Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty will look familiar to anyone who has played Koei's Dynasty Warriors, but the similarities are much more in line with Team Ninja's Nioh games. There are no difficulty options to choose from, giving you a set experience from start to finish. With that in mind, Wo Long can be extremely challenging at times, especially in the early stage of the game.
From mastering combat to learning to use your environment, you'll want to use all the tools available to get ahead. We've compiled our top tips to help you hit the ground running when it comes to Wo Long.
Use Verticality When You Can
Nioh and Nioh 2 never had a jump button, but Wo Long gives you some sweet verticality to explore during each mission. This opens the levels up in a meaningful way, allowing you to plot alternative routes and get a lay of the land in terms of the danger that awaits you.
Several missions have multiple height elevations, with even more branching paths to take and navigate around villages, camps, and so on. It's easy to forget that you have a jump button and a fairly lenient ledge-mantling function in Wo Long, so you'll do well to spot any jumping areas, marked by white streaks or otherwise hidden.
Blocking Isn't A Bad Thing
As you play, you'll be introduced to the deflection system, which lets you redirect the enemy's attacks with a well-timed button press. From this moment, the game loves to push you towards mastering that system and somewhat ignoring the fact you can block.
Blocking drains your Spirit gauge, which is effectively a fluctuation stamina bar. If you've played Sekiro, it's extremely similar to the Posture mechanic, with some large differences. You can block or dodge nearly as much as you like, just make sure you're attacking to balance it out. Blocking will be a lifesaver in early missions as you slowly learn to deflect.
Change Your Equipment Regularly
Since this is a Team Ninja game, you can expect it to throw a lot of loot at you. There are so many different variations on armour and weapons, to the point of being completely overwhelming. Armour and weapons will be dropped by enemies and found as treasures over and over, most of which will be the same gear with a small change.
It does require a lot of tedious inventory management, but if you've left your armour unchanged for a while, you might notice a difference in survivability and passive bonuses if you change things up. So much of it is pointless loot, but there will be a rare diamond in the rough every now and then.
Experiment With Different Weapons
You might want to stick to using the sword you use from the start, but every weapon is viable. You will be positively drowned in weapon options since there are so many loot drops from enemies. Each weapon type has a different animation set and will be useful for what sort of build you want to go for, so feel free to play around and have some fun with each type as you progress.
You won't be locked behind any stat requirements, but some weapons benefit more from different level-up point investments. Don’t feel locked into anything too early, there’s a lot of flexibility in your gear and stat distribution, and you can respec your level-up points after a certain point in the game as much as you like. You can equip two main weapons at any time and switch between them.
Use The Environment
You will come across many scenarios in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty where paying attention to your immediate surroundings will benefit you. Often, there will be environmental traps, such as larges patches of fire or debilitating water that you can use against your enemies.
Specifically, this trick will help you deal with an optional tough enemy you're told to avoid in the very first mission.
You'll find a monster with four legs that resembles a deformed tiger, eating corpses.
In this arena, you can climb rooftops and lure the enemy around, letting it wander into patches of fire until it eventually kills itself.
There are other times when this tactic will come in handy, especially in later missions.
Don’t Be Afraid To Die
Dying in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty isn't as punishing as it is in Souls or Nioh. Firstly, you can fall off ledges and into pits that would normally result in a game over, but in Wo Long you'll respawn at the edge of where you fell with one HP.
Secondly, you only lose half of your Genuine Qi – your level-up currency – upon death, but the enemy who killed you will get a bit stronger. The increase is insignificant to the point where dying multiple times to the same enemy won't have any meaningful change. Throw yourself into the fiery maw as much as you like.
Some Breakable Boxes Hide Items
Love it or hate it, there will be a good reason for you to roll and slash your way through any destructible boxes you happen across. This isn't like cutting grass in a Legend of Zelda game, you'll simply be able to see if there are any items hidden in boxes because the area will glow.
You don't need to go around destroying every box you see since you should be able to notice the visual cue that there is an item hidden away. Besides, more often than not, the items the developers have hidden this way are upgrade materials for your armour or weapons that will be extremely useful to you.