Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition Review (Switch 2)

The Soulslike genre has started strong on Switch 2, with the likes of Lies of P and Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition thriving on Nintendo’s console with minimal drawbacks. The same cannot be said, however, for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition. This port of Team Ninja’s Sekiro-inspired action game – which contains three major expansions and all additional DLC as standard – is unfortunately heavily compromised, suffering from frequent performance issues and visuals that frankly look unpleasant whether you’re playing docked or handheld.

Originally released in 2023 for other platforms, Wo Long is set during the fall of the Han dynasty in 184 CE – hence the name. You get to create your own character from scratch, either choosing from a bunch of set templates or messing around with facial and body characteristics until you settle on something.

Overall, despite loose ties to real historical events, the narrative is passable at best. Though it’s not half as obtuse as your typical FromSoftware title, you’ll find little here that will get you emotionally invested in events. Everything sort of happens around you, with new characters dropping in and out at frequent intervals, serving to funnel you through the stages and fights.

The story’s probably not why you’re here, though. At its core, Wo Long is about venturing through linear stages, defeating a bunch of enemies, collecting loot, and confronting deadly boss characters. Putting aside the presentation issues for a moment, it does most of this very well. Like all Soulslikes, be prepared for a punishing experience; even the most basic enemies can deal substantial damage if you’re not careful, and you’ll often want to avoid taking on multiple foes at once.

The bosses are even more formidable. Just two or three strikes is enough to send you to an early grave, and a lot of them are incredibly agile, too, jumping, sprinting, and even teleporting around the arena to get the drop on you. You’ll want to maintain your focus, keep your camera locked on your target, and memorise its movements and attacks.

Thankfully, almost every attack in Wo Long can be parried with your weapon. A tap of ‘A’ executes a parry, and despite the game’s focus on brutal difficulty, there’s a generous window to successfully perform it. So whether it’s the swing of a sword from a basic enemy or a gigantic swoosh of a boss character’s monstrous tail, you can deflect pretty much everything.

Taking this concept further, most enemies also have more powerful attacks that are clearly communicated with a red glow. Parry these and you’ll more often than not stagger your foe, allowing you to land a devastating heavy attack. This is often enough to defeat normal enemies in one go and a great method of cutting down boss characters’ health.

You’ll have access to a rapidly growing arsenal of weapons as you progress, but you can also utilise basic magic attacks along with more powerful Spirit attacks, bolstered by levelling up at designated checkpoints, allowing you to choose between several different ‘Virtue’ systems. So, choose the Wood Virtue and you’ll increase your HP, while the Metal Virtue focuses on magic capabilities. There are a few others, but I’ll let you discover these for yourself.

Currency used toward levelling doesn’t get taken upon death, so you’ll find that grinding is generally much easier than other Soulslikes. However, there’s another mechanic that you’ll want to keep an eye on: Morale. At the start of each stage, you’ll begin with zero, and by defeating enemies and planting flags, you can increase this up to 25.

Enemies also have their own morale level, so this is a good way of seeing just how much challenge they’re going to provide. If you’re a few levels higher than your foes, you won’t have much trouble, but if it’s the other way around… well, buckle up. You do lose some morale upon death, while the enemy that kills you gains morale, so you’re incentivised to claim vengeance upon your killer.

One thing I didn't appreciate, however, was the sheer amount of loot. It's everywhere. Littered on the ground or dropped by fallen foes, you're constantly grabbing new items and it won't be long until you're lumbered with multiple duplicates of the same weapon or helmet. It's absurd and needs to be altered for the upcoming sequel.

On more powerful hardware with minimal technical drawbacks, I’d call Wo Long a good, if somewhat safe, take on the genre. You can have a lot of fun with this, especially with the excellent parry system. There's also support for multiplayer, with up to three players working co-operatively or invading other campaigns. Despite all of this, Switch 2 is simply not the place to play it.

You have two performance modes available by default: one that prioritises visual fidelity, and another that favours frame rate. Regardless of which you opt for, you’re not going to get a good experience. Favouring visuals certainly makes the game look a bit better, but not much, and you’ll have to deal with a lower frame rate that still wobbles frequently.

Alternatively, the other mode aims for 60fps, but still struggles when there’s a lot going on, even when you’re just traversing across the environment. I hope a few patches go toward stabilising the performance, as it’s just not up to snuff at the moment.

The worst sin with this frame rate mode, however, is the visuals. It just looks ugly and is quite easily one of the worst Switch 2 ports I’ve seen so far in terms of raw presentation. Environments completely lose their texture, resulting in large areas that look unnaturally smooth. Similarly, characters become blurry and fuzzy all at once, with hair being particularly egregious examples of this.

Audio is decent throughout; the voice acting is acceptable while the music is suitably grandiose during boss battles. None of this mitigates the visual drawbacks, though. It’s just far too severe to ignore, and I’d say unless Koei Tecmo is able to improve things with patches in the future, you’re best off playing Wo Long elsewhere.