The problem with most ‘Soulslike’ games is that they feel less like a product of genuine inspiration and more like an attempt to hitch a ride on From Software’s coattails. They tend to just copy everything Dark Souls does without bothering to interrogate why Dark Souls does what it does, the intentions behind its mechanics, world design, and encounters, what about it works/doesn’t work and why/why not. This is something that happens in all genres to an extent. The two-weapon limit became the standard in shooters for seemingly no reason other than “Halo did it.” But Soulslike for the most part seem particularly keen on aiming no higher than providing TV dinner versions of games you’ve already played. Lords of the Fallen, arguably the first and the most brazenly creatively bankrupt of the Soulslikes, is the perfect example of this.

As someone who thinks Dark Souls isn’t even all that good to begin with, playing Lords of the Fallen made me appreciate just how much Dark Souls does right, or at least does better than its clones. It took me only around 10 minutes of playing it to realize Lords of the Fallen was a total crock of shit, but I persevered for 2 hours before I decided I’d had enough. Bandai Namco publishing this and Dark Souls II in the same year is like a restaurant offering two versions of the same dish except one had been left in a hot dumpster for a week. I know I should stop comparing it to Dark Souls so heavily and talk about its own merits, but the problem is it has no merits. The game is flat, lifeless, and uninspired. There’s nothing here for it to stand on.

It’s mind boggling how anyone thought this game had enough name recognition to reboot it