#wo long

[ray-elgatodormido]

Welcome one and all to San Guo Strange Suggestions or Dynasty Dickeries (Whichever is better. Or just give me a better name) where you give the weirdest 3K ideas you can think of and I, your host, draws them. Kinda wanna do this once a month or once every two months, not necessarily host them myself all the time but why not do this a little community thing?

The suggestions and participants who made it in:

- Zhao Fan forcing Zhao Yun to make a dating account. By @zhao-zilong

- DW Sun Jian in a tiger costume with his kids as (chibi) cubs. By @0rzammar

- Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun as the Powerpuff Girls. By @finrodsfelagunds

- DW3 Xiahou Dun with (Cai Wenji style) braids (feat. Zhen Ji). By @kakmem

- Chi Tu (Red Hare) and Dilu shit talking their riders. By @justaderivative

- Ma Chao and Ma Dai in horse costumes (Got a little creative with that one). By @dovahkiin99

- Sima Yi as an actual horse. By @the-kingdom-of-wei

- Lü Bu dressed as a giant cucaracha. By @maryannsa (sorry I can’t seem to tag you for some reason)

I think that’s all. Until next time as I ponder what just drew.

[lopposting]

I know p has his hair down in this shot from the wo long x LOP trailer thing but IN THE ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE WE SEE HIS EARS??

P IS GONNA HAVE HIS HAIR UP ?? ina BUN??

[millidank]

I was having a stressful moment in class until the official Lies of P released a little collab video and--??

You know daaaaaaaaamn well I screamed when I saw THIS part:

And then I continued screaming at this part:

GOING THROUGH THE BELLE EPOQUE ERA WITH THIS BABY WOOOOOOO!!

FEBRUARY 14TH DAWG??!! He's my valentine's day gift with this outfit and weapon I'm ready 🌹🌹🌹🌹🙌

[lopstuff]

[thepapermice]

Nioh nostalgia

[crispy-ghee]

Jaité in Wo Long.

Partner asked me why I made him so sexy, and I told them, and was telling the absolute truth at the time, that this just happened to be the strongest armor I had.

I only made Jaité as a joke in this game, but partner pointed out their character system would make a really good Jaité so... Imma be real tho, yeah, their character models are really pretty ;~;

[aoitakumi8148]

𝓛𝓮𝓪𝓷 𝓞𝓷 𝓜𝔂 𝓐𝓻𝓶... 𝓐𝓷𝓭 𝓛𝓮𝓽 𝓤𝓼 𝓖𝓸. 𝓦𝓮 𝓦𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓦𝓪𝓵𝓴 𝓥𝓮𝓻𝔂, 𝓥𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓢𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓵𝔂...

[sabrerine911]

So today I managed to save up enough money to afford Rise of The Ronin, I still dont have the game, but im planning to get it this tuesday hopefully. Felt like sketching this up ofcourse XD

BIG Fan of Nioh 2 and also Wo Long. consumed the hell out of both of those games. And ive seen enough reviews and footage to know Ill enjoy this as well.

Hoping to be able to make a very decent Beth in Ronin as well!

My Patreon if you wanna support my arting https://www.patreon.com/ArtFrenzy

[stef-gallery]

[triplexmile]

I managed to beat Wo Long at Level 1!

[ray-elgatodormido]

Quickie I made in class because I got bored.

Gotta love how DW Lü Bu and Wo Long Lü Bu are legit two completely different people. DW Lü Bu would angrily punch a tree to collect wood while Wo Long Lü Bu would use up all the hot water coming up with comebacks from a past argument in the shower.

Studying in college doesn’t mean I won’t feed the 3K fandom with cursed memes.

[nojillnolife]

[alexandriaisburning]

+001: Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and the long shadow of Dark Souls

Addendums, Archives and Appendecies is extra, off topic writing in addition to the regular CANON FIRE entries. You can support more writing like this on Patreon. 

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is the latest in Team Ninja’s series of flagship action games, a fantastical take on the beloved Chinese saga of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Its unique Spirit system turns the battle of wills into an explicit tug of war--pressing the attack and learning when to counter rewards you with powerful resources, while taking a passive or sloppy approach opens you to being cracked open. Personally, it’s one of the most interesting action games to come out in years.

Yet despite this, in discussions about Wo Long I can’t escape the feeling that I’m often not talking about the game itself, but only how it compares to another game: Sekiro. Every conversation is framed by it, dominated by it. As if there’s a secret desire for Wo Long to somehow be a sleeper sequel to Sekiro. Almost by necessity I find myself defending the fact that Wo Long is a different game, and that the differences in design are done with intent, and not inherently a flaw because they don’t conform to From Software’s mold. 

Surface level comparisons between Wo Long and Sekiro are obvious: you can see the parallels between Wo Long Spirit system and Sekiro’s Posture--each allows you to break the enemy’s guard, with chances to intentionally step into their most dangerous attacks to mount a massive counterattack. Wo Long is the successor to Nioh and Final Fantasy: Stranger of Paradise, games where you fundamentally cannot deny the influence of Sekiro and the Souls series. Despite that, Team Ninja’s games are easily the most comfortable with remixing, reappropriating and recontextualizing those ideas, even more than Fromsoft themselves. 

Think about how Nioh’s Ki system not only rethought the Souls stamina with the Ki Pulse, but also gave enemies a stamina bar, and let you break their guard by watching their attacks and attacking their stamina. The effect isn’t dissimilar to Sekiro’s Posture system, and it’d be easy to claim the influence it had on Nioh--if it wasn’t for the fact that Nioh released TWO YEARS before Sekiro. 

Wo Long’s more streamlined approach to this combat tug of war is the result of nearly four games of mechanical iteration, starting from Nioh. Nioh’s Ki Pulse allowed players to refill the stamina bar with several actions, creating an expressive system that allowed them to continuously pressure enemies--as long as they were willing to risk not having anything in reserve when it came time to defend. Nioh 2 iterated on this with an expansion of the tools available. 

Stranger of Paradise streamlined this system for a mass audience, turning it into a Break system that allowed you to have an unstoppable defense, as long as you spent your resources carefully. Countering enemy attacks could snatch them for yourself, and successful defense increased your MP bar, allowing you to frequently spend resources for power skills and spells. Depleting the enemies Break Gauge was crucial to this, with big finishers providing the main form of resource gain. All of this was bolstered by its version of the signature Final Fantasy Job System, allowing you to switch between movesets and abilities on the fly, replenishing your Break Gauge as you did. 

Wo Long makes this tug of war explicit. Attacking and counter attacking add to your Spirit Gauge, allowing you to spend it for big damage, and blocking pressures you until you break right open. In a neutral state your abilities are always available, essentially making resources unlimited, as long as you’re willing to take the risk of being crippled by your spiritual debt if you take a hit. It’s a smart and easier to parse iteration of the mechanics Team Ninja has been playing with for half a decade now, leading to unconventional approaches to combat, and what I’d argue is the most thematically resonant version of their mechanics. What could be more perfect for a story about wills and philosophies vying for supremacy than a system that literally has you breaking the enemy’s spirit to gain advantage?

I rarely hear any of these ideas come up in conversation about Wo Long. Instead I often heard that people never played Team Ninja’s previous games, or skipped them after a brief look because the games didn’t play to their expectations of what they wanted from an entry in this genre. I don’t begrudge anyone for not playing through a game they don’t enjoy, let alone believe they have to play several full length RPGs before trying a new one. But it is frustrating to hear the same conversation everywhere, with every complaint wrapping around to how From Software does things, and how each Team Ninja game fails to adhere to it. 

We’re over a decade removed from the first Souls series release, and half a decade from Team Ninja’s first entry in their own interpretation. The “Soulslike” genre has matured now, and it’d be disingenuous to frame games playing in this space exclusively by what they steal from the Souls series, rather than their own interpretations on a shared understanding and design language. The same way that “Metroidvania” and “Doom-clone” can limit our understanding of what’s permitted in a space, holding Fromsoft’s blueprint as the ideal can prevent us from approaching new works on their own terms. 

Look, I get  it. In terms of mindshare it’s hard to avoid the high profile gaming events that each Fromsoft release has become. Each game is developed with the hype, polish and budget of a company able to throw their weight around to get as much time and money as they need to finish a title. Everyone played Sekiro, even people who didn’t enjoy Fromsoft’s previous work. 

For comparison, Elden Ring took close to five years to complete, during which Team Ninja put out THREE GAMES iterating on Nioh’s ideas. Not to mention co-developing Fire Emblem Warriors, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and putting out a new entry in the Dead or Alive series, along with multiple spin offs. 

And for all the legitimate faults that Team Ninja games have (like the insistence on having the worst managed loot system to exist), they also bear clear indications of a development cycle limited on time and resources. Their titles are often cobbled together with as many existing resources as possible, reusing and remixing concepts and designs to keep the next game fresh. It leads to a lot of rough execution, but lets them rapidly iterate in a way that makes every entry fascinating. 

What people forget is that From Software used to develop games exactly like this. Before they were the AAA developer who dominated the charts they were a mid-tier developer that rapidly iterated on the same ideas, while pushing out plenty of offbeat genre entries, many of which were never given any real critical understanding. You could argue that it was exactly the two decades of iteration that led them to the success of their current formula, with changing tastes allowing people to not only catch onto the appeal of Fromsoft’s games, but titles like Wizardry and Druaga that it was influenced by. 

So it’s frustrating that the same generosity that’s allowed people to enjoy Fromsoft’s work and reevaluate their history also has people dismissing the games that take influence from them. The framing of a subject can change how we approach it entirely. The pull of history is powerful, and the gravity of genre sets our expectations and desires. To say that we can escape drawing comparisons to popular titles would be futile, but we can never see a complete picture of history from within the moment. 

Letting a title stand on its own, and asking us what it attempts to do, and how successful it is within its own bounds can give us a more interesting and critical viewpoint, even if we come to similar conclusions. Judging a game by its ability to replicate the success of others is equally as futile and shallow as expecting the comparison to be removed entirely. 

Team Ninja’s games in particular have arguably matured into their own, away from the usual trappings of the genre. The Souls elements--the RPG progression, the corpse run mechanics etc.--aren’t there to pay homage to Fromsoft’s work or try to replicate it, they’re tools Team Ninja have made their own. Team Ninja isn’t using these tools to replicate the effect, they use them for the same reason Wo Long is also a cooperative loot grind: because that’s simply what action games are now.. 

For better and for worse, Team Ninja is making modern action games, and that’s the template. Titles like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Team Ninja’s own Ninja Gaiden once set the standard, but have waned in popularity. To the point where the same people who pioneered the genre are themselves making their own attempts to integrate those modern elements, often to mixed results. 

Team Ninja have repeatedly managed to synthesize pop elements into their own identifiable style, and remained consistently interesting despite their flaws. And if you look, I’m sure there’s many more games in the space that remix the formula in their own, compelling ways. It’s a shame that the shadow of Fromsoft’s monolith always seems to obscure so many other legitimate approaches. But the thing about shadows is that they transform with a little light from a different perspective. 

[lifextime]

Koei Tecmo Games  ❤

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Wo Long - Fallen Dynasty by Apple

[transientsolution]

between Wo Long and Hi-Fi Rush, we should be able to clearly establish that parrying is cool and should be in every single action game ever