Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Demo – Spotlight

The demo didn’t feature any cutscenes that would have helped me understand the game’s story, so I’m starting off the review without any context. When you start a new game, you’re presented with a character creator where you may, I’m sure, design a super powerful persona. However, if you’re anything like me, you skip over this step and continue playing as the game’s generic hero. After that, you’ll play a tutorial that introduces you to the game’s basic concepts and mechanics; you won’t be able to move on until you’ve successfully completed various tasks related to dodging, attacking, jumping, parrying, and so on.

You skip the tutorial and go straight into a level. Nothing was explained, you were just given a command, and you had to run. With a mini-radar at the top of the screen displaying icons that indicate things like adversaries, bonfires, items, and a red line to indicate your objective, which in games like this is the end of the map.

The game has a fantastic sensation when being played. The gameplay is very similar to Nioh, excluding the posture altering mechanic, thus you’ll have an advantage if you played that. It’s best to take your time while facing certain adversaries, but if you’re feeling very assured, you can just blow right through others. While progressing through a level, adversaries may drop stuff, including usable gear, and chests may be discovered and opened to reveal further goods. As a result, whenever I came across something new, I checked my bag to see if it was better than what I already had, either in terms of raw attack numbers or benefits such as increased melee damage or spirit acquired from attacks.

You have a “spirit” gauge instead of a “stamina” gauge, which is what most people are used to by now. This accumulates as you deal damage to adversaries, granting you access to magical and physical powers. It will deteriorate if you take damage or utilise your heavy attack. If it degrades too much, you’ll start to tyre out, giving your opponents an opening for a devastating blow. But, the same principle applies to foes; once their spirit gauge is depleted, you can unleash a devastating strike and deal a great deal of damage. I must admit that this is one of the systems for which the explanation leaves much to be desired. It wasn’t until I was around halfway through that I realised it was also serving as a stamina bar.

The game places a premium on parrying, especially against more powerful foes. It was hit-or-miss; there were instances when it was successful. It’s designed to throw foes off-balance, giving you a window to parry their attacks and land your own. However, I’ve found that certain boss-like monsters are immune to parries, even when I precisely time my dodging to land one. Some of them attack so quickly that I don’t even have time to dodge before I’m dead, and yet I still manage to win! Even the people who were several levels above me in the organisational chart. The game’s “strength” mechanism is called “morale,” and it works similarly to a real-world system. Having confidence in one’s abilities increases one’s destructive potential. There are various points throughout the level at which you can plant a flag to permanently boost your morale. But even at max level, I noticed no change in damage. Until you defeat the foe that killed you, your level will decrease and your souls will be lost.

The game features an online and offline summoning mechanism that makes use of goods obtained either by killing other players (or “avenging” them) or by simply discovering them. I tried the internet summon method and never got paired with anyone, so I ended up utilising an AI instead, which was a lot less hassle overall. As I’ve said, the game is quite challenging when played alone, especially against bosses, thus this is a mechanic on which I plan to rely heavily whenever it becomes available to everyone. Fortunately, I was able to find a weapon set that not only appealed to me, but also worked well with the AI’s armament.

After playing the demo to completion, I’m still on the fence about whether or not to buy the full version when it launches, or whether I should wait for any bug fixes and other improvements. But I can assure you that if you’re a lover of spirits games, you won’t regret checking it out.