Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty review

Don’t let the first boss battle fool you, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty isn’t as excruciating as it first appears. Instead, shifting the game’s sophisticated systems to provide an advantage proves to be the best advice on this battlefield.

Few written works have interpretations with as much range as Luo Guanzhong’s fourteenth-century historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Beyond operas, films, and television programs, Koei Tecmo’s eponymously titled grand strategy series delves into the complex political mechanisms of the warring states period. Elsewhere, the publisher’s Dynasty Warriors franchise demonstrates the extraordinary fighting prowess of Three Kingdoms’ key figures, who topple hundreds of opponents during combat.

Team Ninja’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty re-images the epic as dark fantasy. It’s a context where vulnerability is ubiquitous. After creating your protagonist in an elaborate (yet not quite as robust as Nioh 2’s comparable component) character creation suite, players will tackle Three Kingdoms notables like Lu Bu, Cao Cao, and Dong Zhou. In keeping with Soulslike convention, each initially offers a level of opposition that can initially feel impenetrable. But following an inaugural face-off against an incredibly hard-hitting Zhang Liang, Fallen Dynasty settles down for a much more manageable trek. But it’s also one where combat relies on basic parries, which might limit long-term appeal. About three-quarters of the way through the game’s campaign, I was ready to stow my weaponry.

Parrying Your Way Through History

When compared to a game like FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Fallen Dynasty can feel a bit simplified. Missing is the complex system of non-guardable enemy thrusts, sweeps, grabs, and lightning attacks. These compelled players to carefully scrutinize enemy behaviors and pay attention to opponent stances. With Wo Long, you’ll continue to read the ‘tells’ of each opponent. But parrying proves to be the persistent counter and is far more essential than merely blocking or dodging. For better or worse, there’s lenience here, with an unexpectedly generous timing window. Mercifully, several design decisions counterbalance continual deflection.

Fallen Dynasty’s Spirit system is at the root of Team Ninja’s approach, replacing the genre’s traditional stamina meter. Its intent is noble, with the mechanic introducing a sensation of momentum to battle, rather than merely varying the pacing of fights. When you receive damage, block, dodge, or use your Wizard Spells, these actions push the meter toward the negative/orange side. Conversely, landing strikes and deflecting attacks push it toward the blue/positive direction.

May Momentum Be at Your Side

If you allow the bar to completely descend into orange, you’ll face the possibility of becoming stunned. During a boss fight, not being able to move or block for a few seconds can be fatal. But when the Spirit upsurges into the blue, you’re able to dish out immense amounts of damage and freely assault your adversary with spells. Being able to deflect an opponent’s Critical Blow can quickly turn the tide of battle. As such, it’s not surprising that augmenting your Spirit Gauge conveys a sense of power. Not only will you gain advantage more quickly but you’ll also hold onto your elevated status longer, changing the way you confront and fight enemies.

Pleasingly, the Spirit system isn’t Wo Long’s only advanced mechanic. Morale Rank dynamically adjusts the amount of challenge, rather than relying on discrete difficulty settings or fixed character progression. Every opponent that you’ll challenge has their own ranking which influences their willingness for confrontation. Pick a fight with an enemy with a lower Morale Rank, and you’ll benefit from increased damage output and reduced vulnerability from their attacks. Like Fallen Dynasty’s Spirit mechanic, expect a tougher challenge when confronting adversaries with a higher ranking. But the benefit of swiftly increasing your standing often justifies the risk, especially since your inventory of Daoist spells is tied to your Morale Rank. When defeat inevitably arrives, your ranking will decrease. But mercifully, it never drops below your Fortitude Rank. This threshold ensures that taking the inevitable beating isn’t prohibitively discouraging.

Since your ranking resets at the beginning of each stage, Wo Long incentivizes exploration. A successful strategy entails not just stalking lower-ranking foes but also planting Battle Flags, which represent Fallen Dynasty’s bonfires. These replenish your consumables as well as raise your Fortitude and are occasionally guarded, making the occupation of an area feel like a modest victory. Occasionally, you’ll encounter smaller flags that won’t function as checkpoints or even renew your healing items, but they will rejuvenate your health.

Lessened Amounts of Loot

The concluding component of Wo Long’s sophisticated systems is its inventory system. Pleasantly, Team Ninja toned down the amount of gear dropped by enemies, so you won’t have to face the task of persistent appraisal like in Nioh or Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. But at present, Fallen Dynasty still might need a bit of tuning. About three-quarters of the way through the game, I had acquired elite gear that even the local blacksmith couldn’t augment any further.  On the offensive side of things, the game provides a pleasing array of tools.

Weapons have associated skills, referred to as Martial Arts. As such, swapping between your two equipped arms is actively encouraged, with some arms adept at dealing with groups and others bolstering damage to a single opponent. Either way, each offensive tool type has a slightly different parrying window, so I found a bit of variety in mixing up my approach. Periodically, the game provides AI companions (or they can be summoned at Battle Flags). Offensively, they’re only modestly effective but can help draw a boss’s attention away from your character.

Three Kingdoms, but with More Magic and Beasts

As an action role-playing game, Wo Long understandably doesn’t provide an abundant amount of exposition, relying on skillfully crafted cutscenes for the bulk of the storytelling. Despite this, the game offers a praiseworthy adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Sure, there are plenty of creative liberties, but this is also one of the best interactive interpretations of Daoist magic. As competent as Koei Tecmo’s other franchise-based retellings are, this is truly the first game to capture just how bloodstained the period was. After all, this was an era where Guan Yu initially declined a glass of heated wine, butchered Hua Xiong, and came back to quaff his still-warm cocktail.

In some ways, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty evolves the Soulslike formula (OMG, we can pause?), injecting a sense of momentum and or stimulating risk/reward enticement onto the battlefield. Narratively, the context is well-realized, highlighting some of the themes that previous Three Kingdoms-based titles have neglected. But an over-reliance on deflections means that tedium might emerge before the 30+ hour trek is complete. But that fault aside, Fallen Dynasty will undoubtedly please a fanbase who craves exploring persistently threatening locales.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was played on PC
with review code provided by the publisher.