I'm not usually one to cross post Reddit content here, but I thought the dad's here might appreciate this gamer's take on the game. I'll copy the post below for those that don't want to use the other site:
Proud to have finally beaten Wo Long! (38 hours of playtime).
Having played but never gotten very far in several FromSoft games (and a few Soulslikes) — I personally found this “easier” and more accessible for a few small (but not insignificant) reasons, especially as a busy parent with young kids:
Frequent “save points” throughout levels. And always right before a boss. No “gotta run through that gauntlet of four hallways and 11 baddies to face the boss again…” Also, more frequent places to save progess makes me feel like I can bite off a little bit as I have time. This also makes dying feel like less of a “loss” of progress.
PAUSE. You can pause the game quickly. I can’t tell you how many times a kid wakes up after they’ve gone to bed and appear in the doorway and you need to quickly pause to address something. So many Soulslikes think pausing is some sort of “cheat.” I don’t understand this. Sometimes you just gotta pause.
No level scaling. Each world shows you a recommended character level, but if you want to do some of the side content and level beyond the recommended level to give yourself a slightly easier time, you can. With that said, I never really felt I had to “grind” for a while to get XP to level up. Just going through the primary levels grants you enough XP to consistently level up at the necessary rate
Flexible build variety, but not overly complex. 5 elements, various weapon types, relatively simply specs.
While there are more frequent “loot” drops than some games, this doesn’t suffer from the Diablo “endless loot to sort through” mechanic. If you want to stick with a favorite weapon and level it up through the entire game, you totally can.
General “speed.” You can run fast, dodge fast, block fast. This felt more forgiving to me than the slower pace of most Souls combat.
Relatively “short” (in the 30-40 hours to complete range).
Anyway, while this game does has some difficulty spikes and challenges, I felt like it was the “perfect in between”: challenging but not punishing.
I may give Bloodborne or Demon’s Souls another go, but I think the above elements make Wo Long particularly good for me and my gaming lifestyle.
Anybody else have similar (or contrasting) thoughts??
I never saw the point to the short runs back to the boss in souls games. It's an annoying waste of time. Instead I wish they had a temporary checkpoint right before the boss that goes away after the boss has been vanquished or leave the boss area.
It could be justified as a reset timer for you to cool off and work out what to change instead of pressing retry over and over again and throwing yourself into the brick wall. But they did change it later to have shorter boss runs so what do I know.