Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

[Deej]

Worth bearing in mind, this game is on Xbox Gamepass on day one.

[Xiahou Mao]

Here's some more gameplay from Hulao Gate, with the usual suspects present.

https://youtu.be/yBUEbBrLmXY

[James]

It also seems a touch odd to me that so much of what is shown is monsters. Almost in the sense that it was too much fuss to bring human models and confrontations deeper into the Souls-esque gameplay model, when it seems like it could have been a great opportunity. A wee bit off-putting, but since I have only looked into a small number of videos, no strong opinion.

[Bryan]

It also seems a touch odd to me that so much of what is shown is monsters. Almost in the sense that it was too much fuss to bring human models and confrontations deeper into the Souls-esque gameplay model, when it seems like it could have been a great opportunity. A wee bit off-putting, but since I have only looked into a small number of videos, no strong opinion.

https://youtu.be/2rJFmuycrSI?t=755

Here's a video of the demo starting around 12:30 or so, there was actually quite a bit of human opposition from what I remember playing, but the story trailers and presence of monsters has me thinking of some of the more fantastical wuxia/xianxia/murim/muhyup/whatever-the-kids-say-these-days type of stories. Some human bosses, as well, as I did have some trouble against Zhang Mancheng and Zhang Liang, but Deej was able to jump in and help out. From the updates they put out based on user feedback, at least it seems like they're not making it as hardcore as some other games in the Souls/Nioh genre.

[Terranigma Freak]

I think it's disappointing to not be able to play as one of the characters from ROTK, I do hope that PC players will make a mod that'll let use play as the famous generals instead of a generic self-insert character.

It also seems a touch odd to me that so much of what is shown is monsters. Almost in the sense that it was too much fuss to bring human models and confrontations deeper into the Souls-esque gameplay model, when it seems like it could have been a great opportunity. A wee bit off-putting, but since I have only looked into a small number of videos, no strong opinion.

Definitely check Xiahou Mao's video. All the enemies are humans. We even got to see Hua Xiong.

Here's some more gameplay from Hulao Gate, with the usual suspects present.

https://youtu.be/yBUEbBrLmXY

Interesting. My friend was suspecting that this game wouldn't cover the entirety of the 3 Kingdoms. He suspects that even though it's called Wo Long, the story won't even reach Zhuge Liang. He thinks the game will end with the death of Lu Bu. The video says Hulao gate is the mid-point of the game. I'm starting to think he might be right. It would be crazy to cover the entirety of the story anyway. They could split the story into several chunks and still have plenty of material to make a very robust game if they sell well.

[Ranbir]

If Hu Lao is the midpoint. The end point could just be Dongers. He's an easy villain to pivot a story around.

[Terranigma Freak]

If Hu Lao is the midpoint. The end point could just be Dongers. He's an easy villain to pivot a story around.

That's what I suspect as well. It's not a bad place to end the story. The sequel will pick up where this left off if it sells well enough.

[Xiahou Mao]

If Hu Lao is the midpoint. The end point could just be Dongers. He's an easy villain to pivot a story around.

It'll go farther than that. The story trailer showed Zhang Fei preparing to kill himself for losing Xiapi. I expect Lu Bu's death will be the game's ending point, and the post-credits scene can show Cao Cao (an ally for most of the game) taking whatever evil power Lu Bu had found for himself to set up the sequel.

[Lorric]

I didn't know this existed until I read it on here.

I've never played a Souls / Nioh / Soulslike game, didn't even know they were linked, I knew Elden Ring was linked to Souls (not played that either.) So anything I say about this isn't going to be influenced by them.

I watched the story video, and I didn't feel it imparted any information at all about what the story's about and it didn't grab me at all with anything I was seeing.

Now I know this is not a Warriors game, but I talked about wanting to get the numbers of soldiers in Warriors games back down to PS2 levels and up the difficulty elsewhere here, and while I wouldn't be against the numbers going even lower, this game just feels like a bad fit. It's just you running around in comparatively confined spaces, taking out single enemies or duos, maybe trios, maybe with one ally, but often alone. And that just doesn't work. How can you believe you're a part of a battle with such tiny numbers and nothing going on around you? You could perhaps believe it with say a dozen people total running around on both sides and sometimes less. But this just makes it not believable. The Hu Lao Gate stage looks more like some sparsely populated minor outpost than the enormous battle it really was.

I did like Lu Bu though, and Red Hare even more. I knew he would win, it would be bad marketing showing him go down. You want to make the player want to see him go down, make him go down.

[Deej]

Now I know this is not a Warriors game, but I talked about wanting to get the numbers of soldiers in Warriors games back down to PS2 levels and up the difficulty elsewhere here, and while I wouldn't be against the numbers going even lower, this game just feels like a bad fit. It's just you running around in comparatively confined spaces, taking out single enemies or duos, maybe trios, maybe with one ally, but often alone. And that just doesn't work. How can you believe you're a part of a battle with such tiny numbers and nothing going on around you? You could perhaps believe it with say a dozen people total running around on both sides and sometimes less. But this just makes it not believable. The Hu Lao Gate stage looks more like some sparsely populated minor outpost than the enormous battle it really was.

So in Nioh, you're tasked with hunting yokai during the warring states period. The missions are fashioned as though they are covert ops. I expect it's much the same here, especially so as Wo Long introduces a branch of skills focused entirely on stealth.

This is them wanting to continue their good work with Nioh whilst finding a new setting, rather than wanting to create a separate, battlefield based experience.