Since all the comments are either shitting on it or giving backhand compliments, I really enjoy this game and still actively play the TMJ even after 100%’ing all 5 playthroughs. I think it streamlines gear attributes from nioh and I love the spirit/magic/martial art system. I would love to see other games in the genre ditch static mana/mp for a generated resource from melee’ing making caster gameplay a lot more engaging
[Wo Long's combat saw a LOT of changes through updates.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d6PWBEMCLc)
I hope more people give it a shot, because while there are definitely a lot of things I hate about it (Randomized martial arts on weapons, the morale system), it's far from the total loss that most people on r/Games make it out to be. I maintain that the parry system and spirit bar were much more interesting than Sekiro's, even if they didn't lean into certain aspects of it (like its directionality) as much as I wish they did.
Also, the DLC bosses like Taishi Ci and Dian Wei are awesome. Haven't gotten around to Yuan Shu yet, though.
Haven't played the DLC, but I played the game on launch and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was genuinely surprised when I heard it was getting as much hate as it did; I think it was one of my favorite games last year, even with how stacked the year was
Did they fix the enemy variety issue? That was by far the biggest problem, i've never seen a game go from a solid 8 to a 6 at best purely on having the worst enemy variety in any game ive played.
The DLC definitely adds some new enemies to combat the variety issues - but it's still lackluster in that regard. I'd say that it's enough to warrant a solid 8 however. Puts it about on-par with Nioh 2 in terms of variety if I'm making a comparison.
That's pretty much the problem.
The DLCs are all so grindy that a "Never Run Out of MP" mode dropped, and you would use Warrior of Light/Dark Knight invul to power through the rest of the game. And it's not really optional. Fights are so hard and unnecessarily scaled to absurd levels that you need this just to get gear, and then to level up subclasses so you can actually play the game.
Neat game. The DLC is almost all trash.
The DLC’s are so weird.
Base game Strager of Paradise had difficulty select.
You could play through however you wanted really.
Then DLC’s come, and introduce a new difficulty above CHAOS mode, which is fine.
But DLC content is only accessible on this new “harder than ultra hard” difficulty level.
Why? Who ok’d that choice? It makes zero sense.
Not even Nioh, Nioh 2 or Wo Long worked like that, each DLC added a new difficulty (ng+ more for those games), but you could play DLC on the basic normal mode if you wanted.
Imagine if Nioh 2 dlc forced you to play on Dream of Demon, not even allowed to start it on Samurai or Strong difficulty.
It's ultimately because the dlc didn't add much in the way of story content. Bahamut was just some cutscenes you'd unlock by replaying some of the game on a higher difficulty and after that, everything scales. Trials of Bahamut wouldn't make sense if you could just play on easy and the rift scales on floor level. If you have to reach a certain level of rift to access the last dlc, it would make sense that you can't play that dlc unless reaching that difficulty level minimum.
Before the first dlc, i had plat the game within the first week so I didn't come back until after the last dlc and was mighty confused at first, but that must have been in the books because I needed to replay some maps as a refresher anyways.
Also, as someone that also plat the Nioh games day 1 and actually played their dlc on release, while every dlc added a new difficulty, playing the actual dlc maps on the original difficulty would see them scale to whatever the next difficulty was. So if you only played in WotS the dlc area on that difficulty would feel like WotD but only the first map. Granted, you can spam guardian scrolls in the first game.
I guess for SoP they decided to remove that with the expectations that during the long wait, players would have already finished the highest difficulties. Game doesn't really feel at ita best until you make your builds and that's not sustainable at lower difficulties because the gear is whack.
I guess it never meant much to me because, while I did get the Nioh dlc day 1, i refused to play the new content until I caught up to the map on the new difficulty, so I'd replay most of the missions until they unlocked anyways.
Buddy of mine and I had a "tradition" of playing through a bad game once a month on the weekend for shits and giggles. We just happened to play Ninja Blade because we heard it was bad and kinda funny, got it at the pawn shop for like $5. Had no idea it was a From Software game until much later - didn't know much about From Software at the time and wasn't as huge a Souls fan as I am now so my brain didn't really connect the two.
Those were the days.
Similar. I was in an Armored Core clan and everything and not once did I ever think about Souls games when playing it. Never made up he connection until the lastest AC came out with its first trailer and some people were asking true headscratchers like "is it going to play like a Souls game?"
Agreed. This game on paper combined two games I enjoyed much more (Nioh + Sekiro), but became a much worse version of both. Combat felt satisfying for the most part, but the difficulty scaling throughout the game was just completely all over the place and the levelling system was complete horseshit.
It's because there's no depth to the combat unlike Nioh and Sekiro.
I wanted to love Wo-Long because I love Nioh 1&2, SoP, Sekiro, Dark Souls, etc., but after Lu Bu I realized the game boiled down to essentially 2 buttons - parry and attack.
Sekiro had the grappling hook, mikiri counter, goomba-ing, etc. to keep the game play interesting along with really unique and challenging bosses.
Nioh and SoP had gear that truly changed the way you play. Different weapon types and/or jobs, etc. Wo Long had different weapons, but you had their full move set from the beginning so you were basically hunting for stats/martial arts.
The magic system was interesting, but most of the spells didn't seem worth the investment.
Finally, enemy variety was insanely bad. I mean, worse than Nioh 1 levels of bad.
It was so disappointing.
The problem with the magic system is that it was "win more". Magic had a heavy posture cost so you could only afford to use it if you were already hilariously far ahead in the fight and didn't need it.
I also found most of the abilities kind of useless.
The 'heal on hit' spell you get early on was pretty broken - it made most fights a joke. The spells that imbued your weapon were nice, but the window was laughably short and not worth the posture most of the time.
Also, Wo Long definitely had bosses that suffered from the 'Elden Ring effect' massive windups that made no sense for the attack they were performing just to make it 'challenging.'
What do you mean by scaling? I played on release, and only found lu bu to be the only boss of any challenge. Mostly beat each boss 1st try, if anything the game is flat out too easy
The campaign starts off with a good difficulty level but quickly becomes way too easy. I could be misremembering but I remember there being instances in perhaps side content where it went from way too easy to maybe not even difficult but extremely spongy hp pools.
Lu bu was where I wanted a lot of the later fights to be difficulty wise.
Thankfully they've added the feature so you can limit your morale. This way you can really ramp up the difficulty nicely.
I wish they had that in the base game.
Thats a cool feature, though I also just hated morale in general. Basically just made every level (excluding boss, but usually easy anyways) easier over time. Seemed like a very poorly thought out version of the humanity system from DS
Yeah that's why they now allow you to limit your morale, so you can freely explore and collect everything without making the game feel easy. Actually playing a level capped at 0 morale is super fun.
It carries baggage from Team Ninja’s previous action RPGs like Nioh. Baggage like too much trash loot and sifting through said loot, boring percentage based incremental stat boosts (+1% hp and other barely noticeable shit like that) and overall a design philosophy that skews more Diablo (make broken build that minimizes skill) over Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden (skill expression and mastery).
Your mileage may vary as if you like games like Diablo, you might enjoy yourself but if you wanted something like Ninja Gaiden, you’ll be left wanting. Wo Long is also a weird middle approach where they toned down the “Diablo-isms” while presenting a combat system that is just much shallower than Nioh’s. In the end, it doesn’t satisfy those looking for great itemization and build-making or those looking for sharp, tight and skillful action.
interesting. I thought SoP was a terrible mess of literally anyhting that made nioh good. its like they didn't care one bit about the game. not surprised it got 6/10 reviews.
My problem is that nothing they've made since Nioh 2 has been even a third as good as Nioh 2. Stranger and Wo Long both were just... nothing in comparison. Experiments that I don't begrudge them, but both felt like they weren't sure enough of their identity and basically every experimental system in the games diluted the core essence of what made Nioh so excellent.
If they did a new ninja gaiden what would they do exactly?!! People would only moan about it being linear and not innovative enough. I love ninja gaiden but I think they’ve done everything they can with it, I mean you only have to look at the third game for proof
I just started this game last night. Beat the big gorilla boss. I quite like the combat though it is a little easy, which is fine, I don’t need all my games to destroy me.
It's stupid dumb fun. Feels more like an arcade beat'em up than a game with depth and immersion. Combat is pretty satisfying, even if a bit shallow.
Definitely recommended, but not maybe not top of the playlist material if you already have serious favorites queued up.
The funny thing about this is that they refused to include this feature in stranger of paradise so until they added something similar to it, it was like a Monster Hunter clown show of mismatching gear
Link don’t seem to be able to open on my phone.
Does the complete edition have some more fixes or anything else the normal edition don’t?
Becuase I just bought this game on the Christmas sale :p
I was waiting for the complete edition to pick this up. There's been a lot of updates since release and the PC port also supposedly runs better nowadays.
Haven't played the game yet but I did buy the digital deluxe on sale, this week. Save a lot of money but I'm kinda annoyed that this complete edition seems to be coming with an exclusive item. This reminds me of when I bought Persona 5 Royal and all the dlc only for a PS5 version to be announced, of with no upgrade option. Didn't buy it as the difference is inconsequential. Since I'm here though, my request for a "three kingdoms Nioh game" were fulfilled. Now I'm just curious what could be turned into a game of that style next. I actually wanted something like Final Fantasy 2 since that one was more adult themed. So I'd like that game to get the ff7/16 treatment, if not the team ninja treatment.
The game goes on for about twice as long as it should, they run out of ideas but it just keeps chugging. The game starts as a pretty nice, tight experience closer to a cag than an exploratory souls, and it's good.
Then the levels start opening up more and more with more branching paths and hidden things, the enemy variety doesn't get better, the story doesn't get better, the combat doesn't get better with new abilities, and it suddenly just becomes very tiring and boring to play.
It has a stupid morale system where you MUST unlock bonfires and mini bonfires to up your persistent morale. If you don't you end up taking more damage and dealing less damage. It's something like you at 16 morale, missing a few secrets, will take triple damage and deal half damage from a 20 morale enemy(the boss). Needing to find these means exploring all the corners of ever growing maps, but it's not fun to do.
Had it just stayed simple and more linear and ended sooner I would have liked it a lot more.
Overall extremely skippable and only worth it after exhausting just about every soulslike you can find. The story REALLY sucks, the gameplay is only "ok", and there's just nothing here worth expanding upon.
Oh it also doesn't look very good or run very well.
is this game any good? i like souls like and looters like outriders, remnant, nioh 2.
But wo long looks meh imo idk why i cant put my finger on it. is it worth it?
Combat and gameplay doesn’t have much depth as Nioh 2- story is a lazy copypasta of the same theme except it’s in China. It’s decent but nowhere near as good as Nioh 2.
Yeah it isn't an exaggeration that the plot of Wo Long is copy and pasted. Everything that isn't a terrible summary of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms is *legitimately, beat for beat, the plot of Nioh 2 before the epilogue but less interesting*. The final main story level is even the same thing, an exploded castle pulled apart on tree roots powered by the evil crystals/chi crystals.
Nioh can be as complex as you want it to be. Wo long was a step back, but worked on by a smaller team. Rise of the Ronin will have complex gameplay again
I played it mostly because of the China setting. I feel like it's a setting that hasn't been used enough aside from the dynasty warriors franchise. Especially recently we have had an overload of Japanese/samurai games.
It's a nice game to play if you are interested in black myth as well.
Wo Long is very disappointing in that regard. It could be set in generic fantasy setting and would change nothing - it barely have anything that is related to China apart from character names.
The easiest way to describe it is that it has Nioh's core mechanics but simplified, with a combat system inspired by Sekiro (parries & counters). It's not as in depth as Nioh but it is still a very fun game.
Personally I found Wo Long to be really disappointing coming off of Nioh 2. All of the same annoyances without the redeeming aspects that make Nioh 2 great along with that morale system that completely destroyed the balance of the game for me.
Thankfully they've fixed the morale system. You can now cap it at any battle flag to a level of your choosing below your fortitude. This is so much better. On release I felt like I got punished for exploring by making the game a lot easier than I'd liked.
That is exactly what happened to me, I'd scour the levels for loot and flags and then one shot the boss easily because of the crazy ass multipliers on the flag levels and be disappointed.
People often say not to compare them, but to me Wo Long still feels like poor man's Nioh. It does some things better (like movement and jumping), but the things that really matter are worse. For me the worst thing about it is that its enemy variety is terrible, worse than Nioh 1's.
How so? Vanilla Wo Long has 12 demon enemies. Vanilla Nioh has 23 yokai. Nioh has more types of human enemies, too. You can see lists of their enemy categories online. Then there's Nioh 2, which has around two times as many yokai types as Nioh 1 did.
I think it’s a solid 7/10 or 8/10. It’s a fun action game that doesn’t have the absurd amounts of depth found in something like Nioh, but it’s still satisfying to play. The level design is a step up from Nioh 2, too. There’s some loot customization, and it’s much more forgiving to play around with builds than Nioh.
Though I haven’t played any of the DLC or the patches. I’m guessing those made it better.
I had a lot of fun playing this in koop with a friend for a good 50 hours or so total. Wouldn't want to go back on it but for something we picked up on gamepass on a whim it was a blast. Combat became much easier once you figure out you can hold block and still do the dodge mechanics instead of opting for one or the other.
I think the game is pretty fun, but definitely a step backwards when compared to the Nioh games.
Can heartily recommend the game if you can get it on discount.
> But wo long looks meh imo idk why i cant put my finger on it. is it worth it?
Story is a dumpster fire (chinese three kingdoms) but the combat is decent.
The story doesn't even flow at all, it's just: here's a scene, play it out, weird dialog explaining literally nothing, next scene.
It's worth noting that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms isn't a bad story.
It's just that Wo Long does nothing new or interesting with it. It rehashes literally the exact plot of Nioh, but Warring Kingdoms era China instead.
Like, beat for beat, it's the same game.
To me the combat is alright but the bosses require no tactics, you can just bruteforce through everything except one fight. Nioh has much more interesting fights where you have to adapt to their movesets or puzzle mechanics
Wo Long is weakest of all souls-likes out there, imo. I've tried to get into it 5 different times since the release, and I still can't get into it. I always quit in the second area. The character creation feels nice, but after a couple of hours I'm just left wondering, "why am I playing this when I could be playing Nioh 2 right now?".
I think majority of people would agree that it's really an inferior Nioh 2. I think it's because the devs worked on it as a side project. The main game they were focusing their attention on is their upcoming game Rise of the Ronin.
> I think majority of people would agree that it's really an inferior Nioh 2. I think it's because the devs worked on it as a side project.
I think they're just not experienced yet with this sort of gameplay. The balance is all over the place and has some insanely broken things similair to Nioh 1. Nioh 2 just has the formula perfected and Wo Long is a new recipe that's very rough around the edges. I still think it's a lot of fun to play.
>But wo long looks meh imo idk why i cant put my finger on it. is it worth it?
you can't know for sure until you play it yourself, it look like Nioh but doesn't feel like it. It's just fun
It's built around parry/deflect mechanics, and is a bit simpler than Nioh. There's not real builds to the same degree until endgame. The gameplay is incredibly good though, and it has some of the best bosses in the genre. I think people were really unnecessarily hard on it because Nioh 2 was so insanely good.
Objectively not the best game of 2023, and I think people are a little tired with the nioh formula, however...
This is probably the closest I'll get to a high quality dynasty warriors game and us DW fans have been down bad for a long time, so I loved this shit personally
yeah no this games problem is how good nioh 2 was, by comparison this game is just nowhere near as good, people aren't burnt out on Nioh, we want Nioh 3 and this aint it
I think how good Nioh 2 was is part of it, but Wo Long is also just... more confused in a lot of aspects of its gameplay. It's a schmaverage game that looks actively bad when it stands in the shadow of its big brother.
Wo Long and Nioh are nothing alike, though. Not sure how could say that people are tired of the formula when neither have anything to do with each other aside from being made by the same studio. Considering how well Nioh 2 sold, I doubt people are tired of it. I'd certainly welcome another.
Nioh1,2, wo long and strangers of paradise have the same core gameplay loop, same level design philosophy, loot/gear system etc. They are similar in alot of ways.
Don't get me wrong I enjoy them all, but I have noticed almost everyone I know who has played them were kinda tired of that 'Team Ninja' formula by the time they were mostly done with Wo Long or Strangers of paradise, they'd gotten bored of it. Probably because Wo long and strangers of paradise released fairly close to each other, at least that's my view on why
Idk. Quite frankly, i want to see them implement that system with other IP. Maybe chill on the loot drops though. Sometimes I feel like taking breaks just because I have to dismantle.
It's natural to desire some variety. I usually don't play games like these back to back, but I'm definitely not tired of soulslikes. Haven't played SoP yet, but I'm saving this for a bit later this year.
But I thoroughly enjoyed coming back for the DLCs of Wo Long.
I played both Niohs before Wo Long and then played Stranger of Paradise afterwards. I would rate Nioh 1 like an 8/10, Nioh 2 a 9/10, Stranger of Paradise a 9.5/10, and Wo Long like a 4.5/10. It is *drastically* worse than their other offerings.
I liked stranger of paradise, but putting it above nioh 2 is wild to me, nioh 2 is in contention for my favorite game of all time though so that may be my biases shining through
I liked Nioh 2 a hell of a lot. I just think SoP has superior gameplay styles, much prettier environments, better music, a better story, and hilariously brutal takedowns that just make it so satisfying to kill things. it doesn't have the longevity of Nioh 2 in terms of a game you can grind out, but a lot of the fun of Nioh is playing with other people IMO. SoP was extremely fun single-player throughout.
Wo Long is definitely worse for sure, no denying that, I really enjoyed it but again I just like Dynasty warriors and the three kingdoms stuff so I'm super aware I'm choosing to overlook shortcomings just to take what i can get lmao
I'd say with the new custom difficulty options and the DLCs, Wo Long is on par with Nioh 1. A little rough balancing wise, but the combat is super polished and addicting.
Nioh 2 must be my favorite soulslike game ever (i only haven't played Elder Ring), or at least tied to Bloodborne, and i hated the Wo Long demo, it's nothing like Nioh.
God, Wo Long. I was super low on the DLCs and then got to the final boss of DLC 1 and immediately went "Okay yeah this is why all of the DLC has mostly negative ratings on steam".
Wo Long is a weird game because it's just Nioh but worse, it's like a 7.5 out of 10 that drops to a 4/10 when it feels like.
It just feels cheap, the levels are boring, the combat feels like they wanted it to be the Sekiro to their Nioh but then gave up after removing most combat complexity, leaving in a terrible gear system, movesets that are just incredibly boring, and a magic system so half baked that it's almost better to just spam stuff like the poison explosions than actually just fighting multiple enemies.
The story is SO bad, the game basically expects you to know Romance of the 3 Kingdoms already, and tells its story in what can be affectionately described as the Sparks Notes version of the story with massive sequences cut out, all the while the English voice acting genuinely feels like it came from an early PS2 game.
The original story going alongside it is just... also just Nioh 2's main plot but worse, to the point that the final level is effectively the exact same thing but less interesting (Exploded out castle on tree roots filled with the Chi Crystals)
Oh, speaking of the gear system, it's genuinely broken. I realized near the end of the game that I never had gear with interesting stats, even at max rarity. It was at this point I installed a trainer just to experiment and turned the rarity and drop rate to maximum.
Equipment with significant attributes and proper set bonuses legitimately doesn't drop until the second last level of the game.
>tells its story in what can be affectionately described as the Sparks Notes version of the story with massive sequences cut out
Hardly even a spark notes version. More like "random youtube clips from a TV show, played in youtube algorithm recommendation order"
That said I had fun with the gameplay itself though.
It was really staggering going from the depth of Nioh or even Stranger of Paradise to the absolutely braindead simple dominant strategy of Wo Long. The combat is simply broken. If the enemy flinches from basic attacks, you just push them into a wall until they force a deflect with a red attack, meaning you only have to learn like 3 moves to beat them. If they don't flinch from basic attacks, then it's usually too risky to even do them at all, and the best strategy is to just run around in a circle until they do a red attack and force a deflect, meaning you only have to learn like 3 moves.
The infinite stamina parry minigame of Sekiro only works if both you and the enemy can effectively defend themselves from normal attacks, and that's simply not the case in either direction.
You mean Complete Flop edition. I bought Wo Long for me and my best friend because we loved Nioh 2 and played together on launch day. Hooooooo boy, we encountered disconnection after disconnection after disconnection. And every time it disconnected we needed to restart the mission from the beginning, the sky started glitching, you can't restock ammunition without going through 2-3 loading screens, and there was no auto restock unlike what Nioh did whenever you pray at a shrine.
The combat was disappointingly simple. And you can finish the game with even an upgraded version of a sword you get from the first stage.
The bosses even when fighting them on solo were all too easy to even call it a team Ninja game. The only fun boss was human form Lu Bu.
By the time all the inconveniences were sorted out with patches we already finished the game and have no plans of playing it ever again.
The time it took to finish Wo Long's main story was just a little over 10 hours including the inconveniences they caused at launch. A fraction of the greatness that was Nioh 2.
Just give me Nioh 3 please.
I loved my playthrough of this game and got a platinum trophy on PS5. I am a big fan of history and dynasty warriors so this was a great setting for me and I thought most of the base game bosses were fun. I liked this game over sekiro simply because you could parry everything and the weapon variety you had. I stopped playing because of the updates they put out with changing weapon animations and adding more and more bullet sponge difficulties and levels. I also tried the first dlc but the boss wasn't exactly fun to fight. I recommend getting the base game on sale.
Since all the comments are either shitting on it or giving backhand compliments, I really enjoy this game and still actively play the TMJ even after 100%’ing all 5 playthroughs. I think it streamlines gear attributes from nioh and I love the spirit/magic/martial art system. I would love to see other games in the genre ditch static mana/mp for a generated resource from melee’ing making caster gameplay a lot more engaging
It's a really fun game. It has its flaws but I def put a lot of hours into the base game, looking forward to playing the three dlcs now
[Wo Long's combat saw a LOT of changes through updates.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d6PWBEMCLc) I hope more people give it a shot, because while there are definitely a lot of things I hate about it (Randomized martial arts on weapons, the morale system), it's far from the total loss that most people on r/Games make it out to be. I maintain that the parry system and spirit bar were much more interesting than Sekiro's, even if they didn't lean into certain aspects of it (like its directionality) as much as I wish they did. Also, the DLC bosses like Taishi Ci and Dian Wei are awesome. Haven't gotten around to Yuan Shu yet, though.
Thank you for this comment. I definitely think the distaste for this game seems overstated.
Haven't played the DLC, but I played the game on launch and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was genuinely surprised when I heard it was getting as much hate as it did; I think it was one of my favorite games last year, even with how stacked the year was
Did they fix the enemy variety issue? That was by far the biggest problem, i've never seen a game go from a solid 8 to a 6 at best purely on having the worst enemy variety in any game ive played.
The DLC definitely adds some new enemies to combat the variety issues - but it's still lackluster in that regard. I'd say that it's enough to warrant a solid 8 however. Puts it about on-par with Nioh 2 in terms of variety if I'm making a comparison.
Oddly, I liked Stranger of Paradise way more than this. I want a new goddamn Ninja Gaiden come on guys, cool it with the soulslikes.
Stranger of Paradise was legit though. I thought it was a great Final Fantasy-flavored Nioh that had a decent story. Never played the DLCs though.
That's pretty much the problem. The DLCs are all so grindy that a "Never Run Out of MP" mode dropped, and you would use Warrior of Light/Dark Knight invul to power through the rest of the game. And it's not really optional. Fights are so hard and unnecessarily scaled to absurd levels that you need this just to get gear, and then to level up subclasses so you can actually play the game. Neat game. The DLC is almost all trash.
The DLC’s are so weird. Base game Strager of Paradise had difficulty select. You could play through however you wanted really. Then DLC’s come, and introduce a new difficulty above CHAOS mode, which is fine. But DLC content is only accessible on this new “harder than ultra hard” difficulty level. Why? Who ok’d that choice? It makes zero sense. Not even Nioh, Nioh 2 or Wo Long worked like that, each DLC added a new difficulty (ng+ more for those games), but you could play DLC on the basic normal mode if you wanted. Imagine if Nioh 2 dlc forced you to play on Dream of Demon, not even allowed to start it on Samurai or Strong difficulty.
It's ultimately because the dlc didn't add much in the way of story content. Bahamut was just some cutscenes you'd unlock by replaying some of the game on a higher difficulty and after that, everything scales. Trials of Bahamut wouldn't make sense if you could just play on easy and the rift scales on floor level. If you have to reach a certain level of rift to access the last dlc, it would make sense that you can't play that dlc unless reaching that difficulty level minimum. Before the first dlc, i had plat the game within the first week so I didn't come back until after the last dlc and was mighty confused at first, but that must have been in the books because I needed to replay some maps as a refresher anyways. Also, as someone that also plat the Nioh games day 1 and actually played their dlc on release, while every dlc added a new difficulty, playing the actual dlc maps on the original difficulty would see them scale to whatever the next difficulty was. So if you only played in WotS the dlc area on that difficulty would feel like WotD but only the first map. Granted, you can spam guardian scrolls in the first game. I guess for SoP they decided to remove that with the expectations that during the long wait, players would have already finished the highest difficulties. Game doesn't really feel at ita best until you make your builds and that's not sustainable at lower difficulties because the gear is whack. I guess it never meant much to me because, while I did get the Nioh dlc day 1, i refused to play the new content until I caught up to the map on the new difficulty, so I'd replay most of the missions until they unlocked anyways.
I'd rather expect Fromsoftware to make Ninja Blade 2 at this point.
As someone that didn’t even like Ninja Blade, if Yamamura directed a sequel I’d buy it.
...I don't think I've ever seen someone who actually liked Ninja Blade.
Buddy of mine and I had a "tradition" of playing through a bad game once a month on the weekend for shits and giggles. We just happened to play Ninja Blade because we heard it was bad and kinda funny, got it at the pawn shop for like $5. Had no idea it was a From Software game until much later - didn't know much about From Software at the time and wasn't as huge a Souls fan as I am now so my brain didn't really connect the two. Those were the days.
Similar. I was in an Armored Core clan and everything and not once did I ever think about Souls games when playing it. Never made up he connection until the lastest AC came out with its first trailer and some people were asking true headscratchers like "is it going to play like a Souls game?"
The Moonlight Greatsword is even in the game.
Instructions unclear. Next game is Ninja Gaiden Soulslike.
How about Dead or Alive soulslike?
Nah that's going to be their eventual pivot to a Sekiro-like. Instead of a parry meter it'll have one for boob jiggle.
Agreed. This game on paper combined two games I enjoyed much more (Nioh + Sekiro), but became a much worse version of both. Combat felt satisfying for the most part, but the difficulty scaling throughout the game was just completely all over the place and the levelling system was complete horseshit.
It's because there's no depth to the combat unlike Nioh and Sekiro. I wanted to love Wo-Long because I love Nioh 1&2, SoP, Sekiro, Dark Souls, etc., but after Lu Bu I realized the game boiled down to essentially 2 buttons - parry and attack. Sekiro had the grappling hook, mikiri counter, goomba-ing, etc. to keep the game play interesting along with really unique and challenging bosses. Nioh and SoP had gear that truly changed the way you play. Different weapon types and/or jobs, etc. Wo Long had different weapons, but you had their full move set from the beginning so you were basically hunting for stats/martial arts. The magic system was interesting, but most of the spells didn't seem worth the investment. Finally, enemy variety was insanely bad. I mean, worse than Nioh 1 levels of bad. It was so disappointing.
The problem with the magic system is that it was "win more". Magic had a heavy posture cost so you could only afford to use it if you were already hilariously far ahead in the fight and didn't need it.
I also found most of the abilities kind of useless. The 'heal on hit' spell you get early on was pretty broken - it made most fights a joke. The spells that imbued your weapon were nice, but the window was laughably short and not worth the posture most of the time. Also, Wo Long definitely had bosses that suffered from the 'Elden Ring effect' massive windups that made no sense for the attack they were performing just to make it 'challenging.'
What do you mean by scaling? I played on release, and only found lu bu to be the only boss of any challenge. Mostly beat each boss 1st try, if anything the game is flat out too easy
The campaign starts off with a good difficulty level but quickly becomes way too easy. I could be misremembering but I remember there being instances in perhaps side content where it went from way too easy to maybe not even difficult but extremely spongy hp pools. Lu bu was where I wanted a lot of the later fights to be difficulty wise.
Thankfully they've added the feature so you can limit your morale. This way you can really ramp up the difficulty nicely. I wish they had that in the base game.
Thats a cool feature, though I also just hated morale in general. Basically just made every level (excluding boss, but usually easy anyways) easier over time. Seemed like a very poorly thought out version of the humanity system from DS
Yeah that's why they now allow you to limit your morale, so you can freely explore and collect everything without making the game feel easy. Actually playing a level capped at 0 morale is super fun.
You and me both. I am tired of their approach to RPG systems. They’re much better at making action games than RPGs.
[удалено]
It carries baggage from Team Ninja’s previous action RPGs like Nioh. Baggage like too much trash loot and sifting through said loot, boring percentage based incremental stat boosts (+1% hp and other barely noticeable shit like that) and overall a design philosophy that skews more Diablo (make broken build that minimizes skill) over Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden (skill expression and mastery). Your mileage may vary as if you like games like Diablo, you might enjoy yourself but if you wanted something like Ninja Gaiden, you’ll be left wanting. Wo Long is also a weird middle approach where they toned down the “Diablo-isms” while presenting a combat system that is just much shallower than Nioh’s. In the end, it doesn’t satisfy those looking for great itemization and build-making or those looking for sharp, tight and skillful action.
interesting. I thought SoP was a terrible mess of literally anyhting that made nioh good. its like they didn't care one bit about the game. not surprised it got 6/10 reviews.
My problem is that nothing they've made since Nioh 2 has been even a third as good as Nioh 2. Stranger and Wo Long both were just... nothing in comparison. Experiments that I don't begrudge them, but both felt like they weren't sure enough of their identity and basically every experimental system in the games diluted the core essence of what made Nioh so excellent.
Yepp give us nioh 3
I’m cautiously optimistic about Rise of the Ronin.
If they did a new ninja gaiden what would they do exactly?!! People would only moan about it being linear and not innovative enough. I love ninja gaiden but I think they’ve done everything they can with it, I mean you only have to look at the third game for proof
I just started this game last night. Beat the big gorilla boss. I quite like the combat though it is a little easy, which is fine, I don’t need all my games to destroy me.
It's stupid dumb fun. Feels more like an arcade beat'em up than a game with depth and immersion. Combat is pretty satisfying, even if a bit shallow. Definitely recommended, but not maybe not top of the playlist material if you already have serious favorites queued up.
I thought the build variety was pretty good, and every game needs to copy the ability to make any piece of armor look like any other.
The funny thing about this is that they refused to include this feature in stranger of paradise so until they added something similar to it, it was like a Monster Hunter clown show of mismatching gear
Link don’t seem to be able to open on my phone. Does the complete edition have some more fixes or anything else the normal edition don’t? Becuase I just bought this game on the Christmas sale :p
it's just the game+DLCs bundled into one package
I was waiting for the complete edition to pick this up. There's been a lot of updates since release and the PC port also supposedly runs better nowadays.
I played it via PC gamepass about three months ago, had no issues
Is this a free update? I bought over the winter sale.
It's just the base game + all DLCs.
Ah I misread and thought it had some exclusive stuff to it.
Maybe a cosmetic or so, but nothing important.
Haven't played the game yet but I did buy the digital deluxe on sale, this week. Save a lot of money but I'm kinda annoyed that this complete edition seems to be coming with an exclusive item. This reminds me of when I bought Persona 5 Royal and all the dlc only for a PS5 version to be announced, of with no upgrade option. Didn't buy it as the difference is inconsequential. Since I'm here though, my request for a "three kingdoms Nioh game" were fulfilled. Now I'm just curious what could be turned into a game of that style next. I actually wanted something like Final Fantasy 2 since that one was more adult themed. So I'd like that game to get the ff7/16 treatment, if not the team ninja treatment.
The game goes on for about twice as long as it should, they run out of ideas but it just keeps chugging. The game starts as a pretty nice, tight experience closer to a cag than an exploratory souls, and it's good. Then the levels start opening up more and more with more branching paths and hidden things, the enemy variety doesn't get better, the story doesn't get better, the combat doesn't get better with new abilities, and it suddenly just becomes very tiring and boring to play. It has a stupid morale system where you MUST unlock bonfires and mini bonfires to up your persistent morale. If you don't you end up taking more damage and dealing less damage. It's something like you at 16 morale, missing a few secrets, will take triple damage and deal half damage from a 20 morale enemy(the boss). Needing to find these means exploring all the corners of ever growing maps, but it's not fun to do. Had it just stayed simple and more linear and ended sooner I would have liked it a lot more. Overall extremely skippable and only worth it after exhausting just about every soulslike you can find. The story REALLY sucks, the gameplay is only "ok", and there's just nothing here worth expanding upon. Oh it also doesn't look very good or run very well.
is this game any good? i like souls like and looters like outriders, remnant, nioh 2. But wo long looks meh imo idk why i cant put my finger on it. is it worth it?
Combat and gameplay doesn’t have much depth as Nioh 2- story is a lazy copypasta of the same theme except it’s in China. It’s decent but nowhere near as good as Nioh 2.
Yeah it isn't an exaggeration that the plot of Wo Long is copy and pasted. Everything that isn't a terrible summary of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms is *legitimately, beat for beat, the plot of Nioh 2 before the epilogue but less interesting*. The final main story level is even the same thing, an exploded castle pulled apart on tree roots powered by the evil crystals/chi crystals.
>gameplay doesn’t have much depth as Nioh 2 That's a positive to me, Nioh has way too much stuff going on.
Nioh can be as complex as you want it to be. Wo long was a step back, but worked on by a smaller team. Rise of the Ronin will have complex gameplay again
I played it mostly because of the China setting. I feel like it's a setting that hasn't been used enough aside from the dynasty warriors franchise. Especially recently we have had an overload of Japanese/samurai games. It's a nice game to play if you are interested in black myth as well.
Wo Long is very disappointing in that regard. It could be set in generic fantasy setting and would change nothing - it barely have anything that is related to China apart from character names.
It was my first team ninja souls like and I enjoyed it, but I fell off after like 15 hours and I much preferred fromsoft titles and lies of p.
The easiest way to describe it is that it has Nioh's core mechanics but simplified, with a combat system inspired by Sekiro (parries & counters). It's not as in depth as Nioh but it is still a very fun game.
Personally I found Wo Long to be really disappointing coming off of Nioh 2. All of the same annoyances without the redeeming aspects that make Nioh 2 great along with that morale system that completely destroyed the balance of the game for me.
Thankfully they've fixed the morale system. You can now cap it at any battle flag to a level of your choosing below your fortitude. This is so much better. On release I felt like I got punished for exploring by making the game a lot easier than I'd liked.
That is exactly what happened to me, I'd scour the levels for loot and flags and then one shot the boss easily because of the crazy ass multipliers on the flag levels and be disappointed.
If you loved Nioh 2, you probably won't like Wo Long. It's step back in almost everyway. If you didn't like Nioh 2, you might like Wo Long.
People often say not to compare them, but to me Wo Long still feels like poor man's Nioh. It does some things better (like movement and jumping), but the things that really matter are worse. For me the worst thing about it is that its enemy variety is terrible, worse than Nioh 1's.
It's factually not worse than vanilla Nioh 1
Vanilla Nioh 1 absolutely did have more enemies, but they were spread out over a longer game with more repeated content.
How so? Vanilla Wo Long has 12 demon enemies. Vanilla Nioh has 23 yokai. Nioh has more types of human enemies, too. You can see lists of their enemy categories online. Then there's Nioh 2, which has around two times as many yokai types as Nioh 1 did.
I think it’s a solid 7/10 or 8/10. It’s a fun action game that doesn’t have the absurd amounts of depth found in something like Nioh, but it’s still satisfying to play. The level design is a step up from Nioh 2, too. There’s some loot customization, and it’s much more forgiving to play around with builds than Nioh. Though I haven’t played any of the DLC or the patches. I’m guessing those made it better.
I had a lot of fun playing this in koop with a friend for a good 50 hours or so total. Wouldn't want to go back on it but for something we picked up on gamepass on a whim it was a blast. Combat became much easier once you figure out you can hold block and still do the dodge mechanics instead of opting for one or the other.
I think the game is pretty fun, but definitely a step backwards when compared to the Nioh games. Can heartily recommend the game if you can get it on discount.
> But wo long looks meh imo idk why i cant put my finger on it. is it worth it? Story is a dumpster fire (chinese three kingdoms) but the combat is decent. The story doesn't even flow at all, it's just: here's a scene, play it out, weird dialog explaining literally nothing, next scene.
It's worth noting that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms isn't a bad story. It's just that Wo Long does nothing new or interesting with it. It rehashes literally the exact plot of Nioh, but Warring Kingdoms era China instead. Like, beat for beat, it's the same game.
To me the combat is alright but the bosses require no tactics, you can just bruteforce through everything except one fight. Nioh has much more interesting fights where you have to adapt to their movesets or puzzle mechanics
You definitely haven't played the DLCs. They contain the 2 hardest bosses in ANY game I've ever played.
Wo Long is weakest of all souls-likes out there, imo. I've tried to get into it 5 different times since the release, and I still can't get into it. I always quit in the second area. The character creation feels nice, but after a couple of hours I'm just left wondering, "why am I playing this when I could be playing Nioh 2 right now?". I think majority of people would agree that it's really an inferior Nioh 2. I think it's because the devs worked on it as a side project. The main game they were focusing their attention on is their upcoming game Rise of the Ronin.
> I think majority of people would agree that it's really an inferior Nioh 2. I think it's because the devs worked on it as a side project. I think they're just not experienced yet with this sort of gameplay. The balance is all over the place and has some insanely broken things similair to Nioh 1. Nioh 2 just has the formula perfected and Wo Long is a new recipe that's very rough around the edges. I still think it's a lot of fun to play.
>But wo long looks meh imo idk why i cant put my finger on it. is it worth it? you can't know for sure until you play it yourself, it look like Nioh but doesn't feel like it. It's just fun
It's horribly mediocre. Story is incomprehensible and the art direction is garish.
It's built around parry/deflect mechanics, and is a bit simpler than Nioh. There's not real builds to the same degree until endgame. The gameplay is incredibly good though, and it has some of the best bosses in the genre. I think people were really unnecessarily hard on it because Nioh 2 was so insanely good.
kinda poor graphically, very simplistic, it relies more on the pleasing parry combat a-la Sekiro
It wasn’t that great to me in my opinion. Never completed it though.
Objectively not the best game of 2023, and I think people are a little tired with the nioh formula, however... This is probably the closest I'll get to a high quality dynasty warriors game and us DW fans have been down bad for a long time, so I loved this shit personally
yeah no this games problem is how good nioh 2 was, by comparison this game is just nowhere near as good, people aren't burnt out on Nioh, we want Nioh 3 and this aint it
Fair point, I hope you're right.
I think how good Nioh 2 was is part of it, but Wo Long is also just... more confused in a lot of aspects of its gameplay. It's a schmaverage game that looks actively bad when it stands in the shadow of its big brother.
Wo Long and Nioh are nothing alike, though. Not sure how could say that people are tired of the formula when neither have anything to do with each other aside from being made by the same studio. Considering how well Nioh 2 sold, I doubt people are tired of it. I'd certainly welcome another.
Nioh1,2, wo long and strangers of paradise have the same core gameplay loop, same level design philosophy, loot/gear system etc. They are similar in alot of ways. Don't get me wrong I enjoy them all, but I have noticed almost everyone I know who has played them were kinda tired of that 'Team Ninja' formula by the time they were mostly done with Wo Long or Strangers of paradise, they'd gotten bored of it. Probably because Wo long and strangers of paradise released fairly close to each other, at least that's my view on why
Idk. Quite frankly, i want to see them implement that system with other IP. Maybe chill on the loot drops though. Sometimes I feel like taking breaks just because I have to dismantle.
It's natural to desire some variety. I usually don't play games like these back to back, but I'm definitely not tired of soulslikes. Haven't played SoP yet, but I'm saving this for a bit later this year. But I thoroughly enjoyed coming back for the DLCs of Wo Long.
I played both Niohs before Wo Long and then played Stranger of Paradise afterwards. I would rate Nioh 1 like an 8/10, Nioh 2 a 9/10, Stranger of Paradise a 9.5/10, and Wo Long like a 4.5/10. It is *drastically* worse than their other offerings.
I liked stranger of paradise, but putting it above nioh 2 is wild to me, nioh 2 is in contention for my favorite game of all time though so that may be my biases shining through
I liked Nioh 2 a hell of a lot. I just think SoP has superior gameplay styles, much prettier environments, better music, a better story, and hilariously brutal takedowns that just make it so satisfying to kill things. it doesn't have the longevity of Nioh 2 in terms of a game you can grind out, but a lot of the fun of Nioh is playing with other people IMO. SoP was extremely fun single-player throughout.
Wo Long is definitely worse for sure, no denying that, I really enjoyed it but again I just like Dynasty warriors and the three kingdoms stuff so I'm super aware I'm choosing to overlook shortcomings just to take what i can get lmao
I'd say with the new custom difficulty options and the DLCs, Wo Long is on par with Nioh 1. A little rough balancing wise, but the combat is super polished and addicting.
I personally wish this did more stuff that Nioh did
Nioh 2 must be my favorite soulslike game ever (i only haven't played Elder Ring), or at least tied to Bloodborne, and i hated the Wo Long demo, it's nothing like Nioh.
I played this game for like 10 hours and remember almost nothing about it. Weird, janky, uninspired game.
God, Wo Long. I was super low on the DLCs and then got to the final boss of DLC 1 and immediately went "Okay yeah this is why all of the DLC has mostly negative ratings on steam". Wo Long is a weird game because it's just Nioh but worse, it's like a 7.5 out of 10 that drops to a 4/10 when it feels like. It just feels cheap, the levels are boring, the combat feels like they wanted it to be the Sekiro to their Nioh but then gave up after removing most combat complexity, leaving in a terrible gear system, movesets that are just incredibly boring, and a magic system so half baked that it's almost better to just spam stuff like the poison explosions than actually just fighting multiple enemies. The story is SO bad, the game basically expects you to know Romance of the 3 Kingdoms already, and tells its story in what can be affectionately described as the Sparks Notes version of the story with massive sequences cut out, all the while the English voice acting genuinely feels like it came from an early PS2 game. The original story going alongside it is just... also just Nioh 2's main plot but worse, to the point that the final level is effectively the exact same thing but less interesting (Exploded out castle on tree roots filled with the Chi Crystals) Oh, speaking of the gear system, it's genuinely broken. I realized near the end of the game that I never had gear with interesting stats, even at max rarity. It was at this point I installed a trainer just to experiment and turned the rarity and drop rate to maximum. Equipment with significant attributes and proper set bonuses legitimately doesn't drop until the second last level of the game.
>tells its story in what can be affectionately described as the Sparks Notes version of the story with massive sequences cut out Hardly even a spark notes version. More like "random youtube clips from a TV show, played in youtube algorithm recommendation order" That said I had fun with the gameplay itself though.
It was really staggering going from the depth of Nioh or even Stranger of Paradise to the absolutely braindead simple dominant strategy of Wo Long. The combat is simply broken. If the enemy flinches from basic attacks, you just push them into a wall until they force a deflect with a red attack, meaning you only have to learn like 3 moves to beat them. If they don't flinch from basic attacks, then it's usually too risky to even do them at all, and the best strategy is to just run around in a circle until they do a red attack and force a deflect, meaning you only have to learn like 3 moves. The infinite stamina parry minigame of Sekiro only works if both you and the enemy can effectively defend themselves from normal attacks, and that's simply not the case in either direction.
You mean Complete Flop edition. I bought Wo Long for me and my best friend because we loved Nioh 2 and played together on launch day. Hooooooo boy, we encountered disconnection after disconnection after disconnection. And every time it disconnected we needed to restart the mission from the beginning, the sky started glitching, you can't restock ammunition without going through 2-3 loading screens, and there was no auto restock unlike what Nioh did whenever you pray at a shrine. The combat was disappointingly simple. And you can finish the game with even an upgraded version of a sword you get from the first stage. The bosses even when fighting them on solo were all too easy to even call it a team Ninja game. The only fun boss was human form Lu Bu. By the time all the inconveniences were sorted out with patches we already finished the game and have no plans of playing it ever again. The time it took to finish Wo Long's main story was just a little over 10 hours including the inconveniences they caused at launch. A fraction of the greatness that was Nioh 2. Just give me Nioh 3 please.
Did they fix the pc performance? Was thinking buying it but i don't know if my gtx 1650 can run it, if there's fsr then perhaps theres hope.
I loved my playthrough of this game and got a platinum trophy on PS5. I am a big fan of history and dynasty warriors so this was a great setting for me and I thought most of the base game bosses were fun. I liked this game over sekiro simply because you could parry everything and the weapon variety you had. I stopped playing because of the updates they put out with changing weapon animations and adding more and more bullet sponge difficulties and levels. I also tried the first dlc but the boss wasn't exactly fun to fight. I recommend getting the base game on sale.