Every time you die, though, you will return to the last major flag point and your morale is reset to the Fortitude level, which is determined by how many flags you've established in the level. Defeating enemies will build your morale, with more dangerous enemies raising it faster. Meanwhile, the morale system serves as an overall character boost of sorts, with certain enemies having different values of threat. There are also minor flags on the map that you can raise as well, which are important to discover even if they only provide minor boosts. It serves as a major checkpoint, returns all the enemies to the battlefield, allows you to convert qi from fallen enemies into points for character leveling, and restores all your restorative Dragon's Cure Pot consumables. Like a traditional Souls-like, planting a flag is like lighting a bonfire. Embrace your inner flag bearer Raising this major battle flag is like lighting a bonfire in a Souls-like.īefore I faced my first enemy, I was prompted to rest at a battle flag, which ties into how both the respawn system and the morale system operate. It took me about five minutes to understand what Team Ninja was going for, as it became clear how the spirit system emerges naturally from the game’s conceptual ease of motion between offense and defense. In turn, landing hits and deflecting or parrying attacks at the right moment build your spirit. If you block, evade, or cast wizardry spells too often, you’ll lose spirit until you are stunned for several seconds. The best way to explain how it works is to think of a seesaw that represents both momentum and stamina. Without a stamina system, Wo Long opts for a spirit system that keeps tension high while ensuring that players don’t exhaust themselves or play too defensively. That said, I imagine that some extremely skilled streamer will attempt an unarmed, fist-based run of the game in due time.
As the game leans on weapon-based attacks, it’s less Bruce Lee and more Crouching Tiger, which fits because “Wo Long” translates to “Crouching Dragon” in English. No matter whether I was holding a spear, glaive, or double sword, I could gracefully evade an enemy attack with a butterfly kick before striking with a flurry of quick stabs. The developers wanted to stay true to the flow inherent in weapon-based Chinese martial arts that shifts easily between offense and defense. If I had to place it somewhere on the Team Ninja scale, it's somewhere between Nioh and Ninja Gaiden. Your character has far more agility and movement speed than a protagonist in a typical Souls game. It became clear from the start that Wo Long is swift. (And it was a wise choice in the end.) Crouching Dragon, Hidden Spirit Leveling up uses the traditional Chinese five-element system. While it would have been prudent to switch to a Water build in hindsight, given all the Fire-element enemies I was about to face, I stuck with Fire throughout the demo. Between the different choices for starting builds, each represented by one of the five traditional Chinese elements, I went with Fire for the extra attack strength. With a quick explanation of the controls, the Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja team sent me straight into the middle of the game, on an arid mountain called Dongshan. Between Wo Long and Black Myth: Wukong, the reemergence of ancient China as a source of inspiration already looks in good hands. The Team Ninja devs said as much during the demo, wanting to create a game that was similar to Nioh but wasn’t set in Japanese history. Sure, Dynasty Warriors fans like myself will recognize some of the officers from the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but I bet that most players will find the Chinese monsters and cultural references throughout the game to be a welcome change of pace. Set in the Late Han Dynasty in 149 AD, the game casts historical heroes and legends like Zhao Yun, Zhang Liang, and Lu Bu during that era in a much fiercer light. That's a part of what makes Wo Long intriguing. China isn’t sleeping anymore Upon a Fire build, this Zhuque fire bird was my default Divine Beast summon.Īpart from the Three Kingdoms games, Jade Empire, and maybe Dragon Ball in a broad sense, Chinese fantasy and mythology are rarely used as a primary setting in gaming. And after playing a new 25-minute PS5 demo of the game behind closed doors, I am all here for it. Said another way, it's Dynasty Warriors by way of Dark Souls. If you didn't have the chance to play the public demo of the game in September, fans have largely praised Team Ninja's dark-fantasy adaptation of the Three Kingdoms era from the producers of Bloodborne and Nioh. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is one of the most exciting new IPs in development right now.
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