There are a lot of good things coming out and happening around the Nintendo platform right now. It’s a very exciting time to be a Nintendo Switch 2 owner, for sure. Nintendo just dropped two great Nintendo Direct shows, alongside an under-the-radar console dock update that improved the docked Switch 2’s VRR support for compatible games and displays.
Why am I mentioning all this in a review of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty- Complete Edition for the Nintendo Switch 2?
Well, it’s because frame rates and visuals are a huge deal when it comes to the overall enjoyment of this particular game. Let me explain.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty originally came out to pretty good critical acclaim in 2023 and achieved a Metacritic score of 80 on PlayStation 5. The game itself is by no means a poor game. This new Switch 2 version, however, currently sits considerably lower.
With a storyline that throws a dark fantasy and demonic layer over the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history, there is enough here to keep players engaged, but the overall presentation of the story is still pretty poor. The narrative often seems to expect you to already know the characters who appear and understand their relevance to history rather than taking the time to properly introduce them.
They have most certainly captured the historical feel of the period — minus the monsters and demons, of course! — in the settings and atmosphere of the game, but the story is more of a tool to keep you moving forward.
The main reason to play Wo Long, and why it originally received some very good review scores, is the combat.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is what is generally described as a Souls-like game. I’m not a huge fan of the tough-as-nails Souls-like genre, but I can most certainly see the appeal. I can also enjoy them to a point myself, as long as I feel like the game is fair. I don’t want cheap deaths from things I couldn’t possibly see coming, but if I learn the game and play it the way it wants me to, I want to be rewarded for doing so.
The mechanics of Wo Long are especially good as long as you understand the way the game actually wants you to play. Once you understand its combat rhythm, the overall difficulty naturally comes down. Play it any other way, and you will get destroyed.
You obviously need to learn the attack patterns of enemies, even down to the most basic enemy types. When you do, the combat gameplay is essentially this: attack, deflect, build positive Spirit, Martial Art/Spirit attack, break enemy Spirit, Fatal Strike.
Follow that gameplay loop in each combat encounter, and that is basically how you will get through the entire game.
Is it fun doing so? Absolutely. Nailing that system in a particularly tough fight is incredibly rewarding and hugely intoxicating. Taking the time to learn the attack patterns of enemies and then successfully putting everything together is the draw of the entire game.
Will you get your backside handed to you if you don’t?
Most definitely.
But here is the issue.
The same combat system on PlayStation 5 can be played in Performance Mode targeting 60fps. That makes enemy movements much easier to read and gives you the responsiveness you need to react accordingly.
Here on Switch 2, however, things are very different. Not only is performance considerably worse, but the game’s visuals overall, whichever mode you choose, are rough.
Really, REALLY rough!
In Performance Mode on Switch 2, the game targets 60fps, but it certainly doesn’t maintain it consistently. The bigger problem is the massive hit to visual fidelity required to chase those higher frame rates. To my eye, the image can look alarmingly soft, almost blurry. Technical analysis elsewhere has estimated the internal resolution can fall into roughly the 720p region, which certainly matches what I am seeing on my screen.
The game’s Resolution Mode does sharpen the image quite considerably, but it drops the target to 30fps — and even that doesn’t feel consistently smooth.
That leaves you with an unpleasant choice. You can have the responsiveness this combat system desperately needs but sacrifice visual clarity or improve the clarity but sacrifice the frame rate and responsiveness needed to play the game effectively.
Neither is particularly satisfactory.
I actually put off writing this review for a little while to see if the recently released Switch 2 VRR dock update improved any of this.
Unfortunately, it didn’t.
There are very few occasions where I think visuals are such a big deal that they can stop me from enjoying a game, but this is one of those rare examples where they genuinely affect the gameplay.
Sometimes, visual issues really do matter.
Wo Long is already a difficult game and directs the player towards perfecting extremely precise timing. You need to read an enemy’s movement, recognise the incoming attack, and deflect it at exactly the right moment.
If the image is so soft that it becomes harder to read those attack animations, then the graphical compromise is doing far more than simply making the game look worse: It is directly affecting your ability to play the game the way it demands to be played.
That makes an already difficult game even tougher for all the wrong reasons.
A patch improving the game’s visuals and performance could dramatically improve the situation. As things currently stand, however, the technical compromises combined with Wo Long‘s hard-as-nails combat made me put the game down in frustration far more quickly than I would have liked.
To exacerbate the situation even more, another single-player, sword-wielding, dark fantasy adventure game, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, released literally one day after this Switch 2 port of Wo Long.
There is no other way to sugar-coat it: Onimusha is embarrassingly superior from a visual perspective.
Of course, they are different games running on different technology and shouldn’t be directly compared simply because both contain swords and monsters. But as two major third-party action games arriving on exactly the same hardware within 24 hours of each other, the contrast in presentation is difficult to ignore.
That makes the timing of Wo Long‘s Switch 2 release extremely unfortunate.
The Nintendo ecosystem doesn’t have the same selection of big-budget, mainstream 3D Soul-slike games that players on PlayStation, Xbox and PC have enjoyed. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty- Complete Edition, therefore, fills a pretty significant gap in the Switch 2 library.
There is plenty of content here too. This Complete Edition includes the base game and its three major DLC expansions, making it a substantial package for anyone prepared to invest the time required to master it.
If this sort of game is your thing, and Nintendo is your platform of choice, there is undoubtedly a good game buried underneath these technical problems.
And that’s ultimately the frustrating thing about Wo Long on Switch 2.
I’m not criticising the game simply because it’s difficult. Its demanding combat is intentional, and when its deflection system clicks, it can be enormously satisfying.
I’m criticising this version because its technical shortcomings make mastering that already-demanding combat unnecessarily harder.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty deserved a better conversion than this.
Only the brave and hardy should approach it in its current state — but then again, the brave and hardy are exactly the type of gamers who enjoy a challenge like a Souls-like in the first place.
Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Platform: Nintendo Switch 2
Release Date: 3rd September 2026
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty- Complete Edition for Nintendo Switch 2 was provided by the publisher.
