Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty – Complete Edition PC Review
Summary: The performance issues from launch seem to be largely gone, making Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty – Complete Edition a much more attractive proposition than perhaps it previously was.
4
Improved!
Team NINJA’s latest entry into the Souls-like genre, the Three Kingdoms-inspired Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, finally sees the release of a complete edition a year after its initial launch. Bringing the three previously released DLC packages as well as a few smaller pieces of content into one concise package.
I confess I hadn’t played Wo Long before getting a hold of the complete edition for review. It was on my radar, but being a late adopter of Elden Ring meant I hadn’t had a chance to check it out yet. So, my impressions of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty – Complete Edition will be that of a new player, rather than someone revisiting the game.
Set during the final hours of the Han Dynasty, Wo Long pits your unnamed protagonist against a host of foes. Lowly bandits, possessed soldiers, and all manner of mythical Chinese creatures overtaken by demons.
Being a Souls-like, the most obvious comparison to be made is with that of Team NINJA’s last games, Nioh, or Sekiro by FromSoftware. Missions play out similarly to that of the Nioh games, being self-contained, closed-off missions, rather than the open worlds seen in FromSoftwares titles. Combat is closer to Sekiro in nature. Wo Long places a heavy emphasis on the deflect mechanic.
Dodging right as an attack is about to land causes a counterattack, stunning the enemy and leaving them open to massive damage. Attacks that are specifically designed around this mechanic leave the enemy glowing red during their wind-up and animations, making it immediately clear what you’re supposed to do. The rest is just timing.
All of the other Souls-like tropes are present and accounted for. Bonfires are battle flags, your limited-use healing items that are refreshed at battle flags are The Dragon’s Cure Pots, and your experience points (Qi) are lost upon death.
Where Wo Long differs somewhat is the morality and fortitude system. Morality, represented as a number determines the amount of damage a player deals and receives. The higher your morality, the more damage you can inflict on enemies and the less you’ll take in return. Being defeated in battle reduces your morality, in turn making future battles harder. Fortitude represents the floor for a player’s morality, so it’s advantageous to raise it whenever possible, as the higher it is, the less morale is lost upon defeat.
One of the biggest points of contention with the original release of Wo Long was performance. On PC it was pretty terrible and remains a reason why on Steam the game continues to sit at a mostly negative rating. Thankfully though, a lot of the issues seem to have been patched out and I had no issues whatsoever. The framerate was a rock solid 60fps with everything cranked to the max at 1440p, and it stayed there for the entirety of my playtime.
If it weren’t for the aforementioned performance issues though, I wouldn’t have been surprised about how well it ran. It’s by no means a bad-looking game, but it isn’t exactly what I’d call stunning either, with relatively low system requirements.
General game audio is perfectly adequate, good even. The voice acting though leaves a lot to be desired, at least in English. This shouldn’t be news to people familiar with the publisher, Koei Tecmo’s work though, they’re well known for bad English dubs and ropey PC ports. The Chinese and Japanese dubs are far better thankfully, and I’d recommend using one of those with subtitles.
Final Thoughts?
The three packaged DLCs for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty – Complete Edition add around 10-12 hours of new content to the base game, making it a substantial upgrade. Now that the performance issues seem to have been resolved, this is a much easier sell than it was a year ago.
It’s a mechanically interesting and different enough take on the Souls-like genre to set itself apart from its more popular competition. If you’ve held off picking it up because of the performance problems it exhibited, then perhaps now is the time to give it a try, just maybe give the demo a try before putting down any money.
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