3.5/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

The spiritual successor to Nioh 2, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is essentially the same Soulslike action game, but this time, it’s set in Middle Ages China. Similar to Nioh, China’s folklore and myth are woven into the fictionalized version of real-life historical events surrounding the fall of the Han dynasty, leading into the Three Kingdoms era. If you like Nioh 2, you will most likely enjoy this game as well. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on in this game, narrative-wise; similar to Nioh 2, I can’t just can’t be bothered to keep up with what’s going on with all these generic characters. But the end, I was familiar enough with a few of the characters to at least be wowed by the ending, it was definitely spectacle. Nevertheless, I did learn a lot about this period in Chinese history by doing some light internet reading, and I would not have done so without being prompted by this game. If you’ve never read about the real life historical figure, legendary warrior, and Dynasty Warriors staple Lu Bu, do yourself a favor and google him; very interesting guy. The one thing this game delivers and improves on is combat. Like most of these games, the mechanics are centered around the parry; and what a fantastic parry it is. You can parry any attack, regardless of the force or the size of an enemy; let me tell you, it feels great to pull off a clean parry against a giant, hulking tentacle-cow demon. There’s maybe ten or so weapon types; the sheer number of different weapons is a step down from Nioh 2, so that does lessen the variety of play styles. Team Ninja also ousted the three stance system from Nioh, with each weapon type having a core set of moves and customizable special attacks. I did miss playing around with the different stances, which weapon type’s stance worked best with which enemy, that sort of thing. But ultimately, it worked toward the goal of trimming more fat and wasn’t much of a problem. The level design was okay; on an artistic design level, I loved it. I had a blast hacking my way through enemy-occupied villages, facing down monsters in Medieval sewers, and epic duels in castle courtyards. The score, the voice acting, the combat, all just serve the greater epic grandeur that is Wo Long. That being said, the structural design of the levels wasn’t great at times. I spent way too much time running around, looking for the way forward or some collectible. The monotonous and maze like quality of some of the levels just served to frustrate and not challenge. On a more positive note, Wo Long does cut down some of the bloated fluff that Nioh 2 had a bit too much of. The sub levels (side missions that use parts of main level regions for minor challenges) are a bit smoother, shorter, there’s less of them; overall, it’s part of a bigger improvement Wo Long made to the formula in that things are just a little more condensed, which felt so much better for me. There’s still a ton of game here, and the challenges are there should you want them. The slimming down doesn’t always serve the best interest of the game. For one thing, Nioh 2’s massive and high quality enemy roster was a high point of the game. Wo Long pales by comparison, both in design and variety. There’s still some really cool monsters that show up, just not enough different types. The bosses are pretty hit or miss as well. There’s some DLC that came out for this game, but I skipped it cus I heard it wasn’t great. That, and the base game was more than enough. I just had to do one little push in a few sessions to get the platinum trophy after beating the last boss. In hindsight, Wo Long is pretty solid; Team Ninja trimmed some of the fat but lost some of Nioh’s fluidity and bigger world. If I hadn’t said so yet: I do love this game. Like Nioh 2, it just has such a tight, snappy feel. It’s essentially a shorter, scaled down, almost as good version of Nioh 2 set in China…if that sounds good to you, get this game.