Wolong

Quite the surprise, Wolong by Team Ninja was announced yesterday. Though Microsoft stole the show with it for me, it was later revealed to be a multiplatform title (though day-1 on Gamepass).



Apparently there's some ex-Fromsoftware staff involved, like the producer of Bloodborne, who jumped ship to Team Ninja (interesting). Notes do seem to hint that this is more a typical action-game however, but that does remain to be seen. I'm cautiously optimistic. Thoughts?

Can't judge anything without gameplay, but it's Team Ninja so I'm looking forward to it. It might be unfair of me to say this as I never played any Musou game, but I hope it will be an action game and not a Musou game.

I wonder if it will have a wide variety of weapons like in Nioh or NG2, or if it's mostly gonna be based on sword combat (perhaps with different martial arts/fighting styles to compensate for the lack of weapons?).

On another note, when Phil said they are partnering with a Japanese developer to bring back a classic franchise to Xbox, I can't be the only one who thought of Ninja Gaiden right? Main Persona games were never on Xbox, how could they bring them back?

I need to know more about it, but I am interested.

No gameplay so can't judge ofc but I've been loving Nioh 2 so looking forward to this. I hope they ease up on the loot, or even better, make a traditionally structured action game.

>It might be unfair of me to say this as I never played any Musou game, but I hope it will be an action game and not a Musou game.
Musou games are action games. Some of them are really bad though.

>but it's Team Ninja so I'm looking forward to it.
Team Ninja co-developed Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors. Maybe try those.

I have a bad perception of Musou games because they always seemed lo me like they are "mindless" and too mashy, doesn't help that I have a huge backlog as it is. Those assumptions of me are wrong when it comes to the better Musou games?

>mindless
There's a lot of these games and some are bad. So that perception is not totally off. I got sick of the DW games ages ago, but really got back into Musous when I realized the spinoffs were good.

You'll have to define 'mindless'. I once played through Bayo using only PPPPP combo just to prove a point.

>mashy
You can mash and win almost anything so I'm not sure what this means exactly. Do you mean just hammering a button doing nothing else?

If you play a higher difficulty in Hyrule and mash, they'll just smash you and you're dead in a few hits. If you stood there mashing in DQ Heroes you will be hit and alot of the bigger enemies can hurt you bad.

>Those assumptions of me are wrong when it comes to the better Musou games?
The ones that are good are good. I wouldn't play them otherwise. That doesn't mean you'll like the gameplay though.

Doesn't look like this game will be a Musou. I didn't see any mention of Omega Force. They're the division that makes them.

If you're interested in talking more about the Musou games, let me know in the dedicated topic.

Some interesting notes from Nepu47 on Twitter, he's a native Japanese and corrected some translation issues from recent interviews:

The genre they talked wasn`t Soulsborne but just Shinige-(死にゲー). I think that they just evaded the specific term, but Sifu was cosindered as 死にゲー in Japan.
"Nioh yet different is the hack and slash component" ... In Japan, 'Hack and Slash' usually means 'Diablo-like-looting-RPG' elements. So, There would be less farming /looting elements in Wu long. It is still ARPG, though.

THat's pretty interesting, probably means its more 'hardcore' action.

I really wish they'd stop with the no gameplay trailers.

It's all about the $$$. Starfield probably would've sold more copies if they hadn't shown gameplay footage until release haha

Oh well. Either way, anything Team Ninja is cause for excitement. I'll be following this closely.

Gameplay trailer! Looks pretty sweet, I like the higher emphasis on mobility. Otherwise it looks like a new Nioh in all but name from what I can gather (gameplaywise). Looks super sick.

EDIT: also confirmed that there are no stamina bars
If I could cry I would

Looks great and I'm really looking forward to it as well.

I'm excited for the higher emphasis on mobility, and it seems like you can stagger or even parry enemies by jumping on or above them and then kicking them while in the air, which is sweet, sort of like an evolved version of wind path from Ninja Gaiden.

I'm also seeing what seems like a take on the Burst Counter mechanic from Nioh-2 which was excellent. Seems enemies glow red which you can reply to with a special kick or manevour to counter, parry or avoid or even punish them hard.

Also seems that if an ally is fighting an enemy you can jump over your ally to attack the enemy yourself.

I also noticed the counters, and I love such usage of kicks, reminds me of how the kick in Genma Onimusha can stagger mid sized enemies like the red samurais which allows you to keep your aggression. In Onimusha you can use the kick mid combo, and I hope that the same thing will be allowed here, or that at least some weapons will have moves that integrate kicks into them for the same stagger or knockback effects (like NGB's XX>XX or XX>XY with the dragon sword) instead of being tied to burst counters.

Really excited for this.

This is my most wanted game now. Stranger of Paradise was excellent and they’re leaning even more into action.

>Stranger of Paradise was excellent
Oh? That's great to hear.

On-topic, I don't think I've heard of this game before, but seeing the comments here, I'm pretty curious about it now.

Yeah it was announced during 'e3' as a Team Ninja title, but we hadn't seen gameplay yet so were a bit worried it might be another stamina-lootdriven game, but so far seems those fears can be put to rest.

Stoked for this, everything revealed so far seems fantastic.

>no stamina
>no loot
Oh God. Finally I can get excited for a new game after so long. Will be keeping a close eye to this.

So far it seems a very counter heavy game. Parries, reposts, counter attacks. Also some MGR style flashes going on with the red flash. I like the Wind Path like ability that is there. Wonder if certain moves can be performed only after it and not just a regular jump. The spells seem fine if not a bit boring, but it's too early to judge. Also no stamina and loot is great, needless to say.

> no loot
IIRC that was noted to being in there, just heavily reduced.

Played the demo at a friend's house, it is basically Nioh3 with some more mobility and a few new mechanics and a bigger parry focus. I burned out on it during the demo honestly when going through loot again and spirit-animals for a 3% damage buff and god almight there's even bonfires and posture and I'm just so done with this shit. Fought the final boss and beat 'm after a few attempts, and of course you have to walk back from the bonfi--excuse me 'banner', and fight the first phase every time before trying phase 2. Great stuff.

Sorry if I sound a bit angry but I was super excited for this game and it's just another one of 'those' games and I'm just too tired of them.

I feel pretty much the same. Mechanically its sound and I’m sure will have a lot of meat to it but I’m also tired of the overall package and general systems. I love Chaos due to the huge number of things available at all times, no stamina, and great bosses. This seems like a worse version of that game so far.

At least Bayo 3 looks wonderful.

By Chaos you mean Stranger of Paradise?

Yeah. I don't think many here were too keen on it but I had a great time. But my tolerance for this style is basically gone, just like a lot of other trends. I probably won't even touch the next From Soft game after ER was Dark Souls 4.

I remember trying Nioh and enjoying it but then I stopped after a few hours due to the loot, although I heard for the first 2 PTs it doesn't matter much, just the excessiveness of it put me off.

Still wanna play 1 and 2 though, but perhaps I'll start with this one. SoP has less loot than Nioh?

Weird question, since the only FromSoft game I beat is Sekiro: Bonfires and stuff aside, I enjoyed the world and level design, it's somewhat akin to classic horror games like RE and DC (sadly still haven't played both) and also Fatal Frame and Haunting Ground if you have played those. Is this part of why you don't enjoy this style anymore, or is it more related to the bonfires, loot and RPG elements?

>loot
>posture
>bonfires
>AGAIN
Do they even try anymore?

I still want to give Strangers a go at one point, especially once I heard you can just auto-equip the best loot or some shit.

@GN it's mostly that these elements are the worst things about souls-games. They were neat the first time around, but as core mechanics have added very little to the overal experience. As a result it 'feels' like a game I've played a trillion times before, with some different paintjobs. So it's fully gameplay focused. I'm tired of grabbing loot, of equipping a different weapon with a 3% higher chance to reduce morale by 1% and a cloak that has a +1 modifier for +1fireresist and leaving my stats and I just want to kill things with my sword using my wits and experience in a nicely designed level. These games are not for me anymore, epsecially with this 'burned out' feeling I have towards them.

This isn't helped by the fact that Team Ninja really hasn't got the best level-design teams these days. Levels really feel like these random arcade levels with random paths going everywhere and not actual places like FromSoft. NGII is really where they peaked, here the art-design (so far) feels like Nioh i.e. boring.

PS: i was playing it at a friend's house and he noted while watching "god i never want to play this game, another fuckign souls just fucking shoot me" hahaha

>SoP less loot than Nioh?
About the same, but there's a button to just equip the most optimal stuff. I never spent more than 5 seconds in the menu. I went the entire game not looking at my gear.

>why I don't enjoy the style
The level and world design, as you pointed out, are the absolute standouts for me. Level design is the only reason I finished Sekiro and the sense of discovery is why I got so far into Elden Ring. I'm tired of everything else: bonfires, losing stuff on death, stamina/posture systems, etc. Not that this stuff is bad inherently, but it's done so similarly so often than I'm done with it all.

I'm also sick of the more moment to moment gameplay stuff. The way the lock-on works, the focus on single enemy encounters, the contrived level shortcuts. Mechanically, very little has changed between entries and all these different franchises. Because I must always bring it up, but just look at something like MGS as an example: between every game there was a shitload of new and somewhat game-changing stuff added, and to this day every game in the series is still worth playing, since they all added their own flair, while usually getting slightly more complex.

All the Souls games change very little while keeping the fundamentals 99% the same. I enjoyed Dark Souls 3(at launch anyway) but I will probably never touch it again, since I can get that gameplay elsewhere. ER I don't see myself ever playing again for the same reason, but also now because it's full of filler empty land.

It really feels as if I've been playing the same game for about 13 years or so. Part of me is now in the Souls Hate camp because I'm just so utterly exhausted with every game either being a Soulslike or an Arkhamlike(which is even worse imo). It's at the point where I have severely lost interest in games. I used to play something every day and now I can go a week without playing anything, and I don't even care.

Looks more like Nioh than I was hoping for (bonfires etc.) but I loved Nioh 2's combat so I'm still excited, I can tolerate the Souls-isms.

>Infinity
Pretty much agree. I actually think the moment-to-moment gameplay could have a lot of unique potential if someone really expanded on it, especially the more old-school emphasis on spacing and level geometry. But FS themselves kinda just added random new moves in DS3/ER (Sekiro is a borderline rhythm game), and everybody else focused on the iframe rolls.

I don't really watch new games closely, sometimes stuff comes out that interests me but mainly I've been tackling older games. Currently playing Doom custom maps, really loving it.

I just want to kill things with my sword using my wits and experience in a nicely designed level - That's what I thought it would be based on early interviews.

I intend to play Demon's and Dark Souls, but mostly for exploration (can't be burnt of a formula I barely played haha). Not sure if I should expect much from combat apart from learning bosses' patterns (not an RPG player so I'm into tinkering with builds). What I'm sure of is that bonfires and losing souls upon death aren't reasons for me to play a game.

FromSoft level design - I heard Nioh and SoPFFO didn't reach that quality and that clarifies it. Shame as NGB had great interconnected world and level design, and NG2 had mostly sublime linear levels. I think you said DoA2(Ultimate?) also had great levels for a fighting game?

Art style - I like the Japanese art style of Nioh and also this, but imo NG2 also had the best art style, with NGB a close second (didn't like Sigma's visuals changes, especially the overused bloom that carried on to Nioh).

Focus on single enemy encounters - Lack of soft lock is something that bothered me in Nioh as fighting 3+ mobs is more difficult than it should be, don't wanna say too much because I've only briefly played it.

> dark souls 3 never replay
Yeah in general, as a result of their samey gameplay loop, I tend to just gravitate towards the best one. I don't replay DS3 (though I loved it at release) or ER, I just replay Dark Souls 1 since it's my favourite and imo the best one.

@GN
Definitely give the games a try. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are must-plays in my book. Dark Souls II Scholars is definitely an odd-ball take on the series but very fun too. Bloodborne kinda flips the script in most cases and is worth it too. It's around Dark Souls 3 that fatigue tends to set in for players.

> single encounters
Yeah action games in general seem to currently really struggle with this concept these days, for whatever reason.

GN1,

It's just like our Fatal Frame discussion. After years of playing a series we'll all figure out our favorites.
I played all the Souls games, and like Demon's Souls the most. Didn't like Bloodborne at all.

Play every entry, preferably in release order. Again, will be very interested to hear which you found to be the best.

Demo out:

Awesome, time to download!

>Demo ends March 26th!

See, I don't get this. Game releases in a week, but future players won't get a chance to demo it. Soulstice did the same thing (and ended its demo long before release, even if you downloaded it).

Anyway, here's an expert overview (not mine)

I’m really not sure what to make of this game. Haven’t finished the demo yet but I have the same feelings I did from the last demo. Seems like a slightly more flexible Sekiro rather than a proper action title. It obviously is missing the vast amount of stuff from Nioh 2 and CHAOS. Can’t help but feel it’s another “mash until you’re told to parry” system.

Don’t really get the spirit attacks to be honest. I build up meter to do an attack that seems to have no discernible properties, and that the enemies sometimes block or dodge. It just doesn’t seem like a good payoff. And the amount of spirit it takes seems like overkill. And then there’s the magic which, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem like it gels with the combat itself. I can’t really explain it.

The jumping is like Sekiro too it seems like. It doesn’t appear to actually fundamentally change anything about combat, like giving you access to moves that really open things up or granting iframes. I could be way off here but it’s just what I’ve observed so far.

This all just goes back to the biggest problem I have with action games in the last decade or so: games are so obsessed with giving players a similar experience that all of these combat systems end up being reactive, rather than proactive. It’s hard to go into a fight and be creative and do cool shit when enemies tank your hits and then signal an unblockable attack, meaning that the enemies are almost always dictating the flow and pace of combat, rather than the player. I don’t get what happened to games with brutal enemies that let you clean house as long as you’re good at the game(ZoE2, God Hand, etc).

Maybe I’m being too harsh or haven’t played enough to know what I’m talking about. What does everyone else think?

I'm getting the hang of it now. As someone used to parrying and rolling, it takes some getting used to just holding block and accepting chip damage. Dodge and heavy attacks build posture instead of using stamina. Rather than trying to royal guard everything, it's best to block, wait your turn, parry the red attack and then combo (XXXXX+Y is safe).

Fighting the skill check boss at 10 fortitude, lvl 6 (2/2/1/1/4). If I could respec, I'd probably put less in stealth and more in health/damage. You get an invisibility spell at stealth lvl 8, and vampiric heal at health lvl 3. The boss goes from 1 red/unblockable attack to multiple in his 2nd form. There's a hidden tiger boss before the 1st bonfire (15 fortitude), but I let the fire wall take care of it, so I never really fought it.

When you die, you lose fortitude, which is a level required to use spells. Unlocking the bonfires puts a floor on how much fortitude you can lose. You also lose half your souls. You need to kill the guy or boss who killed you. Seems harsher than just picking it up. If it's a guy, they also get a fortitude bonus. It's a bit Shadow of Mordor. I'm surprised they got round WB's patent.

Enemies seem to stand in place facing one direction. Very little patrolling. If they don't want you to stealth, they have them face you in a narrow hallway. They're quite blind, but the transition from walking to running is too easy. A dedicated walk toggle would be helpful. 1 point in stealth seems enough. Locked to 30 or 60fps. PS4 buttons by default, but can be changed. Also, you have 9S (sounds like the same VA) helping you. Does decent damage, and doesn't seem like he can die.

Thoughts? Why was MartinG having a meltdown over it on Twitter? Seems good to me, although it follows Nioh's "pick your own action game" formula. They threw a katamari ball in the ARPG, Souls and action pit, and let it roll around a bit. The result is an ARPG with mikiri counter.

Edit: yeah, there's definitely a lot of "wait your turn, don't get greedy". The range these guys can lunge towards you is also pretty insane, so positioning isn't really that important outside of hiding behind rocks.

Edit 2: so the 1st boss was stonewalling me, but I switched from a +3 polearm to the starter sword with weaker damage. I steamrolled the guy 1st time, both phases. I don't think my tactics changed. It wants me to play defensively, but I chose to parry instead. Seems the parry window is much wider on the sword. I also built up the boss' poise bar 2 or 3 times, 1-2x more than with the polearm.

I think using magic melee (Y) is supposed to build your “anti-poise” (blue bar opposite orange), which lets you spam dodge and parry without building poise. Magic (wizarding) is like pyromancy, and does heavy stagger on the boss. You only need to get the boss down to 50% on phase 2 to end the fight. I don't know why the sword was so much stronger, but I'm not sure the boss taught me much, except weapon choice matters.

Edit 3: weapons have a "deflect difficulty", so it is indeed easier to parry with swords (especially the starter sword and cutlass) than polearms. Question is if I want to git gud with polearms so the skills transfer over.

Edit 4: while I didn't learn anything from the tutorial boss, the guardian ape from the 2nd level told me my hunch was correct. You can parry its base attacks, but there's no reason to. There's no reason not to hold block, since the timing for parrying its basic attacks with the iron sword, or even tapping block, is a little too tight compared to the mikiri counters it expects of you.

Edit 5: the giant pig seals it for me. It has this charging move with no chip damage for blocking, yet parrying is riskier, builds poise anyway, and the attacks have insane tracking. The mikiri parry window is so tight I haven't gotten it down yet with a sword, or it may be less for me because I'm overencumbered (only armor counts towards weight). Because if not, there's no discernable penalty for having too much weight.

If it's anything like Nioh and Stranger, arguably the only two things that hold a player back in this game will be stats and their own creativity. Nioh is probably the biggest 'just customize this game as you want' title out there, but a lot of players just played it the most dull way possible. Think once you get used to enemy patterns and how you can use the systems to play with those patterns it'll open up immensely.

Nioh had this for me at least, first few runs was really rough but fun, with mostly holding block with the occasional punish. While later runs were me being far more agressive, even trying to incorporate attacks in my evasion, basically never letting up. Fantastic game.

> katamari ball
I think it's interesting that Team Ninja manages to keep picking up hypes, make them initially feel incredibly similar and than just reveal it's this insanely weird and infinitely complex game you could technically play for the rest of your life.

> not sure why person that dislikes fun things in life dislikes a fun game
I'm convinced that guy doesn't even like his own mother at this point.

Interesting observation.

>deflect vs interrupt string
This is a very good observation. Have to give the game credit for that difference.

That being said, this is my experience with the boss:

>mash until my time to parry, like every action game in the last 5 years
>try to interrupt big attack with my spirit attack(you know, the one that takes meter) but nothing happens
>boss starts doing the DS3/ER "delay attack for a half second to throw you off because doing new moves would be too interesting"
>boss jumps 30ft into the air and my character is no longer on the screen, completely confusing me
>boss reads my input as I'm trying to heal
>beat the boss, and only thing I came away saying was "damn that was annoying, I hope every boss isn't like th- oh who am I kidding, of course they are!"

Yeah, dunno about this one.

Visually speaking, I'm sold but mechanically I still don't fully see the appeal. I've been playing the demo a bit and it really seems just: mash attack with prefered weapon > parry blow until opening > mash attack or big move > parry until opening again > parry red move > occasional jump over move for bonus hit.

I don't really see how that can carry a game, especially coming from their previous library of games it seems very barren and I wonder if it won't become boring or repetative. Especially since most bosses don't seem like they can get staggered, so nearly all your weapons are effectively 'the same' outside of what fancy swing animation they have.

I like the idea of the 'moral' and that exploration can buff you, though I don't fully understand the impact right now. Nor do I understand how leveling really works i.e. what the influences are. Feel like just leveling the stat for deflection is the way to go since that's all you'll do.

>barren
Pretty much what I thought. After the huge array of tools in Nioh 2 and CHAOS this just feels extremely limited. This whole "mash until it's the enemy's turn and then parry" shtick is beyond old.

>leveling
I had a feeling when they said this would be more of a straight up action game it was bullshit. When I went into the menu and saw I had multiple cloth tunics to choose from with a couple numbers that varied in a way that meant nothing, I audibly said "oh this shit again!".

Hate to be so negative but I hate to see this potential go to waste. I know TN could make a batshit crazy game mechanically but they decided to do their own take on Sekiro.

Replayed. Looks like a deep, deep sale for me. Or free from Epic Games in 2 years. Combat's been touched on (much easier when you're max lvl - 20 for the demo). Steamrolled the ape, pig, and only 2nd phase of that 1st dude put up a fight. But there's no exploration, or much reason to replay.

I've seen bigger levels in the 5 month old demo, but it seems like you enter a level, clear it out, replay for a better score, the never come back. Gonna need lots of levels to keep it exciting. 1440/60 PC performance seems better. Might just be cached shaders, though.

Yeah in general Team Ninja lately seems like:
Grab popular trend > make it absolutely better and insane > but it is still based on that trend and within the confines of the RPG stuff.

I mean, this is basically Sekiro on massive amounts of crack with more options, which is neat and awesome, but it's still based on that foundation that wasn't that interesting to begin with (at least, imo).

Since the demo is basically the 'full game', people were able to mine some info out of it. It has 16 main missions (like the one we played) and 30(!) sub missions (ala Nioh).

If they'd removed the stats I think it'd be a fun game, but I'm already not looking forward to bringing my favourite bo-staff into the first level and OHKOíng the entire stage. We'll see how it goes, I was enjoying it for what it's worth and it's "free" on gamepass so I'll play it starting friday.

Should note the Xbox One version is absolutely horrible. Runs at a capped 30FPS and has textures that legit look like some of my OG Xbox games.

Shared these notes with a friend, thought I'd post them here too:

Played it a bit more, I am warming up to it now that I understand Spirit and Moral a bit more. Especially moral is a pretty interesting system.

I went and replayed stage1 with a level 20 characters and 4* gear, but made a point to not raise moral (so 0 moral). The boss by default is Moral10. It offered an extremely tense and balanced fight. The scaling it offers is off the charts, more so than character or weapon level.

Also gives a fun(?) reason to explore, as exploration now directly increases your powerlevel throughout the stage, even on replays (as moral resets I assume).

Weapons are still an issue. I've experimented a bit more and weapon-arts seem to deal monsterous SpiritDamage if you're in BlueMeter, which is neat, but other than that half of them seem trash and very unsafe (especially since bosses input read them and counter with heavy strikes). The general moveset is interesting and that you can do weapon-swap combos like in Nioh into a retreating strike is fun and fluid. Just lacks a lot of options (saw you laterón get a launcher though in preview footage).

There's a bit more boss maniuplation possible like breaking their 'weakpoint' like in Nioh but nothing spectacular.

Mostly surprised though that it is so 1v1 built, while the biggest thrill was deflecting multiple enemies at once. Feel if they'd ditched the lock-on for a priority system it would've been a lot better.

Yeah this game is pretty fucking fun not gonna lie. The first demo's really didn't show it in the best of light, fights are a chaotic mess later-on with ninjas backflipping on you while axe dudes rush you down. One boss was 20(!) enemies at once, it was crazy. It's like a giant middle finger from TN saying "you think you can parry everything? fuck you, here's a tornado" (no joke).

Legit at times see the same drunken madness in the design as I saw in NGII, the things they pull is the stuff only madmen would consider.

So, it's Sekiro with some balls? It looks pretty cool. I've seen you comparing to Ninja Gaiden on Twitter and now I'm interested

Yeah if there's a word I'd use it's "balls" for sure. A lot of times in these games it feels like enemies hold back. You run out of stamina and these bulldogs will rush you down. There's no slotting either, so if there's three enemies it's gangbang town on your ass. Absolutely refreshing.

If they'd just remove the shittly RPG limitations and remove the lock-on with some honest to god priority soft lock I'd be singing.