When Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was introduced earlier this yr, you did not have to look far to seek out people making jokes by calling it “Nioh: Three Kingdoms” – and it made sense, in fact. The similar builders behind Nioh & Nioh 2, however with a give attention to Chinese historical past this time round, with a give attention to martial arts? Even with the adjustments the crew described earlier than the current demo launch, it wasn’t shocking that many gamers anticipated extra of the identical. In apply, nonetheless, Wo Long may be very a lot its personal beast – and I’m longing for my subsequent probability to see extra.

First issues first; the place is Wo Long the identical as its predecessors? It’s a decent, fast-flowing motion RPG, with level-based space design, and a heavy give attention to system mastery as a way to take down the sport’s tougher enemies, in addition to bosses. What Wo Long adjustments in regards to the formulation from Nioh is a shift in priorities – as a substitute of retaining the stance-based fight and stamina administration from Nioh, gamers as a substitute juggle a completely new mechanic in Spirit. Players haven’t got a conventional stamina system within the sense that standard assaults will not expend any Spirit, however slightly will enhance the bar heading to the correct; utilizing magic or expertise, dodging, or blocking – not parrying – will deplete the bar, and finally fill the bar heading to the left.

If your bar is crammed to the correct, with a blue-ish hue, you possibly can imbue your robust assaults with a few of your Spirit to dole out further harm; however having a surplus of Spirit is useful. If you end up with the bar utterly crammed to the left, a single hit from an enemy will lock you right into a slightly prolonged stun animation. In apply, alongside Wo Long’s a lot bigger emphasis on parrying assaults, the sport’s fight is rather more targeted on reactive fight. Rather than mastering the depths of a weapon’s moveset, and the way and when to modify stances or ki pulse, gamers are as a substitute tasked with realizing when to go all-out on the offensive and how one can time parries to deflect enemy blows.

Supplementing fight, very like in Nioh, is the gear recreation. However, it has seen a noticeable lower in significance this time round. While gear remains to be plentiful, there’s a lot much less of it to be discovered in comparison with Nioh; moreover, gear stats have seen some simplification. Gear being rated on a scale of 1 to five stars is a semantic change at finest, however the precise variety of stats utilized to every gear piece is lower than in earlier video games. Weapons of the identical sort can have rather more in frequent than in Nioh, that means that there is perhaps much less incentive for gamers to swap weapons out as they progress by the sport.

Wo Long’s stage design, equally, has seen a little bit of a change. For one, the demo stage featured rather more verticality than nearly all of Nioh maps; the participant character in Wo Long can soar, and even scatter up ledges their leaps cannot fairly meet. One of the brand new mechanics that Wo Long employs is “Morale”, which is a quantity denoting your basic energy relative to different enemies in a stage. Defeating enemies will increase your Morale, whereas dying will result in it falling. Besides the usual checkpoints scattered throughout the extent, gamers may even discover further positions to position flags that may increase the minimal Morale stage for a stage; encouraging exploration and giving much less expert gamers an outlet to maybe enhance their efficiency.

Combined with some mild stealth parts – sneaking up behind, or dropping onto, an enemy provides you a chance to deal vital harm – and a few really fascinating non-human enemy designs, it is arduous to not be excited for precisely what else Team Ninja has in retailer for us. Wo Long feels a lot more energizing than I used to be anticipating – and the perfect comparability I’ve is that it feels equally to the refocusing that From Software confronted once they launched Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Perhaps not everybody that enjoyed Team Ninja’s earlier outings can be down for what this one has in retailer for gamers, however when Nioh 2 already felt like such a refinement of their formulation, I can not argue with the crew experimenting with themselves, and maybe getting a bit out of their consolation zone. I can not wait to see what else Wo Long has up its sleeves when it releases early subsequent yr.