Even though the combat system is excellent and varied, there’s simply not enough different types of opponents to fill a game of this size. Wo Long’s biggest problem – bigger than the loot issues and the poor storytelling – is its enemy variety. Branching paths that often allow you to find an easier way through a particularly tough area and tons of easily missable optional detours leading to bountiful rewards keep them from being straightforward paths from point A to point B. The levels themselves won’t win any awards for how they look, but they’re very well designed from a gameplay perspective. This is a wonderful safety net, because frequently what can happen is you can find yourself underleveled and stuck on a main mission here you’re allowed to back out to the level select, complete some side missions to level up or get new gear, maybe head to your secret village home base to upgrade that gear, and then return right where you left off on that main mission without feeling like you’ve lost your hard-fought progress. One of the really great things that Wo Long does is that it allows you to exit out of a mission from a Battle Flag and save your progress on that main mission. Some of my favorite side missions even have you sparring against your allies in challenging boss battles. Much like Nioh, Wo Long’s campaign is broken up into main missions and side missions, with the main missions taking you through humongous levels – from castles, to active battlefields, to jails with Dark Souls-like poison ponds on the ground floor – and the side missions typically having you revisit those settings with some sort of fun twist with regard to the objective and enemy placements. I love this addition because it gives every level a very natural ramp-up in difficulty, while adding extra incentive to explore and mop up more bad guys. Enemies have Morale Ranks too, and those with a higher rank than you deal more damage. You will also lose some morale everytime you die, up to a certain point determined by your fortitude level, which you can increase by finding various flag poles throughout each mission. You gain morale simply by defeating enemies, but you’ll gain it even faster by killing them using Spirit attacks, Martial Arts abilities, or critical strikes. One of my favorite new ideas in Wo Long is the addition of Morale Ranks, which is basically a separate progression system that starts at zero at the beginning of every main mission and goes all the way up to 25. No major tweaking was necessary to keep me from falling behind the power curve, leaving the complexity for those who are looking to test their mettle in the multiple iterations of New Game+ or PvP invasions. Then I would pick a weapon type I liked, swap it with one with a higher gear score whenever I came across one similarly, when I found one that came with a Martial Arts ability that I liked, I just upgraded that as high as I could. For armor, I just picked whatever gave me the highest defense number without putting me into the heavyweight category, which would limit my mobility. You can even hold down the block button while also attempting to deflect, making it so that even if you’re too late on the deflection timing, you’ll still block the attack.įortunately, I found that I didn’t have to get too far in the weeds on my first playthrough because I was more than powerful enough just by engaging with loot on a surface level. Crucially, though, you can completely negate damage from regular attacks just by holding down the block button, so long as you have enough Spirit built up to avoid having your guard broken – if that happens, you’re left helpless. Similar to Sekiro, it’s a system that relies a lot on carefully timing deflections so you can preserve your Spirit meter while also avoiding damage, especially when enemies also start mixing in powerful, unblockable attacks that have to be parried rather than blocked. Wo Long’s combat is a puzzle that needs to be figured out really quickly if you plan on getting past even the first major boss, but once you solve it, it’s incredibly satisfying to play around in. Fortunately, the actual gameplay in between the cutscenes make up the vast majority of what we’re here to do, and it’s there that Wo Long shines brightest. Sometimes they return many hours later, but I’d already forgotten them because they didn’t do anything meaningful. Characters are introduced at a rapid-fire pace and leave the scene just as quickly, often without making any sort of impact on the overall story.
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