TeaKoei Tecmo and Team Ninja have been on a roll, and I would say they have created some of my favorite Souls-like games to date, despite the great competition. The Nioh series has been fantastic in delivering high action Souls-likes set in a fantasy Japanese setting. However, what caught my eye with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was obviously the Chinese focus and the change in combat. While Nioh is more of your traditional Souls-like with having a stamina/ki system, while Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty feels more like Sekiro, with parrying and using good and bad Qi to setup attacks. Both are fantastic games and while Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition has already hit the other consoles, but the Switch 2 is now getting the game so that is what we will focus on here.

I won’t bother getting into the nitty gritty of the core game since we already covered the original release on PlayStation 5 back in 2023. However, I’m going to mostly talk about the difference with the Switch 2 port. That being said, if you don’t know anything about Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, it is their Nioh-like take on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms lore. The same lore that spawned the Dynasty Warriors tiles. Anyone who enjoys the dramatization of those storylines and Sekiro-like gameplay will surely get a kick out of this.

Destroy the corrupted Qi and restore the light.

To get this out of the way Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition for Switch 2 keeps all the fantastic additions and gameplay of the previous release on other platforms. There isn’t any extra content for this port, but the draw here is the portability option if you don’t have a Steam Deck. That being said, if you haven’t played Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty or its three major DLCs, and other content collaborations its had over the years, then this is a great time to jump into any version of the game.

The Complete Edition comes with the DLC packs: Battle of Zhongyuan, Conqueror of Jiandong, and Upheaval in Jingxiang. These comes with all new characters, new stages, new Divine Beasts, new weapons, and even new difficulty levels. There is also the new endgame content called The Thousand-Mile Journey where you complete battlegrounds that represent a mile per battleground. Clearing battlegrounds grants you upgrade materials that you can trade to increase the level cap, grant legendary armor, and Martial Soul Fragments. Besides the DLC and endgame content, there is also the equipment and stages that they collaborated on with Naraka: Bladepoint, Lies of P, and Nioh 2. Needless to say there is plenty of content here to be played.

The level designs are fantastic with plenty of stealth options, if you chose.

Now let’s get into this port. While obviously the gameplay, art direction, and sound design are the same, there are some drawbacks to playing on the Nintendo Switch 2. While playing in handheld mode, the framerate isn’t as solid as I was hoping, despite the clear cut backs in the visual department. There are unfortunately still plenty of times where the framerate struggles during quick action. I also had instances when the half frame animation used for far away LOD on enemies would continue into the initial parts of a fight. This led to some annoyances, but only ever happened to regular enemies in the open map areas. Bosses never had the LOD animation issue, but there were still instances of framerate struggles in those fights still.

While I was hoping that the huge cutback in visuals would lead to at least solid 60fps framerates, unfortunately that isn’t the case. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition and the original release were never stellar looking games. Really, any Team Ninja title is going to focus on its gameplay over cutting edge visuals. That is normally completely fine for me as long as that gameplay remains a good solid 60fps. However, the Switch 2 port doesn’t meet those requirements.

Overall visual and boss designs remain the highlight to the visuals.

Visually, the Switch 2 version of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition looks like a well-done Switch 1 port of most other 3rd party games that came to it. It’s blurry, muddy, and just all around not great to look at in handheld. As I said before, Team Ninja aren’t known for their fantastic visuals, but this port is blurry most of the time. Anything that isn’t close to the camera is a mess and the draw distance isn’t great. Coupling that with the framerate that still struggles, amongst other issues like LOD, it clearly needs a bit more optimization. 

While I would normally be able to overlook the lack of overall visual quality due to the fantastic art direction Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition has, the framerate issues are still inexcusable. Luckily, everything else about this port remains fantastic, like its soundtrack. It’s still a huge highlight of the game and there are no alterations here. While the English voice acting is as cheesy as ever, I still recommend switching to the Chinese voice acting with English subtitles. The authentic Chinese musical instruments for its musical score is a delight to listen to.

Unfortunately, the few visual spectacles that were a highlight on the other consoles lack the punch on the Switch 2 port.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition for the Nintendo Switch 2 may not be perfect, but it is still a fantastic game. If you never played the original game or its DLC, this is still a fantastic way to experience this title. Obviously, with the handheld version there are some major cutbacks in the visual department that don’t feel like a tradeoff to the performance. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition is still a great way to experience the game if this is your first time,

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition was provided by the publisher.