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
Soulslikes…
This game has no business essentially being Dark Souls 3 if it was good and had fresh ideas. It’s also probably the best one of these not made by From Software.
It’s got gratifying, meaty combat, excellent level design—bolstered by the clever dual-reality gimmick—, great bosses, satisfying character progression featuring a surprisingly diverse array of viable builds, a unique "craft your own bonfire" feature, and striking art direction.
Don’t listen to the haters. Open up your mind and experience peak.
This game has no business essentially being Dark Souls 3 if it was good and had fresh ideas. It’s also probably the best one of these not made by From Software.
It’s got gratifying, meaty combat, excellent level design—bolstered by the clever dual-reality gimmick—, great bosses, satisfying character progression featuring a surprisingly diverse array of viable builds, a unique "craft your own bonfire" feature, and striking art direction.
Don’t listen to the haters. Open up your mind and experience peak.
If anything, the game isn't committing to its weird ideas enough? For all the complaining about things like how much anxiety stuff like the consumable checkpoint system i.e. vestige seeds cause (Which would actually be fucking awesome, for the love of god please bring back some tension when exploring levels in these sorts of games), the illusion falls away when temporary checkpoint spots are so frequent, and the one place you can always teleport back to is also the place that infinitely sells seeds for not very much. It used to be higher, but people complained enough that they halved the price. Thus, there's no real consequence to just placing a checkpoint down whenever you see one.
Complaints about how you need to use the lamp to pop the umbral parasites to knock The Hushed Saint off his horse in his boss fight are also pretty funny to me, because that's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see; Have the umbral lamp be used in a way that adds a bit of a puzzle element on top of the standard Soulslike roll-and-slash-'em-up without replacing it. Sadly, the game doesn't really do this to the same extent after; The few times it tries to after just come off as token with how little of an advantage you get from using it, or unneeded with how easy the boss is. Alternatively, where are the other umbral parasites that add some sort of buff to normal enemies besides just invincibility + regeneration? One that adds poison? One that increases their damage? No? Just on a couple of bosses? Ok then.
The dual-world system in general is also weirdly underexplored. There are a few moments where you find a pretty lengthy path in the Umbral, you dive in there, and actually find yourself with the timer ticking down, or have to use the lamp in a way that allows you to avoid fully immersing yourself into the umbral, but most of the time, it's just another part of the main path that you have to go into; Certainly not helping that the whole "avoid having to go into the umbral" puzzles I mentioned are often undercut by it just giving you an escape point right after you cross it. This is where I think the movement restrictions (i.e. only being able to walk) while holding up the umbral lamp greatly hold the opportunities presented by this gameplay back. You could present far more scenarios to strategically use the lamp to partially immerse themselves if they could fall or sprint while holding up the lamp. There are a few more neat uses, like the one time where they use it to hide a level (Revelation Depths), and a few times where you have to fight a boss in it, but said bosses are literally just normal enemies with a health bar, and a pretty crappy NPC fight. At least the last one added some incentive to backtrack to various levels to find the required items to reach him, but where's stuff like having to go into the umbral to use a shortcut, thus raising the stakes for a bit? Or using the umbral to find an alternate entrance to the level? Or a level set entirely within the Umbral, with you having to scavenge around for checkpoint spots that aren't part of it to catch your breath and rest there?
Other than that, my complaints aren't anything you haven't heard of already if you've been paying any attention to the discourse around this game; Excessive use of ganks, mediocre enemy variety with a fair few reskins (Looking at you, Harrower Dervla! Don't think I didn't catch you splitting your moveset in half to create Crimson Rectors and Proselytes.), balancing, overreliance on tracking, skating on your attacks, overtuned enemy stats, nonexistent variety in movesets within weapon classes, bosses too easy, yada yada. Still though, I'm opting to give this a step above an above average rating. The art direction, the physicality of the world, and a lot of the enemy designs certainly help to get the game on my good side. But the overall experience was pretty electrifying, warts and all, if just for how willing it is to try to make exploring levels tense again. It's willing to throw you into stressful situations. And most importantly for me, it remembered that Soulslikes aren't just action games. It managed to ignite a sense of adventure in me in a way that other Soulslikes haven't.
And just to really be a shitter, there's something appealingly ironic about the way Dark Souls and Demon Souls got attention and praise for flouting what was "conventional wisdom" in games at the time, and now, a portion (Not entirety by any means! Don't misunderstand me) of flack towards this game was for the way it flouted conventional wisdom as established within Soulslikes. At the very least, this game bothered to strike out on a pretty interesting vision of some kind. If there ends up being a Lords of the Fallen 3, or a DLC of some kind, I'll definitely be on that rickety, experimental train ride.
Alternatively, this could all just be copium on my end, and I'll have an SMT V arc the way my man Fortayee did.
Complaints about how you need to use the lamp to pop the umbral parasites to knock The Hushed Saint off his horse in his boss fight are also pretty funny to me, because that's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see; Have the umbral lamp be used in a way that adds a bit of a puzzle element on top of the standard Soulslike roll-and-slash-'em-up without replacing it. Sadly, the game doesn't really do this to the same extent after; The few times it tries to after just come off as token with how little of an advantage you get from using it, or unneeded with how easy the boss is. Alternatively, where are the other umbral parasites that add some sort of buff to normal enemies besides just invincibility + regeneration? One that adds poison? One that increases their damage? No? Just on a couple of bosses? Ok then.
The dual-world system in general is also weirdly underexplored. There are a few moments where you find a pretty lengthy path in the Umbral, you dive in there, and actually find yourself with the timer ticking down, or have to use the lamp in a way that allows you to avoid fully immersing yourself into the umbral, but most of the time, it's just another part of the main path that you have to go into; Certainly not helping that the whole "avoid having to go into the umbral" puzzles I mentioned are often undercut by it just giving you an escape point right after you cross it. This is where I think the movement restrictions (i.e. only being able to walk) while holding up the umbral lamp greatly hold the opportunities presented by this gameplay back. You could present far more scenarios to strategically use the lamp to partially immerse themselves if they could fall or sprint while holding up the lamp. There are a few more neat uses, like the one time where they use it to hide a level (Revelation Depths), and a few times where you have to fight a boss in it, but said bosses are literally just normal enemies with a health bar, and a pretty crappy NPC fight. At least the last one added some incentive to backtrack to various levels to find the required items to reach him, but where's stuff like having to go into the umbral to use a shortcut, thus raising the stakes for a bit? Or using the umbral to find an alternate entrance to the level? Or a level set entirely within the Umbral, with you having to scavenge around for checkpoint spots that aren't part of it to catch your breath and rest there?
Other than that, my complaints aren't anything you haven't heard of already if you've been paying any attention to the discourse around this game; Excessive use of ganks, mediocre enemy variety with a fair few reskins (Looking at you, Harrower Dervla! Don't think I didn't catch you splitting your moveset in half to create Crimson Rectors and Proselytes.), balancing, overreliance on tracking, skating on your attacks, overtuned enemy stats, nonexistent variety in movesets within weapon classes, bosses too easy, yada yada. Still though, I'm opting to give this a step above an above average rating. The art direction, the physicality of the world, and a lot of the enemy designs certainly help to get the game on my good side. But the overall experience was pretty electrifying, warts and all, if just for how willing it is to try to make exploring levels tense again. It's willing to throw you into stressful situations. And most importantly for me, it remembered that Soulslikes aren't just action games. It managed to ignite a sense of adventure in me in a way that other Soulslikes haven't.
And just to really be a shitter, there's something appealingly ironic about the way Dark Souls and Demon Souls got attention and praise for flouting what was "conventional wisdom" in games at the time, and now, a portion (Not entirety by any means! Don't misunderstand me) of flack towards this game was for the way it flouted conventional wisdom as established within Soulslikes. At the very least, this game bothered to strike out on a pretty interesting vision of some kind. If there ends up being a Lords of the Fallen 3, or a DLC of some kind, I'll definitely be on that rickety, experimental train ride.
Alternatively, this could all just be copium on my end, and I'll have an SMT V arc the way my man Fortayee did.
This is definitely one of my favorite extremely flawed games I've ever played. At its core, Lords of the Fallen is a more than competent souls-like that had me addicted like any other game in the genre would. There is a lot going on in this game, and it is very overwhelming at first, along with just being pretty slow to start, so I would understand why the first part of the game might turn a lot of people off. Once I got going though, getting stronger, building my character how I wanted and discovering some of the later areas, I very quickly got really into the game and pretty much marathon'd it to the end.
The areas are huge, and FULL of secrets, often entire separate areas that you could easily miss that have hours of content and several bosses of their own. The game does not direct you basically ever, with so little explained that I was forced to look up quite a bit due to how easily it is to get lost in progression and have no idea where to go next. The game does fall into the 'don't tell you anything' trap of souls-likes probably more than any I've played, but luckily already there are plenty of resources out there if you get stuck to where I can generally overlook it.
There are several pretty massive flaws with this game, the most obvious and game-ruining being the technical issues that are pretty much always present, at times so bad that it will get you killed in-game. I played on Performance Mode on PS5, and have got to say it's one of the worst optimized games I've ever played on this console. Frame drops happen extremely often, textures do not load currently, sounds cut out, load times are weird, and there are a plethora of glitches and bugs throughout that are very unfortunately noticeable. Frame drops in boss fights were particularly awful, often causing me to miss-time a dodge or parry and get hit or worse. If these technical issues were not present, I can confidently say that the overall opinion on this game would be much more positive.
The game's boss fights are all pretty mediocre as well, with far too many that are just defeating regular enemies but with more health (like Elden Ring mini-bosses but less forgivable), and many that are just either boring are extremely obnoxious to fight. Hexworks also managed to make some of the most obnoxious enemy placements I've ever seen, making me absolutely lose my mind in some areas, particularly due to the seemingly infinite follow range and perfect accuracy from way too far that so many enemies have. The area design itself is really great, and the environments area beautiful, albeit a bit spoiled by the aforementioned technical issues.
Overall, though, Lords of the Fallen kept me extremely engaged from about 25% in to the end. Character upgrades are very satisfying, and once you figure out what everything does you'll see how great and in-depth it can be. Like I said earlier, there is a lot going on in this game, for better or for worse, but for the most part I found the depth to be quite positive and had a ton of fun with the Strength/Inferno build I decided to go for, particularly with the spell that is more or less just Blasphemous Blade's Taker's Flames from Elden Ring. I would very much look forward to playing a sequel or DLC to this game, and hope that as the developers work so hard on patches as they already have, people in the future will be able to enjoy the game even more. I would definitely recommend this to Souls-fans, if you think you'll be able to forgive some of the flaws.
8/10 (very generously, I just had a ton of fun with this game so I can't help it)
The areas are huge, and FULL of secrets, often entire separate areas that you could easily miss that have hours of content and several bosses of their own. The game does not direct you basically ever, with so little explained that I was forced to look up quite a bit due to how easily it is to get lost in progression and have no idea where to go next. The game does fall into the 'don't tell you anything' trap of souls-likes probably more than any I've played, but luckily already there are plenty of resources out there if you get stuck to where I can generally overlook it.
There are several pretty massive flaws with this game, the most obvious and game-ruining being the technical issues that are pretty much always present, at times so bad that it will get you killed in-game. I played on Performance Mode on PS5, and have got to say it's one of the worst optimized games I've ever played on this console. Frame drops happen extremely often, textures do not load currently, sounds cut out, load times are weird, and there are a plethora of glitches and bugs throughout that are very unfortunately noticeable. Frame drops in boss fights were particularly awful, often causing me to miss-time a dodge or parry and get hit or worse. If these technical issues were not present, I can confidently say that the overall opinion on this game would be much more positive.
The game's boss fights are all pretty mediocre as well, with far too many that are just defeating regular enemies but with more health (like Elden Ring mini-bosses but less forgivable), and many that are just either boring are extremely obnoxious to fight. Hexworks also managed to make some of the most obnoxious enemy placements I've ever seen, making me absolutely lose my mind in some areas, particularly due to the seemingly infinite follow range and perfect accuracy from way too far that so many enemies have. The area design itself is really great, and the environments area beautiful, albeit a bit spoiled by the aforementioned technical issues.
Overall, though, Lords of the Fallen kept me extremely engaged from about 25% in to the end. Character upgrades are very satisfying, and once you figure out what everything does you'll see how great and in-depth it can be. Like I said earlier, there is a lot going on in this game, for better or for worse, but for the most part I found the depth to be quite positive and had a ton of fun with the Strength/Inferno build I decided to go for, particularly with the spell that is more or less just Blasphemous Blade's Taker's Flames from Elden Ring. I would very much look forward to playing a sequel or DLC to this game, and hope that as the developers work so hard on patches as they already have, people in the future will be able to enjoy the game even more. I would definitely recommend this to Souls-fans, if you think you'll be able to forgive some of the flaws.
8/10 (very generously, I just had a ton of fun with this game so I can't help it)
I don't even know what to say about this game TBH. I guess I'll give it a 3.5, but just know that it's a very low 3.5 because this shit is kinda all over the place and im rating this on a more overall level, as opposed to how I felt after I finished.
Probably the least accessible game ever, Lords of the Fallen (better known as Eldenborne: Dark Souls Dies Twice: Scholar of the First Sin) literally just assumes you already know how the other souls-likes work and doesn't bother trying to onboard new players, throwing you straight into a gauntlet of platforming and projectile spammers without so much as explaining what any of your stats mean (Souls players can figure it out obviously, non-souls players are completely left in the dark). Of course to make this fair, the damage balancing is also totally fucked for a starting area, where you just die in 2 hits to almost everything. Now personally I actually didn't find this that hard (Maybe because I am a DS2 enjoyer), and I actually kinda liked the section, but it's undeniably a horrible way to introduce people to a game and it's no wonder why so many people were immediately off put by it. Which is a shame because this game does have a lot of good stuff to offer. The levels are super dense, with tons of secrets and branching paths similar to DS1. The Umbral plane mechanic is pretty cool, essentially giving you a whole other level to explore. The combat is a little jank but mostly really solid, and there are a ton of really cool weapons to find. And for the first 15-20 hours, I was genuinely having a really good time, despite the rough edges.
But unfortunately the game just starts to fall apart in the 2nd half and it really does not justify its long runtime, with the main culprit being the very low enemy variety. If this game was only 20 hours, it would scrape by without too many complaints about the enemies, but being 30-40 hours, yeah that shit is not enough. I mean the final 2 levels literally just contain the same enemies you've been fighting since the very start of the game, with no real variation. And its clear they knew they had a problem with variety because their solution towards the end starts to become "Well IDK just put a fuck ton of them in this one small area, that counts as variety I think".
This game also loves to have "bosses" which are just big enemies with a health bar at the bottom of the screen. They're all really easy to fight and usually just end up appearing as a normal enemy literally 5 minutes later. To me that has massive "We made this game too big and need to fill space somehow" energy and its another reason why I think this should just be 10-15 hours shorter. Speaking of bosses, this game actually starts off decently with the first fight being good, and the next few being solid. Then for some inexplicable reason, the quality drops off a cliff and each boss starts to have a PITIFUL amount of health. It got to the point where I was literally able to just spam charged heavy attacks, and genuinely stunlock the bosses until they were dead (which often took less than a minute). I have no idea how the fuck this passed inspection, but it is truly baffling how poorly some of this game is balanced. Though even if they were better balanced, a lot of these bosses are just not good and the game ends with a super lame final boss which leaves a really bad taste in your mouth.
Of course the game has its fair share of technical issues too, with lots of performance drops, visual glitches, small bugs, and general jank.
IDK I wanted to like this game, and I kinda still do but I was so fucking over it during the final 5-10 hours. It's really hard to recommend to anyone who isn't a big souls fan, and honestly I don't even blame souls fans for not liking it. There is a lot of good stuff going on here, but man is it disappointing how hard they dropped the ball in some areas.
Oh yeah and the story stuff is just "What if we copied Dark Souls but made it lame, corny, and boring".
Probably the least accessible game ever, Lords of the Fallen (better known as Eldenborne: Dark Souls Dies Twice: Scholar of the First Sin) literally just assumes you already know how the other souls-likes work and doesn't bother trying to onboard new players, throwing you straight into a gauntlet of platforming and projectile spammers without so much as explaining what any of your stats mean (Souls players can figure it out obviously, non-souls players are completely left in the dark). Of course to make this fair, the damage balancing is also totally fucked for a starting area, where you just die in 2 hits to almost everything. Now personally I actually didn't find this that hard (Maybe because I am a DS2 enjoyer), and I actually kinda liked the section, but it's undeniably a horrible way to introduce people to a game and it's no wonder why so many people were immediately off put by it. Which is a shame because this game does have a lot of good stuff to offer. The levels are super dense, with tons of secrets and branching paths similar to DS1. The Umbral plane mechanic is pretty cool, essentially giving you a whole other level to explore. The combat is a little jank but mostly really solid, and there are a ton of really cool weapons to find. And for the first 15-20 hours, I was genuinely having a really good time, despite the rough edges.
But unfortunately the game just starts to fall apart in the 2nd half and it really does not justify its long runtime, with the main culprit being the very low enemy variety. If this game was only 20 hours, it would scrape by without too many complaints about the enemies, but being 30-40 hours, yeah that shit is not enough. I mean the final 2 levels literally just contain the same enemies you've been fighting since the very start of the game, with no real variation. And its clear they knew they had a problem with variety because their solution towards the end starts to become "Well IDK just put a fuck ton of them in this one small area, that counts as variety I think".
This game also loves to have "bosses" which are just big enemies with a health bar at the bottom of the screen. They're all really easy to fight and usually just end up appearing as a normal enemy literally 5 minutes later. To me that has massive "We made this game too big and need to fill space somehow" energy and its another reason why I think this should just be 10-15 hours shorter. Speaking of bosses, this game actually starts off decently with the first fight being good, and the next few being solid. Then for some inexplicable reason, the quality drops off a cliff and each boss starts to have a PITIFUL amount of health. It got to the point where I was literally able to just spam charged heavy attacks, and genuinely stunlock the bosses until they were dead (which often took less than a minute). I have no idea how the fuck this passed inspection, but it is truly baffling how poorly some of this game is balanced. Though even if they were better balanced, a lot of these bosses are just not good and the game ends with a super lame final boss which leaves a really bad taste in your mouth.
Of course the game has its fair share of technical issues too, with lots of performance drops, visual glitches, small bugs, and general jank.
IDK I wanted to like this game, and I kinda still do but I was so fucking over it during the final 5-10 hours. It's really hard to recommend to anyone who isn't a big souls fan, and honestly I don't even blame souls fans for not liking it. There is a lot of good stuff going on here, but man is it disappointing how hard they dropped the ball in some areas.
Oh yeah and the story stuff is just "What if we copied Dark Souls but made it lame, corny, and boring".
As a huge From Software fan, I have a lot of things to say about this game. I have a decent amount of negative thoughts, but honestly, it's mostly positive. I'm very surprised by the reaction to this game; though I have a feeling a lot of people that are trashing it barely played it (or didn't play it at all).
I will say, I played this a month and a half after release (after the patch where lots of stuff was rebalanced to make it "more difficult"). This may affect my feelings towards the game versus someone who played it at launch. I am aware that people were experiencing technical issues (to varying degrees). I did not really experience any.
If this game came out before Lies of P, I may have enjoyed it even more. I think everyone would have. Since LoP came out the month before this, I think some people were burnt out on soulslikes already, which is unfortunate. It also doesn't help that LoP is definitely the superior game overall. It overshadows this for sure. Don't let that deter you from trying this one, though. It's great, too.
As always, the most important aspect of a video game for me is how it feels - and Lords of the Fallen feels great. Not perfect, but great. Miles better than the first attempt 9 years ago. The original LotF is a complete joke compared to this. Not only does it feel great to control, but there are multiple additions to combat that I enjoyed a lot. The moveset felt more varied than in a From Soft game, for one. I loved the dashing/dodging R2 attacks, for instance. The fact that there was a different animation and different attack for dashing R2, dodging R2, charged R2, and regular R2 was awesome. FS games usually implement a couple of these but LotF has more options in regards to regular attacks, and that made the combat more dynamic. I also really liked using a crossbow as a second weapon and easily switching to it by holding L2 without having to swap out my regular weapon. Good stuff. I started off the game using a "great hammer" and wasn't particularly enjoying the combat. It was SO slow. 10 hours in or so I crafted a halberd using boss materials and stuck with that the rest of the game. Once I started using that, the game felt a lot better.
I like the idea of the "two worlds simultaneously" mechanic, but it isn't implemented super well. It just feels like a bunch of unnecessary roadblocks. The game wouldn't have been any worse off if this mechanic were entirely absent. I think it would be better, actually. It's just a chore to switch dimensions to solve an easy puzzle, then find a way to switch back to the normal world. It's pointless. Lore-wise, I'm sure it's not pointless, but I can assure you I didn't listen to a single thing anyone in this game had to say. I did not care whatsoever. Nothing about the world was interesting to me. I was just here for the combat and exploration, as I usually am with Souls(like) games - unless it's particularly intriguing.
Speaking of the exploration, this is where the game misses the mark the most. I frequently felt lost because a lot of the areas look the same. There wasn't much personality or distinction between them. Especially when you are constantly switching to the Umbral world. In that world, everything truly is identical - and you're in it constantly. Bland grey and brown areas galore - sometimes with a blue tint. It's just not very interesting to look at. This combined with the way the game handles attempting to give you shortcuts and you have somewhat of a mess in terms of the readability of the environment. I like the idea of placing your own checkpoints in theory, but it's not executed well. Plenty of times I would place a temporary checkpoint somewhere to then instantly come across a shortcut back to a previous checkpoint - and realize I wasted a resource. I was constantly robbed of the feeling a shortcut is supposed to give. It was all over the place in terms of the pacing of the permanent checkpoints vs. the temporary checkpoint spots vs. the shortcuts. It's like different people designed each of these features and they did not communicate with each other.
Difficulty-wise, I found it balanced very well. It's definitely easier than a Souls game but that's totally fine with me. It's not a perfect game so if it was any more difficult I could see it becoming frustrating much faster than a FS game would.
The enemy designs were pretty unremarkable. Pretty standard fare; nothing stands out too much. Also, there was not much variety. On top of that, they constantly threw re-used bosses at you as regular enemies as the game went on. It felt a bit lazy for lack of a better term. I don't like using that word but it really did feel like it here.
A few more positive notes: I liked the build variety, the leveling system, the equipment options, the UI, the speed you used consumables and switched to your ranged weapons, and the ability to change your armor color (although that was a bit lackluster in terms of options).
Overall, there are plenty of great aspects to this game. Absolutely try it out if you're a Souls fan. Between this and Lies of P, LoP is better overall. I would argue that LotF and LoP both have excellent takes on the combat of a Soulslike game. LoP comes out as the clear winner when you add in explorative design and the way the game presents itself. Whether that be the world around you or the characters you interact with. LotF feels generic in some ways, but like I said - it got the most important part right. The combat. So hurray for them!
I will say, I played this a month and a half after release (after the patch where lots of stuff was rebalanced to make it "more difficult"). This may affect my feelings towards the game versus someone who played it at launch. I am aware that people were experiencing technical issues (to varying degrees). I did not really experience any.
If this game came out before Lies of P, I may have enjoyed it even more. I think everyone would have. Since LoP came out the month before this, I think some people were burnt out on soulslikes already, which is unfortunate. It also doesn't help that LoP is definitely the superior game overall. It overshadows this for sure. Don't let that deter you from trying this one, though. It's great, too.
As always, the most important aspect of a video game for me is how it feels - and Lords of the Fallen feels great. Not perfect, but great. Miles better than the first attempt 9 years ago. The original LotF is a complete joke compared to this. Not only does it feel great to control, but there are multiple additions to combat that I enjoyed a lot. The moveset felt more varied than in a From Soft game, for one. I loved the dashing/dodging R2 attacks, for instance. The fact that there was a different animation and different attack for dashing R2, dodging R2, charged R2, and regular R2 was awesome. FS games usually implement a couple of these but LotF has more options in regards to regular attacks, and that made the combat more dynamic. I also really liked using a crossbow as a second weapon and easily switching to it by holding L2 without having to swap out my regular weapon. Good stuff. I started off the game using a "great hammer" and wasn't particularly enjoying the combat. It was SO slow. 10 hours in or so I crafted a halberd using boss materials and stuck with that the rest of the game. Once I started using that, the game felt a lot better.
I like the idea of the "two worlds simultaneously" mechanic, but it isn't implemented super well. It just feels like a bunch of unnecessary roadblocks. The game wouldn't have been any worse off if this mechanic were entirely absent. I think it would be better, actually. It's just a chore to switch dimensions to solve an easy puzzle, then find a way to switch back to the normal world. It's pointless. Lore-wise, I'm sure it's not pointless, but I can assure you I didn't listen to a single thing anyone in this game had to say. I did not care whatsoever. Nothing about the world was interesting to me. I was just here for the combat and exploration, as I usually am with Souls(like) games - unless it's particularly intriguing.
Speaking of the exploration, this is where the game misses the mark the most. I frequently felt lost because a lot of the areas look the same. There wasn't much personality or distinction between them. Especially when you are constantly switching to the Umbral world. In that world, everything truly is identical - and you're in it constantly. Bland grey and brown areas galore - sometimes with a blue tint. It's just not very interesting to look at. This combined with the way the game handles attempting to give you shortcuts and you have somewhat of a mess in terms of the readability of the environment. I like the idea of placing your own checkpoints in theory, but it's not executed well. Plenty of times I would place a temporary checkpoint somewhere to then instantly come across a shortcut back to a previous checkpoint - and realize I wasted a resource. I was constantly robbed of the feeling a shortcut is supposed to give. It was all over the place in terms of the pacing of the permanent checkpoints vs. the temporary checkpoint spots vs. the shortcuts. It's like different people designed each of these features and they did not communicate with each other.
Difficulty-wise, I found it balanced very well. It's definitely easier than a Souls game but that's totally fine with me. It's not a perfect game so if it was any more difficult I could see it becoming frustrating much faster than a FS game would.
The enemy designs were pretty unremarkable. Pretty standard fare; nothing stands out too much. Also, there was not much variety. On top of that, they constantly threw re-used bosses at you as regular enemies as the game went on. It felt a bit lazy for lack of a better term. I don't like using that word but it really did feel like it here.
A few more positive notes: I liked the build variety, the leveling system, the equipment options, the UI, the speed you used consumables and switched to your ranged weapons, and the ability to change your armor color (although that was a bit lackluster in terms of options).
Overall, there are plenty of great aspects to this game. Absolutely try it out if you're a Souls fan. Between this and Lies of P, LoP is better overall. I would argue that LotF and LoP both have excellent takes on the combat of a Soulslike game. LoP comes out as the clear winner when you add in explorative design and the way the game presents itself. Whether that be the world around you or the characters you interact with. LotF feels generic in some ways, but like I said - it got the most important part right. The combat. So hurray for them!
I’m glad souls likes are starting to be higher quality. That being said this game has its fair share of issues. Where this game really shines is the exploration, world design, and overall atmosphere. This game’s take on world design is reminiscent of dark souls 1, and in someways surpasses it. The main mechanic of there being two worlds that you can look in/travel between with the lamp is great for exploration and secret hunting. There’s also a wide selection of weapons, throwables, and magic for build variety. The boss design is very striking at times.
That’s pretty much it for the good. I enjoy dark souls 2, but the enemy count and placement is like darks souls 2 on steroids. The enemy spam, abundance of ranged enemies, and terrible enemy variety is probably the biggest thing holding this game back. If I had to guess I would say there is around 20 unique standard enemies in this game that get recycled throughout, and that absolutely does not cut it. The combat in this game is alright, but certainly doesn’t feel as refined as Fromsoft games. Don’t even get me started on the horrendous final “boss” of the game, which makes the deacons of the deep look like the pinnacle of boss design.
Overall I had fun with this game, but it is super disappointing as it could have been amazing, but just feels lazy in a lot of ways, like they made an amazing world and just filled it with mediocre junk
That’s pretty much it for the good. I enjoy dark souls 2, but the enemy count and placement is like darks souls 2 on steroids. The enemy spam, abundance of ranged enemies, and terrible enemy variety is probably the biggest thing holding this game back. If I had to guess I would say there is around 20 unique standard enemies in this game that get recycled throughout, and that absolutely does not cut it. The combat in this game is alright, but certainly doesn’t feel as refined as Fromsoft games. Don’t even get me started on the horrendous final “boss” of the game, which makes the deacons of the deep look like the pinnacle of boss design.
Overall I had fun with this game, but it is super disappointing as it could have been amazing, but just feels lazy in a lot of ways, like they made an amazing world and just filled it with mediocre junk
So far I'm 15 hours in and I want to love it more but its held back by annoying things.
1. There is waaaay to many enemies coming at you at once. Even more then Dark souls 2 its very annoying and tedious when you have to fight 20 enemies at once, with Mages and Archers on you as well.
2. The bonfire system I'm not a fan of. There are main bonfires and then there's ones you can put down with a consumables. The problem this can cause is the run to the boss is very long and your getting swarmed by tons of enemies while your trying to climb a ladder damaging you.
3. The performance is all over the place on every platform. Because this is a Unreal engine 5 game, it suffers from stuttering and other issues.
4. The co-op system is Disappointing,You get 30% less souls then the host and you can not pick up loot or carry over the progress to your world.
5. Combat is fun and satisfying. With smooth movement and dodging.
6. Lastly I'll just say some of the areas are stunning and I love how the areas are layed out with the 2 world system. Its by far the best aspect about the game.
Its a game I would recommend on sale and has some patches.
I will update when I finish the game.
1. There is waaaay to many enemies coming at you at once. Even more then Dark souls 2 its very annoying and tedious when you have to fight 20 enemies at once, with Mages and Archers on you as well.
2. The bonfire system I'm not a fan of. There are main bonfires and then there's ones you can put down with a consumables. The problem this can cause is the run to the boss is very long and your getting swarmed by tons of enemies while your trying to climb a ladder damaging you.
3. The performance is all over the place on every platform. Because this is a Unreal engine 5 game, it suffers from stuttering and other issues.
4. The co-op system is Disappointing,You get 30% less souls then the host and you can not pick up loot or carry over the progress to your world.
5. Combat is fun and satisfying. With smooth movement and dodging.
6. Lastly I'll just say some of the areas are stunning and I love how the areas are layed out with the 2 world system. Its by far the best aspect about the game.
Its a game I would recommend on sale and has some patches.
I will update when I finish the game.
This review contains spoilers
Pretty good as far as souls-likes are concerned.
Pros
- Most of the bosses are pretty good with specific standouts being Pieta, Harrower Dervla and The Lightreaper.
- Parrying is satisfying
- The lamp keeps things interesting and fresh, not just another fromsoft copy and paste.
- Wither damage is an interesting concept that is essentially rally damage from Bloodborne but more integral to the design of the game.
- The throwing hand is a really cool feature that separates bows/spells from your melee weapons and shields.
- The seedling feature is cool, being able to essentially create your own bonfires as checkpoints as you progress through the area is not only interesting and new, but also essential as you can go very long stretches without a real bonfire.
- The "Axiom" and "Umbral" system is really interesting and makes for some really unique level design.
Cons
- The game is hard, not because it's well designed to be hard but because they just drop enemies fucking everywhere, not to mention a lot of the enemies are ridiculously strong. This meant that I felt like I had to run past everything just to make it to the boss, just poor game design.
- Levelling up feels really slow, especially compared to other souls games, likely due to the fact that i felt like i had to run past all the enemies. This lead to me spending a lot of time farming souls.
- Final boss is lame (Radiant Ending)
- The Iron wayfarer is the worst boss in the game and nothing comes close. The boss himself isn't particularly bad, it's the arena you fight him in. All of his attacks do huge effects and you fight him in what is essentially a fucking 3x4 office cubicle so you just cannot see anything.
- Don't put platforming in a game with a conditional jump.
- Way too little heals.
- Most of the weapons I used during my playthrough, I thought were quite boring. (Agility build)
On a side note, people have complained a lot about the game being buggy. I played this game 3 months after release and encountered next to no bugs. They are also still putting out fixes very regularly.
When the game is high, it's very high. But it unfortunately has a lot of low lows too. Definitely a fun time and worth playing, even more so if you grab it in a sale.
Pros
- Most of the bosses are pretty good with specific standouts being Pieta, Harrower Dervla and The Lightreaper.
- Parrying is satisfying
- The lamp keeps things interesting and fresh, not just another fromsoft copy and paste.
- Wither damage is an interesting concept that is essentially rally damage from Bloodborne but more integral to the design of the game.
- The throwing hand is a really cool feature that separates bows/spells from your melee weapons and shields.
- The seedling feature is cool, being able to essentially create your own bonfires as checkpoints as you progress through the area is not only interesting and new, but also essential as you can go very long stretches without a real bonfire.
- The "Axiom" and "Umbral" system is really interesting and makes for some really unique level design.
Cons
- The game is hard, not because it's well designed to be hard but because they just drop enemies fucking everywhere, not to mention a lot of the enemies are ridiculously strong. This meant that I felt like I had to run past everything just to make it to the boss, just poor game design.
- Levelling up feels really slow, especially compared to other souls games, likely due to the fact that i felt like i had to run past all the enemies. This lead to me spending a lot of time farming souls.
- Final boss is lame (Radiant Ending)
- The Iron wayfarer is the worst boss in the game and nothing comes close. The boss himself isn't particularly bad, it's the arena you fight him in. All of his attacks do huge effects and you fight him in what is essentially a fucking 3x4 office cubicle so you just cannot see anything.
- Don't put platforming in a game with a conditional jump.
- Way too little heals.
- Most of the weapons I used during my playthrough, I thought were quite boring. (Agility build)
On a side note, people have complained a lot about the game being buggy. I played this game 3 months after release and encountered next to no bugs. They are also still putting out fixes very regularly.
When the game is high, it's very high. But it unfortunately has a lot of low lows too. Definitely a fun time and worth playing, even more so if you grab it in a sale.
Estilo sem substância.
Enquanto esse jogo tem provavelmente os melhores gráficos técnicos do gênero inteiro, direção de arte fenomenal e um combate bem satisfatório, ele cai por terra em um dos dois pilares fundamentais dos jogos desse tipo.
A exploração no jogo é completamente MASSACRADA pela absoluta falta de noção dos game designers no que se refere a inimigos e densidade dos mesmos.
Tem MUITO inimigo no mapa, posicionados convenientemente nos PIORES lugares possíveis, eu nunca vi tanto arqueiro e cachorro junto, num mesmo lugar, em um soulslike. Tem mais arqueiro nesse jogo do que na parte inicial da Ringed City do DS3.
A quantidade é DEMAIS pra uma formula que foi pensada em volta do 1v1, e se os números não te sobrecarregam, o range deles vai. Eles não te perdem de vista, e se forem móveis, vão te perseguir por praticamente todo o mapa.
Eu sou daqueles que costumava limpar a área inteira antes de progredir, aqui isso simplesmente não é possível. Se tu for tentar, enquanto tu limpa, 2 arqueiros vão te ver, alertar uns cachorros, e inimigos atrás de caixas escondidas vão te gankar, e aí já era. Corre.
Sendo que tuas únicas opções são tolerar um game design terrível ou sair correndo, a maioria das pessoas, incluindo eu, preferiu simplesmente sair correndo por aí, e isso afeta diretamente a exploração. Inúmeros foram os itens e caminhos que eu perdi por simplesmente estar na pressa.
Isso é um problema estrutural, não de falta de polimento, mas de algo que foi feito pra ser assim, poderia ser arrumado com patches mas infelizmente parece que os devs não querem saber.
Uma outra falha tão grave quanto, é a falta de chefes REAIS no jogo. Foram advertidos 30 chefes. Eu devo ter perdido um ou outro, mas com certeza lutei contra a maioria, e afirmo com todas as letras: 2/3 dos chefes desse jogo NÃO SÃO CHEFES, são inimigos normais, com uma barra de vida na tela e uma musiquinha tocando de fundo.
Houve várias ocasiões em que lutei contra um chefe na luta dele, aí 10, 15 minutos depois, tava lá, ele como inimigo comum no cenário. Depois de um tempo, você já consegue até prever quem vai virar mob e quem não vai, tira o gosto de várias lutas.
As bossfights em si já são estranhas também, a maioria delas são simples, os inimigos tem pouquissimas variações e no geral, assumindo que você já conhece o gênero, não oferecem desafio de qualidade. Houve lutas de chefes PRINCIPAIS, que aparecem no trailer do jogo e tudo, que eu matei de primeira. Não acho que eu precise elaborar quanta coisa tem de errado nisso, num gênero que se propõe a ser desafiador. Vale também ressaltar que eu não me considero bom nesses jogos.
O jogo gira em torno de uma dificuldade artificial.
Existem até mesmo outros problemas que eu poderia trazer à tona, como a falta de uma trilha sonora memorável, formas baratas de te fazer morrer (ganks e a "mímica" do jogo), a opressividade excessiva do Umbral e como isso atrapalha ainda mais a exploração, performance técnica duvidosa em todas as plataformas, NG+ estúpido, coop estranho, mas acho que já foi o suficiente.
Estranhamente, porém, eu meio que apreciei as minhas ~50 horas no jogo. O combate é fluído e gostoso, a temática, de novo, pra quem gosta da linha, é FENOMENAL, o jogo é lindo de doer em praticamente todas áreas, muito falei do quão ruim é a experiência de exploração, mas o mapa em si é bom, ótimos atalhas e no geral, quando as coisas DE FATO fluem bem, é legal de jogar. Quando não fluem, é (quase sempre) só sair correndo.
Só fui realmente ficar P da vida com esses problemas, lá pelas 10 horas finais de jogo.
Creio que o jogo vá demorar uns 6 meses pra ficar verdadeiramente bom, mas só o tempo vai dizer.
Lords of the Fallen (2023) é um jogo bom, com potencial de, com pequenos ajustes, ser MUITO melhor, mas que infelizmente morreu na praia em função de estranhas decisões de game design.
Enquanto esse jogo tem provavelmente os melhores gráficos técnicos do gênero inteiro, direção de arte fenomenal e um combate bem satisfatório, ele cai por terra em um dos dois pilares fundamentais dos jogos desse tipo.
A exploração no jogo é completamente MASSACRADA pela absoluta falta de noção dos game designers no que se refere a inimigos e densidade dos mesmos.
Tem MUITO inimigo no mapa, posicionados convenientemente nos PIORES lugares possíveis, eu nunca vi tanto arqueiro e cachorro junto, num mesmo lugar, em um soulslike. Tem mais arqueiro nesse jogo do que na parte inicial da Ringed City do DS3.
A quantidade é DEMAIS pra uma formula que foi pensada em volta do 1v1, e se os números não te sobrecarregam, o range deles vai. Eles não te perdem de vista, e se forem móveis, vão te perseguir por praticamente todo o mapa.
Eu sou daqueles que costumava limpar a área inteira antes de progredir, aqui isso simplesmente não é possível. Se tu for tentar, enquanto tu limpa, 2 arqueiros vão te ver, alertar uns cachorros, e inimigos atrás de caixas escondidas vão te gankar, e aí já era. Corre.
Sendo que tuas únicas opções são tolerar um game design terrível ou sair correndo, a maioria das pessoas, incluindo eu, preferiu simplesmente sair correndo por aí, e isso afeta diretamente a exploração. Inúmeros foram os itens e caminhos que eu perdi por simplesmente estar na pressa.
Isso é um problema estrutural, não de falta de polimento, mas de algo que foi feito pra ser assim, poderia ser arrumado com patches mas infelizmente parece que os devs não querem saber.
Uma outra falha tão grave quanto, é a falta de chefes REAIS no jogo. Foram advertidos 30 chefes. Eu devo ter perdido um ou outro, mas com certeza lutei contra a maioria, e afirmo com todas as letras: 2/3 dos chefes desse jogo NÃO SÃO CHEFES, são inimigos normais, com uma barra de vida na tela e uma musiquinha tocando de fundo.
Houve várias ocasiões em que lutei contra um chefe na luta dele, aí 10, 15 minutos depois, tava lá, ele como inimigo comum no cenário. Depois de um tempo, você já consegue até prever quem vai virar mob e quem não vai, tira o gosto de várias lutas.
As bossfights em si já são estranhas também, a maioria delas são simples, os inimigos tem pouquissimas variações e no geral, assumindo que você já conhece o gênero, não oferecem desafio de qualidade. Houve lutas de chefes PRINCIPAIS, que aparecem no trailer do jogo e tudo, que eu matei de primeira. Não acho que eu precise elaborar quanta coisa tem de errado nisso, num gênero que se propõe a ser desafiador. Vale também ressaltar que eu não me considero bom nesses jogos.
O jogo gira em torno de uma dificuldade artificial.
Existem até mesmo outros problemas que eu poderia trazer à tona, como a falta de uma trilha sonora memorável, formas baratas de te fazer morrer (ganks e a "mímica" do jogo), a opressividade excessiva do Umbral e como isso atrapalha ainda mais a exploração, performance técnica duvidosa em todas as plataformas, NG+ estúpido, coop estranho, mas acho que já foi o suficiente.
Estranhamente, porém, eu meio que apreciei as minhas ~50 horas no jogo. O combate é fluído e gostoso, a temática, de novo, pra quem gosta da linha, é FENOMENAL, o jogo é lindo de doer em praticamente todas áreas, muito falei do quão ruim é a experiência de exploração, mas o mapa em si é bom, ótimos atalhas e no geral, quando as coisas DE FATO fluem bem, é legal de jogar. Quando não fluem, é (quase sempre) só sair correndo.
Só fui realmente ficar P da vida com esses problemas, lá pelas 10 horas finais de jogo.
Creio que o jogo vá demorar uns 6 meses pra ficar verdadeiramente bom, mas só o tempo vai dizer.
Lords of the Fallen (2023) é um jogo bom, com potencial de, com pequenos ajustes, ser MUITO melhor, mas que infelizmente morreu na praia em função de estranhas decisões de game design.
Surely third time is the charm LMAO
CI shoving Deck 13 (the only developer so far who has understood how to actually make a soulslike) off to create a generic action-RPG and handing this over to some new studio is one of the most baffling decisions possible.
This has some interesting ideas, at least, which puts it above copy-pasted "I saw a thing from Bloodborne and I clapped" slop like Lies of Peepee Poopoo, but the actual gameplay is worse. The dual worlds gimmick is cool, but tedious in practice (as it almost always is), and that's true of many of its innovations. The ability to place your own "bonfires" with limited resources is interesting, but often feels mandatory as otherwise there are very long stretches with no rest points. Fromsoft eventually figured out that boss runs are annoying as hell, and fixed that in Elden Ring, but they're in full effect here.
Bosses are fairly underwhelming, too. Most of the challenge here actually comes from the huge amounts of enemies ganking you while others fire ranged attacks at your dumb ass. Bosses are relatively slow, with attacks that are easy to parry. Speaking of, what the hell's up with this whole "blocking causes chip damage that's recovered by damaging the enemy" thing? It was in Lies of Penis too, which is a strange coincidence.
By the way, add this to the pile of console games that look terrible due to temporal anti-aliasing. I swear to christ, whoever invented this awful shit that turns every game into a blurry, smeary mess is going in the Contraption when I'm in power. Performance was adequate, about the same as Elden Ring was on PS5.
Anyway, one of the default classes is a "warwolf" which gives this an extra half star.
Please come back, Deck 13. We desperately need a Surge 3.
4/10
This has some interesting ideas, at least, which puts it above copy-pasted "I saw a thing from Bloodborne and I clapped" slop like Lies of Peepee Poopoo, but the actual gameplay is worse. The dual worlds gimmick is cool, but tedious in practice (as it almost always is), and that's true of many of its innovations. The ability to place your own "bonfires" with limited resources is interesting, but often feels mandatory as otherwise there are very long stretches with no rest points. Fromsoft eventually figured out that boss runs are annoying as hell, and fixed that in Elden Ring, but they're in full effect here.
Bosses are fairly underwhelming, too. Most of the challenge here actually comes from the huge amounts of enemies ganking you while others fire ranged attacks at your dumb ass. Bosses are relatively slow, with attacks that are easy to parry. Speaking of, what the hell's up with this whole "blocking causes chip damage that's recovered by damaging the enemy" thing? It was in Lies of Penis too, which is a strange coincidence.
By the way, add this to the pile of console games that look terrible due to temporal anti-aliasing. I swear to christ, whoever invented this awful shit that turns every game into a blurry, smeary mess is going in the Contraption when I'm in power. Performance was adequate, about the same as Elden Ring was on PS5.
Anyway, one of the default classes is a "warwolf" which gives this an extra half star.
Please come back, Deck 13. We desperately need a Surge 3.
4/10
Lords of the Fallen have fallen.
one more remake and this just might be playable!!
I really don't understand the hate toward this game. Well, yes, it's entirely fair to complain about performance issues and bugs, poor online, as well as the fact that it was released essentially unfinished; it's becoming more prevalent in this industry, and it's not ok, no matter who's at fault.
That said, the game itself is fantastic! Despite these problems, I feel like I got my money's worth.
The worldbuilding and map layout are easily the best I've seen in the genre; it's like DkS1 all over again. It's marvelously interconnected, and it's beautiful! The whole map layout makes sense, and if you take the time to observe your surroundings, you will at almost all times understand where you are. And you will be amazed at the shortcuts you can unlock!
The map sketches are a really cool idea to help with your navigation, making you feel like you're on an ancient treasure hunt.
The lore is also surprisingly engaging!
Combat needs some getting used to, but the sensations are great, and there's good potential for builds.
Enemies suffer from a slight lack of variety IMO, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be.
Many bosses are wonderfully designed, but they still need some work on their moves, aggression and behavior to truly shine. They're also often much easier than their respective area, being similar to DkS2 in that regard (this is being addressed with frequent patches).
I loved this game to bits, to me it's a 5/5, but I can't in good conscience give a perfect rating at the moment. I will gladly do so once I see that the game is somewhat stable and in the state it should have been on release.
If you are considering this game, know that it's undergoing a lot of changes at the moment, so I'd suggest you wait until next year to buy it, as it will 1) be more stable, 2) be better balanced, 3) have more content (they're slowing adding more).
As it stands now, Lies of P is still my GOTY 2023. Nonetheless, LotF now stands as a diamond in the rough and has amazing qualities; it will become a truly incredible game one year down the line!
That said, the game itself is fantastic! Despite these problems, I feel like I got my money's worth.
The worldbuilding and map layout are easily the best I've seen in the genre; it's like DkS1 all over again. It's marvelously interconnected, and it's beautiful! The whole map layout makes sense, and if you take the time to observe your surroundings, you will at almost all times understand where you are. And you will be amazed at the shortcuts you can unlock!
The map sketches are a really cool idea to help with your navigation, making you feel like you're on an ancient treasure hunt.
The lore is also surprisingly engaging!
Combat needs some getting used to, but the sensations are great, and there's good potential for builds.
Enemies suffer from a slight lack of variety IMO, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be.
Many bosses are wonderfully designed, but they still need some work on their moves, aggression and behavior to truly shine. They're also often much easier than their respective area, being similar to DkS2 in that regard (this is being addressed with frequent patches).
I loved this game to bits, to me it's a 5/5, but I can't in good conscience give a perfect rating at the moment. I will gladly do so once I see that the game is somewhat stable and in the state it should have been on release.
If you are considering this game, know that it's undergoing a lot of changes at the moment, so I'd suggest you wait until next year to buy it, as it will 1) be more stable, 2) be better balanced, 3) have more content (they're slowing adding more).
As it stands now, Lies of P is still my GOTY 2023. Nonetheless, LotF now stands as a diamond in the rough and has amazing qualities; it will become a truly incredible game one year down the line!
gentlemen, believe me when i tell you this is one of the most overhyped games i have ever had the misfortune of playing in my entire life. i am a souls game freak; i love this shit, but i will take on anyone who says otherwise in hand-to-hand combat. please let me save you $60 by telling you the entire experience that is lords of the fallen.
after playing for 30 hours i can say i've never been baited this hard by a game before in my entire life. i waited months for this game after i first heard about it, and after beating it i wish i'd never known of it's existence. the only good thing about this game is that is pretty as fuck, except half of that credit goes to unreal engine itself. the world does look stunning, but that is literally the only positive thing i have to say about this game (the judge cleric fight was good too).
for starters, i have an extremely good pc and this game still ran like dogshit at times despite constantly tweaking the settings. this alone will filter out a ton of players who can barely run the game. one second your fps is locked to your refresh rate, then you turn around and the game turns into a stop motion picture for a few seconds. apparently they're fixing it, but the few patches they've shipped since the start have made negligible differences. i hope it gets better for others.
a dev replied to me on steam after i left a negative review, and instead of acknowledging that, he instead decided to suck himself off boasting about the 194 weapons and shields, 339 armor pieces, and the 3 different endings to the game. oh you mean the 194 weapons that have no combat arts or anything uniquely special about them? the weapons that take their class animations (spear, dagger, greatsword, etc) and copy/paste them over and over again for almost every weapon that has that type, effectively making them all the same? the armor pieces that despite having different stats seem to have almost no defensive impact at all? this game is R1 simulator for what the dev claims is 35-40 hours of gameplay, but is it REALLY that much gameplay?
no.
the game takes forever to get through for a lot of reasons. first off being the absolute disgusting amount of enemies for what is basically no reason. this game takes add spam to an entirely new level, and it makes the game so fucking boring. for over 80% of the game, you'll be fighting the same 3 enemies: a dog, a guy with two axes, and a weird snake thing with a crossbow. i am not even exaggerating, you will find these enemies within the first 2-3 hours of gameplay and you'll be killing them for the next 25+ hours, just with hp and damage scaling added on top. they will occasionally sprinkle in some other enemies, but within the first few hours of the game, you'll have seen probably 80% of the enemies you will for the rest of the game.
you will find a new area, kill a bunch of the same enemies over and over, die, then run past them to get back to where you were before because killing them all again would waste another 15 minutes of your life. obviously it’s normal in any souls-like game to run through a place you’ve already been because you know where you’re going, but you’ll end up doing this with new places because it gets so fucking monotonous to kill the same mobs in every new area. mountain area? how about a dog, a guy with two axes, and an archer. fire area? how about a dog, a guy with two axes, and an archer. snow area? how about a dog, a guy with two axes, and an archer. i truly wish i was exaggerating, but i am not.
the game fakes difficulty simply through the idea of, “fuck it spawn a ton of enemies.” it's not even meticulously thought out in an effort to be challenging, it's just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. every single enemy in this game is easy to kill 1v1, so they counteract this by spawning in hordes of enemies to prevent you from focusing on one at a time. if the game had good combat, okay sure, but it just doesn’t. not only is it clunky, but it’s too simple to allow you to do anything “flashy” and kill off a bunch of enemies at once. at some point if you’re being chased by too many people, it is borderline impossible to fight them because if you engage you will just manage to get stuck on one of the 7 billion different tiny artifacts that for some reason lock your character on seemingly nothing at all. i have never gotten “stuck” in a game as much as i did in lotf. there will be massive gaps that you think you can run through, only to get stuck on fucking air and die. if you don’t get stuck, be ready for the camera to decide to lock onto the guy hanging on a tree 40 feet away instead of the clusterfuck of enemies right in front of you. don’t worry though, once you die you get about 10 seconds to reflect on your mistakes before the equivalent of the “you died” text comes on screen, only to then have you wait another 10 seconds before respawning.
every encounter in this game feels like it takes place in the most cramped area imaginable. you will have so many encounters with mini-bosses on a bridge, a staircase, a hallway, or some other tiny ass area that is just so frustratingly small to fight in. you’ll end up focusing more on trying to leave yourself some room to maneuver through than actually fighting the enemy/boss itself. once you beat this “boss,” you can expect to just see them casually walking around the world as a new enemy to fight, except you won’t be actually fighting them because they’re meatshields and you’ll be too busy fucking running past everything anyway looking for the next vestige.
finding a vestige in this game was the most enjoyable part of it because of how fucking rare they are. i swear i would go over an hour in between finding them at times. there’s these flower beds where you can create your own checkpoint/bonfires which seems like a good idea, but you only get seeds from killing bosses or spending 5,000 vigor to buy them (which is a lot for the majority of the game). these seeds are a fucking precious commodity, but the flower beds are often placed in the shittiest spots and sometimes you just have to gamble whether or not you’re going to come up on a vestige soon and realize you wasted the seed. they aren’t even permanent either, so you might just place one down only to realize you don’t even need to be in that area anymore. just ran through a new area and have no heals left? luckily there’s a flower bed here to save… oh wait i don’t have a seed. let me die, go farm low level enemies, go buy a seed, then sprint past a bunch of enemies again to get back to where i was.
then there’s the bosses. honestly, most of them aren’t even that difficult which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a souls-like game. one thing most of them have in common is that they just have an assload of health and you, despite having an upgraded weapon, still always seem to do almost no damage. the fights turn into an endurance battle as opposed to being a genuine challenge. instead of “holy fucking shit this is intense” it’s just “jesus christ this is taking forever.” it’s usually the environment around you that is the hardest part to deal with, either through you getting stuck on a pebble on the ground or not being able to roll through the sedan sized gap beside the boss who for some reason always manages to back themselves into a corner of the arena.
my biggest complaint, and this is a big one, is that two of the coolest looking bosses in the entire game are fucking full on gimmick fights (not even mentioning the minor gimmicks in a lot of other fights). you just spent an hour running past enemies to find the boss? well luckily for you, this entire boss is just spawning the same enemies you’ve been fighting the entire game! to partially spoil the ending i got, the final boss of the fucking game is this insane looking god-like creature and the fight was fantastic… just kidding it’s a gimmick fight where you kill a couple glowing enemies and then the game ends and you don’t even get to fight the boss itself. i was fucking shocked when that happened. imagine deacons of the deep from ds3 or phase 1 renalla from elden ring as a final boss of a game. that’s what i experienced.
this is where the nerds show up and say, “ahem ackshully you didn’t get the full expewience of all fwee endings.” you know what? you’re right, let’s talk about that.
one of the other endings doesn’t even have a fucking final boss, it’s just the boss before the actual final boss i got, how is this any better? the “true ending” boss kind of just takes a handful of attacks from random encounters throughout the game and puts them in one boss with some new additions thrown in, so sure, there was some kind of effort there. at least you actually get to fight this one.
“oh so why didn’t you go for the true ending boss?”
you know i really would have loved to, but the best part is that i got hard locked out of the other two endings just a few hours into the game. killing a main boss opens up a beacon to be cleansed, basically the red pillars in the sky. if you cleanse even one of them, you are immediately locked out of one of the endings (inferno for sure, but some people think this locks you out umbral too). if you progress too far into the game without starting various npc questlines or miss even one of the 21 steps (not even joking), you get locked out of the other ending (umbral), forcing you into the most boring conclusion to a video game i’ve ever experienced (radiance).
oh that’s okay, i’ll just go into ng+ and get the other ending i wanted! well… remember the lack of vestiges? welp, there are no vestiges in ng+. none. no fast traveling to parts of the map other than your own custom checkpoints. i don’t even have any words for this, it’s genuinely just a fucking stupid decision. this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of what souls-like games require.
i cannot believe i even wrote all of this out of pure frustration. i genuinely could keep going and i might edit this to add more but i am just tired of giving this game space in my head. despite how angry souls games make me, i actually love them, but lotf misses the mark so many times it makes you wonder if they even knew what they were aiming for.
after playing for 30 hours i can say i've never been baited this hard by a game before in my entire life. i waited months for this game after i first heard about it, and after beating it i wish i'd never known of it's existence. the only good thing about this game is that is pretty as fuck, except half of that credit goes to unreal engine itself. the world does look stunning, but that is literally the only positive thing i have to say about this game (the judge cleric fight was good too).
for starters, i have an extremely good pc and this game still ran like dogshit at times despite constantly tweaking the settings. this alone will filter out a ton of players who can barely run the game. one second your fps is locked to your refresh rate, then you turn around and the game turns into a stop motion picture for a few seconds. apparently they're fixing it, but the few patches they've shipped since the start have made negligible differences. i hope it gets better for others.
a dev replied to me on steam after i left a negative review, and instead of acknowledging that, he instead decided to suck himself off boasting about the 194 weapons and shields, 339 armor pieces, and the 3 different endings to the game. oh you mean the 194 weapons that have no combat arts or anything uniquely special about them? the weapons that take their class animations (spear, dagger, greatsword, etc) and copy/paste them over and over again for almost every weapon that has that type, effectively making them all the same? the armor pieces that despite having different stats seem to have almost no defensive impact at all? this game is R1 simulator for what the dev claims is 35-40 hours of gameplay, but is it REALLY that much gameplay?
no.
the game takes forever to get through for a lot of reasons. first off being the absolute disgusting amount of enemies for what is basically no reason. this game takes add spam to an entirely new level, and it makes the game so fucking boring. for over 80% of the game, you'll be fighting the same 3 enemies: a dog, a guy with two axes, and a weird snake thing with a crossbow. i am not even exaggerating, you will find these enemies within the first 2-3 hours of gameplay and you'll be killing them for the next 25+ hours, just with hp and damage scaling added on top. they will occasionally sprinkle in some other enemies, but within the first few hours of the game, you'll have seen probably 80% of the enemies you will for the rest of the game.
you will find a new area, kill a bunch of the same enemies over and over, die, then run past them to get back to where you were before because killing them all again would waste another 15 minutes of your life. obviously it’s normal in any souls-like game to run through a place you’ve already been because you know where you’re going, but you’ll end up doing this with new places because it gets so fucking monotonous to kill the same mobs in every new area. mountain area? how about a dog, a guy with two axes, and an archer. fire area? how about a dog, a guy with two axes, and an archer. snow area? how about a dog, a guy with two axes, and an archer. i truly wish i was exaggerating, but i am not.
the game fakes difficulty simply through the idea of, “fuck it spawn a ton of enemies.” it's not even meticulously thought out in an effort to be challenging, it's just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. every single enemy in this game is easy to kill 1v1, so they counteract this by spawning in hordes of enemies to prevent you from focusing on one at a time. if the game had good combat, okay sure, but it just doesn’t. not only is it clunky, but it’s too simple to allow you to do anything “flashy” and kill off a bunch of enemies at once. at some point if you’re being chased by too many people, it is borderline impossible to fight them because if you engage you will just manage to get stuck on one of the 7 billion different tiny artifacts that for some reason lock your character on seemingly nothing at all. i have never gotten “stuck” in a game as much as i did in lotf. there will be massive gaps that you think you can run through, only to get stuck on fucking air and die. if you don’t get stuck, be ready for the camera to decide to lock onto the guy hanging on a tree 40 feet away instead of the clusterfuck of enemies right in front of you. don’t worry though, once you die you get about 10 seconds to reflect on your mistakes before the equivalent of the “you died” text comes on screen, only to then have you wait another 10 seconds before respawning.
every encounter in this game feels like it takes place in the most cramped area imaginable. you will have so many encounters with mini-bosses on a bridge, a staircase, a hallway, or some other tiny ass area that is just so frustratingly small to fight in. you’ll end up focusing more on trying to leave yourself some room to maneuver through than actually fighting the enemy/boss itself. once you beat this “boss,” you can expect to just see them casually walking around the world as a new enemy to fight, except you won’t be actually fighting them because they’re meatshields and you’ll be too busy fucking running past everything anyway looking for the next vestige.
finding a vestige in this game was the most enjoyable part of it because of how fucking rare they are. i swear i would go over an hour in between finding them at times. there’s these flower beds where you can create your own checkpoint/bonfires which seems like a good idea, but you only get seeds from killing bosses or spending 5,000 vigor to buy them (which is a lot for the majority of the game). these seeds are a fucking precious commodity, but the flower beds are often placed in the shittiest spots and sometimes you just have to gamble whether or not you’re going to come up on a vestige soon and realize you wasted the seed. they aren’t even permanent either, so you might just place one down only to realize you don’t even need to be in that area anymore. just ran through a new area and have no heals left? luckily there’s a flower bed here to save… oh wait i don’t have a seed. let me die, go farm low level enemies, go buy a seed, then sprint past a bunch of enemies again to get back to where i was.
then there’s the bosses. honestly, most of them aren’t even that difficult which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a souls-like game. one thing most of them have in common is that they just have an assload of health and you, despite having an upgraded weapon, still always seem to do almost no damage. the fights turn into an endurance battle as opposed to being a genuine challenge. instead of “holy fucking shit this is intense” it’s just “jesus christ this is taking forever.” it’s usually the environment around you that is the hardest part to deal with, either through you getting stuck on a pebble on the ground or not being able to roll through the sedan sized gap beside the boss who for some reason always manages to back themselves into a corner of the arena.
my biggest complaint, and this is a big one, is that two of the coolest looking bosses in the entire game are fucking full on gimmick fights (not even mentioning the minor gimmicks in a lot of other fights). you just spent an hour running past enemies to find the boss? well luckily for you, this entire boss is just spawning the same enemies you’ve been fighting the entire game! to partially spoil the ending i got, the final boss of the fucking game is this insane looking god-like creature and the fight was fantastic… just kidding it’s a gimmick fight where you kill a couple glowing enemies and then the game ends and you don’t even get to fight the boss itself. i was fucking shocked when that happened. imagine deacons of the deep from ds3 or phase 1 renalla from elden ring as a final boss of a game. that’s what i experienced.
this is where the nerds show up and say, “ahem ackshully you didn’t get the full expewience of all fwee endings.” you know what? you’re right, let’s talk about that.
one of the other endings doesn’t even have a fucking final boss, it’s just the boss before the actual final boss i got, how is this any better? the “true ending” boss kind of just takes a handful of attacks from random encounters throughout the game and puts them in one boss with some new additions thrown in, so sure, there was some kind of effort there. at least you actually get to fight this one.
“oh so why didn’t you go for the true ending boss?”
you know i really would have loved to, but the best part is that i got hard locked out of the other two endings just a few hours into the game. killing a main boss opens up a beacon to be cleansed, basically the red pillars in the sky. if you cleanse even one of them, you are immediately locked out of one of the endings (inferno for sure, but some people think this locks you out umbral too). if you progress too far into the game without starting various npc questlines or miss even one of the 21 steps (not even joking), you get locked out of the other ending (umbral), forcing you into the most boring conclusion to a video game i’ve ever experienced (radiance).
oh that’s okay, i’ll just go into ng+ and get the other ending i wanted! well… remember the lack of vestiges? welp, there are no vestiges in ng+. none. no fast traveling to parts of the map other than your own custom checkpoints. i don’t even have any words for this, it’s genuinely just a fucking stupid decision. this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of what souls-like games require.
i cannot believe i even wrote all of this out of pure frustration. i genuinely could keep going and i might edit this to add more but i am just tired of giving this game space in my head. despite how angry souls games make me, i actually love them, but lotf misses the mark so many times it makes you wonder if they even knew what they were aiming for.
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.
não aguentei não, provavelmente o pior souls-like que já joguei, só se salva o gráfico e a estética do jogo, a gameplay é tosca, o boneco parece um sabonete ambulante, os golpes não tem peso, os controles são extremamente imprecisos, os chefes e inimigos tem movesets extremamente genéricos e fáceis e o possível maior problema do jogo na minha opinião que é o level design podre, principalmente por conta desse sistema da lampada te levar pra outro mundo, nas primeiras vezes é legal até vc descobrir que nunca vai saber quando tem q usar e vai se perder toda hora pq o jogo não é nem um pouco intuitivo, além do fato do jogo estar extremamente bugado, inimigo entrando dentro do chão e dentro da parede, item sumindo, porta sumindo e não dando mais pra interagir e por aí vai. sobre problemas de performance, EU particularmente não tive, o jogo ta rodando liso com uma rtx 3060, só tive alguns travamentos na hora de criar o personagem, mas considerando como muita gente tá tendo problema, eu acho melhor esperar se quiser jogar
Então, eu não sei descrever direito o Lords of The Fallen, e acho que por isso eu nem vou dar nota pra ele.
Eu tive a oportunidade de jogar esse carinha aqui um pouquinho antes do lançamento dele, dois dias antes mais ou menos.
E assim, eu acho que ele tinha bastante pra ser espetacular, principalmente por que eu gostei bastante da direção de arte, do combate, em parte pois tenho minhas ressalvas, e da trilha sonora, principalmente da trilha sonora. O principal compositor dela trabalhou em Gow 2018, Borderlands, Bloodborne entre outros.
Mas assim... Tirando esses pontos positivos, pensa num jogo bugado mermão... Eu tive Muitos mais MUITOS mais problemas como ele do que com o Jedi Survivor no lançamento, inclusive o jogo do Cal Kestis tá redondo agora.
Mermão é textura que não renderiza, porta que sumia e não abria depois que voltava, Npc importante que sumia também, quedas Enormes de FPS, e muitos outros.
Fora que o game têm alguns problemas de game design, óbvio que eu não posso dizer que só pq fiquei perdido que o jogo tem um game design ruim. Porém acho que aqui não é o caso, a soma do Umbral com alguns lugares não encaixa muito bem e etc. Fora outros probleminhas também.
Então assim, eu ainda acho que Lies of P é o melhor souls like de 2023, acho, Lords of The Fallen pode ser melhor que ele, não sei. Só sei que vou esperar sair uns patchs de correção, pq o jogo me bateu bastante nesse lançamento.
Nota... Vou dar não, talvez posteriormente que nem eu fiz com o Horizon Forbidden West. Mas eu não recomendo ninguém comprar ele agora. Espera uma promoção pois o estado dele é problemático.
Eu tive a oportunidade de jogar esse carinha aqui um pouquinho antes do lançamento dele, dois dias antes mais ou menos.
E assim, eu acho que ele tinha bastante pra ser espetacular, principalmente por que eu gostei bastante da direção de arte, do combate, em parte pois tenho minhas ressalvas, e da trilha sonora, principalmente da trilha sonora. O principal compositor dela trabalhou em Gow 2018, Borderlands, Bloodborne entre outros.
Mas assim... Tirando esses pontos positivos, pensa num jogo bugado mermão... Eu tive Muitos mais MUITOS mais problemas como ele do que com o Jedi Survivor no lançamento, inclusive o jogo do Cal Kestis tá redondo agora.
Mermão é textura que não renderiza, porta que sumia e não abria depois que voltava, Npc importante que sumia também, quedas Enormes de FPS, e muitos outros.
Fora que o game têm alguns problemas de game design, óbvio que eu não posso dizer que só pq fiquei perdido que o jogo tem um game design ruim. Porém acho que aqui não é o caso, a soma do Umbral com alguns lugares não encaixa muito bem e etc. Fora outros probleminhas também.
Então assim, eu ainda acho que Lies of P é o melhor souls like de 2023, acho, Lords of The Fallen pode ser melhor que ele, não sei. Só sei que vou esperar sair uns patchs de correção, pq o jogo me bateu bastante nesse lançamento.
Nota... Vou dar não, talvez posteriormente que nem eu fiz com o Horizon Forbidden West. Mas eu não recomendo ninguém comprar ele agora. Espera uma promoção pois o estado dele é problemático.
Ain't no way I'm gonna have time to finish this before spiderman 2 releases is there.
this is the worst game of all time, abyss media, bottom fiction, the ass of all time
The year is 2023 and you want to play a PC game, in the way your toughest opponents are Callisto Protocol, Jedi Survivor, The Last of Us Part 1, and the main menu of Lords of the Fallen.
B-But /v/ros, th-they didn't put denuvo in this one!! This is literally impossible, I should be getting one lordillion frames per fallen!!
B-But /v/ros, th-they didn't put denuvo in this one!! This is literally impossible, I should be getting one lordillion frames per fallen!!
Honestamente eu achei o game incrivel os boss sao muito legais obviamente tem uns lame mas no geral sao bem decentes, o maior problema no meu ver foi os path até os boss com ini
Can't wait for Lords of the Fallen (2035) which also sucks
Barely worked on day one but after two weeks of constant patching it slowly got up to a decent standard. It's not really good enough for anyone to stick with it through that period but I was in the mood for another Souls-like after Lies Of P and, although this doesn't get anywhere near that game mechanically, the setting and world-building in Lords of the Fallen really hooked me. It was like walking around inside a particularly evil black metal album cover. The lore is a lot more on the nose than the subtle ways From Software weave their stories into the world but I can't deny it, I thought it was pretty rad. Really grim at times. Like a big 3D Blasphemous.
It's a little rough around the edges, the combat takes a while to really come good and it tries to be a little to clever for its own good at times, in regards to how many systems it throws at you, but if you're a fairly seasoned Souls vet you should be able to cope and, once you hit the mid-point the game really hits its stride. Whoever decided that the first major area should be this game's Blighttown equivalent needs a stern talking to, mind. This game does not put its best foot forward.
It's probably a three out of five in the grand scheme of things, but to me it is a solid four.
It's a little rough around the edges, the combat takes a while to really come good and it tries to be a little to clever for its own good at times, in regards to how many systems it throws at you, but if you're a fairly seasoned Souls vet you should be able to cope and, once you hit the mid-point the game really hits its stride. Whoever decided that the first major area should be this game's Blighttown equivalent needs a stern talking to, mind. This game does not put its best foot forward.
It's probably a three out of five in the grand scheme of things, but to me it is a solid four.
Pontuado por muitos momentos incríveis e alguns outros péssimos, esse é um dos melhores jogos do subgênero e traz elementos novos e bem executados pra enriquecer a fórmula, mas que infelizmente não recomendo no momento graças a otimização desatrosa.
Jogo no geral é bem maneiro.
Pontos positivos: Direção de arte e ambientação IMPECÁVEL, level design legal, sistema de personagem bem massa no geral (arma, armaduras, acessórios, customização, etc), combate bem maneiro e fluído, rolamento bom, parry gostozinho, gostei bastante da trilha sonora também, a mecânica da lanterna e dos dois mundos é definitivamente o charme do jogo na minha opinião, é realmente uma parada BEMM maneira, pvp/invasão é massa, é o COOP seria perfeito se os mobs não tankassem 57 hits pra morrer, mas o sistema de multiplayer no quesito simplicidade e praticidade é muito bom!
Pontos negativos: Má otimização, lock meio ruim, MUITO MUITO MUITO inimigo, maioria dos bosses perdem o valor e se tornando mobs padrões e isso acontece de forma bem repetitiva, e por último, as vezes os bicho só me bate como se suas armas fossem folhas, tu não sente.
A história é legal, porém genérica.
Minha conclusão é que, Lords é sim um bom souls like e um ótimo jogo, porém é inegável que teve um lançamento precoce e apresentando vários problemas de performance em todas as plataformas. Recomendo aguardar uma promoção ou algumas atualizações, ou testar o jogo por métodos peculiares hihihi, mas minha experiência foi sendo bem bacana e agradável, mesmo com os problemas citados ali em cima, porém, não há pano para ser passado aqui.
Pontos positivos: Direção de arte e ambientação IMPECÁVEL, level design legal, sistema de personagem bem massa no geral (arma, armaduras, acessórios, customização, etc), combate bem maneiro e fluído, rolamento bom, parry gostozinho, gostei bastante da trilha sonora também, a mecânica da lanterna e dos dois mundos é definitivamente o charme do jogo na minha opinião, é realmente uma parada BEMM maneira, pvp/invasão é massa, é o COOP seria perfeito se os mobs não tankassem 57 hits pra morrer, mas o sistema de multiplayer no quesito simplicidade e praticidade é muito bom!
Pontos negativos: Má otimização, lock meio ruim, MUITO MUITO MUITO inimigo, maioria dos bosses perdem o valor e se tornando mobs padrões e isso acontece de forma bem repetitiva, e por último, as vezes os bicho só me bate como se suas armas fossem folhas, tu não sente.
A história é legal, porém genérica.
Minha conclusão é que, Lords é sim um bom souls like e um ótimo jogo, porém é inegável que teve um lançamento precoce e apresentando vários problemas de performance em todas as plataformas. Recomendo aguardar uma promoção ou algumas atualizações, ou testar o jogo por métodos peculiares hihihi, mas minha experiência foi sendo bem bacana e agradável, mesmo com os problemas citados ali em cima, porém, não há pano para ser passado aqui.
I'm probably never going to play another soulslike ever again.
I bought and played LotF23 with the expectation that this is going to be mediocre or okay at best. I was surprised though. I think the level design and incorporation of the Umbral is very good and the bosses kicked ass. The world was beautiful too. Personally I think this game out does Dark Souls 1. In the 2 weeks I played this game, it got so many updates that one day I was complaining about something to myself and that same day it was fixed. It will be interesting to revisit this game in a couple of years.
The bad and ugly is that weapon tracking can be ass some times as well as hit/hurtboxes. On one enemy my grand axe swings completely whiffed but their attack that was 5 feet away from me hit me dead on. This game also lacks enemy variety so if there is something that annoys you, you will be seeing it often and it might even 2 shot you late game. This game's performance is atrocious too, I miss when gaming was heading towards a 144fps future.
I am for sure burnt out on soulslikes, I'm glad it ended on a high note.
I bought and played LotF23 with the expectation that this is going to be mediocre or okay at best. I was surprised though. I think the level design and incorporation of the Umbral is very good and the bosses kicked ass. The world was beautiful too. Personally I think this game out does Dark Souls 1. In the 2 weeks I played this game, it got so many updates that one day I was complaining about something to myself and that same day it was fixed. It will be interesting to revisit this game in a couple of years.
The bad and ugly is that weapon tracking can be ass some times as well as hit/hurtboxes. On one enemy my grand axe swings completely whiffed but their attack that was 5 feet away from me hit me dead on. This game also lacks enemy variety so if there is something that annoys you, you will be seeing it often and it might even 2 shot you late game. This game's performance is atrocious too, I miss when gaming was heading towards a 144fps future.
I am for sure burnt out on soulslikes, I'm glad it ended on a high note.
The hate-boner for this game has been a little confusing…I mean, it’s not perfect but as a Souls-like it’s pretty damn fun. And GORGEOUS! This game is a real looker, no doubt about that. As well, the exploration with the use of the Umbral lamp was dope. My favorite part of the game was running through each area and unlocking the shortcuts to see how everything fits together. Dual-weilding was also an absolute blast! Boss fights were mediocre and is what holds the game back but everything else was excellent. This game’s launch was a prime example of people online creating a negative echo chamber on a game because most online folks don’t play things for themselves prior to forming an opinion - play this shit for yourself and see!
NOTA: 5,5
Lords of the fallen é simplesmente a minha maior decepção de 2023, criei boas expectativas nesse game ao saber que seria um souls like com a unreal engine 5 exclusivo de nova geração, além da lanterna e a transição entre o universo umbral e o normal como uma nova mecânica de jogo que poderia verticalizar ainda mais a gameplay.
Porém, ao ver com meus próprios olhos, tudo foi por água abaixo, a história é omissa, desinteressante, apesar de seguir passos dos souls like de mesma temática, diria que até mesmo nesse quesito é mau feita.
Sobre sua gameplay, o jogo tem sérios problemas de performance desde seu lançamento, algumas atualizações depois melhoraram um pouco, porém o multiplayer ainda sim continuou travado e o jogo em geral ainda tem quedas e problemas de animação até hoje.
Seu pior problema é o level design, apesar da boa direção de arte e ambientação, o posicionamento dos inimigos e o número deles torna a gameplay pelos mapas uma bagunça apelativa, gostei da ideia de usar a lanterna do umbral como progressão obrigatória, porém entrar nesse mundo faz com que mais inimigos apareçam deixando ainda pior o jogo, uma att teve que ser lançada para nerfar a vida dos inimigos, pois muitos cenários do jogo se tratava de sair correndo e procurar bonfires ou lugar de sementes. Além disso os cenários são muito parecidos e confusos, nada intuitivos.
Infelizmente não tem muito o que eu possa elogiar do jogo, travamentos e morte, correria e uma bela bagunça resume minha experiência, poucos chefes foram memoráveis também e o final boss também não empolgou. Me parece que os devs se desafiaram em fazer algo que pudesse chamar a atenção porem sem muita experiência, mau posso considerar esse jogo um souls-like e muito menos de nova geração, não recomendo o jogo e mesmo em promo, eu consideraria apenas um valor perto da metade do preço.
Lords of the fallen é simplesmente a minha maior decepção de 2023, criei boas expectativas nesse game ao saber que seria um souls like com a unreal engine 5 exclusivo de nova geração, além da lanterna e a transição entre o universo umbral e o normal como uma nova mecânica de jogo que poderia verticalizar ainda mais a gameplay.
Porém, ao ver com meus próprios olhos, tudo foi por água abaixo, a história é omissa, desinteressante, apesar de seguir passos dos souls like de mesma temática, diria que até mesmo nesse quesito é mau feita.
Sobre sua gameplay, o jogo tem sérios problemas de performance desde seu lançamento, algumas atualizações depois melhoraram um pouco, porém o multiplayer ainda sim continuou travado e o jogo em geral ainda tem quedas e problemas de animação até hoje.
Seu pior problema é o level design, apesar da boa direção de arte e ambientação, o posicionamento dos inimigos e o número deles torna a gameplay pelos mapas uma bagunça apelativa, gostei da ideia de usar a lanterna do umbral como progressão obrigatória, porém entrar nesse mundo faz com que mais inimigos apareçam deixando ainda pior o jogo, uma att teve que ser lançada para nerfar a vida dos inimigos, pois muitos cenários do jogo se tratava de sair correndo e procurar bonfires ou lugar de sementes. Além disso os cenários são muito parecidos e confusos, nada intuitivos.
Infelizmente não tem muito o que eu possa elogiar do jogo, travamentos e morte, correria e uma bela bagunça resume minha experiência, poucos chefes foram memoráveis também e o final boss também não empolgou. Me parece que os devs se desafiaram em fazer algo que pudesse chamar a atenção porem sem muita experiência, mau posso considerar esse jogo um souls-like e muito menos de nova geração, não recomendo o jogo e mesmo em promo, eu consideraria apenas um valor perto da metade do preço.