I truly liked the first Nioh but found the loot system so exhausting to deal with that I bailed on the game halfway through and never wanted to go back. The specter of the loot system also kept me away from both Nioh 2 and Stranger of Paradise. I finally gave Team Ninja another chance with Wo Long, though, for two reasons:
1. I am an absolute sucker for Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Played Dynasty Warriors 3 back in the day, and got so into it that not only did I pick up 4 and 5 but went through a phase where I read the entire 2000 page 13th century Chinese novel it was adapted from, and couldn't stop clicking through every damn article on kongming.net. I lost interest circa DW6 because of the grossly reduced character roster (and I recall specifically being pissed about the omission of Pang De), and when I tried the series again with DW8 I found that it had gotten a lot goofier and duller. Turnoffs included: characters without much novel basis or martial relevance, goofy-ass weapons like a giant paintbrush or a giant pool cue, braindead enemy AI, bloodless music, and premium costume packs for an ever-increasing roster of anime high schooler waifus. Look, I'm not going to claim DW4 was a masterpiece but it was solidly good and it honestly held up when I revisited it in 2021. The series has only disappointed since leaving the PS2 era, and I've had a longstanding unsated hunger for a good ROTK action game.
2. These two sentences from a preview interview with the producer: "But when compared to Nioh, you won’t have to constantly upgrade your weapon or armor, and it’s not like each enemy will drop an item. It’s not the main focus of Wo Long’s game design, as we wanted the player to be able to focus on the action more easily."
Despite the pared back loot system, this is still wholeheartedly a By Gamers, For Gamers title. You have a skill check tutorial boss that is singlehandedly harder than most AAA games in their entirety, combat that can kill you almost instantly if you whiff one input, Pink Tail-ass drop rates on the best gear, and a whole lot of progression and equipment systems for a game that allegedly wants you to focus on the action and enter flow states.
It’s really good, though. If you can tough it out through the starter boss, the game’s deflection and morale mechanics actually provide a pretty good onramp to competent but not exceptional play. While the most seasoned action gamers (e.g. people who have beaten previous Team Ninja games) will probably find the natural “play it safe and deflect Critical Strikes” strategy to be a little simple, it does a good job of providing a base the player can build upon over time. Deflecting Critical Strikes semi-reliably is essentially the minimal competence required to clear the game, but once the player has a handle on that they can try their luck and mix in more aggressive attacks. By the time the player rolls over into the New Game+ mode called Rising Dragon, they have a genuine capacity to experiment with builds according to taste, and this will further open up the combat in interesting ways. They can use attack spells or weapon buffs to increase the complexity and reward of Fatal Strike windows, use area control spells like Imposing Slab to punish aggressive enemies, repeatedly stagger enemies with a rotating series of debuffs, elementally neutralize the enemy’s own area control options, open up new counterattack opportunities with the more mobile Martial Arts, and more. The game provides a solid foundation, and then provides a lot of options for building on that.
Even if you’re not normally a NG+ sort of player, it’s worth considering it here. The game is good enough on the initial playthrough, but it really comes alive in Rising Dragon mode. The expanded options and increased confidence you build up across the initial playthrough, combined with the smaller margin of error, make for very engaging knife’s edge boss fights, and Rising Dragon is well-tuned for a player and character fresh off that first playthrough. I honestly think that in Rising Dragon mode, the roster of boss fights in this game is among the best I’ve seen in any action game; there’s only one boss (the guy who flies and shits lightning orbs) that I thought wasn’t a complete success.
Less impressive are the game’s regular enemies. They’re fun to fight — the tiger demons are an early example that remain engaging throughout — but there’s just not a lot of variety given the game’s length. The level design, the story scenes, all the rest is basically fine but unexceptional. It’s really the bosses and other especially challenging encounters (e.g. two tigers, or a crocodile demon mixed with a second opponent) that justify the playthrough.
Because of the focus on deflection, it’s hard to avoid comparing the game to Sekiro, and I won’t hold back despite not having played Sekiro since 2019. From’s game excels in all the areas you would expect From to excel in — artistry, exploration, atmosphere, and humor (I will never forget the kamikaze kite guy) — while also being a very good action game. Wo Long is significantly less impressive in all of those categories, but excels where you’d expect Team Ninja to excel — melee combat, awesome animations, a demanding but perfect level of challenge, and frequent flow states. Sekiro is also pretty good on these metrics (despite not having any player animation half as cool as Wo Long’s nameless warrior stabbing a guy in the chest and then spin kicking off the victim to pull out his sword) but after Rising Dragon mode, I do think Wo Long’s combat is better. Taken as a total package it’s maybe a wash for me, though I certainly recommend both. Despite the upfront high difficulty of Wo Long’s door boss, the various progression systems probably make it more accessible than Sekiro in the long run. Nothing in Wo Long took me as much practice as Sword Saint.
[Some story spoilers are in the next paragraph. I've kept it deliberately vague but fair warning!]
As for the Three Kingdoms story, I’d say I found those elements acceptable but a little disappointing, but plenty of Wo Long’s ROTK flourishes were fine by me. The elixir/demonic qi stuff felt like a suitable metaphor for the “chaos” that Dynasty Warriors characters wouldn’t stop talking about. Chaos or corrupted qi, it’s abstract either way so we may as well go for qi and get some cool boss designs out of it. The expanded role of the novel’s mystic characters makes sense, more or less. The payoff with Hong Jing’s character felt like a good creative riff on something that was completely fabricated in the novel anyhow (although I didn’t love you-know-who’s face turn). No, my big complaints are much dorkier. The Xiahous have stupid looking armor. Team Ninja included Cheng Pu and Han Dang (!?) but couldn’t find room for Taishi Ci or Dian Wei or Zhang He or Zhou Yu. The Yuan Shu material is just completely absent too. Now, it wasn’t until I finished the game that I found out there’s a DLC season pass on the way, and after I saw the three DLC episode names I realized there’s a good chance that some of this stuff may have been deliberately held back. I don’t think the dumb Xiahou armor is ever getting fixed, but I still have hope we’ll get at least Taishi Ci in the second DLC episode.
Oh, the loot system that almost had me swear off Team Ninja games forever? It’s not too bad here. Unless you want to make a high end postgame build that no challenge in the game remotely requires, you can just pick your favorite ROTK character, wear their armor, keep it upgraded, and get on with your day. There’s still more loot than I’d like and it’s more random than I’d like, but the companion oath system fixed the Team Ninja formula for me.
1. I am an absolute sucker for Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Played Dynasty Warriors 3 back in the day, and got so into it that not only did I pick up 4 and 5 but went through a phase where I read the entire 2000 page 13th century Chinese novel it was adapted from, and couldn't stop clicking through every damn article on kongming.net. I lost interest circa DW6 because of the grossly reduced character roster (and I recall specifically being pissed about the omission of Pang De), and when I tried the series again with DW8 I found that it had gotten a lot goofier and duller. Turnoffs included: characters without much novel basis or martial relevance, goofy-ass weapons like a giant paintbrush or a giant pool cue, braindead enemy AI, bloodless music, and premium costume packs for an ever-increasing roster of anime high schooler waifus. Look, I'm not going to claim DW4 was a masterpiece but it was solidly good and it honestly held up when I revisited it in 2021. The series has only disappointed since leaving the PS2 era, and I've had a longstanding unsated hunger for a good ROTK action game.
2. These two sentences from a preview interview with the producer: "But when compared to Nioh, you won’t have to constantly upgrade your weapon or armor, and it’s not like each enemy will drop an item. It’s not the main focus of Wo Long’s game design, as we wanted the player to be able to focus on the action more easily."
Despite the pared back loot system, this is still wholeheartedly a By Gamers, For Gamers title. You have a skill check tutorial boss that is singlehandedly harder than most AAA games in their entirety, combat that can kill you almost instantly if you whiff one input, Pink Tail-ass drop rates on the best gear, and a whole lot of progression and equipment systems for a game that allegedly wants you to focus on the action and enter flow states.
It’s really good, though. If you can tough it out through the starter boss, the game’s deflection and morale mechanics actually provide a pretty good onramp to competent but not exceptional play. While the most seasoned action gamers (e.g. people who have beaten previous Team Ninja games) will probably find the natural “play it safe and deflect Critical Strikes” strategy to be a little simple, it does a good job of providing a base the player can build upon over time. Deflecting Critical Strikes semi-reliably is essentially the minimal competence required to clear the game, but once the player has a handle on that they can try their luck and mix in more aggressive attacks. By the time the player rolls over into the New Game+ mode called Rising Dragon, they have a genuine capacity to experiment with builds according to taste, and this will further open up the combat in interesting ways. They can use attack spells or weapon buffs to increase the complexity and reward of Fatal Strike windows, use area control spells like Imposing Slab to punish aggressive enemies, repeatedly stagger enemies with a rotating series of debuffs, elementally neutralize the enemy’s own area control options, open up new counterattack opportunities with the more mobile Martial Arts, and more. The game provides a solid foundation, and then provides a lot of options for building on that.
Even if you’re not normally a NG+ sort of player, it’s worth considering it here. The game is good enough on the initial playthrough, but it really comes alive in Rising Dragon mode. The expanded options and increased confidence you build up across the initial playthrough, combined with the smaller margin of error, make for very engaging knife’s edge boss fights, and Rising Dragon is well-tuned for a player and character fresh off that first playthrough. I honestly think that in Rising Dragon mode, the roster of boss fights in this game is among the best I’ve seen in any action game; there’s only one boss (the guy who flies and shits lightning orbs) that I thought wasn’t a complete success.
Less impressive are the game’s regular enemies. They’re fun to fight — the tiger demons are an early example that remain engaging throughout — but there’s just not a lot of variety given the game’s length. The level design, the story scenes, all the rest is basically fine but unexceptional. It’s really the bosses and other especially challenging encounters (e.g. two tigers, or a crocodile demon mixed with a second opponent) that justify the playthrough.
Because of the focus on deflection, it’s hard to avoid comparing the game to Sekiro, and I won’t hold back despite not having played Sekiro since 2019. From’s game excels in all the areas you would expect From to excel in — artistry, exploration, atmosphere, and humor (I will never forget the kamikaze kite guy) — while also being a very good action game. Wo Long is significantly less impressive in all of those categories, but excels where you’d expect Team Ninja to excel — melee combat, awesome animations, a demanding but perfect level of challenge, and frequent flow states. Sekiro is also pretty good on these metrics (despite not having any player animation half as cool as Wo Long’s nameless warrior stabbing a guy in the chest and then spin kicking off the victim to pull out his sword) but after Rising Dragon mode, I do think Wo Long’s combat is better. Taken as a total package it’s maybe a wash for me, though I certainly recommend both. Despite the upfront high difficulty of Wo Long’s door boss, the various progression systems probably make it more accessible than Sekiro in the long run. Nothing in Wo Long took me as much practice as Sword Saint.
[Some story spoilers are in the next paragraph. I've kept it deliberately vague but fair warning!]
As for the Three Kingdoms story, I’d say I found those elements acceptable but a little disappointing, but plenty of Wo Long’s ROTK flourishes were fine by me. The elixir/demonic qi stuff felt like a suitable metaphor for the “chaos” that Dynasty Warriors characters wouldn’t stop talking about. Chaos or corrupted qi, it’s abstract either way so we may as well go for qi and get some cool boss designs out of it. The expanded role of the novel’s mystic characters makes sense, more or less. The payoff with Hong Jing’s character felt like a good creative riff on something that was completely fabricated in the novel anyhow (although I didn’t love you-know-who’s face turn). No, my big complaints are much dorkier. The Xiahous have stupid looking armor. Team Ninja included Cheng Pu and Han Dang (!?) but couldn’t find room for Taishi Ci or Dian Wei or Zhang He or Zhou Yu. The Yuan Shu material is just completely absent too. Now, it wasn’t until I finished the game that I found out there’s a DLC season pass on the way, and after I saw the three DLC episode names I realized there’s a good chance that some of this stuff may have been deliberately held back. I don’t think the dumb Xiahou armor is ever getting fixed, but I still have hope we’ll get at least Taishi Ci in the second DLC episode.
Oh, the loot system that almost had me swear off Team Ninja games forever? It’s not too bad here. Unless you want to make a high end postgame build that no challenge in the game remotely requires, you can just pick your favorite ROTK character, wear their armor, keep it upgraded, and get on with your day. There’s still more loot than I’d like and it’s more random than I’d like, but the companion oath system fixed the Team Ninja formula for me.