Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

Combat in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is fast and challenging. It's tough to wrap your head around, but inherently simple when you come to grips with it.

There is something of an elemental effectiveness system in Wo Long tied to the elemental spells you get access to. Some have a long wind-up, while others release immediately, so studying the Martial Art in question will give you good information about when you should try and use it. The skill is different for most weapons, but there's only a limited pool of available arts that will be assigned to a weapon you pick up. One way to flip the gauge back in your favour is by hitting perfect deflections and doing damage to your foe instead. You're rewarded in Wo Long for being much more aggressive in fights due to the nature of the Spirit Gauge mechanic. If you are in a bad situation or overwhelmed, back off and let your followers take over while you recuperate.

In this third-person soulslike you play a warrior in 184 AD in China, where demons plague the Three Kingdoms on the hunt for Elixir. As the game starts a ...

I know this is a soulslike, but his attacks are relentless and your health and spirit are not. Your main damage-doers in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty are the Martial Arts and Wizardry Spells. The first hour of the game leads up to and includes the first boss, and it’s one heck of a start I have to say.

Steam user reviews on launch day for Team Ninja's new Soulslike Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty skew "mostly negative" for poor PC performance and clunky mouse and ...

While many players acknowledge that the content and gameplay of Wo Long is of high quality, the PC port’s performance and mouse-and-keyboard controls don’t match its production values. “A good game buried deep beneath the biggest catastrophe of a PC port that I have ever seen,” reads one popular review. But the Windows PC version of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty isn’t sitting well with many players on Steam, making it the latest in a growing line of games that don’t perform great on PC.

Can't figure out Wo Long's Virtue system? Here are the best ways to level up your character in the early parts of the adventure.

Most Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty players will want to level up the Wood Virtue first. Stay away from it in the early part of the game unless you’re committed to a stealth build. The Fire melee attack benefits offer some of the best Spirit generation options in the game, while Earth offers greater Spirit returns on the deflects you’ll always be using. Every type of character will be deflecting attacks throughout the course of the game, and every type of character will want extra Spirit from those deflections. After all, Spirit is the most important part of Wo Long‘s combat, and you’ll want as much of it as possible as often as possible. That makes it pretty much impossible to build any kind of sorcerer character in Wo Long without investing most of your points in Metal. While the actual Metal spells largely consist of poison and curse debuffs, leveling up your Metal Virtue also decreases the amount of Spirit you use when you cast any spell in the game. Its marquee feature (the ability to remain undetected for longer while in stealth), probably won’t seem that useful at the start of the game. Water is a strange Virtue in Wo Long. Because most of the Wood-based spells are actually powerful buffs, it’s incredibly beneficial to be able to make those potent buffs last a little longer. Wood is an incredibly useful Virtue that offers the largest HP buffs per level. The Wood Virtue also reduces the amount of Spirit you lose when you get hit and increases the duration of your spells.

Team Ninja has released a statement addressing issues PC players are facing with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.The hotly-anti…

We will announce additional details as they become available.(2/2)— Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (@WoLongOfficial) Team Ninja released a statement saying it's investigating the problems marring the game's performance. At time of writing, Wo Long is in the top five best-sellers on Steam.

There are five main level-up skills to sink your points into in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Here's what you need to know about them.

Reducing the amount of Spirit required to deflect and dodge will help keep you on top of managing Spirit, especially if you're a spammer. Deflecting will increase your Spirit, and if you love doing that, you'll want to ensure your deflections are netting you the most Spirit by putting points in Earth. There is a generous window for deflecting attacks but if you miss the timing, you will lose some Spirit. If you have positive Spirit, the gauge will be blue and stay that way for a few seconds before it naturally depletes. Spells are useful in Wo Long, but they are a risk if casting one will put you immediately into negative Spirit, meaning the next hit will break your guard. Putting points into Wood Virtue will let you take more hits and not be in much danger of having your Spirit Gauge broken, leaving you vulnerable to attacks. The other main benefit of Metal is that it increases your Spirit Sustainability. Each Virtue controls a specific stat and the idea is that the Virtues are tied to the kind of build you want to go for in Wo Long. Genuine Qi is your currency for levels, and you have the option to spend them on five Virtues. It's crucial to increase this if you find you can't wear heavy armour without being over-encumbered. The Virtues are also tied to Spells in Wo Long. In Wo Long, there are only five main stats to increase as you spend your Genuine Qi.

It's been a long time since I've played something that shows the value of having an extensive demo or game trial as much as Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

But engage with a sneak attack (which does a great deal of damage to get you started) and overcome the beast, and you’ll get a big morale boost. That’s going to be a blow for many players who might be interested in Wo Long, but may not have the ability to handle the gameplay. When you die, your morale rank will drop to the level of your fortitude rank. Given how important your morale rank is, though, that’s a huge way to encourage players to look for marking flags. There’s another wrinkle to the morale system beyond your rank being wiped at the start of each mission. I don’t typically go out of my way to hunt for loot in games. Figuring out the timing and patterns of an enemy’s attacks, then when to respond with a parry, melee attack, block, martial arts strike, magic spell or dodge, is vital. Wo Long has a fantastic mechanic that allows you to parry every single enemy attack in the game. Hold the guard button for too long and you’ll run out of juice for your magic attacks. There’s a lot to like, which I’ll get into shortly, and it’s clearly a game made with lots of care and attention. You’ll need to get a quick handle on Wo Long’s Wuxia combat to stand a chance of getting past this grueling encounter. So much so that I’d urge everyone who’s interested in buying this soulslike to try the demo first — unless you’re a Game Pass subscriber, since it’s available there.

Let's talk about Wo Long's equipment, rarity (stars), upgrades, and how to read the stats because it's really confusing.

In other words, a 1★ Bronze Sword +1 will do more base damage than a 3★ Bronze Sword (+0), but the +1 Sword will have fewer Special Effects. Upgrading adds a plus sign and a number to whatever gear you upgrade — ex., a Bronze Sword will become a Bronze Sword +1. The most important of these Special Effects in weapons are Martial Arts — the special attacks you launch with RB + X/square or Y/triangle. But every Bronze Sword will have the same base stats (Attack Power, Attack Bonus from Five Phases Virtue Points, and Spirit) regardless of rarity. These will be a number of minor buffs to various stats, like a 1.5% bonus to your damage output or a 5.8% increase to the amount of copper you find. [Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty](https://www.polygon.com/game/wo-long-fallen-dynasty/40898), you’ll find find a ton of gear.

Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja's next big game is finally here, and it should come as no surprise that it's...

Team Ninja’s latest action RPG is equal parts challenging and exhilarating, with unique mechanics that help even the odds in even the toughest of battles. Your Morale will never go below that of your current Fortitude, so if you’ve banked up a high Morale Rank, it’s best to hunt out these flags to make sure you don’t lose it, if and when you are defeated. You’ll start each level at 0, and killing enemies along the way will raise this — with higher level enemies raising it much faster, should you manage to slay them — whilst falling to a foe will lower it. It’s frantic, vicious fun, and whilst the story and audio aren’t the best, this is certainly a worthy title for a genre known for its punishing, yet rewarding gameplay. With a wide variety of weapons, Wizardry spells, and more, each player will craft their own character to fit a specific style of play. They summon a mystical beast that deals a tonne of damage and can be a turning point in some of the tougher boss battles. That’s the gameplay loop in its simplest form, and in fact the combat is quite a bit more robust, to the point where it feels like there's almost too much to think about whilst avoiding enemy attacks that will drop you in two or three hits. It follows the usual method of entering a new area, being beaten down by new enemies and bosses whilst trying to learn their attack patterns, before finally getting that oh-so-exhilarating win. [Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice](/directory/game/sekiro-shadows-die-twice/about), you’ll be familiar with the concept, but if not, just know that it is incredibly well-executed and will certainly be your main form of defence. It’s fast-paced, ruthlessly unrelenting, and stylish combat will please long-time fans of the developer, as well as those yearning for a new title to test their gaming prowess (and sanity!). That’s about the long and short of the narrative. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is set in 184 AD, and the once prosperous Han Dynasty is on the brink of collapse.

How to defeat Zhang Liang in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, including how to prepare for the Zhang Liang battle explained.

Nonetheless, defeating Zhang Liang will earn you his General of Man Bandana (2-star) and his weapon Great Club of Polaris (3-star), while you’re also awarded with 3,000 Qi and 3,000 copper. He also has a ranged attack where he thrusts his club down into the ground, which then unleashes a trail of spikes to shoot out in front. In the stress of the fight, as well as if you’re playing with non-English audio, it’s easy to actually miss this prompt while you continue struggling. He’s referring to the Divine Beast mechanic that unlocks during this phase, which is represented by a gauge on the bottom right corner, above the Wizardry Spells. His club consists of a combo of two swings, with a short pause before the second swing, as well as a charged thrust that also has a wind-up animation. If you manage to deflect these, he can still wind up the previous unblockable attack with his demon arm. For his unblockable attack, he’ll wind his club back to power up, while there’s also a red glow coming from within his chest so that it’s very clear you should be anticipating this. As this is the first mission of Wo Long, there’s not a whole lot of preparation you can do apart from the basic weapons you have and the three uses of the dragon’s cure pot for healing. Once you punish him with a fatal strike, his morale will drop by one point, although the spirit gauge also resets. What you should ensure you do is plant flags on all possible locations on your way to the boss, which raises your Fortitude Rank, the value which your Morale will not fall below should you die. This will end the fight early and save you much wailing and gnashing of teeth. You should also have been practising the deflecting mechanic that is going to be important to surviving this fight, since your only assistance comes from the Blindfolded Boy, who unfortunately isn’t much help at all.

Wo Long has stylish, parry-heavy combat and a more approachable challenge than most Souls-like games, but difficulty spikes may prove to be a barrier.

The rest of the loot was quickly scavenged for more materials or sold for money, so there's still a moment in between each level where you'll typically rummage through all of the loot you want to get rid of. You can visit a blacksmith to upgrade the main properties of your gear using various materials, so once I attained a full set of four-star gear I saw little reason to change unless I wanted to try out a new weapon type. You can deflect elemental attacks with your weapon so I was never compelled to go out of my way to counter a magic-using enemy with spells of my own. This incentivizes you to pay attention to your surroundings as there's usually a way to get the drop on any unsuspecting assailants if you look hard enough. You can also replace these NPCs with friends if you'd prefer to play the whole game in co-op, with the game's difficulty scaling up to compensate. If your Spirit is in the negative and you take a hit that pushes the gauge to the lower limit, you become defenseless for a short period of time. Once their Spirit gauge hits the lower limit, they'll enter a stunned state, giving you ample opportunity to unleash a devastating Fatal Strike that wipes out a chunk of their health. Most of the bosses in between were a relative cakewalk, to the point where I was able to cut down each one on my first attempt--usually in under a minute. This creates a balancing act where you want to build up enough positive Spirit to make full use of your repertoire without succumbing to this staggered state. This opening battle pits you against Zhang Liang of the Yellow Turbans, as you clash in a kinetic two-phase fight to the death. In many ways, it feels like a rite of passage for the rest of the game and a bold statement of intent from developer Team Ninja. It's a shame Wo Long begins with such a sturdy roadblock, not least because this initial undertaking isn't indicative of the rest of the game moving forward.

A Wuxia Soulsborne game is just so good. Here's what critics say about Wo Long Fallen Dynasty, including their reviews and scores.

While the game wasn’t groundbreaking, its difficulty and the satisfaction players get from overcoming obstacles “still make for a fun (and frustrating) experience.” They also said that the game’s usage of Chinese mythology sets it apart from other games in the market. The reviewer brought up that the game had “interesting new ideas and a stunning new setting.” However, for them, the game failed to “live up to the brilliance of Nioh and Nioh 2.” They said that although Team Ninja made an effort into developing the game’s mechanics, specifically the spirit and deflection system, they lost track of what makes games in this genre fun. Despite this, it is still pretty rewarding, and something that fans of the genre can definitely enjoy. They admitted that the difficulty of the game is high, even saying it seemed “insurmountable at first.” However, they said that it wasn’t unfair, and was rewarding for players who took the time to learn. However, it didn’t dampen their love for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which the game is based on. They commented that it felt like Wo Long was only for the “most committed” and those who are “hardcore fans of the genre.” According to them, “this isn’t the Three Kingdoms setting we were expecting, but it is the Three Kingdoms game we needed.” However, they overall recommend the game, saying it was “Team Ninja’s finest soulslike experience to date.” The reviewer called the game a “really majestic epic, and a stunning new interpretation of a book that has already been interpreted so many times in video games.” Its compelling story, as well as it being “one of the fastest and most entertaining takes on Soulslike combat”, lends to this perfect score. [a score of 90,](https://twinfinite.net/2023/03/wo-long-fallen-dynasty-review/) calling the game the “newest and most polished Soulslike to come out in a while.” The reviewer praised its “blend of combat, RPG elements, platforming, and a much more serious and interesting narrative”. As of this article, there are 88 total scored reviews for the game, 52 of which review the game’s PlayStation 5 release, which has an aggregated score of 81. [PC](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1448440/Wo_Long_Fallen_Dynasty/), [PlayStation 4 and 5](https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10004116), and [Xbox One and Series X

Much like Elden Ring was for From Software, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty feels like the near-perfect refinement of the formula they've iterated on over the ...

Adding further to the frustration, Team Ninja has done away with the weapon skill trees that they used in Nioh, instead opting for a system that sees weapons drop with set abilities, or ‘Martial Arts’ attached to them. While it isn’t a problem in the early game, when you hit late game, and the going gets really tough, this system still makes it incredibly difficult to farm for the gear you want, with the stats you want. In terms of leveling and character growth, Wo Long feels great, with levels coming at a reasonable rate, and a vast variety of elemental-based magic to experiment with depending on what stats you focus on. Further to this, you really have to put in the work if you want to unlock all the fortitude-increasing flags. Sure, it’ll let you become an overpowered monster in certain levels, but never to the extent that bosses and sub-bosses become trivial, given you still have to master the deflecting system. Now your spirit is built up, do you risk unleashing your special abilities in an effort to demolish the enemy’s health bar, or do you play it safe, knowing that doing so will see your own spirit deplete and potentially lead to a devastating attack from your opposition? Do you push with attacks and build that meter up, or do you patiently wait and time your deflections, waiting for that spirit to break, leaving you with the perfect opening? Put simply, you won’t roll credits if you don’t get comfortable with how Wo Long wants you to engage in its battles, but it is absolutely a learning curve worth putting up with. So the storytelling leaves a bit to be desired, but Wo Long is so strong in almost every other area that, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Deflecting attacks and landing normal attacks sees it enter the positive state, with your attacks dealing more damage the further into the positive you climb. In the end, if I’m to be completely honest, I tuned a lot of the story out, and due to the way in which it’s delivered, I expect a lot of players to do the same. By infusing the genre with the studio’s trademark lightning-quick combat, randomized loot, and incredible build diversity, the developers showed that they weren’t content with simply imitating the fantastic work coming out of From Software, and instead wanted to carve out a niche of their own.

Our Wo Long Wizardry Spell guide will explain how you unlock and learn spells, and what requirements any given spell has. Leveling up and learning spells in Wo ...

But the Virtue Point requirements for the spells you can learn will often outpace the Virtue Points you’ve assigned. In the image above, we have one point in Earth, but the spell requires two — that’s why the number is red (pink). - Across the top, you’ll see how many spells you can learn in that tree. If there’s an exclamation point — like in the image above — you’ve got points to use. These have various effects on your (many) stats, but the ones that impact Wizardry Spells include: The menu for learning spells and their requirements aren’t really explained well and the system is a little confusing.

Player reviews for the newly released RPG are sitting at "mostly negative" on Steam.

The player continues to talk about how there are also problems with the controls, specifically camera and mouse sensitivity. The main complaint focuses on technical issues, with one popular review reading, "A good game buried beneath the biggest catastrophe of a PC port that I have ever seen. The game runs poorly for how it looks, but the biggest issue are the controls." [developer's blog](https://teamninja-studio.com/wolong/us/faq/) has provided some insight on an issue that keeps causing the screen to go black when the opening cutscene plays, as well as some display problems involving flickering. This game is completely unplayable on mouse and keyboard." Team Ninja and publisher Koei Tecmo have yet to respond to the feedback, but a recent post to the

White Wooden Cudgel · Feathered Cavalry Bow · Chivalrous Swordsman Dual Swords · Podao (Curved Sabre) · Ring Pommel Sabre · Bronze Poleaxe · Cavalry Javelin · Games of ...

You should be able to find a Bronze Poleaxe during the “Valley of the Crying Wraiths” mission. Like many spears in other Soulslike games, the Cavalry Javelin is designed to allow you to poke at enemies from a comfortable distance. Definitely invest in the upgraded version of this weapon if you’re lucky enough to snag one. I generally prefer quicker weapons in Wo Long, but a slower, more powerful weapon can cause havoc in the right hands. Yes, the Ring Pommel Sabre is one of the earliest weapons you’ll acquire in Wo Long. The easiest place to find the Padao is during the “Two Chivalrous Heroes” mission. There are a few weapons in Wo Long that carry the Podao name, but be sure to accept no substitutes. You hit the jackpot if you found an upgraded version of this weapon, but even the base version is still worth picking up. While that’s a little later into the game than some of the other weapons on this list, these swords are worth your patience. I’m sadly not sure of a guaranteed way to find the Feathered Calvarly Bow. Furthermore, the Cudgel offers surprisingly powerful per-strike damage for its speed, and its range is wide enough to allow you to keep most enemies at a relatively comfortable distance. You can beat the game with any weapon in the game if you’re dedicated to mastering and upgrading it properly.

It's dangerous to go alone in Team Ninja's latest Soulslike, so take this advice for your journey.

Revisiting the Hidden Village periodically during your journey gives you the chance to do that, so be sure to always make the loading screen trip back to Mt. You do need the Tiger Seal item to call your homies up, but this consumable is very easy to find in the world. Sometimes you need to make adjustments to ensure you actually make it through your latest trial. Maybe this will be a hairpin that increases physical defense or an incense that raises element resistance, so not every trade will be beneficial to you in the moment. All of these scenarios open a foe up to the pleasurable fatal strike, a move that sees your character perform a cool-looking martial arts attack as the camera zooms into the action. It’s actually very important to visit, but surprisingly easy to overlook in the “travel” menu. The game gives you the option to hit up various NPCs, like You read that right: In a genre synonymous with nonstop play, Wo Long is one of the few Soulslikes with a pause feature. This does run you through the standard mechanics you need to survive ancient China, but there’s also a brief deflect tutorial you can replay as often as you like to really pick up the maneuver’s timing. It’s fast and difficult to time (as each weapon’s deflect window is different), leaving you open to a swift death if you misjudge or spam the input. But stop and turn over the stones in the various maps you visit; you’ll be surprised by what you find. You can pause during combat, while exploring the world, in the middle of a heated boss fight—just about whenever you want, save for cutscenes.