izigame.me

Wo Long is a fantastic game. It's also a flawed game. Unfortunately its flaws are almost perfectly aligned to its target audience. Hence all the mixed/negative reviews. Are they deserved? Maybe. But that's not the whole picture.
First, the good things. Wo Long has hands down one of the best combat systems out there. That's not an exaggeration. Team Ninja did a very smart thing with the spirit gauge. To make you gain spirit with normal attacks and successful deflects, the game removes the usual down time where you have to wait for stamina/ki/spirit to come back. The Nioh games dealt with this problem with ki pulses and anima, but in Wo Long it feels even more fluid. You are constantly making choices in combat about how to gain spirit with attacks and deflects, or how to use your spirit for spells and martial arts. It's one of the most engaging back and forth combat I've played.
Deflection is also a very strong combat mechanic. It offers a tool that can deal with any situation. No more being chased around in the Depth by human bosses in Nioh 2, or being insta-killed by Waterfowl Dance. You can always deflect. There is an argument that it's too powerful, and an opposite argument that to provide challenges, the game overtuned dlc bosses. I would say this, the balance is not always perfect. But I'd rather have deflect as a tool that I can master, than having to face situations where my only options are to run away or die.
On that note, the game also has some of the best boss fights, especially human bosses. I don't want to spoil anything but there are at least three bosses in this game, that I would rank above all Nioh bosses and most of the Souls games' bosses. At its best, Wo Long is probably only gonna lose to Dark Souls 3 in this regard. (Haven't played Bloodborne so no comment on that. Will it ever be ported to PC?) Even the more bullshit dlc bosses are very fun to fight, if/when you learn to fight them with proper tools (spells and martial arts that can hard counter them).
Another thing I find surprisingly good is how the game treated its source materials, the Three Kingdoms period. Not the novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, nor the more famous (to the Western audience at least) Dynasty Warriors games, but the actual history. The game mixed both real history events and the novelized version, changed some key characters (Lu Bu, for example) and added in fantasy elements. Somehow it created a new version of the time period that is fresh, but still somewhat true. Characterization of Cao Cao, Sun Jian and several other major historical figures are very nuanced, better than a lot of stereotypical adaptations of the same source material. The game actually prompted me to really get into that time period. And the more I learned, the more I could see and appreciate all the threads and thinking process behind the choices Team Ninja made with the story. Is it perfect story telling? Is it easily accessible to players with no knowledge of that particular historical period? No. But the story and setting do have a strong inner logic.
I'm singing praises after praises over the game. But it does have big flaws.
First, the PC optimization was and is still somewhat poor. It got better after patches, but never silky smooth. And on top of that keyboard and mouse controls were broken at release.
The game is shorter than the Nioh games. It suffers a bit with enemy variety. Content-wise I would put it around 80% of Nioh, which is not bad, as Nioh games are 10/10 masterpieces. But people felt shortchanged.
The game has a very uneven look. Technically the graphics are not bad actually. I have no idea why people say it looks like PS3 games. If you look closely at textures and models, they are high quality. And all assets (weapons and clothing, etc.) are done with care and proper knowledge. What the game actually lacks is good overall art direction. Each map has an overpowering color filter, and most maps are covered in ugly veins everywhere. Whatever is good in the graphics is buried underneath. So sadly as a whole the game looks unimpressive.
I mentioned at the beginning that these flaws were almost perfectly aligned with the target audience - the Chinese market. Take the following paragraphs with as many grains of salt as you wish. These are from my personal experiences and from reading comments online.
Wo Long generated quite a buzz before release in China. Three Kingdoms is one of the most famous and exciting time period in Chinese history. And Team Ninja had a great reputation. But the majority of the Chinese gamers play on PC, unlike the rest of the world. (This was caused by a lot of factors too complicated to discuss here.) You simply could not mess up your PC port if you want good responses from this market.
A huge disadvantage Wo Long had was the comparison to Nioh 2. Nioh 2 was released on PC with all three dlcs. Nioh 2 was also built on top of Nioh 1, cannibalizing most of its assets. For a lot of Nioh 2 players on PC, we encountered it as a whole package. But it didn't get there in a vacuum. Wo Long at release certainly felt very bare-bone if you put it side by side to Nioh 2 complete edition. This feeling of being shortchanged can be very persistent. Wo Long got many quality updates and balances since then, but it's hard to overcome this particular feeling. I would also say players tend to be more critical and unforgiving when the economy is not great, and games feel more expensive.
Another weird thing is the story. Most people in China are actually more familiar with the novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, rather than the history. In the novel the Shu aligned characters (Liu Bei, Guan Yu, etc.) are the definitive protagonists, while the Wei, Wu and other characters are side ones. Wo Long paid a lot of attention at treating all three factions with equal attention, and aligned a lot of its story to real history instead of the novel. This actually created some dissonance to players only familiar with the novel.
Personally, I've waited for all the game's content to come out before making a final judgement. In my own opinion, the game as a whole deserves a 9, even just for its fantastic combat system. But I also enjoyed its story and even certain parts of its graphics. It's not perfect and not a masterpiece, but I'm glad it got created. Wo Long opens the possibility for a better sequel that would focus on the meatiest part of the historical period, with even better systems and more variety, like how much of a giant leap Nioh 2 was compared to Nioh 1. But even without a sequel, the game can stand on its own. You get to hang out with your favorite Three Kingdoms warriors, that alone is cool.
Some suggestions to make the game more enjoyable:
Do not treat deflect like parry from Souls games. Use deflect like how you use dodge in Souls games. It's a fundamental damage mitigation, not a high risk high reward move.
Try to incorporate martial arts and wizardry spells into your actions sooner rather than later. Both add so much to the complexity of the combat system.
To get rid of the "oiliness", turn on ambient occlusion. It makes a huge difference to make skin textures look natural. It barely impacts framerates.
If certain part of the map tanks your framerate, rest at a flag and quit to main menu will fix it most of the time. I think either during zone transition or when the game generates a NPC invader, the game doesn't dump the memory properly afterwards. Quit to main menu forces the memory to reset and the game will run smooth again.
Enjoy!