I want to like this game, but they make it really hard to.
The mechanic of switching between two worlds in a soulslike game that also works as a sekiro death mechanic is really fucking cool. The fact that the devs had to make 2 separate but same environments that you can enter and exit kind of whenever you want is peak game design. I had a lot of fun comparing the differences between the environment when you enter and exit the shadow realm or w/e it’s called. On an artistic level, you really can’t get much better than this. Combat is fun to figure out because you can swap weapon positions mid combos, allowing you to create the dark souls custom combos you always wanted. The lamp combat mechanics are janky, but also fun once you figure them out after looking online because they give you one info page at the beginning you can’t look back at.
Unfortunately, this game suffers from probably some of the most asshole level design I’ve ever seen. It’s like they saw Snake Fortress and were like “damn, what if that was the whole game? People would like that”
This game is not fun because it’s ANNOYING level design, not CHALLENGING level design. Like, it’s cool when you want to put someone in a hidden corner to ambush me while I grab an item, but doing that for what it feels like 50% of the time is so fucking annoying.
They also have environmental barriers this time around that you have to cross into the shadow realm to pass. While cool at first, it gets really frustrating when you’re just trying to get through a zone and realize you have to clear the entire zone every time just so you can sit in the 2 second animation to cross that barrier and not get fucked up by enemies. ADDITIONALLY, the game spawns little ghouls to challenge you from staying in the shadow realm for too long, which is neat. The thing is, these ghouls RESPAWN WHENEVER. You can kill them in one area, explore and come back to that area, and they will respawn indefinitely until you leave the shadow realm. I know I’ve said this already but DAMN, what an annoying as fuck mechanic. With this, also put in asshole enemy placement, asshole level design, and you get a game that becomes an absolute CHORE to play.
The mechanic of switching between two worlds in a soulslike game that also works as a sekiro death mechanic is really fucking cool. The fact that the devs had to make 2 separate but same environments that you can enter and exit kind of whenever you want is peak game design. I had a lot of fun comparing the differences between the environment when you enter and exit the shadow realm or w/e it’s called. On an artistic level, you really can’t get much better than this. Combat is fun to figure out because you can swap weapon positions mid combos, allowing you to create the dark souls custom combos you always wanted. The lamp combat mechanics are janky, but also fun once you figure them out after looking online because they give you one info page at the beginning you can’t look back at.
Unfortunately, this game suffers from probably some of the most asshole level design I’ve ever seen. It’s like they saw Snake Fortress and were like “damn, what if that was the whole game? People would like that”
This game is not fun because it’s ANNOYING level design, not CHALLENGING level design. Like, it’s cool when you want to put someone in a hidden corner to ambush me while I grab an item, but doing that for what it feels like 50% of the time is so fucking annoying.
They also have environmental barriers this time around that you have to cross into the shadow realm to pass. While cool at first, it gets really frustrating when you’re just trying to get through a zone and realize you have to clear the entire zone every time just so you can sit in the 2 second animation to cross that barrier and not get fucked up by enemies. ADDITIONALLY, the game spawns little ghouls to challenge you from staying in the shadow realm for too long, which is neat. The thing is, these ghouls RESPAWN WHENEVER. You can kill them in one area, explore and come back to that area, and they will respawn indefinitely until you leave the shadow realm. I know I’ve said this already but DAMN, what an annoying as fuck mechanic. With this, also put in asshole enemy placement, asshole level design, and you get a game that becomes an absolute CHORE to play.
Lords of the fallen is pheraps the worst medium-high budget soulslike i have played.
Movement feels clunky and floaty at the same time. Every weapon has too much forward or side momemtum and it feels like there is this constant struggle to maintain the character position.
The two worlds mechanic is interesting but the implementation is awful. It's impossible to explore at your own pace when in umbral because enemies keep respawning and they get stronger the more time passes. This happens throught the entire game and the enemy variety barely changes, by the end it's impossible not to feel bored by the constant stream of trash mobs on your way.
Visuals are ok but there is performance problems. Enemy/armor designs are good but there are so few of them. Audio is ok.
The last nail in the coffin is the last boss. Yes i know there are multiple endings and bosses but the main antagonist teased throught the game is a minion fight with barely any interaction. One of the worst last bosses i have faced.
Soulslike fans couls find some fun in here, but honestly i would rather any fromsoft game or lies of p or nilh instead of this. Huge wasted potential.
Movement feels clunky and floaty at the same time. Every weapon has too much forward or side momemtum and it feels like there is this constant struggle to maintain the character position.
The two worlds mechanic is interesting but the implementation is awful. It's impossible to explore at your own pace when in umbral because enemies keep respawning and they get stronger the more time passes. This happens throught the entire game and the enemy variety barely changes, by the end it's impossible not to feel bored by the constant stream of trash mobs on your way.
Visuals are ok but there is performance problems. Enemy/armor designs are good but there are so few of them. Audio is ok.
The last nail in the coffin is the last boss. Yes i know there are multiple endings and bosses but the main antagonist teased throught the game is a minion fight with barely any interaction. One of the worst last bosses i have faced.
Soulslike fans couls find some fun in here, but honestly i would rather any fromsoft game or lies of p or nilh instead of this. Huge wasted potential.
Great after all these updates. However, enemy density is crazy still, having to run past most things just to stand a chance. 100% took 4 full runs here. Collectible hunt is super convoluted as there’s no way to track stuff other than from memory.
When you miss the point so much you have to do it twice just to be sure.
Souls-like hodgepodge.
Lords of the Fallen remake is a WAY better attempt at executing a game from the genre than its predecessor.
Although the story is a bit loose and generic, the gameplay, visuals and overall atmosphere are very well put together. They grabbed a bunch of different souls-like tropes and mixed them together, with generally good results. It borrows bits mostly fom Bloodborne, Mortal Shell and Dark Souls III. The Lamp mechanic is VERY well made and gave it an unique approach to world building and design.
Enjoyable experience, but I would not play it through again. If you are a souls-like enthusiast, it probably won't disappoint you.
Lords of the Fallen remake is a WAY better attempt at executing a game from the genre than its predecessor.
Although the story is a bit loose and generic, the gameplay, visuals and overall atmosphere are very well put together. They grabbed a bunch of different souls-like tropes and mixed them together, with generally good results. It borrows bits mostly fom Bloodborne, Mortal Shell and Dark Souls III. The Lamp mechanic is VERY well made and gave it an unique approach to world building and design.
Enjoyable experience, but I would not play it through again. If you are a souls-like enthusiast, it probably won't disappoint you.
Another Souls knock-off, only this time it's by a developer whose familiarity never went beyond "Top 10 Dark Souls Fails" videos.
Every combat encounter feels like it was designed around the most ha ha tee hee funny troll moments from those games. The second area, found just past Not Firelink, is a vertically oriented nightmare of cobbled together planks and rickety platforms, a veritable Blight Town filled with dudes hiding behind crates and corners waiting for you to pass by so that they can rush you and kick you off into an abyss. This was funny in Dark Souls because it happened once deep into the game by a big dumb skeleton, but it becomes annoying when it's happening ten times before you're able to make it to the third boss.
Mop things up there and you're off to... Another Blight Town! Only this time it does the Blight Town thing of having enemies constantly throw shit at you while you're stuck dealing with mobs. Where do you think you go after two whole Blight Towns? If you guessed "a poison swamp" then congratulations, you just won my copy of Lords of the Fallen because I don't want it anymore!
I'm not sure what possessed developer Hexworks, a studio which unsurprisingly has no credits before this, to frontload all of the Souls series' worst level tropes. I was already on the cusp of dropping the game after slogging my way to the first corrupted beacon, but what really sealed it was going from the swamp to a gorge that was still riddled with choke points, gank mobs, dudes throwing crap, enemies hiding behind objects, and now mimics. Hey you know what would be funny? Placing a mimic just down the street from another mimic so the player dies twice in a row the exact same way. What do you mean only .2% of players have gotten all the trophies, how can that be??
The big gimmick here that sets Lords of the Fallen apart from Souls and its many imitators - of which I've yet to play a single good one - is its light world/dark world mechanic. You'll often need to assume "umbral" form to reveal hidden pathways and solves puzzles, so often in fact that I'd say 80% of the early game is spent not interacting with the "real world" at all. While in your umbral state, shitty little level 1 zombies constantly spawn in and rush you, which impedes your ability to explore and makes every encounter with a deliberately placed enemy or trap agonizing because you're simultaneously having to deal with that while mowing through trash mobs like weeds.
You're also on a timer, and if you spend too long in umbral form, a very high-level enemy with be summoned to kill you immediately. Basically, you need to surface for air before the timer runs out by rushing towards totems that return you to the real world, which as far as I can tell is the only tangible benefit the real world has, because 9 times out of 10 I'd turn right around and realize some fuckin bog or a pit was behind me and I'd need to go back into umbral form anyway.
Hell, even the little touches are all wrong. Vigor (see: souls) don't automatically flow into the player character. Instead, they drop like EXP or health pick-ups in Kingdom Hearts, but they also do so on a slight delay with a small draw radius, meaning it's not at all uncommon to move on only to find that you've left a bunch of vigor sitting there. The lock-on never seems to target the enemy I want it to, and I can't figure out how it's prioritizing its lock at all, because it seems to not be based on camera position or distance. Even something as minor as a prompt to hit X to speak with an NPC feels bad because it straight up lies to you, instead requiring you to double tap X. Worth noting that this is the only thing in the entire game that requires you to double tap anything. I'm not opening up a program, I just want to upgrade my ax with the blacksmith who also happens to be a slaver but look, I don't have time to unpack that right now because I got to talk to you about how bonfires work. Aaaaaaah!
There are doors all over the place and they're all locked, which in a better game might inspire some curiosity on the part of the player. But because levels are long as shit and typically only have one dedicated "bonfire," on top of all the aforementioned problems with annoying enemies and needing to be in umbral form, I never want to go back and figure out what's in there. You can spawn smaller "checkpoints" using a consumable on beds of umbral flowers, but doing so will remove all previous checkpoints in an area, which makes navigating backwards a pain in the ass.
I think before you set out to create anything you ought to concern yourself with what you want the work to accomplish, and I guess I just don't understand what the point is of making something that is intentionally designed to be tedious, inconvenient, and cheap other than to be mean-spirited at the audience's expense. Perhaps this is why even the subreddit, ostensibly a place where fans would congregate, is rife with posts going "yeah I don't think I'm gonna finish this!" The few positive opinions I've heard are only just, saying the game is "fine" or that it "looks pretty." I disagree on that last point, I think it looks like and plays like sludge.
It's as if every time Hexworks was presented with a design choice to make, they carefully weighed their options and intentionally went with the most obviously detrimental and wrong one, like the video game version of those AMA threads where someone posts "tried Meth, but I won't do it again," only to post a few days later "couldn't stop thinking about meth, so I did some more." Playing this started turning me into the fuckin' Video Game Nerd, but the loudest and most full-throated "what were they thinking?" should be saved for myself. I was warned. I was told repeatedly that Lords of the Fallen was very bad, but I didn't listen. When you're so deep into collecting games that you're buying multiple copies of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), what's $20 for Lords of the Fallen, really? A badge that says I'm bad with my money, apparently.
Congratulations to Lies of P for no longer being the worst Dark Souls rip-off of 2023.
Addendum:
"VERSION 1.5 - 'Master of Fate': This update represents the culmination of 30+ post-launch updates resulting in significantly improved performance, stability & optimization, alongside rigorous difficulty balancing, and also includes our 'Advanced Game Modifier System', allowing ALL players to fully customize and adjust difficulty of future play-throughs. The Master of Fate Update concludes now concludes the Free Content Roadmap for Lords of the Fallen, adding the following content and quality-of-life enhancements, vastly improving the experience for all players: - Significant performance, optimization and stability improvements - Rigorous difficulty balancing including mob density reduction & nerfed ranged attacks "
WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WAS WORSE
Every combat encounter feels like it was designed around the most ha ha tee hee funny troll moments from those games. The second area, found just past Not Firelink, is a vertically oriented nightmare of cobbled together planks and rickety platforms, a veritable Blight Town filled with dudes hiding behind crates and corners waiting for you to pass by so that they can rush you and kick you off into an abyss. This was funny in Dark Souls because it happened once deep into the game by a big dumb skeleton, but it becomes annoying when it's happening ten times before you're able to make it to the third boss.
Mop things up there and you're off to... Another Blight Town! Only this time it does the Blight Town thing of having enemies constantly throw shit at you while you're stuck dealing with mobs. Where do you think you go after two whole Blight Towns? If you guessed "a poison swamp" then congratulations, you just won my copy of Lords of the Fallen because I don't want it anymore!
I'm not sure what possessed developer Hexworks, a studio which unsurprisingly has no credits before this, to frontload all of the Souls series' worst level tropes. I was already on the cusp of dropping the game after slogging my way to the first corrupted beacon, but what really sealed it was going from the swamp to a gorge that was still riddled with choke points, gank mobs, dudes throwing crap, enemies hiding behind objects, and now mimics. Hey you know what would be funny? Placing a mimic just down the street from another mimic so the player dies twice in a row the exact same way. What do you mean only .2% of players have gotten all the trophies, how can that be??
The big gimmick here that sets Lords of the Fallen apart from Souls and its many imitators - of which I've yet to play a single good one - is its light world/dark world mechanic. You'll often need to assume "umbral" form to reveal hidden pathways and solves puzzles, so often in fact that I'd say 80% of the early game is spent not interacting with the "real world" at all. While in your umbral state, shitty little level 1 zombies constantly spawn in and rush you, which impedes your ability to explore and makes every encounter with a deliberately placed enemy or trap agonizing because you're simultaneously having to deal with that while mowing through trash mobs like weeds.
You're also on a timer, and if you spend too long in umbral form, a very high-level enemy with be summoned to kill you immediately. Basically, you need to surface for air before the timer runs out by rushing towards totems that return you to the real world, which as far as I can tell is the only tangible benefit the real world has, because 9 times out of 10 I'd turn right around and realize some fuckin bog or a pit was behind me and I'd need to go back into umbral form anyway.
Hell, even the little touches are all wrong. Vigor (see: souls) don't automatically flow into the player character. Instead, they drop like EXP or health pick-ups in Kingdom Hearts, but they also do so on a slight delay with a small draw radius, meaning it's not at all uncommon to move on only to find that you've left a bunch of vigor sitting there. The lock-on never seems to target the enemy I want it to, and I can't figure out how it's prioritizing its lock at all, because it seems to not be based on camera position or distance. Even something as minor as a prompt to hit X to speak with an NPC feels bad because it straight up lies to you, instead requiring you to double tap X. Worth noting that this is the only thing in the entire game that requires you to double tap anything. I'm not opening up a program, I just want to upgrade my ax with the blacksmith who also happens to be a slaver but look, I don't have time to unpack that right now because I got to talk to you about how bonfires work. Aaaaaaah!
There are doors all over the place and they're all locked, which in a better game might inspire some curiosity on the part of the player. But because levels are long as shit and typically only have one dedicated "bonfire," on top of all the aforementioned problems with annoying enemies and needing to be in umbral form, I never want to go back and figure out what's in there. You can spawn smaller "checkpoints" using a consumable on beds of umbral flowers, but doing so will remove all previous checkpoints in an area, which makes navigating backwards a pain in the ass.
I think before you set out to create anything you ought to concern yourself with what you want the work to accomplish, and I guess I just don't understand what the point is of making something that is intentionally designed to be tedious, inconvenient, and cheap other than to be mean-spirited at the audience's expense. Perhaps this is why even the subreddit, ostensibly a place where fans would congregate, is rife with posts going "yeah I don't think I'm gonna finish this!" The few positive opinions I've heard are only just, saying the game is "fine" or that it "looks pretty." I disagree on that last point, I think it looks like and plays like sludge.
It's as if every time Hexworks was presented with a design choice to make, they carefully weighed their options and intentionally went with the most obviously detrimental and wrong one, like the video game version of those AMA threads where someone posts "tried Meth, but I won't do it again," only to post a few days later "couldn't stop thinking about meth, so I did some more." Playing this started turning me into the fuckin' Video Game Nerd, but the loudest and most full-throated "what were they thinking?" should be saved for myself. I was warned. I was told repeatedly that Lords of the Fallen was very bad, but I didn't listen. When you're so deep into collecting games that you're buying multiple copies of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), what's $20 for Lords of the Fallen, really? A badge that says I'm bad with my money, apparently.
Congratulations to Lies of P for no longer being the worst Dark Souls rip-off of 2023.
Addendum:
"VERSION 1.5 - 'Master of Fate': This update represents the culmination of 30+ post-launch updates resulting in significantly improved performance, stability & optimization, alongside rigorous difficulty balancing, and also includes our 'Advanced Game Modifier System', allowing ALL players to fully customize and adjust difficulty of future play-throughs. The Master of Fate Update concludes now concludes the Free Content Roadmap for Lords of the Fallen, adding the following content and quality-of-life enhancements, vastly improving the experience for all players: - Significant performance, optimization and stability improvements - Rigorous difficulty balancing including mob density reduction & nerfed ranged attacks "
WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WAS WORSE
Visually a treat. That's where my compliments end. This game is disappointment personified for me. I came into this game from Lies of P, a game which I adored. I thought it had such promise. I've now come to find that it's just not good. There are two main offences. first, Enemy placement and level layout is straight up asshole design. No it's not "git gud," it's "yes we're doing a ranged enemy behind 2-5 melee enemies again" for literally the whole time you're not fighting bosses. Second, the combat for this game is TERRIBLE. I can't exactly identify what makes it so poor but it feels AWFUL. Attacks feel floaty and without any weight. Parrying somehow feels meh. The most annoying thing is that almost all attacks make you travel forward a decent distance, this leads to a feeling of lack of control over your character. Then the game has the audacity to spend the first 5 hours on cliff edges.
bon souls sans plus
Tries to recreate what a soulslike is and fails miserably.
Bossfights are repetitive and boring.
It has a few great ideas like the dead world but still :(
Bossfights are repetitive and boring.
It has a few great ideas like the dead world but still :(