Wo Long

[Roxy Robinson]

Three Kingdoms-inspired character action dark fantasy etc by Team Ninja. You will have probably seen some cool gameplay previews over the last few years, Chinese stuff and big monsters, oversized wolf and ape men, pole fighting, stabbing stuff.

I enjoyed the first Nioh for about twenty or thirty hours but never played the second one. I don't really like Ninja Gaiden, too fidgety for my tastes/reactions. This is kind of their take on Sekiro, whereas Nioh was more Soulsy, albeit with a traditional Japanese yokai kind of setting.

This has plenty of elements I reckon would tick my boxes but I played the demo (albeit pretty hungover today) and not really feeling it. There's a flashy parry mechanic which is probably fundamental to the combat but I can't really tell what's going on, it's all so fast. Feels like hack and slashy but then you get wasted in about two hits.

Anyone played the demo or full game now it's out?

Looks like a PS4 game, but impressively cluttered environments which I can't read very well (same as Nioh) and running very smoothly (on PS5).

[oggyraiding]

I also played the demo, couldn't beat the first boss. The parry mechanic seems to be essential, but the enemies don't have a big enough "tell" to parry reliably, so it's more about learning the patterns with trial and error. You can apparently cheese it - if you raise all the flags in the first level your morale will be a minimum of 10, even after death. If you then rest to respawn the enemies, and kill them/parry them, and repeat, you can get morale to the max of 25. At this point you will do shitloads of damage to the boss, and take significantly less damage. Not sure that this would be a fun thing to do every time you're stuck on a boss, but it's some level of concession I suppose.

I'm a big Three Kingdoms fan but don't have the patience for this game's difficulty, which is a shame.

[Timothy]

Just beat the first boss and absolutely loving it.

Sekiro and Nioh 2 are two of my favorite souls games. This is like a fusion of both. Lots of parrying, deflecting and attacking.

"Free" on Gamepass and absolutely worth a shot.

[madhair60]

Really liking this.

I will say though - piece of fucking piss so far, for its genre. That is once I figured out that a high "deflect" score is in fact bad, despite the game giving me the "Blue text! That means number go up! That means good!" when I switch equipment. Cheeky cunts. Anyway, the point is, I think this is a very accessible game in the genre, helped along by the simplicity of said deflect/dodge. It's like easier mode Sekiro - still more challenging than most games, but much more forgiving. I'd say it's even easier than Code Vein, and that game... is not difficult.

[Roxy Robinson]

I played another hour after a restorative nap and found it more of a hack and slash for loot fetishists. Pleasant enough PS3 jank, though. Gobots vibe. If I'd found it flicking through boxes of imports in 2009, I'd have buzzed off it. Bit lacking in polish and intensity for me now. Good on them for the demo.

[Timothy]

Really liking this.

I will say though - piece of fucking piss so far, for its genre. That is once I figured out that a high "deflect" score is in fact bad, despite the game giving me the "Blue text! That means number go up! That means good!" when I switch equipment. Cheeky cunts. Anyway, the point is, I think this is a very accessible game in the genre, helped along by the simplicity of said deflect/dodge. It's like easier mode Sekiro - still more challenging than most games, but much more forgiving. I'd say it's even easier than Code Vein, and that game... is not difficult.

The first boss in Wo Long was quite difficult I thought. Took me a while before I was able to beat him.

And then the difficulty seemed to drop and everything is quite easy now. Lots of checkpoints with rest spots as well.

Did you have any trouble with the first boss? Find it quite odd that it's been the only difficult opponent in the game so far.

[madhair60]

yeah, that first boss is quite annoying tbf - I think there's a more graceful way to communicate that your game is a Soulslike than having a multi-phase first boss. I guess it's just basically a parry/deflect skill check, because as you mention nothing since him has been remotely as tough. I beat the first "major" boss in the game barely taking a hit, and I'm not even good!

anyway i'm having enormous fun with this despite the low difficulty - so far

[Glebe]

Wo Long
Frank Lloyd Wright

[Timothy]

Game is getting a bit more difficult now. Ashin gave me some trouble.

Still really enjoying this, despite it being nowhere as good as Nioh or Sekiro.

[Mobius]

I got stuck on the boss too, but was enjoying it. I like the Three Kingdoms setting from Dynasty Warriors.. didn't realise it was based on that period so I popped for Yellow Turbans

[madhair60]

who is Ashin????

[bgmnts]

Considering this is Romance of the Three Kingdoms related, any excuse to post this beaut.

[Timothy]

who is Ashin????

I meant Aoye. Not sure why I called him Ashin haha. Boss of mission five. Bull like.

[madhair60]

Aoye was wretched, an actively bad boss fight. Incomprehensible hitboxes. I ended up summoning and feel no shame whatsoever.

[oggyraiding]

Is there something I'm missing about the first boss? I got him to his second phase after a lot of tries, but by that point I'm all out of healing items. Can I acquire more, or get better weapons? Probably just be me being shit at the game. I've used the wizardry that restores HP from dealing damage to enemies, but that doesn't really net much at all.

[Timothy]

Is there something I'm missing about the first boss? I got him to his second phase after a lot of tries, but by that point I'm all out of healing items. Can I acquire more, or get better weapons? Probably just be me being shit at the game. I've used the wizardry that restores HP from dealing damage to enemies, but that doesn't really net much at all.

Try and fight as aggressively during phase one. You can basically stun lock him and kick him all over the place. Use your deflecting counterattack and martial arts. Defend when he's getting a bit from you and runs towards you. If you play your cards you can go to the second phase with most of your potions in tact.

I'm stuck at Zhang Rang. The autolock is the enemy there. Can't really progress. Did you fight him yet Madhair?

[madhair60]

not yet. I'm fighting a snake lady.

[oggyraiding]

Still stuck on first boss. I killed the optional high morale tiger monster which was fairly simple, and I can get through phase one of the boss fight just fine, I just always choke in the final 20% of the second phase health bar because I get nervous and my hands go numb. I think because second phase's tentacle thing is so wide ranging, it can be difficult to preempt when it'll hit.

Even though I'm shit at it, it is a very satisfying feeling when you do deflect stuff, and I don't find failing against bosses as tedious as I do in most FromSoft games.

[Timothy]

One thing that always helps me, and this sounds incredibly stupid, is to try and play as calm as possible in difficult second phases. Keep your distance, don't worry too much about attacking him, don't do fancy martial arts stuff, deflect those red attacks and when you do attack attack attack.

Try and fight as aggressively during phase one. You can basically stun lock him and kick him all over the place. Use your deflecting counterattack and martial arts. Defend when he's getting a bit from you and runs towards you. If you play your cards you can go to the second phase with most of your potions in tact.

I'm stuck at Zhang Rang. The autolock is the enemy there. Can't really progress. Did you fight him yet Madhair?

Beat him!

[pk1yen]

There's something about this game that doesn't quite click in the same way Sekiro did.

I think it's the glut of extra unnecessary mechanics (magic beasts, weak spells, weapon upgrades, martial arts, jewels, etc etc) , considering all you really need to do to beat the game is learn when to time the deflect with B, then slash with X until you can press Y.

The B-X-Y boss gameplay is good fun, but the rest of it all seems a bit bloated compared to the simplicity of Sekiro. I find myself not really bothered with exploring and just rushing through areas (and also skipping all the millions of cutscenes), because upgrades mostly seem unnecessary. I also have a few dozen different weapons and pieces of armour and items and ranged weapons that I just don't ever need to use or look at.

Maybe that's just the style difference between From and Team Ninja.

[The Crumb]

Weird game, somehow the streamlining has made it feel messier than Nioh, maybe because the decisions about what to leave in are a bit baffling.

Really feels to me like it was the predecessor to Nioh rather than a sequel. Has all of the bad elements, plus way less interesting combat.

[Timothy]

Spend the whole afternoon fighting the first really tough boss,

Spoiler alert

Lu Bu.

[close]

Only to realise that I was incredibly underleveled.



Grinded a bit and then got him down after several more stressful attemps.

Then the boss straight after was a cakewalk. Way too easy.

Incredibly unbalanced, not nearly as good as Sekiro or Nioh, but still a fun game imo.

[The Crumb]

What the fuck was that Zhang Rang fight? You'd think someone playtesting would have pointed out that it's dreadful and also demonstrates that the game works like absolute shit when fighting multiple enemies.

[Timothy]

Finished it.

Not nearly as good as Nioh or Sekiro but still a lot of fun. Some bullshit and difficult bosses in late game but all in not too difficult.

[pk1yen]

What the fuck was that Zhang Rang fight? You'd think someone playtesting would have pointed out that it's dreadful and also demonstrates that the game works like absolute shit when fighting multiple enemies.

There's one of the later "battlefield" extra levels where you have to fight 3 high-level NPC enemies at once as a sort of boss fight. Fucking impossible, they just spam attacks from two sides while one uses range attacks, break through your block, and when you finally get a Spirit Attack off on one of them, the other two hit you during the animation.

I've managed to kill one of them once by sprinting around the arena while they chase me, getting the odd hit in, but yeah it's bullshit when you're against more than one enemy at a time.

I will complete this, I must be near the end now, but I'm basically going through the motions because I quite like the boss fights. Rest of the game is unnecessary fluff with mechanics I barely touch.

[Timothy]

The spells are quite handy in fights like those. One of them, in the earth element, has quite a strong one where there appear spikes from the ground. You can do multiple enemies a lot of damage with that.

I just finished all sidemissions as well. Enjoyed it but hope they focus on Nioh 3 next.

[The Crumb]

There's one of the later "battlefield" extra levels where you have to fight 3 high-level NPC enemies at once as a sort of boss fight. Fucking impossible, they just spam attacks from two sides while one uses range attacks, break through your block, and when you finally get a Spirit Attack off on one of them, the other two hit you during the animation.

I've managed to kill one of them once by sprinting around the arena while they chase me, getting the odd hit in, but yeah it's bullshit when you're against more than one enemy at a time.

I will complete this, I must be near the end now, but I'm basically going through the motions because I quite like the boss fights. Rest of the game is unnecessary fluff with mechanics I barely touch.

Yep, I've got to this and it's an absolute shitshow. Maybe it's me, but it seems to prevent you from actually using most attacks and mechanics, and instead only gives you room for deflects, light attacks or running away and casting magic.

I feel it says something that Nioh was confident enough in its combat to give you multiple 1 on 1 duels as side missions, while so far Wo Long has a 1 on 2 and a 1 on 3 duel, neither of which is fun.