressed out of the first few levels, hacking and slashing simply won’t do. These are monstrous behemoths with stacked health pools that demand a full knowledge of how to balance Wo Long’s intricate combat systems. Sure, you can chip away at health bars through standard attacks, but you’ll be there a while, and likely won’t survive long enough for that tactic to result in victory. No, instead, you need to watch out for the bosses’ unblockable critical attacks, which, if deflected, do immense spirit damage and let you land those devastating counters.

Put simply, you won’t roll credits if you don’t get comfortable with how Wo Long wants you to engage in its battles, but it is absolutely a learning curve worth putting up with. As I mentioned to a colleague here at HPP, this might be my favorite take on a souls-like combat system to date. The responsiveness of the parry, the speed and fluidity with which you can unleash attacks and spells, and the enemy variety that never lets you settle into a comfortable rhythm all come together in spectacular fashion to create something that feels familiar, yet totally unique at the same time.

Help Is At Hand

If I’ve made Wo Long sound like a brutal and unforgiving experience so far, that’s because it absolutely is brutal and unforgiving. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t mechanisms built in to aid you in your journey.

Key to mitigating the difficulty of Wo Long is the morale system. Each enemy within a level, as well as the player, has a morale rank. As the player takes out enemies, the morale rank can increase, and as the player then suffers an inevitable death, that same rank lowers while the rank of the enemy who did the deed increases. The higher your rank, the more damage you do against enemies and vice versa.  Where it becomes possible to manipulate the system is through the fortitude system, which compliments morale ranks. Dotted around each level are checkpoints where you can plant flags, each flag increasing your fortitude, which in turn raises the floor to which your morale can drop. So if you plant a flag that, let’s say, increases your fortitude rank to fifteen, that is now the minimum your morale rank can ever drop to in that level, even if you leave and come back.

It’s a really neat way of handling difficulty, and extremely well-balanced. Sure, it’ll let you become an overpowered monster in certain levels, but never to the extent that bosses and sub-bosses become trivial, given you still have to master the deflecting system. Further to this, you really have to put in the work if you want to unlock all the fortitude-increasing flags. Many of them are dotted in devilishly difficult positions, surrounded by tough enemies, meaning it isn’t just a case of a quick sprint around each level. Some of the most brutal in-game battles precede being able to increase fortitude, so it’s more of a reward to make future runs through a level easier than it is a straight-up assist available from the off.

What’s more, the flag system completely overhauls exploration, something that Team Ninja has historically struggled with. While both Nioh games presented the player with completely linear levels that offered little scope for exploration, the flag system has, it seems, forced the developers to create more sprawling environments. You won’t encounter anything that approaches From Software’s best-in-class level design, but there are huge improvements compared to Team Ninja’s prior work. It also allows for a greater sense of environmental diversity, even within individual levels, something Nioh’s linear corridors didn’t lend themselves well to.

RNGesus

Of course, being Souls-like, Wo Long places a lot of emphasis on player progression. The usual Souls tropes can be found in abundance. Such as experience being lost on death (though in a merciful move, players will only lose half of what they are carrying), respawning enemies, and dumping points into specific stats to allow for equipping different spells and attacks. In terms of leveling and character growth, Wo Long feels great, with levels coming at a reasonable rate, and a vast variety of elemental-based magic to experiment with depending on what stats you focus on.

Unfortunately, much like Nioh, gear progression still relies heavily on RNG. While loot drops aren’t as constant as Nioh, they are still frequent and still carry randomized stats, star ratings, and rarities, and it’s still all too common for players to have their inventories stuffed with mindless junk that they have no need for. While it isn’t a problem in the early game, when you hit late game, and the going gets really tough, this system still makes it incredibly difficult to farm for the gear you want, with the stats you want. Adding further to the frustration, Team Ninja has done away with the weapon skill trees that they used in Nioh, instead opting for a system that sees weapons drop with set abilities, or ‘Martial Arts’ attached to them. This only adds further to the RNG wall as you lose further control over tailoring your gear toward your playstyle.

It’s not a deal breaker, and it’s entirely possible to finish Wo Long with gear that even generally fits your playstyle, but for min-maxers, it’s a system that continues to be a nightmare.

Technical Hiccups

On the technical side, Wo Long performs well for the most part. It largely runs at what feels like a flawless 60fps in performance mode and manages to look great while doing it. The engine is starting to show its age via the sometimes muddy textures, but ultimately the art direction and stellar performance make this easy to forgive.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the generally solid performance comes undone at times with an intrusive stutter that sometimes occurs. At random intervals, the on-screen action will freeze momentarily, usually only for a split second, but in a game where timing and deflecting attacks are of paramount importance, this is still too long. I even had two instances where the game hitched in this manner and then crashed, bringing me back to the dashboard of my Series X. It never occurred often enough that I was put off from jumping straight back in, and there is every possibility that this will be sorted through a day one patch, but ultimately it is something that impacted my experience quite drastically at times, so definitely warrants a mention.

Almost Flawless

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a damn near flawless game. The combat, while demanding, is the most rewarding combat system I’ve encountered, not just within Team Ninja’s portfolio, but within the Souls-like genre in general. By placing a focus on the timing of deflections and playing defense, without sacrificing any of their trademark speed and intensity, the developers over at Team Ninja have created a system that may just represent the peak of the genre. Along with the improved level design and a focus on exploration that rewards going off the beaten path, much like Elden Ring was for From Software, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty feels like the near-perfect refinement of the formula they’ve iterated on over the years. If you can look past the admittedly frustrating focus on randomized gear and a slightly incoherent story, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a masterpiece that deserves a place in the collection of any Souls-like fan.

Final Verdict: 4.5/5

Available On: PS5 (Reviewed), PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Publisher: Koei Tecmo Games; Developer: Team Ninja; Released: March 3rd, 2023; Players: 1-2; ESRB: Mature 17+; MSRP: $59.99

Full Disclosure: A review copy was provided to Hey Poor Player.