There was a period of about 10 years or so when, if you were a fan of Dark Souls but had grown tired of Dark Souls, there was really only one choice for you. That choice was Team Ninja’s Nioh. Not that it was the only choice on the market, but we all agreed it was the most competent option and offered a great experience. Nioh 2 just expanded what was great about the first, and it would be years still until Lies of P came along and became the big one people now point to.
I famously (as I like to point out) gave Rise of the Ronin a 9/10 in my review of the game, and while I stand by it, I will concede there has been a period where the team hasn’t been AS strong as their earlier work. For a team that had just lost Itegaki and had just before put out the worst version of a Ninja Gaiden game, the fact that they bounced back so strongly with the Nioh series set a new stage for the team. And it’s one that they have maintained pretty consistently even at their worst.
If, and I mean this, if you believe that the best was behind Team Ninja, I’ve got news for you. Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember Bay-Bee. It has been a long time since I sank around 10 hours into a demo and loved almost every second of it. That almost is in reference to LU BU, whose every Japanese developer clearly wants to haunt the dreams of all gamers. Well, that and this tree boss who took me 50 tries. Other than those two things, I am in love with this game.
In my review of the original Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty for Switch 2, I was reminded just how much I love the combat of the first game. I actually would go so far as to say it is the best version of combat in a Team Ninja title. It abandoned the stamina gauge in favor of this battlefield balance gauge, and honestly, the results are spectacular. It rewards rapid-fire combat and exploiting enemy openings to keep your character advantaged, while punishing you for spamming the counter and poorly reacting. Likewise, it creates a precise system that plays as almost the antithesis of every other game in the genre. Damn it, it feels like Ninja Gaiden, and I love that.
In Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember, this is drastically expanded with a new set of power moves in the mix. You can still dodge at the right time to block, with a greater effect on glowing red attacks. This time around, while holding R1 and hitting dodge, you now do a counter-block that feeds into a counterattack. The dodge has a much more forgiving window, but by taking on the risk of precision, you add an extra hit and more break damage toward causing a stagger. The best part is this adds a knockback that can bounce the soldier, unluckily enough, to get hit with this off walls or other enemies in range.
The second of these new abilities is similar to that, except with your jump. Combat now has a new indicator added to it that can be specifically broken with this new skill, adding more depth, as you need to analyze what is coming at you and act accordingly. There has been a mix-up with timing your counters as well, so it isn’t just as easy as going right into it. I cannot stress enough how both of these skills feel organic, allowing you to go from a heavy-hitting combo straight into a powerhouse counter complete with a great cinematic, straight back into the combo. This is the most blisteringly fast fighting out there and fluid combat out there.
The second thing to mention is that the game retains the open-world approach of both Team Ninja’s previous titles, Rise of the Ronin and Nioh 3, but in the case of Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember, they have taken what they did before and really hammered the edges. They have described these areas as being more open-ended rather than fully open-world, but I would argue the second you step in, you fail to see the difference. That said, in the world of Wo Long, which had tight stages, this will be drastically different regardless of what you call it.
The area of the demo is much smaller than that of Nioh 3, which is good. One thing that game did well was building interesting areas amid an open world with less going on. Here, you have much more tightly condensed areas that have things going on in them. You really can’t walk far before finding an area of note or something worth doing. There are also plenty of things buried on the map that don’t just get waypointed out, though I would argue the map navigation needs more work before launch. It can be confusing to find what you are looking for, or more so, to better track the things that increase your Morale rank.
This is because we see the return of the battle flags, which have been completely overhauled from the previous game. Areas on the map are diverse, so it largely feels like stages will be a mash-up of multiple stages that flow together, and each has flags to be planted. The bigger flags still serve as rest points, while smaller ones are just for fun, but they affect the morale rank. For players unaware, on top of your level, the morale rank influences whether you have an advantage or disadvantage against the opponents, with the level being area-based for the morale level.
While there are multiple areas on the grid, the map makes it very challenging to track these individually, instead having bulk locations that include two or three in one. These areas have one metric for completion and a list of buffs you unlock for doing so. I absolutely kept finding things in areas I had completed, meaning that completion is based on a percentage of finds, not all there is to find, and it would be much easier to isolate these locations. I mean, I found entirely new areas and locations after completing and hitting 100%, but this is also a minor complaint.
What we really need to discuss is the verticality added to Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember that honestly sets this game apart even further from absolutely everything. At one point, I remember wandering these ruins, fighting enemies that look like Final Fantasy Flan, when some enemies started raining arrows from above. Pull out my bow and return fire? No way. Run up the wall to a higher platform, spin around a pillar, and throw myself to that platform and take the fight to them.
And there is so much of it too. Traversal will often involve running along a wall, ninja flipping to a higher platform, or using pillars to spin and fly across gaps. Gathering collectables or finding the hidden flag locations is so unbelievably fun because you are solving platforming puzzles as much as you are exploring. At one point, I saw a wall run, tried to fly towards it, and landed in a hidden area with a treasure chest, with that wall run being part of another platforming section I could do.
This also diversifies combat, as you can get up high and genuinely use it to your advantage. There are ropes you can run across, get above a soldier just minding his own business, then drop straight down for the kill. There is also an improvement to dropping as well as long drops aren’t guaranteed deaths; your character gets a pretty big safety net on drops if you mess these plays up. You also don’t die if you fall off stage anymore. Annoyingly, I wish Team Ninja would just add swimming since Rise of the Ronan featured it; stage-out deaths are the worst. Not that it matters; in one fight I threw myself off the platform, jumped up, then threw myself back onto the platform, never ending my onslaught with the newly joined flails, which are my go-to. Your jump is your greatest weapon; use it.
The thing that might annoy players is that the Morale Rank is tied to world progression. I didn’t see the issue, but I can see the flip side of the whole affair. I would need to see the full game to honestly speak on this, but a complaint I have had with previous games has been the length, which can drag on. Since every enemy, from minor foot soldiers to the monkey boss near the end of this demo, has a rank, you will need to affect it by completing tasks around the map. In the previous entry, the battle flags were all that had an impact on it, capping out at level 20 of 25.
This means that finding all flags gives you the base rank of 20, with players able to achieve higher by defeating foes and landing parries. It’s a little confusing, as stated above, to figure out what does what even as you are seeing it, but some actions decrease the area’s rank, while others increase your own. There are areas of skrimages that you can defeat a set number of enemies or powerful sub-bosses to slay, and all of these have an effect, though not as potent as previously. You can also take on side quests, though these typically push you into a more narrative form of those first two categories. This said, the rewards are worth it, and I don’t hate those first two categories. They could be more satisfying, though.
Because of all of this, as compared to Nioh 3, you really do need to participate in everything to set yourself up for success. This doesn’t always translate to success; that tree boss was kicking me around the battlefield, and I was a few ranks above him. On the opposite side of that, in the final battle of the demo, I was pretty overpowered, so I steamrolled them easily. You will constantly come up against harder enemies, with a lot of battle flag stands locked behind something akin to a dragon or a heavy-hitting soldier, but I genuinely loved these fights. When the fight is rapid-fire, throwing everything it’s got at you, you get to see just how much it rewards your technical prowess.
Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember is a sequel to a game I feel many players discount. This, right here, is a statement piece. This is Team Ninja at their absolute best, taking lessons they have learned from everything prior and putting that design on full display. Team Ninja is back at full form, baby. Can I get an amen!? If this is a vertical slice, a microcosm of what is to come, I cannot wait to see what is in store for us when the full game is out in the wild.
Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember is set to blaze its way onto platforms on March 4, 2027. It will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
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