Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: soulslike

Wo Long is not long for this world

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Yesterday was the first day I did not play Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Team Ninja) since I first tried it out. Ian has said that the big boss of this level is pertty interesting and something he had never seen before, but that means finishing the level. Which I have absolutely no desire to do.

This level was the nadir of the game (so far). I mentioned several reasons why this was true in the last post. I will add to that in this post, but, honestly, I’m pretty much done with the game. Ian has told me that the boss of this level is something he’d never seen before, so I might push through, but, it’ll be with my teeth gritted.

Side note: Speaking of teeth, I had two temporary crowns and a bridge put in on Monday. It was supposed to take 90 minutes (including breaks). I have a tiny mouth. Tiny. Even the kid’s jaw opener block thing was hard to fit into my mouth. I was not looking forward to this appointment at all. My dentist had to build up the two teeth that needed crowns (wihch means posts inside them) plus bridge them as they have one tooth between them. Each tooth on its own was not strong enough, therefore, the bridge.

I went in thinking it was going to be agony. The last time I had to have a root canal, I was in tears because of the mouth block thing. This time was 2 1/2 hours not including the breaks. We started at 2 p.m. and I walked out at 5 p.m. My jaw ached, but I did not cry at all! I consider that a success.

Anyway, back to Wo Long.

I spent two hours trying to get enough fortitude to take on the head evil mermaid. She was a 7. I would get up to 4 or 5 and then be killed by an exploding big porcupine. I cannot tell you how much I hate those big porcupine. I’ve said in the past that they remind me of the worst enemies in the 2nd DLC of Dark Souls II. Except these are totally different because they explode in fire! They’ne not made of ice. Get it??

I think my biggest complaint about this game (and believe me, I have many) is enemy placement. This is actually a problem with all Team Ninja games–they mistake enemies you can’t see jumping out at you as difficult. No, it doesn’t make the game hard (at least not in the sense they mean)–just unreaasonable. There was one giant porcupine that I still don’t know where it came at me from.


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Wo Long is wearing very thin

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In the first two acts of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Team Ninja), I was cruising along. Yes, the first boss was hard and took me forever to beat, but that was a glitch and should not have happened. Had he actually worked properly, I would have gotten him in seven or eight tries. Which, for me, isn’t that bad.

I cruised along until the Third Act. I have to say, one of the issues with this game is that the missions are sparse. In the Niohs, there were two or four sub-missions per mission. In this game, there is one sub-mission per mission. Maybe two if you’re really lucky. And only one or two main mission per act. I’m not unhappy about there being less missions over all, really, but it just feels weird. Like a stripped down version of the Niohs.

In the third act, you get to the Hidden Village and meet Hong  Jing. She is….uh…No idea. But her master is missing. Who’s her master? Who knows? I think he’s her brother? And a monk? Definitely a hermit as they all are. I have not read the character directory for ages because of the frustrating auto-scroll.

At any rate, you have to go find the immortal wizard–which, again, is her brother? Her master? Both? It seems as if the step-up from the last mission to this one (the fifth) was big. Immediately, there was a tiger who was a level 10 in fortitude while you were at 0. There have always been that stronger opponent in a level, but in this level, it felt as if there were way more over-leveled enemies than ones that were at your fortitude or one level above.

This becomes an even bigger issue in the sixth mission, but I’ll get to that in a second. The boss of the fifth mission, Aoye, was a cow demon. And it hit hard. It nearly always started with a red attack that was it motoring across the whole field to hit you, and it could kill me if i completely missed my deflect. Which is bullshit. I have railed about this in From games–I hate bosses that can one-shot you. Especially when then you lose any morale buff you had before going into the fight.

This boss was…not fun. Hong Jing does lightning damage, which, fine, but she died so quickly. And if I tried to rez her, I got killed in one hit. My problem with this particular boss is that, well first of all the big red move needs to be deflected much earlier than you would think you needed to block. Basically, as soon as the red flash occurs, you have to block. Even though Aoye hasn’t moved at all yet. Then, it motors towards you at such a fast speed. By the time you actually get the deflect sound, it’s in your face.


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Released from this Mortal Shell, er coil

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Mortal Shell by Cold Symmetry is one of the few soulslike games that I was cautiously hyped for when I saw the trailer for it.

I mean, look at it. It could BE a Dark Souls trailer, down to the many bosses reveal. By the way, I never watch trailers for FromSoft games because they give away so many bosses. I always wait until after I play the game to actually watch the trailers because I don’t want to spoil the surprise of bosses for me. I am on the far end of ‘don’t want to be spoiled’ when going into a FromSoft game, which isn’t easy in this day and age.

Anyway, I knew the basic premise of the game which was that you were a…zombie? A walking skeleton? Something in between? Unclear. What was clear was that you could put on different ‘shells’ of enemies you…found? Beat? Unclear. But it was a cool concept, and I was intrigued. The graphics were gorgeous and very Souls-y, and the atmosphere was properly epic and bleak.

When it came to closed beta, I was doubly intrigued. It was so popular, they opened the beta. I downloaded it from Epic and hopped in. Immediately, I was aware that I was in a soulslike. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself, mind, especially one that was as high quality as this game. There was a cutscene much like the ones at the beginning of the you-know-what games, and then I was dumped in an area much like the tutorial area of Dark Souls III but with much harder enemies. The shell I had at this point was that of a knight, and my weapon was a big fuckoff sword. Were we about to get OG Dark Souls up in this bitch? Apparently so.

They do tell you what the different buttons do, but it’s a lot to take in. They’re different from the Souls buttons, and they add a wrinkle that the first time you press B (Xbox One controller), you dodge. The second time you press B, you roll. I don’t like not having a dedicated roll, but I have to admit it’s an interesting conceit. In addition, it makes you have to be much more deliberate about your movements, which has both positives and negatives. Yes, combat is deliberate in Souls games, but it feels…almost clunky in Mortal Shell–at least in the beginning.

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