Lords of the Fallen (2014)

The very first Lords of the Fallen entry tries to capture the dark, methodical combat of the Souls-like genre, but I struggled to get into it. The early hours felt frustrating rather than challenging, with slow pacing and clunky controls that made each encounter more tedious than rewarding. The world design has some interesting moments, but the oppressive atmosphere didn’t quite draw me in. Enemy placement and repeated backtracking made progress feel more like a chore, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the game was trying too hard to mimic its inspirations without adding much of its own.

I'm a Soulslike fan but this one is simply a bad attempt on replicating the formula, the feeling of gameplay is very bad, even when using a controller, the classes are not interesting, neither are the weapons and skills. Overall, I couldn’t make it past the first few hours, the combination of technical hiccups, punishing difficulty spikes, and monotonous gameplay left me feeling more frustrated than engaged. It’s a game I wanted to enjoy, but it just didn’t click for me. I don't recommend this one, and I heard good things about the reboot, I would advise looking into it instead.

The boss fights, which should have been the highlights, ended up feeling underwhelming and overly predictable. Instead of tense, skill-based encounters that reward patience and mastery, many of them boil down to simple patterns and limited movesets that are easy to exploit once you figure them out. There’s a lack of depth in combat mechanics, and the weighty animations don’t feel satisfying, just sluggish. It often feels like you’re fighting against the controls as much as the enemies, which is never a good sign for a game built around precision and timing.

To its credit, the visuals and armor designs have a certain gritty charm, and you can see the ambition behind the project. However, ambition alone isn’t enough to carry a Soulslike. When compared to genre benchmarks like Dark Souls, the differences in polish, level design cohesion, and combat responsiveness become painfully clear. For people deeply invested in the genre, this entry feels more like a rough experiment than a fully realized experience. I’m still curious about the reboot, but this original release is one I can’t personally recommend.

Gameplay: 5/10

Presentation: 4.5/10

Story: 5/10

Overall Score: 4.8/10

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Story= plot, engagement, characters, world-building

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

A poor attempt at a soulslike game. No matter what combat style is used (fast/slow) enemies can only be attacked safely at the end of combos otherwise they will always hit you first. It has a lot of bugs that range from ruining the overall experience to completely breaking the game. At some point I just jumped down a small edge and lost all input capabilities I had a very large xp boost and since saving resets you xp boost I got jipped out of 30+mins of gameplay. That is the most extreme game breaking issue, but many things are really clunky about the game.

Lords of the Fallen, for xbox one

Rating: 7.0/10; Good

Played: 2021

Slightly recommended for Dark Souls fans who want something new, or those who want to try an easier game in the sub genre

Lords of the Fallen is a Dark Souls clone. The developers clearly played DS, loved it, and said "hey let's do this but make it easier". They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, so I am more inclined to think of this as an inspired homage rather than a shameless ripoff. Many mechanics are copied exactly while there are a few unique features that make this game interesting in its own right, but it was clearly made on a tight budget.

If you don't know what Dark Souls is, it is a 3rd person action rpg with weapons that have specific motions through 3D space, very precise hitboxes that require attacks to actually touch the vulnerable bits of enemies (and they you), and a limited stamina resource that governs offensive and defensive moves. LotF simplifies some of the mechanics and starts off by making you play as a predefined character; Harkyn the badass hardened criminal. Though the game does not go into detail about his crimes, nor about why he can so easily die and respawn. I can kinda see why demonic enemies might respawn, but why would human soldiers? There just seems to be a bit of mismatch between the lore and mechanics, not that the lore is particularly interesting. "Evil" god, freedom for humanity, ancent heroes, forces of light that are not so light, etc. It is not bad just generic. You start off by choosing a magic school and weapon set based on the 3 ancient heroes, though it is never explained why Harkyn can even use magic. You can mix and match for 9 different classes, but a new magic school is unlocked for each new game +, and you will gain access to all equipment regardless.

The game has an excellent tutorial that teaches you the most important mechanics right off the bat. Just like Dark Souls, you have a quick weak attack, slower strong attack, jump attack, kick, dodge roll that works better with lighter gear, block that takes some damage from your stamina instead of health, and timed parries. All of these cost stamina and give the same methodical resource management focused combat of the Souls like genre. Each weapon type has specific animations for each attack, which directly affect the speed, range and recovery of attacks. For example, the sword has a standard slash attack while the power attack is a thrust lunge with more range, windup and recovery. Speaking of windup, every action in the game is done at a ponderous pace that really makes you feel the ridiculously bulky armor. Attacks take a couple of seconds between button press and striking, even with quick weapons like shortswords and daggers. Harkyn, you know you can hold weapons in a ready state to attack almost immediately right? Using magic and consumables takes forever, and is especially difficult to time during boss fights. Hope you never get cornered and surrounded, because the enemies will knock you down and shove the camera so far into your crotch that you will have no idea what is going on.

Character advancement is pretty much the same as Dark Souls; you get souls from killed enemies that can be spent at bonfires to improve stats or magic. The stats show exactly how you will improve with each point (except the magic spells, which have vague and sometimes incorrect text) and the entire system seems more simplified; there are fewer stats with more clear cut purpose for each and seemingly no soft caps. Weapon scaling is also greatly simplified, with some getting bonus damage from strength, dexterity or faith, but never from more than 1 attribute like in DS. Though the UI is a bit confusing when it comes to figuring out how much total damage or defense an item has. There are items that directly grant spell or attribute points instead of souls, which is more friendly than eating lots of items for minor benefit each. But they increase the amount of souls needed for the next point, which punishes the player for using them early. Souls are dropped on death with a stupidly timed limit on retrieving them, however the bonfires can be used to deposit them and save without resetting enemies. The enemies only respawn if you die or specifically choose to heal/restore potions, which can lead to the very safe playstyle of running back to deposit souls frequently. There is no excuse for losing significant souls, and no reason to take them into a boss fight. There is a risk vs reward system that gives bonus souls for shunning the bonfires, but is not necessary. An interesting change is that bonfires only restore a limited number of healing potions, so if you use too many you will have to backtrack to other fires to be in top shape.

Perhaps the best and most unique aspect of the game is the gauntlet, which is a ranged weapon that consumes mana, and mana regenerates. This is a much more friendly system than the limited X casts per rest and soul costing arrows of Dark Souls, though it does encourage taking it slow by waiting for mana. You can last especially long by using healing magic. The gauntlet is used by switching stances between the 3 available, which replaces the multiple equipment slots and 2 handing button of DS. There is a 1 hand + shield stance, 2 hand stance, and 1 hand + gauntlet. In addition the gauntlet has 3 modes; normal shot, shotgun and grenade. On top of the button for switching consumables, it can be a little confusing to handle. An interesting side effect of this is that some weapons can only be swung 2 handed regardless of your stats, so using those significantly reduces your versatility. I only found the normal shot to be useful, but once you start upgrading each type with elemental effects they gain entirely new abilities. The upgrade system involves slotting elemental runes into the slots on weapons and armor for minor stat boosts and useful elemental damage. Unidentified runes must first be identified at the blacksmith in a sort of gambling system where you can bet more souls for a higher chance at getting better quality. The amount you can bet is very limited though, so there is no worry about breaking the bank. The entire system is fairly simple with the only problem being the inability to replace runes with nothing; instead you will need to keep extra low quality runes to swap for your good ones when changing gear. Non physical damage is a major part of the game because every armor and shield has separate defense values for each damage type. This means that your sweet heavy armor and big ass shield will do nothing against enemies that use elemental damage, as I am sure you will find when you are steamrolled by your first encounter with that. On the plus side, this also works against enemies, particularly those annoying shield users.

The main reason that is game is easier than Dark Souls is simply because the enemies do not hit as hard. Your health and armor go a lot further, which in turn allows you to make more mistakes and learn without being punished as severely. That and their slow movement speed means you can usually out walk them. Make no mistake though, the enemies and bosses are not push overs. They will wreck you if you are not careful, and there are some definite difficulty spikes. New game + is the biggest such spike in so far as I don't believe it was properly tested; cough self healing final boss cough. It is also absurd that you can only do new game + twice, after which that character is no longer playable? I did not play that far, but that is terrible design. The game also has poor quest direction, which reaches astoundingly low with the dark space side areas, where you are put into an area so dark that it is difficult to navigate. You take damage for venturing into the dark, and the objective is vague. In fact, I was unable to complete one for no apparent reason.

Lords of the Fallen is a budget Dark Souls clone whose less punishing difficulty makes it an excellent place to start with the genre. It definitely has some jank, but even has some innovation that makes it worth checking out for any Souls like fan.

Beat as Paladin. Heavy armor, quick weapons and defensive magic are my style. I used the steel sword for the majority of the early game and beat the first boss in a single attempt, but it was a close fight. I mostly used the decoy spell to draw his attention while I attacked from behind. I tried out a staff but did not like it as much as the sword; I preferred the simplicity of the sword and the additional range on the thrust power attack. My first death was to a giant spider, which I later learned was part of a late game sidequest. My armor and shield did nothing against poison damage. It took a few tries to beat by focusing all out on offense and getting up close. I had been putting most ability points into endurance and vitality, and upped my strength to use the Last Resort shortsword in order to beat that spider. The next commander boss I beat in a single try using that shortsword and the decoy strategy I used before, but for some reason he stopped falling for the decoy as his health got lower, making the fight that much harder.

At this point I started experimenting more with spells and the gauntlet. I loved the way that mana regens, unlike in Dark Souls where you only get X spell casts. It was fun to blast enemies with the gauntlet now and then, and this was especially useful against shield enemies. I also used shield bashes and parries against shield enemies, but they were among the most annoying enemies. I got the Shelter and Daze spells and tried them out. I fell in love with Shelter because it gives significant healing over time, something not mentioned in the spell description. Damage reduction AND health regen, my kind of magic. The description says it also reflects damage, but I never noticed. Most enemies were easy to deal with by blocking, then attacking during openings. The blind infected were sometimes troublesome with their unpredictable behaviour, especially with that short range shortsword. I only used the heaviest most protective armor, and the most protective shield. The Worshipper boss at the graveyard killed me on the first try because of the whole die in one hit during his ultimate attack unless you are in a safe area. I figured it out immediately and got him the next time.

I then went in and did the catacombs before going into the demon realm. This was challenging but I found a lot of good loot, including the Vanguard Blade, which became my new weapon. The delay between attacks in this game was annoying, and I did not like how there were no rapier/spear style weapons that could attack and shield block at the same time, like I did in Dark Souls. I enjoyed having the extra reach for the sword lunge. I got wrecked by the Champion boss, which was fair given I was not supposed to even be there yet. I figured that, and went back to the demon realm to follow the main quest. Here I started using crafting and put a lucky higher poison rune in my sword, which was amazing. This entire area was easy given that I was overleveled, including the Infiltrator boss.

Back to the catacombs to kill Champion, and this was one of the most difficult fights in the game, taking me 3 attempts. I gave up trying to melee him, and shot him with the gauntlet projectile (never found use for the explosion and shotgun blast), kiting him around, dodging his charge and shooting while he was off balance. It was a very long tedious fight. I later read to use tower shield to interrupt the charge (which I did on NG+). The Beast boss gave me a lot of trouble because the game kept crashing. I was trying to kill him in melee and pretty quickly caught on that it was the first boss in The Surge; hit the legs until he falls down, then hit the face for actual damage. I don’t know if melee is bugged or if it was because of my poison damage, but I could not get far before crashing. So I looked it up and settled on trying a ranged strategy in a walkthrough. I put a fire rune in my gauntlet and shot him. It was easier than Champion. At this point while I was looking at a walkthrough I checked out the sidequests and trinket effects, neither of which were explained well in game.

Back to the demon realm where I took the secret route, then backtracked to kill the Guardian. This fight took 3 tries because his melee attacks were unmanageable with blocking (seemed like he had an unfair amount of stamina), and the fire attack could one hit kill me if they all hit. But I got him by keeping out of melee range and using a mix of poison sword and fire gauntlet while I had openings, and dodging the fire projectiles. I really got lost in the end game dungeon. The catacombs were confusing enough, but this place was even worse. This game really needed a mini map and map. I had to run through the entire area several times to memorize it, and then look at a walkthrough to find out there was another entrance in the secret path that I had missed by backtracking to kill the Guardian. I found a better sword in this dungeon; the spine breaker sword, which did damage comparable to 2 handed weapons and could kill most enemies in 3 or 4 hits. Annihilator took 2 tries to beat and was fairly annoying. I tried to melee him and block his attacks, but he was another boss with wild attacks that leave very little opening (or stamina) to attack. So I ended up kiting him around and killing him at range with the gauntlet. His attacks were laughably easy to avoid like that, except for the stun followed by lighting bolt. Only twice was I able to dodge and avoid damage from that, so this battle put a strain on my healing resources.

Next for the fire and lighting duo boss, which I barely managed to defeat in a single try. The lighting guy was easy to wreck in melee, but the fire guy could hit me very hard with burning. Lighting guy died first as I lay into him with the sword. For fire guy I switched back to the Vanguard Blade (which I had upgraded with a flawless poison rune) for a 1 or 2 cheap hits while he was busy, then sprint to the other side of the room and cast shelter to heal from burning. The human enemies were no real trouble with my insanely high armor. Rather than finish the game, I went back through the demon realm and catacombs again looking for missed stuff, then proceeded to fight the final boss. At this point I finally upgraded my shield from kite to tower by bumping up my strength, and I put 3 luck runes in it for less energy loss on block. That was very worth it. I beat the final boss in a single try but I came so close to dying when he first did that fire beam attack. My health was so low that I thought I did die, so just stood there for a couple seconds before I realized; oh shit, healing potion! At this point I decided to look up online to see how to use all these resistance items I had accumulated; oh I have to favourite them. My strategy was to circle strafe around him blocking, then do a couple quick hits with my Vanguard Blade and let the poison do most of the work. When he flew off I would cast shelter then use a fire resist shard, which made me pretty much immune to fire damage. I ran around getting the minions killed by the fire, quickly finish off the few that survived and repeat.

End stats level 61: 22 strength, 21 vitality, 18 faith, 27 endurance, 8 agility, 0 luck. 1 point in prayer and daze, 3 in shelter.

Gear:

Spine Breaker sword (white)

Vanguard Blade sword (purple) with flawless poison rune

Void Shield tower shield (purple) with flawless luck rune, 2 common luck runes

Stance kite shield (orange); my shield for most of the mid to late game. It still has better elemental blocking than the void, and restores mana on block.

Gauntlet projectile with flawless fire rune. Explosive and blast have flawless magic runes but I never tried them.

Lords boots (heavy, purple) with rune of Adyr

Living Legend gauntlets (heavy, purple) with higher power rune

Fallen chest (heavy, purple) with flawless power rune

Fallen helm (heavy, purple) with flawless power rune

I used the mana regen trinket for most of the game, switching to poise for the final boss. I did not get the damage reduction trinket. I also never really used the other types of weapons because I prefer fast one handed weapons.

Then I played through new game + and used a walkthrough to get things that I missed. I used the polesword Jaw (purple) to deal with many regular enemies, since it did the second highest damage of all my weapons. I did find that it worked better than one handed vs shield enemies, and was necessary for the mages, which were the most dangerous enemy. I put the rune of Adyr in it near the end. The significantly higher health of enemies made a big difference for regular battle, but the bosses were pretty much the same. I used the same strategies but felt I could be a bit more aggressive with melee. I upgraded my sword to the Warrior sword, and then the Tribute sword. The only boss that went differently was the fire brother, who I killed with the magic explosive gauntlet; which also worked great against fire beasts. Got a few more flawless runes and levels up. I missed the hardest proving ground challenge and did it this time; it was incredibly difficult. 3 spiders at once required reverse kiting with shield, and shooting the gauntlet. The 2 mages and axeman required prayer to distract the axe and 2 magic resist consumables to not die in seconds. I was unable to beat the final boss because of his healing. He hit too hard, had unblockable attacks and gave extremely little opportunity to attack. Shooting with the gauntlet was the only reliable way to deal damage without risk. But more importantly, I could not kill the adds quickly enough to prevent him from regaining more health that I was dealing in damage. I looked up online and seen that the poison projectile slows him a lot; it did and made it easier to avoid damage while getting melee hits in, but did not fix the healing problem. I then found a glitch guide online using prayer to make the boss stand still without doing anything for easy victory. That fight is broken in more ways than one. I will not be playing new game ++.

Final stats at level 85: 25 strength, 23 vitality, 18 faith, 35 endurance, 8 agility, 0 luck. I maxed out rage, both prayers, daze and 1 point in punishment. 2 better swords with flawless poison runes (purple Tribute and Warrior), a second flawless luck rune in my tower shield, and a couple more flawless power runes.

I enjoyed the game overall despite the relatively boring story/lore, obnoxious ponderousness of every action and the buggy parts. Reminds me a bit of Bound by Flame in aesthetic and feel, but with Dark Souls mechanics.

7.0/10

Ah, the dawn of the "Soulslikes". Regardless of how you feel about From Software's Souls games, their influence is indelible. It took a little while, but eventually the ripples that those games created manifested in everything from (allegedly) the PS4 system software to pale imitations like Lords of the Fallen, a game so brazenly a Souls rip-off (or homage, if you're feeling more generous), that it's actually impossible to talk about it in a vacuum.

This game is not without its merits. It's a far kinder version of this type of game, one that's willing to reach across the aisle to the player and let them have the power-fantasy, free of the brutal difficult curve that turns so many players away from the games it's inspired by. But in doing so, it actually reveals Fromsoft's genius even further by clearly illustrating that making a good one of these is not, in fact, easy. From level design to weapon variety to the feel of combat to the artistry of the world, everything in Lords of the Fallen comes off as a cheaper, flimsier version of its predecessors. If you had never played a Souls game, I could actually see liking this quite a bit because it does contain a small spark of what makes those games so great.

And I didn't, by any means, hate my time with it. It was genuinely fun to see some character designs that appeared to be straight-up pulled from World of Warcraft swing giant swords around, as opposed to From's usual gangly, grotesque designs. In those early days of the PS4, there really weren't many games of this type so if you were a fan of the genre, this felt like a must play. Now, there are better alternatives.

Only played for an hour or two. The plot is trying way too hard to be grimdark, it's tiresome. The aesthetic (also nauseatingly grimdark) is somehow both ghoulish and childish (like... a not-particularly-mature 13-year-old's vision of what grimdark should look like, maybe?).

Mechanically, I found it unplayable - endless button-mashing with unforgiving consequences for missing a beat, and very little payoff for perfection. But maybe it's just not my kind of game, I couldn't get into the Souls games either.

My first playthrough I enjoyed, but on starting NG+ felt no need to continue after getting about halfway through. Nothing changes after the first playthrough other than enemies taking a few more hits to kill, there's no extra loot (unless you missed some in your first go through) and none of the boss fights have enough depth to them to warrant doing them all over again. Also, the DLC to this game is horrible. Enemies that are a tedious grind to fight in a tight enclosure, really rubbed me the wrong way.

Had a few bugs and crashes happen in my time with the game too (played on Xbox One). Many times I was kicked back to the dashboard resulting in loss of progress, which in a game that isn't the easiest can be very frustrating.

They say it is a Souls´ game rip-off. I don´t know, since I haven´t played any of them yet. I had my eye on this game for quite some time. It then went on an irresistible sale and I grabbed it. As is customary, I stop what I am currently playing to give a peek at the new game. This peek took 52H up until I finished it.

This game is marvellous. The illumination, particle effects, characters animation, the feel of combat, the dark/gothic/medieval setting, the secrets scattered, the textures, the music, the sound effects, the voice acting, the level design. Everything here transpires to me as very carefully thought and executed.

The challenge is just about right for me to keep asking for a bit more every time. It´s being a long time since I do not get into a game like this one, keep thinking of it when I am not playing and crave for one more play when I die, even past the time I should disconnect for the day.

Since I have heard some bad feedback about it, some may say my bar is low and that I should try a Souls game instead. I'll definitely try. However, even if I fall in love with the Souls series, it will be a different experience which will not detract from the experience I had with this one. I had a blast playing this game. I don't think this will ever be taken off me.