Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

This time there is more action than in Team Ninja's Nioh games.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is the fastest and flashiest game from Team Ninja yet, featuring awesome offense-focused melee combat with some distinctive twists. I'd have liked some slower storytelling and more unique pieces of loot, but overall, this is a must-play for any Soulslike fan.

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.

In Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Team Ninja flexes its twenty years of experience designing action RPGs. Combat is beautifully layered, and it feels satisfying to pull off difficult maneuvers and topple overpowered foes.

I have never died so many times and still been excited to jump back in and die again. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty may be my first completed souls-like, but it won't be my last. If your game can launch someone into a new genre they used to avoid, it's safe to say you've done something extraordinary—and Team Ninja has.

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition is a cruel and challenging souls-like experience. However, it is more forgiving than its peers. As such, this could be a great place to start for newbies. Alongside this, it is as good alone as it is with other gamers.

With Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, we are facing a powerful title, which bases its gameplay on a frantic battle system, with an outstanding setting but with a slightly better technical finish. With an interesting story and development by levels, we find ourselves before a "soulslike" accessible and easy to enjoy, with a Qi system that works quite well and some magical trees that give us the possibility of creating very varied equipment.

After Nioh, Team Ninja once again proves its great mastery of action-RPG with Wo Long Fallen Dynasty. Admittedly, the copy is not perfect (bestiary not provided enough, rather disappointing endgame, side missions which take up areas already visited) but the gameplay is so solid that we are ready to excuse almost everything! Here, it's all about parry, martial arts and spells, in a novel approach for the genre. Most of the atmospheres are successful, there is plenty to choose your path as a warrior and everything is even more accessible than the studio's Japanese Souls-like. An excellent pickaxe, which is also available "day one" in the Xbox Game Pass.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is an epic ass-kicking time. Featuring ridiculously cool characters, stunning music, and a deeply engaging combat system, this one is an easy recommendation for purchase or downloading on Game Pass.

Wo Long is an action firework with a great, complex combat system, but unfortunately with some technical issues.

The inspiration in Sekiro and the good work with Nioh are clearly seen in Wo Long, which raises a point of difficulty for which only fans of souls will be prepared.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty stakes everything on its combat system, a fascinating setting, and excellent game structure. However, the game remains hampered by an underwhelming technical realization and balancing problems. Still, these minor flaws do not prevent it from offering a viable option for all gamers looking for a spectacular action game.

The latest game by Team Ninja may not be a full fledged AAA title by today’s standards, but it throws everything it has into the gameplay and the final result can easily take us back to the good old days of Ninja Gaiden games. The future looks bright for Team Ninja and I’m super excited for their upcoming game, Rise of the Ronin.

While the story is a bore and a couple of difficulty spikes pushed my parrying skills to the max, Wo Long: Fallen Empire still manages to deliver a solid and lengthy action-adventure on par with their previous successes, but with a slightly different and more refined flavor. Tecmo-Koei is better at the soulslike genre than most, and I am a fan of what they do — I just wish the developers would have reconsidered that abysmal first boss. Being an homage to something famously hard was an incomprehensibly poor choice, and it’s a shame that the rest of the campaign will go unseen by the people who walk away in frustration.

In the end, it is a game that is worth trying because despite the small details against it, it must also be said that it meets the goal of all products of its kind, that is to entertain. So, if you're a fan of Soulslike, you can't miss this adventure. On the other hand, if you are new to the genre, you should know that the game must be learned little by little in order to enjoy it to its fullest.

It's a bit of a shame that the achievements don't encourage you to engage with the Rising Dragon endgame mode as it's a hearty challenge, but hopefully, Wo Long's fantastic fundamentals and rewarding combat will be enough to get you to explore the post-game on its own merits... I know they are for me.

Wo Long: The Fallen Dynasty is a truly gritty challenge. Team Ninja's game puts players' skill, patience, and sadomasochism to the test, rolling out a red carpet for aggression while harshly punishing all and every mistake. The combat systems are complex but work quite well with each other, with the exception of the loot, which is unnecessarily complicated and not very impactful. Wo Long: The Fallen Dynasty will not convince newcomers to the genre, but it will certainly please fans.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a solid soulslike experience that serves up top-notch combat in a hugely atmospheric setting which incorporates real-life historical events, Chinese mythology and dark fantasy elements. There's a clever battle system at the heart of proceedings here with deflections, ripostes and screen-shaking fatal attacks the order of the day, whilst an innovative morale rank and recruitment system makes for action that's flexible enough to cater for newcomers to the genre. The narrative isn't particularly cohesive, and a handful of the missions on offer are a little too short for their own good, but overall this is Team Ninja's finest soulslike experience to date and a must-play for action fans.

While I wasn’t jazzed with Scars Above and the way it tried to incorporate Soulslike elements, Team Ninja has certainly found its groove in Wo Long Fallen Dynasty. It’s very familiar, yet not, and with combat mechanics and a storyline that’ll keep you going.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s engaging combat, satisfying parries and decent level design help this Soulslike become a truly entertaining package.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty lands in a happy medium for the Soulslike genre. It has enough mechanics to stand out from the typical FromSoftware disciple, but it's still familiar enough for veterans of the genre. It isn’t groundbreaking, but its difficulty and the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles still make for a fun (and frustrating) experience. Pair that with a thoughtful use of Chinese mythology that sets it apart from any other game on the market and you’ve got another strong Soulslike to bang your head against until FromSoftware unleashes its next epic.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a game that lives up to its legacy. Team Ninja's latest features a healthy dose of demanding and oftentimes punishing action that will certainly cause many players to bounce off in frustration. That's more than understandable. In fact, if I wasn't reviewing the game, that very well could have been me. To Team Ninja's credit, though, I'm glad I've seen it through. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has provided hours of excellently crafted levels that will test your wits and dexterity. Just know what you are getting yourself into.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty sets itself apart from Nioh, Team Ninja’s other soulslike series, with plenty of inventive mechanics that thrust you into the midst of a war. But by spreading the action out over various disparate battlefields in second century China, with plenty of chatty characters to meet along the way, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty loses a little bit of its magic in the process.

Wo Long will certainly quell your appetite for a Sekiro inspired gameplay, even though it cannot reach that game’s height. On the other hand, Team Ninja seems like it has reach a creative plateau sharing a lot of identical shortcomings with its previous games, mainly the boring level design, low variety of regular enemies and visuals that are certainly behind their time.

The act of swordplay is still quite fun in Wo Long, but as soon as you'll get to ending credits, the game will likely just evaporate from you brain entirely.

Ferocious combat clashes with a debilitating sense of familiarity, as Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty struggles to find its own identity amongst Team Ninja’s previous action RPGs, as well as other Soulslikes.

Ultimately, though, as I said, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is an incredibly difficult game to review and rate; quality-wise, it mixes heavily between high and low, and the whole can't be described as anything but extremely scattered from start to finish.