Fallen Dynasty, a soul to die for…and many.

Souls-Like is synonymous with adventure, hours and above all frustration…. And Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is no exception.

There are many who in front of a souls type game directly they give up playing. I don’t blame them, on the contrary, I understand them perfectly and sometimes I even envy their ability to say: “no, i don’t want to suffer for free”. I understand that for some players, dying hundreds of times in a boss or area until they learn that is not motivating or fun. Sadly, I don’t, and whenever a Souls-like game comes within reach, I’m the first to raise my hand, sadly for my patience and gray hair. And that’s exactly what happened with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Crouching dragon.

The title is developed by the Japanese study Ninja Teamcreators of iconic sagas such as Dead or alive, Gaiden ninja the Niosome of them characterized by the great difficulty. Team Ninja designed Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty as a game like souls Old school with a very successful atmosphere. To start with the Wo Long story means crouching dragon, a name used to define a great warrior or unknown hero. Our protagonist will be just that, an unnamed militiaman fighting for his life in convulsed 3rd century China.

Historical mark.

We are at the end of four centuries of The Han dynasty where the country flourished rapidly in all areas, but now China is adrift. The external and internal wars are causing the country to begin to divide and we are living a Historical period called in China The Three Kingdoms era. The country is divided and the fall of the Han dynasty is only a matter of time. In this scenario, our hero will fight helping everyone he meets, while trying to survive.

Frustration, yes… and a lot.

Ninja Team did not want to change gears and embarked for the second time, after niohin a title like like souls. This means that we are going to play with a character in third personwho will use the Magic and the weapons to advance through interconnected scenarios. These will require exploration made difficult by very difficult enemies. In addition, we will have final bosses that will test the patience of the most seasoned player in this style of titles. And that means that we are going to die… and many. Team Ninja has already set the bar for difficulty very high with its Nioh saga and here it did not want to be less. While it is true that Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty It may be a point below in terms of difficulty.

Warrior yes or yes.

To start, we will create our character with a wide director of creation who has hundreds of alternatives. Very similar to those we see in other games where we can modify even the smallest detail of our character. However, here we will not choose a class to play. We will not be able to go towards magic, nor choose the type of combat. This will happen naturally as we level up. Yes or yes, we will be a warrior and each time we level up we will have to choose between one of the 5 branches of talent. Each represents an element or virtue which improves a part of our character. We have the virtue of maderaof waterSince will footof metal and some fire. Each will be insidious in a feature of our character, the points of healththe ability to chargethe ability to generate mind cast spells, etc. Each branch in turn has spells own and very varied, some to do damage, others to improve the acquisition or the loss of spirit, to mitigate the damage, even to make us invisible.

Gear up for battle.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has a wide variety of body of arms melee, swords, sabers, hammers, maces, horns, scimitars, knives, etc. Additionally, it has some weapons to distance which, for being a soul, generates a lot of damage, we have bows and crossbows. In reference to armor We have 4 slots, Helmet, Breastplate, Legs and Bracers. Weapons and armor will have a number of stars, these refer to the bonuses they grant, 1 star for a bonus, 2 stars for 2 bonuses, etc.

Weapons and armor can be improved thanks to the blacksmith that we will find in certain places along the route, we can improve them, as well as change the bonuses they have for others that we like more, change both the appearance of weapons and armor for more aesthetics, etc. therefore the ability of personalize in Wo Long it is incredibly wide.

We also have consumables that temporarily improve character stats. Last but perhaps most important are the reinforcement. As we go on, we’ll know Warriors who will join our company. If we fight together and establish a bond, you can summon them through seals to help you in the fight.

advance system.

And Wo Long: Fallen Dinasty We will have to visit different areas where in the end we will have one or more final bosses. In each area we will have two types of points, similar to the bonfires of dark souls waves Gracias of Elden Ring. Here are the areas where we need to place a flag. Some will allow you to place control flags and others will be called marking flags.

The ace control flags They allow us to carry out many actions. They work like checkpoint, they are used to level up, request reinforcements, sell, buy, etc. THE marking flags They will be more hidden. We will have to discover areas by exploring off the main path. These flags only serve to elevate the fortress, but they are extremely important. The reason is that our character has a level of Fortalezawhich will start at 0 and increase according to the flags obtained in the area.

Strength and morale.

This level of strength is also the one that will determine our minimum level of moral. Morale is important because our enemy has it too. If we try to kill someone with a lot of morality, we’ll probably end up dead. There moral It increases based on the number of people we have killed and decreases when we die. But will never fall below our strengthTherefore, having many flags will make our strength high and therefore the minimum morale will also be high even if we die.

quick example, we enter a new area, as always with a strength of 0. We take 8 flags, we will always have a strength of 8, our morale will always be at least that, 8, even if we die. But if you chain a few death counts before reaching the final boss, you can face him with a morale of 10, 12 or 25, which is the maximum. The higher the morale, the more damage we inflict and the less we take.

frantic fight

About the fights Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has rhythm frantic there diabolical. The fights are hectic and very fast. We will practically be in certain phases in a Hack and Slash type game, especially with low-ranking enemies. Against the bosses things change and it’s much more technical and you have to have a lot of coordination. During the meetings we will have a spirit bar which will fill up as we hit. These can be of two types, heavy or light.

When we have accumulated spirit, we can realize Martial Arts, which are specific blows for each weapon, which means that they vary in shape and damage depending on what we have equipped. You can also carry out attacks with spells using the mind. If we manage to continuously damage the enemy or dodge it, we will make his spirit reach zero and we can perform an execution that will take away a lot of life.

In general, the combat feels very good, the windows of parry there to dodge they are wide enough to be a challenge and to get the point after several tries. They change depending on the rival or how they attack us, but after a while we can get the model and have a high success rate. In bosses that’s another separate issue, dodge and parry windows are reduced and the variety of enemy attacks means we have to do a detailed study of how the boss moves, yes, based on the died several times to obtain the apprenticeship, completely in line with the Like souls.

Old and new generations.

Regarding the graphics performance and the game’s sound is consistent in both aspects, though admittedly they’re far from outstanding areas. It shows that the game is developed for the next consoles and old general. In X-Series It looks very good, with a stable 60 fps, although the resolution varies a lot and that’s where you can tell it’s a cross-generation game. There will be areas with a lot of detail and others more spared, but they don’t break the experience in any way. It may be the least important thing in this type of game, but Elden Ring, in this aspect, I set the bar very high and the comparisons are hateful. be honestWo Long: Fallen Dynasty light like a game of Xbox One running at a good framerate.

He level design It’s not something that will surprise us either. We are not facing a game of From software where they are teachers in surprising you with it. The levels are quite simple to grasp, without a lot of twists and are also marked with white areas to know where to go. In this aspect, Team Ninja did not excel and the game is guilty of being too linear. Even so, the need to search for flags to scale the fortress means we have to roll the exploration.

CONCLUSION

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a title that plays perfectly on the fine line between frustration and motivation. It doesn’t make it easy for you, but it encourages you all the time to try to move on. The possibility of customization of characters, equipment and weapons is incredibly wide. THE combinations with the branches of talent They’re so big they’ll blow your head off, but there’s always a way to beat the opponents.

It is not a round title, there are few, the history This is perhaps the least worked part. Faced with the Western market, this may be unattractive. Graphically we are not facing a title that stands out, however, its setting, its combat system and the difficulty it presents are so well done that all this will not matter to us. If you like souls type games, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty It’s for you, even if you start to hate it, you’ll end up loving it.