Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty at first glance may seem like a banal spin-off of the Nioh and Nioh 2 dilogy: this is also an action role-playing game with fantasy elements, the story of which unfolds during real historical events, and which in its mechanics resembles Souls shooting games online. Nevertheless, these projects are quite different - if in the case of Nioh Team Ninja they mixed "Souls" and the classic slasher, then here they tried to combine everything that turned out with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice from the same From Software. And it turned out, unfortunately, not as well as it could.

Let's deal with the most useless part of Wo Long right away - local history. Fallen Dynasty seems to be laughing at all those who grumble about the lack of cutscenes and "talking heads" in From shooting games online - there is a full-fledged story, staged videos, and a thick in-game encyclopedia, where you will be told in detail about all the characters. The only problem is that it's not interesting at all to follow.

The story begins during the Yellow Turban Rebellion (called the Yellow Turbans in the game), a real historical event that ultimately led to the collapse of China and the beginning of the Three Kingdoms. The protagonist, as usual, is a nameless and voiceless militia fighter, who, quite by accident, is drawn into the whirlpool of war, discovering supernatural powers in himself along the way. In the mandatory program: a meeting with prominent statesmen and military figures of that time (like Cao Cao, Lu Bu and other heroes of the "Three Kingdoms"); an ancient old man with the manners of Palpatine from Star Wars; assorted fantasy creatures; guardian spirits, demonic filth, and all the like that you have seen more than once or twice in the same Nioh dilogy.

Local history turns into an incoherent mess almost instantly - it’s quite difficult to keep track of who spat in tea to whom, and who was later killed for it. Moreover, the characters constantly replace each other, either disappearing or reappearing, and there are too many “plot twists” in the spirit of “you killed the villain, but then another one crawled out of the bushes”. Even the in-game encyclopedia doesn't really help.

Nioh's unique feature, in addition to the billions of colorful items that fall from each defeated monster (we'll come back to this), was the combat system. The game offered a dozen and a half types of weapons, each with its own characteristics, mechanics and pumping tree. This opened up a huge scope for experimentation: you could just play from the “spam” with light attacks, or you could get used to it a bit and start issuing complex combos tied to changing stances and the right timings. Auxiliary systems like spirits and magic were a plus.

At first glance, Wo Long has it all. A bunch of different weapons, the ability to make combinations of attacks, magic, consumables, spirits - in general, it looks familiar. The key nuance is explained in the very first location: the game assumes that you will not only block enemy attacks and dodge them, but also parry, opening up opponents for crushing attacks. In general, hello to you, Sekiro.

Under the updated combat system, the authors adjusted everything else. Let's say there is no endurance scale in the shooting games online - there is a "spirit scale". It is consumed by special moves and spells, and is filled by successful attacks, which sounds pretty simple. Enemies have exactly the same scale. Managed to fill it with the enemy - dealt a critical blow. They gape and fill the scale for you - most likely, you will get hit hard in the face. The easiest way not to lose your conditional "endurance" and exhaust the enemy is to timely repel enemy attacks and counterattacks. Almost all local fights are built on this, and it is this system that brings a lot of problems to the shooting games online.

The point is this. The hero's normal attacks do not do much damage: if ordinary enemies can still be defeated with a simple hail of blows, then such a number will not work with elite enemies and bosses. Their attacks need to be reflected, then counterattacked, and, having depleted the strip of spirit, hit with a critical blow. And then repeat the same thing a few more times, because the bosses here are incredibly "fat".

In the same Sekiro, which Team Ninja definitely looked at, the mechanics were implemented much more honestly - by “knocking out” the enemy’s stamina bar, you could phase him (or even finish him off) with a single blow. Here such a number does not roll, you have to fight to the end.

And it would be nice if the problem was only in the thickness of the enemies: such an approach (in the sense that the need to kill enemies with parries) breaks any non-melee builds. Let's say you got a set of clothes designed to enhance archery - but who will let you use its bonuses against the boss if he just won't let you shoot himself? The same story with spells: it's great, of course, that you have learned absolutely all the magic in the game, but you still have to overcome the bosses manually. A natural question arises: why was it necessary to fence this whole garden at all if it does not work?

Moreover, the further you go, the more visible are the various simplifications in mechanics. For some reason, the authors of their own Nioh decided not to take the stance and combo system, which is why weapons are limited to three or four attacks per class, and several “weapon skills” (maximum two per instance). From Sekiro, they forgot to borrow various types of parries: no mikiri and no jumping followed by counterattacks - absolutely all enemy attacks are parried with a single move.

But the most annoying moments migrated to Fallen Dynasty in full. The equipment system here will be as familiar as possible to anyone who has played Nioh - tons of junk are falling from enemies again, and you are trying not to go crazy, understanding all this armor with "+0.15% to the generation of spirit during attacks."

There are two ways here - either you will poke around in your inventory for an hour of real time after each completed quest, meticulously choosing your equipment, or put on the first set of armor that comes across, take the weapon you like and go to chop and shred. The experience gained in Diablo and other similar shooting games online, of course, will be violently protested, but believe me - you can go through the game with almost the most basic items, raising their level in a timely manner, and not touching anything else. It’s cool, of course, that there are sets of equipment that give certain benefits, but they don’t provide such big advantages to chase them.

It makes sense to understand crafting and transferring characteristics only after beating the game and unlocking the hard mode. But only if you are lucky enough to get the rarest, five-star set of equipment. What I have not achieved in a dozen missions on NG+.

Structurally, the game is still similar to the Nioh dilogy - no more seamless open world for you. There is a hub village, there is a list of tasks, if you please, dangle back and forth every time (especially since after completing the task, open the map and immediately go to the right place for some reason, the game does not give). It looked wild even then, and only after the huge Elden Ring, which practically does not limit the players in any way, and completely smacks of an anachronism. About the fact that side tasks are again deployed on the main maps, simply “pulling out” pieces from them and forcing them to run around the same places and talk somehow inconveniently.

Funny moment - many players complained about the first boss of the game, Zhang Liang, claiming that Team Ninja went too far with the difficulty. He really turned out to be a rather atypical opponent for games of the genre: he is quite agile, strong, and besides, he has two phases. Yes, it allows you to understand how to fight the bosses in this game, but at the same time, the feeling that some kind of mid-game boss was shoved at the very beginning still remains in your head.

True, after you defeat this boss, the circus will begin - in the next ten story quests you will not find a single equally vicious opponent. The next big boss, Lü Bu, will not meet you very soon, and it will be the second boss that will make you sit with a nervously twitching eyebrow. A lot of players claim that here the difficulty curve makes an incredible somersault and flies somewhere into the sky - and, again, it is very easy to agree with this. But after him, there will be practically no serious opponents: I won most of them on the first or second attempt, failing only when the roof was completely torn off by the enemies, and they began to “spam” with their special attacks.

Here it is worth noting one more thing - the shooting games online gives several tools at once, allowing you to adjust the complexity "for yourself". First, companions, who can be summoned around local fires, and who will always gladly serve as a meat shield for you. And secondly, the level of "fighting spirit" that all creatures on the map have, including you. According to various previews, one could get the impression that this is some kind of analogue of the level of pumping of the hero himself, but everything is much simpler.

Dealing with enemies, you will receive bonuses to this very fighting spirit. Gape and miss a critical attack - you will lose the level. You will die and lose everything that you managed to accumulate. Well, only if you haven't managed to find a few flags scattered around the map: they allow you to "fix" your spirit level at a certain level, which is extremely useful during boss battles.

It sounds really interesting on the surface, and suggests that this is a kind of difficulty setting for those who find Wo Long too easy. In reality, everything is like this: you either find absolutely all the flags in front of the boss of the location, or you are smeared on the asphalt with a couple of attacks. On NG+, some kind of mockery begins: all the bosses there have +5 morale compared to their standard versions, so the main villain of the location will always be a maximum of 25 spirit level. One of his critical attacks that you missed - and you start from the checkpoint on a new one. In other words, the game literally requires you to either grind the same level 25, or not make even the slightest mistake at all, because the punishment will be death.

NG+, however, thanks to this allows you to "shine" some of the bosses, which you could run over during a normal playthrough. Another question is that obviously not all players will agree to die dozens of times just to look at all the strengths of the next passing opponent.

There are a number of other problems that I would like to complain about. For example, the fact that the side tasks that are given out in the hub practically do not reward the player in any way. Or the design, which makes it easy to confuse Wo Long and Nioh. Or on the speed of the shooting games online: it looks decent, yes, but nothing more - but its appetites are completely childish.

You can mention the boring level design, and also remember with a kindly quiet word the genius who came up with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bputting parry and dodge on one button (no, I'm not kidding). Or the fact that Wo Long has PvP battles, but in almost forty hours of play, I saw an invading player only once.

In short, Fallen Dynasty didn't come out the way I expected. It's certainly not the worst game in the genre, and it's easy to enjoy, especially if you like the setting and have good reaction speed. But if you've been waiting for the development of Nioh's ideas, you'll be disappointed with the result. As a result of the passage, there was a feeling that Team Ninja sacrificed too much for the sake of the mechanics with parries, and she herself was eventually screwed into the shooting games online in a hurry, trying to finish everything else in parallel.