A Very In Depth Analysis and Review of Lords of the Fallen (2023)

let me ask you what your favorite part of a Souls game is maybe it's the challenging but fair bosses or the build diversity with cool weapons maybe it's the Myriad secrets to uncover or the stories the hauntingly beautiful locations tell and let's be honest having V viia tell you about them in their videos no matter what you answer I wagered that you are't a psychopath and you didn't answer tons of annoying weaker enemies mobbing you turning the game into a masochist Dynasty Warriors or group fights with long range high damage and high stagger spamming enemies you probably didn't answer the very long uninterruptible periods of invincibility that bosses have where I get to play a fun dodging miname or spending hours doing corpse runs but if you did congratulations I have the perfect game for you Lords of the Fallen is a competent well-executed Souls like with some downright hostile and unfun design it's like a group of people deliberately made a 25 to 40 hour game out of the worst parts of every Souls like it seems to confuse challenge with frustration all too often at the same time it's a game that has quite a few fresh ideas in the genre and you can tell from its outset that it intended to be just the opposite the best part parts of souls likes all put into one some of the fresh ideas that the game has are done well and some are not and I should mention that a ton of heart and passion was put into this game and it shows and I like the energy the Lords of the Fallen gives off which is a team trying to take the Soul's formula and give it a different spin trying to distinguish itself from their obvious inspiration while still being recognizable ible for what it is that's a noble ideal and I think it's the only way to truly stand out in this genre given that from software is basically impossible to compete against and most importantly a game that has a lot of lessons to teach and I would like to analyze it and I hope no matter your personal opinion on the game that you'll accompany me and hear what I have to say given that I'm talking about a Souls like the most video essayed thing on all of YouTube I think it's important to mention that I've played and finished all of them except Demon Souls PS5 and I have 100% on Dark Souls and remastered on Dark Souls 3 on bloodborne and I am missing one ending on Elden ring which I very well might consider to be my favorite game of all time I am very familiar with the genre ever since it started difficulty won't really be coming up too much in this review but when it does I will contextualize it but I know that it doesn't matter and I am prepared for the get good comments anyways I'm going to cover all of the aspects in this game from combat to level design to bosses and lore I will not be covering the technical side of it since I do want this video to be more or less Evergreen and reflective of the design ethos of the game when it launched and these technical issues tend to be fixed over time I don't want to this video so immediately especially since at the time of writing the game is being patched every day keeping that in mind be warned at potential spoilers if you care about those things I think that listening to this video will save you from seeing all of the zones but I will be talking about all of them at some point and using that footage as examples for many of the things I talk about as an additional disclaimer I did receive a review copy of this game from the publisher I played Lord of the fallen in 32 by9 which does support and is my monitor's native aspect ratio but that means that for this video you will not see the HUD which is further to the sides than what this video presents and lastly before we begin if at any point in this video you feel that what I'm saying is particularly interesting or offers a fresh perspective hit the like button it's the best way for this video to reach more people with all of that said let's talk about everything wrong with Lords of the Fallen good artists copy but great artists steal compared to other games that take elements from Souls like respawns Star Wars games which take cues for combat and the level up and checkpoint system lores of the Fallen is unapologetically a soulslike if we were still in simpler times we would label it much as we did back in the day for Doom clones an easily Iden if iable core with some changes and twists this doesn't have to be bad and earlier this very year lies of P proved just that being a fantastic game that sticks very closely to what from software did with bloodborne but much like in the past when you take this approach you can end up being the next hexen or the next Corridor 7 and there's a reason you probably know what hexen is but you don't know what Corridor 7 is Lords of the Fallen is trapped trying to reach the heights of what inspired it but also fully aware that that is impossible and it attempts to differentiate itself its structure can feel like a strange combination of Dark Souls 1 with a linear introduction into the game that quickly transitions to Dark Souls 2 giving you a central Hub in skyrest Bridge which opens up to different zones that are completely separated from each other it's side quest structure also partially mimics Elden ring with a long list of NPCs an overwhelming amount upon arrival honestly that you have to keep an eye out for other tasks as you make your way through the game its art style and aesthetic most reminds of Dark Souls 3 with its darker more High fantasy setting that aims more for the 1800's European inspiration and the use of color as well as its tone but all filtered through a more religious view with heavy inspir ation from different European religious organizations such as the traditional Spanish Capote making an appearance which you might recognize from Blasphemous or designs that bring to mind religious Crusaders its biggest difference is its Soul rever esque flipping between the normal world of Axiom and a darker spiritual umbrell realm with key differences between them needed for puzzle solving and exploration as well as occasionally in combat if you die in the normal world you resurrect in the umbrell realm permanently chased by enemies but you also have to manually shift between them many times you can also hold up your lamp just to peer into the umbrell realm but with very limited interaction for the purposes of exploration and getting your bearings for puzzle solving going back to similarities in its combat it also takes from many different places be that Elden ring in its magic or bloodborne in the rally system which here is a attached to blocking or Dark Souls 2 in its dual wield mechanics it sounds like a greatest hits with an additional twist but in the end this Greatest Hits is recorded by a cover band that also attempted to do reggae versions of classic rock anthems combat is a great place to start because it shows off this philosophy of not sticking Too Close while not going far enough perfectly movement and general combat in Lords of the Fallen is the area where the game disting distinguishes itself the most it's much faster than what we see in the genre with really large Dodges and attacks and equally aggressive tracking and distance coverage for enemies it feels different slightly floaty and holds more in common with deck 13's The Surge than Dark Souls initially I liked this quite a lot it felt different and that was precisely what got me most excited in my opening hours I thought oh this is not what I expected this to feel like but it doesn't feel bad I'm on board how far will you take this I would describe it as a feeling more like an arcade version of Dark Souls but that comes with a lot of costs mainly that the level design rarely accommodates this this fast movement and attacks that cover so much space means that Arenas that seem big quickly shrink and the game loves having Arenas that stand over instant death pits you will find yourself ambushed on walkways where dodging left or right will make you leap off and die leaving you to only Dodge forwards and back often into danger and into attacks that can knock you off the very wide hits on enemies means that they often have attacks that cover in front and behind or to an additional side or even just all around them I don't have an issue with this per se since learn ing their moves and dodging correctly is part of the formula you can learn that when this enemy does this attack if you dodge to the right you'll probably get hit but as I said before you are very often constrained to Arenas that are smaller than you think due to the movement meaning that sometimes your options are either to dodge into an attack that will hit you and could knock you off a cliff or just jumping off the cliff directly this General feel of combat applies to you as well though with many of your attacks being fast big often flashy Affairs that cover a lot of ground and even hit enemies behind you these wide sweeping and long lasting hit boxes are a two-way street but one that is absolutely necessary for the game to work because you know what's worse than fighting the enemies I described on the Arenas I've detailed fighting eight of them a big one a medium one a dog four fodder enemies and a long range sniper just for good measure Lords of the Fallen has an unhealthy obsession with hordes of enemies there are moments in this game where I felt I was playing a Dynasty Warriors clone instead hordes of enemies is an actual mechanic as well since as I mentioned earlier in the umbrell realm you are constantly hounded by respawning enemies that basically respawn on top of you this idea of group combat and crowd control is is an essential part of the game and it was considered during its design as evidenced by how weapon move sets work all weapons have two move sets one for one-handed and one for two-handed making sure that you always have access to wide sweeping attacks at more or less Effectiveness this is because those huge wide sweeping attacks are needed when you're fighting mobs of enemies and the game gives you the tools to face them that doesn't mean that it's ever fun nor does it seem to take into consideration how that addition of mobs ruins otherwise interesting and fun encounters and level designs I've already described how terrible this can be when an otherwise interesting combination of enemies and Arena turns into frustration due to five too many enemies I'm happy fighting a big imposing enemy with two range ones peppering me it's a common encounter seen in the soul series as well but when you add on a couple of dogs and a mob of five zombie like husks that combination and how much it constrains space and the information overload of attacks you need to keep track of in order to find openings reaches a point where it's easier to just give up since as much as many of these enemies might not do a lot of damage they could stagger you and disrupt your dodging pattern until you get one hit by all of the enemies hitting you at the same time but it doesn't stop there when Lords of the Fallen is being restrained it's still doing too much why have one big guy and an Archer when you can add two smaller enemies as well it's like the overall philosophy was always that more is better to the point where your punishment for death is a last try in the umbrell realm adding even more enemies into the mix and making Discovery runs in umbrell a complete slog it doesn't help that the game game is severely lacking in enemy variety the game has 46 different enemy types but if we really analyze how that works out there's a high amount of fodder and reskins into a different biomore element there are three versions of dogs three versions of long range teleporting witch two versions of advanced archers two versions of small batlike man don't confuse them with Batman three versions of light melee and three of light ranged two versions of slightly better melee Soldier two versions of the Grim Reaper two enemies that are non-hostile one is the mimic which you can't fight since it's an instant kill or be killed mechanic and seven versions of zombies the total count is then reduced to 24 and many of the 24 remaining are used only two or three times except at the very end game leading to exhausting frustrating rage inducing fights that are also repetitive if there is one takeaway that I want people to take from this review I hope it's this if you play through the game and notice what I'm describing just imagine how much better this game could be with a scholar of the first sin type restructuring of its enemy Encounters this is a major issue with the game and one that really wouldn't be that hard to change but more important L one that was made very deliberately and that means it's just a huge mistake despite the variety that you might expect or the excitement that you might even have felt when I said that every weapon has two full move sets this is another area where a great idea and to be fair a really good game feel go to waste swinging weapons in this game is fun they connect well they generally feel like they hit hard despite some inconsistencies with posture damage and staggering enemies and they look very cool you also feel very much in control at times with a lot of options and that's thanks to a fairly unique and cool addition all weapons have their light attack and heavy attack chains for both of their move sets and you can flow through all four of these seamlessly you can go from light one-handed attack into the second move of the heavy two-handed attack chain and it feels rewarding to get to know your weapon since you have this Freedom that lets you choose from any of four different attacks at any given time depending on your situation but far as great as this idea is it's fumbled completely in execution since besides where the weapon will strike there's no incentive to do so this is because earlier I lied you don't have a light and a heavy attack you have attack one and attack two all of your attacks deal the same damage within that stance so all of your one-handed attacks do the same damage and all of your two-handed attacks deal the same damage two-handed ones do more than one-handed ones but that's it running and dodging attacks deal different damage normally a little less than a standard one and of course there are some multi-hit Moves In Chains that deal odd amounts of damage as well and all weapons have a special multi-hit move by hitting L1 and R2 at the same time but flattening the damage to the same numbers invalidates so much of the satisfaction of learning these move sets and choosing the best attacks if my wide reaching very fast and very horizontal attacks do the same damage as the slower very vertical attacks why would I use the vertical ones especially in the context of this game where you will very rarely be facing off against a single enemy instead of rewarding you with different damage values balancing out the speed and the coverage of an attack with its damage they're all flattened to the same amount and instead you are rewarded with additional damage when hitting enemies with multiple attacks in succession further rewarding whatever is the fastest move and the least likely to miss there was so much potential to give players a combat system with a ton of skill expression constantly making decisions on timing and distance to maximize damage out out puts and find combos but instead we have a system that rewards Min maxing the fastest most spammable attack chain since they all do the same damage this at least to me had an even larger effect on my actual feeling when playing the game attacks no longer felt unique like each had a use but instead I started to view my weapon as an active hitbox that I needed to connect with enemies and that's it I might as well be hitting them with a wet paper towel not because the feedback back isn't there but because in the end the numbers and the impact wouldn't change I was happy to find certain moves especially within running and dodging attacks that were launchers or slammed enemies into the ground and I just wish more of these existed within the standard attack strings and with different damage values but they don't and it breaks my heart but we haven't reached the cherry on top and to get there I need you to come with me on a small Journey one of my favorite parts of Souls likes is finding my ideal weapon every new weapon you find might be your new favorite and for me it always comes down to the move set even if I find two Spears their attacks might be very different and make me prefer a one over the other some weapons in the franchise are famous for having very unique move sets and having each weapon be their own thing leads to there always being a chance that you'll find exactly what you want be it a dual blade a staff a katana a big ass hammer or anything in between and you won't know it until you equip and fight with it I don't think it's a stretch to say this is one of the most important parts of souls games it's existed since Dark Souls 1 and has only been expanded upon later with weapon arts in Dark Souls 3 and their equivalent in Elden ring and of course in bloodborne just how unique each weapon is is one of the biggest selling points discovering them and contemplating respecing your entire build to use them is a staple of those games sure not all weapons are created equal but even when some weapons have been overtuned it mattered much more that the weapon and its move set was fun to use and fit in with your desired play style oh boy when I began Lords of the Fallen I chose to play as The Condemned it is very similar to the deprived in Dark Souls but all of the starting classes fit a standard between Mages of each type and either more agility focused or more strength focused starts they don't determine more than your starting gear and stats with the latter being relevant because when you Respec you go back down to your chosen classes starting stats there are four unlockable starting classes depending on your ending in the game and an additional quest line which are all pretty cool overpowered options for a new run but all of their equipment can also be found in the world The Condemned specifically starts with two broken buckets for weapons and they are technically considered fist weapons I quickly noticed that the movement and speed of the game was enough for me to not care about Shields and how fun dual wielding buckets felt sold me on going for a dual wield build I switched to a short sword for a while because it was better than the buckets as you might imagine from there I transitioned into using two daggers and I was was really happy with that dual wielding but as soon as I had access to another shortsword I slapped that puppy on excited to see how it would play and you see to my disappointment they played exactly the same as the daggers you see in Lords of the Fallen all weapons in a class have the exact same move set I tested this it's true every single weapon is identical within its category of which there are 12 categories this does vary within dual wielding but there are a set of dual wielding options and in case you are mismatching weapons of different categories it will lean with the heaviest to decide your move set imagine the heights this combat system could achieve if it encouraged using it and if the admittedly cool weapons in the game felt more unique the excitement of exploring different move sets every time you find a new weapon when the move sets have this much flexibility but instead the moment you realize this all weapons truly become stat sticks within each category stat sticks to use in frustrating encounters with low diversity a positive Within These stat sticks are said stats Lords of the Fallen aims to place a larger emphasis on weaknesses through its different damage types and Status buildups mainly damage is divided into three categories physical holy and fire this aligns with the main stats of strength and Agility for physical and Radiance and Inferno for Holy and fire on top of this they can have six different status buildups bleed Smite and ignite are all build-ups that explode for a chunk of damage once full and increase damage taken from their respective damage type along with poison and burn for damage over time and Frostbite for a damaged chunk with with posture damage or limiting stamina against other players there's a fourth damage type called wither which deals damage that doesn't count until the enemy takes another instance of damage and if they deal damage they recover that portion of health and this corresponds to the umbrell realm and scales with both Radiance and Inferno and is also the third magic type this keeps it simple but also proves to be enough for variety different enemy types are resistant to different damage types depending on their faction if you will your main enemy pools are rogar which are the fire aligned and then you have the paladins which align with holy and the umbrel enemies aligned with wither they're grouped up in zones so you know when you enter an area if the enemies are going to be mainly holy or fire-based and you can swap out your gear your armor and your weapons to take advantage of that the biggest problem with this is that it doesn't matter too much you can smack around holy enemies with a full Radiance build for super high damage just the same because it would be terrible if your build was just hopelessly ineffective once reaching a new area so it really boils down to some extra flavor you can never have a successful build that's split between the enemy weaknesses since half of the time you won't use half of your stats what it does instead is incentivize you to use weapons with different damage types that fit your build so using a weapon with physical holy and wither damage guarantees you'll have an extra oomph on any enemies from One Source or another which is precisely what I decided on the most important consequence of this however is how it affects spellcasting having so many weapons that scale with Radiance Inferno or both means that you can have a very strong melee weapon while investing into a stat that also Gates magic in the game meaning you've already done the investment so you might as well use it this is one of the larger positives in the game that I enjoy it highly encourages magic even if it honestly doesn't balance it very well much like Elden ring especially at launch for that game the difference in difficulty when focusing on Magic and not is an enormous Gulf and Magic can trivialize a lot of the game but it is fun and it grants diversity to builds and attempts to have you implement magic in your combos very quickly I should mention the game also offers many ranged options designed to be incorporated into builds as well you have Throne weapons bows and crossbows with an ammunition system that functions the same as a Mana bar but it's just ammunition instead I really like this system for just having fun and eliminating the stress of one-time consumables on ranged weapons that need to farm ammunition it makes sense from this perspective that ranged attacks fulfill much of the same purpose as magic but magic doesn't require ammunition so just make both of the systems work the same of course these range weapons don't have the utility that spells have which are good not only for powerful range defensives but also slightly closer range or for area denial for Buffs and even for some really strong healing the game also drops a lot of Mana consumables when you spend time in the umbral realm so it's not difficult to keep your Mana topped up without farming for these consumables or buying them from vendors which you can do and also can for ammunition satchels this means that if you're ever at a difficult spot in the game if your build uses Inferno or Radiance upgrading your Catalyst and slapping on some spells will almost certainly get you out of it by late game I had no need to spend my very limited Estus flask equivalent the sanguin aric when for the cost of the smallest Mana recovery item I could heal with a spell and that that cost is just 250 experience at the shop so basically nothing at the end of the day I do prefer this because it makes magic feel powerful without sacrificing the core melee combat of the game and it does mean that the game feels like it's designed to be played with dipping some amount of your build into it and it is satisfying all three forms of magic have plenty of power and utility as well as a helping of flashiness on top which is of my larger positives about the game in general I like how this game looks we will talk more in depth about this later but for now armor weapons and especially spells all look very cool often better than they feel not because they feel bad not at all but because they just look really good build diversity and loadouts all benefit from this despite the huge disappointment in move sets and it follows through with customization through accessories and ruins slots on weapons you might struggle to change out your build and fully upgrade into something different however mainly because of experience scaling and this is another reason that having multiple full loadouts is not easy or recommended experience barely scales making this the soul like with the most boring farming and unrewarding corpse runs as an example let's take the Ardent penitent a fairly meaty high priority enemy they show up in the second zone of the game netting you 55 experience you fight them again in the third to last Zone almost 20 to 35 hours later depending on your speed their health and damage has been buffed to take more or less the same number of hits they took back then when you first encountered them approximately four to five rotations of dodging and hitting them but of course scaled up to all all of the damage you have now the experience increase to compensate for this 70 to 80 level difference and the cost of leveling associated with it 646 experience 150 experience more in other Souls likes even if I died close to a checkpoint I felt it was worth being patient and clearing my way back since the XP amounts always felt meaningful frequently the XP where I died plus that of the enemies defeated on my way could net me a level up even if it was just from running a level appropriate Zone twice in Lords of the Fallen there are corpse runs with upwards of 20 enemies that provide at maximum a 30% of a level up this means that I often felt it wasn't worth taking down enemies once I knew the path and was better off running for it dark souls not only rewards you better for taking out those enemies but in later installments you would never see checkpoints as long as the ones you can encounter here this means that saving up the materials and experience to upgrade two to three weapons and also your ranged weapon on top can feel like a SLO the last thing to touch on here is difficulty this will tie in more heavily in the next section focused on level design since that and the unique checkpoint system the game uses both tied into it but if we were to judge difficulty only on combat lers of the Fallen is not a difficult game it's actually on the easy side what it is instead is a devastatingly punishing game and often frustrating it seems to confuse difficulty with being annoying or unfun all of the enemies except I would say two which are the huntress and the FL lady are very easy to read and Dodge and learning their move sets and windows of opportunity is clear and well communicated you also have plenty of options with magic and range to take down foes that might offer you more trouble the difficulty in the game comes from throwing three to six enemies at a time with constant ambushes ranged attackers of All Sorts interrupting you in a fight this is why the game can feel so punishing because when you combine long runs from checkpoint to checkpoint with so many enemies it's not only that it's impossible to dodge attacks with so many enemies attacking you it's that they can body block you often on perilous terrain and if one hit goes through you could get hit stun and then be by another five resulting in your immediate death without any options to have survived that fight when going through a zone for a second time after you've died much of this difficulty as long as your patient will completely disappear you know where the ambushes are who to prioritize immediately after entering a room or where to stand to take out ranged attackers but during your initial runs you will die the worst part about it is that once you die you get that second chance in the umbrell realm you could heal up and make a comeback and that is true for some unfortunate deaths like getting pushed off platforms into pits or simply falling since your attacks are accompanied by so much movement but if you died in a situation where you are fighting a large assortment of enemies once you appear in the umbrell realm you'll have a brief period of invulnerability to readjust and maybe find a better position but you will still have all of those enemies attempting to end you as well as the now constantly spawning enemies of the umbrell realm this is bad enough as is but you will frequently die in large Arenas with the highest number of enemies and these Arenas often house bigger more threatening enemies in the umbral realm like the wasp-like womb of Despair which spawns even more zombie-like remnants the bringer of Stillness which is the reaper guy or this giant face the mendacious Visage in these moments it truly feels like salt on the wound and that's before before mentioning small issues that popped up on a more technical side like the lock on system often not locking on to what is on the center of the screen and just logging onto a non-hostile egg in a corner or something or the game just having very strange Behavior with holding down buttons sometimes be that menus that require a hold or more importantly taking a single attack number two and it decides to fully charge it that might be on me and my controller but I haven't encountered this anywhere else and it also seemed to disappear after some patches which as I said before the game is receiving daily at the moment before we continue and there is a lot to cover if you're enjoying this video and would like to see more videos like it and have them pop up in your feed do me an enormous favor and hit the Subscribe button it helps me out more than you can imagine but let's focus up here and talk about the worst part of Lords of the Fallen it's level design I thought long and hard if maybe the level design is bad because of that obsession with more and more enemies or if that simply adds fuel to the fire the conclusion I arrived that is that overall it's pretty bad it has some high points mostly centered around how the world fits together and clever uses of checkpoints as well as some inspired uses of the umbrell realm but overall even if you tone down the amount of enemies and tightened up the checkpoints it would still be bad there's a number of things at play that make make these levels easy to describe with the all-encompassing word bad and give some details as to why the first is an over Reliance on small platforms punishing drops and boring caves LS of the Fallen manages to somehow make every single area in the game contain at least the first two of this iconic Trio it's remarkable that in a game that is capable of presenting interesting concepts for its levels although a bit generic it manages to cram punishing drops and small platforms into every single one of them Lords of the Fallen contains roughly 21 areas depending on how you want to classify them with things like separating the shua Hamlet from The Forsaken fan or counting the sistern even though it doesn't have a vestage Within These 21 areas you receive 4 and 1/2 forests one that's dead and one that's frozen 4 and 1/2 caves one swamp two Castle ramp Parts Two Towns two churches one Tower one castle one cool kind of Monastery a mountain path which could be a forest and one crazy final area and of course your Hub at skyrest Bridge you might have already noticed a worrying Trend towards lack of diversity but I will give credit where it's do most of these areas are distinct enough from one another in one or multiple ways often through their set pieces or themes the problem is not that it's that aside from remembering those themes or set pieces it's very difficult to recall a lot of the things in between they become a blur with most areas being accessed through caves or through an elevator from a cave there was probably a smaller cave somewhere in the middle of all of that as well there were instakill drops present in all of them at some point often from falling and if there is no height like in the swamp they will place water which kills you in axium or normal form whatever you want to call it and will immediately send you into the umbrell realm often entering a cave will also have you change elevations descending or ascending a cave to reach a new location which is a perfect opportunity for you guest at small platforms with punishing drops just as I became as annoyed as possible at all these drops comes the mans of the hallowed Brothers a standout portion towards the late game in terms of environment and design and the maximum example of just throw 50 enemies in there as well definitely highlighting the best and the worst the game has to offer but this area was refreshing since for a large portion of it falling wasn't an option until they make you scale a huge Tower with rickety planks and ambushes of enemies right towards the end do you want to guess what level comes after this it is the Tower of pennant a level entirely designed around going down a massive Tower carefully balancing your fights and dodging archers on instakill drops with small platforms it's almost like a cruel joke to truly encapsulate the design philosophy at work like they made an entire hour or two long stretch of the game without any of these things and they got withdrawals so hard that they finished the area off with a tower climb and still had enough in them to need to make an entire following section all about a tower the amount of ramp parts and Cliff edges of winding caves and drops of towers and castle walls made it so that my strongest memories from Lords of the Fallen are a constant worry about my positioning it wasn't enough to understand enemy move sets and do battle with them no I had to always be looking out for the potential ledge I could get thrown off of or accidentally attack too close to and fall off if you asked me to distinguish between the areas that are primarily caves I could tell you that fitzroy's Gorge is the open cave and the sunless skan are the mines the sistern is the one with the giant instile pit of a sistern and Revelation depths is blue but I couldn't point out anything beyond their biggest most defining rooms or themes because they are all caves which contain paths that are barely wider than your character they all contain shifts to umbrell to open up some path they all contain far too many enemies inide cramped spaces and they all somehow contain the opportunity to die from a fall the best areas is from the perspective of being memorable and with interesting locations and routes our lower krath for its Town aesthetic while also being on fire and using that fire for its puzzles the F of the chill curse since despite it being a mess of forest Cliffs and paths and caves and annoying untargetable archers it does have the snowy mountain aesthetic which it combines later on with a watery dilapidated Castle town which is memorable to explore shifting in and out of of umbrell the man of the hallowed Brothers which is the previously mentioned interconnected mansion and church just before the Tower of penance which is also great because at least it's dedicated to its bit and the imperion which is a woefully short but visually distinct march to a potential final boss The Abbey and bramis Castle both fall short with the Abbey feeling like a worse more annoying mance and bramis Castle feeling like a lab of caves at times except now the walls are straight and at others just being an overly annoying mess of too many enemies not only does all of this mean that the majority of areas suffer from not being memorable or interesting but they are also all similar even the best ones in utilizing the same horrible ideas what's even sadder is that most of the stronger offerings from The Game come well after the Midway point which I would consider to be around upper krath according to steam at the time of writing this 4.5% of players have completed the five of The Chill curse and a similar number have completed the other progress options at that point in the game so I think it's safe to say that around 70% of players will never reach the best levels in the game I mean maybe that's better for them let's be honest there is a lot of frustration and unremarkable things to encounter before reaching them but it also allows us to gleam some really important information about the game and the mistake of saving its most unique best made levels for later when by spacing them out better that player retention could be much higher I am of course speculating because who knows in the end how many players will reach where this did lead me to an interesting thought on the general level design and how it ends up working out and I must preface this by saying that I do not in any way believe or claim to know how the game was designed or if it was designed this way but once you look at the structure of the game and the way the different areas are mapped out reaching a final dead end in that very Dark Souls 2 way it feels like different teams designed each branch in complete isolation you always start the game in a dead forest and always reach big imposing Castle structure at the bridge then you have a forest into a cave into a swamp for The Forsaken Fen then you have a forest into a town into a cave into a town into a castle or the upper Cal ra route with a deviation into two more caves for Revelation depths you also have Forest into Castle into frozen Forest into town into castle for five of The Chill curse and finally you have caves into Forest into town into churches into castle for bramis am I going insane at this point am I the only one that sees this now look I don't think this structure is the worst and we've seen it done similarly in other games Dark Souls I which I feel is the strongest direct comparison point for this game doesn't stray too far away from the same formula but it also offers a larger variety with small detours with quick changes in setting mid level and the levels themselves are all more unique with gimmicks backstories and art that make them stand out better in memory as well as a larger diversity in enemy types and enemy Encounters in each of these areas if we simplify Dark Souls 3 you're going from Castle to Old Village to forests to swamp to caves to Lava World castle town but now it's icy to more caves to Castle to different Castle to the end of the world but each of these locations has more ins and outs the swamp offers a castle detour the catacombs aail dungeon and the profane Capital couldn't be more different from each other despite all being caves an Orlando and lur Castle especially when adding in the grand archives all feel very different from each other in level design tone enemies in in basically everything and that's comparing Dark Souls 3 which in my opinion is the weakest in the franchise in terms of variety especially if you ignore Arch Dragon Peak and the DLC lord of the Fallen forests say that three times fast all kind of feel like empty land with trees decorated hallways with either the same enemies or a reskinned version in very similar configurations all of the caves as I mentioned before feel like winding tunnels with occasional big rooms even away from that some of these locations are so long and potentially longer with their checkpoints if you die that you'll be sick of them pilgrims perch is a great example of this it's the first area after the Hub and it's essentially just ramp Parts built on a mountain face with a series of caves connecting them within the mountain you will spend most of your time outside climbing the wooden planks and occasionally entering the caves often a sign of respit this area is one that you will revisit multiple times as it will later expand and connect with an even higher climb to the last branch of the game in your initial run with the game still fresh it's easier to forgive how much and for how long you are fighting on wooden platforms over precipice PES dropping ladders and bridges as shortcuts you spend a long time with the same gimmick of having a mountain on one side and Death on the other with a constantly vertical climb ahead of you at this stage in the playthrough the brief incursions into the caves feels fresh and breaks up the pace but even here you might feel like it overstays its welcome and you'll be happy to reach the bottom of the caves and emerge into the forests and then swamps of The Forsaken Fen when you return later on you'll now immediately notice that you are genuinely exhausted of this area and its gimmick now even worse with more and stronger enemies to fight on these same precarious Arenas and re-entering caves despite there now being a larger main cave with religious theming will have you thinking oh God no please no why more caves and ramp Parts there are other minor annoyances to single out though there's an an abundance of annoying ambushes and if you've ever thought that Dark Souls uses the trick of enemies behind a corner or a barrel too often you will have PTSD by the end of this game I haven't counted but I would argue that at least 70 to 80% of the time if you're walking through a door an enemy is to one of the sides and similarly for any destructible like fences and barrels the game loves placing ranged enemies in areas that are inaccessible so that you just have to fight while they shoot you or run away since they will also often be impossible to hit with ranged options from below and the last one is related to the umbrell realm I think that the concept of the Two Worlds with the lamp and some things only existing in the umbrell realm for puzzle solving and meshing that in as a mechanic and an added danger and change of pace is all very cool on paper the constantly spawning enemies and the 5 to 6 Minute time limit you have while the umbral less so since after that time an almost Immortal Grim Reaper will appear and and you can no longer use your Estus flask equivalent to heal it's the fact that these specific elements of too many enemies and the time limit is combined with some horribly long runs that makes me angry and also a perfect opportunity to talk about its checkpoint system bonfires in this game called vestages are few and far between to compensate for this you receive a consumable which you can also purchase called vestage seeds whenever you see a patch of um flowers you can use one of these to create a temporary bonfire they will remain until you plant another this means you can choose your own checkpoints throughout the levels there are three problems with this the first is that even these checkpoints can be terribly spaced out sometimes there will be a single easy encounter between two of these flower patches sometimes there will be six difficult encounters and a single mistake in any of them is enough to ruin that attempt that is between two Patches by the way imagine if you haven't placed any the second is the fact that it's a consumable meaning that it's easy for a player to overvalue them and hesitate in their use the third is how the game conditions you around levels their design and the fact that they are consumable let me explain early on many of those umbrell patches are placed very close to New checkpoints or to shortcuts to a previous checkpoint all it takes is one bad use early on of once again a consumable item to instill a sense of paranoia in the player and as I said the game gives you plenty of chances to make this bad use early on for me it was the sin piercer the mini boss of pilgrims perch the Trek to this boss wasn't easy and I managed to defeat it on my first try afraid of what was to come I used a vestage seed on the patch that spawned in the arena and not a minute later I reached a vestage there is a patch just before the boss one at the arena and a real vestage checkpoint right after as a general rule there are patches before every boss but you often don't know if a boss is coming since there are also patches everywhere sometimes after this one bad use I started to doubt if I should rest now or maybe right around the corner there would be a shortcut or a vestage and early on that often proved to be the case meaning that I would only use them in dire situations as the game progresses there are much larger stretches between shortcuts and sometimes there aren't even any truly useful ones it's more than Justified to use a seed halfway to a shortcut here but you never know and that hesitation has already been seated in the player as you approach and game many areas that function as hubs clearly want you to use a seed as they Branch out into two or three different smaller side areas from it but you don't know this until you explore the area and with all that hesitation from before if you choose a path and end up dying before returning to that Hub area a very long trick awaits you many of those paths secondary or primary require umbrell which once again means you have more annoying constantly spawning enemies on top of the regular ones and you don't get resurrected if you die my biggest question here is why why have such poor use of this system early on that conditions players why make it a consumable to begin with instead of just Min checkpoints that you lose if you choose to activate a different one why not just make them normal checkpoints I understand that it's a novel mechanic with a risk and decision maker attached to it that can spice things up and in concept I'm un boarded but the execution is terrible if this system had to remain as is I would make each patch more important and have there be less of them starting with outright useless ones such as the ones after bosses that lead to dead ends starting with outright useless ones such as the ones after bosses that lead to dead ends or after bosses in general since you probably have a patch just before them anyways I would also try and clearly indicate to players visually as fast as possible when they've entered a hub something that would benefit from having their respawn location move there showing them that there are multiple different routes to take all from a central location without the need of entering umbrell to notice some of them I would also Mark patches before bosses visually for players oh sure I'll ruin the surprise of entering the Boss Arena but I'd rather that than frustrate my players who accidentally jumped into a boss fight with no healing items left after struggling with the previous area for 2 hours just put a cross with a rosary or a headstone or a large flower sticking out if it's a patch that's just before a boss fight but in the end with all the headaches it causes and the probable unintended consequences it has on level design when the patches are considered as an option that exists but not one that you can estimate what players will take nor which I strongly question their implementation at all why not just have more checkpoints that lead to a better more tightly paced less frustrating game it's not difficult to see how punishing and frustrating this game can be player and critic feedback all seem to agree on this point so why add on top of it the final point to really touch on our bosses the story and how it all connects to the world I mentioned before that I like how this game feels I mentioned before that I like how this game looks for as many negatives as I've now said about the game the game has many redeeming qualities I haven't said this in the video before but multiple people have asked me why do I play through and then write and produce these elaborate videos if I don't like the game referencing my previous video on Starfield well because I never said I don't like them if a game is pure garbage I might make a video War consumers but I never do an analysis like this one I do it because there is value to be obtained from the analysis Lords of the Fallen tries very hard to do different interesting things with both large and small deviations from a now classic but almost never well done formula it stumbles more than it flies but it has ideas moments and elements that do soar for me nothing proves this more than it having an aesthetic and an amount of Love poured into it that I can't help but admire but with a world and lore that I found root and boring well beneath the quality of its art all taken to extremes with some of the worst bosses ever put into games like this but also a couple that are truly excellent of all the things that stand out I was consistently impressed by the art of the world it's a shame that locations and Concepts that end up being forgettable and held back by their design ALS o contain so much attention to detail it becomes very clear when traveling into the umbral realm just how much effort has been put into tiny Corners doorways and Gates decorated with this maab imagery that is fully sold when admiring the monoliths to death that suddenly appear in larger areas towering corpses covered in eyeballs and fleshy tendrils sprouting from walls it can all look magnificent similarly the design of of enemies while taking obvious inspiration from different reference material is inspired in itself in the choices that it took and it continues through into weapons and armor that all fit well and sell the power behind each piece of equipment or spell it's a chunkier aesthetic than Dark Souls but also not as far as the original Lords of the Fallen that AED into Warcraft territory it takes many cues and feels very adjacent while still being IM mediately distinct from The Souls franchise some of these bosses aesthetically are gorgeous just amazing designs on some of them primarily the big bosses since most enemies in the game are introduced as a boss battle but they're just a normal enemy moving on later the big ones are the ones that drop remembrances which you can obtain special items from be it their armor or weapons or spells through a separate economy however one of the biggest sins imaginable is commit Ed by many bosses in this game being large invulnerability periods the Hol Crow the light Reaver the hush Saint they all feature extensive periods where you cannot progress you have to play a dodging miname until they progress into the next phase and if you're struggling on the boss with multiple attempts this becomes infuriating and feels like a waste of time other bosses like judge cleric have move sets that are such a bar Doge of moves combining spells that trigger or function on their own while they also attack you that you have you have very long periods of time between Windows of opportunity unless you decide to tank damage or go full ranged as does the incredibly annoying paladins bird and mini boss fight it is also poetic given my complaints how the final boss of the normal ending plays out but I won't spoil that for you the game does have three endings which are basically summarized in you do what you are told you you do the opposite of that or you follow this very complicated list of things for a secret ending I wanted to do the normal ending and the secret ending for review purposes but honestly I didn't want to play through the game again for the secret ending neither in the overpowered new game zero which is the same game but you keep your character nor in New Game Plus which now seals off some vestages due to a very recent patch but originally took away all vestages and had you using only the seeds this now happens progressively throughout multiple Cycles increasing difficulty and your access to vestages the higher the new game plus number this I think by the way is a cool experiment although I think a more standard New Game Plus should be added for those that want it bosses and the lore of the world the idea of the lightbearers with their lamps being these Immortal beings brought back through the umbral world and the idea of a cycle with different gods since a deer represents the flame and you choosing to essentially Kindle The Flame or not is a bit trite after reading up on the secret ending it's also very Bleak and basically bloodborne it has its own unique elements of course but expect a lot of people losing their minds a lot of hunters and betrayals Old Kings babies and the end of the world to be more specific the story in this game revolves around orus and a deer which are two Gods a deer is the rogar God with all the fire and evil and oh he's so bad that the followers of orius who is so great lifted five beacons to seal a deer but a deer has been chipping away at the beacons so as the lightbearer you are sent by the followers of orius to unseal a deer so that you can kill him this already seems like a very ill-advised plot in order to contain a deer and to free him in order to kill him but you know whatever at the end of the day you might think this is a ploy but don't worry a deer really is very bad but so is orius and so is everyone this is a sad world and everything is kind of wrong no matter what you do including the secret ending and if you want to know more you can search it up much like I did and the two bosses exclusive to the secret ending are indeed visually spectacular so I'd recommend doing so if you don't go for it if you do play the game the most interesting part about the world and Lords of the Fallen 20123 is its aesthetic sensibilities the side characters and lur can have small interesting stories but n of them are really that compelling I think this comes down to the fact that the world in Lords of the Fallen is less interesting than those in from software's offerings it follows the same cues of having to dig through items and stigmas and piecing together the stories although with a lot more of it coming straight from the horse's mouth but the world in its storytelling and lore is less immediately interesting all of it feels watered down with the highest praise going to that artistic element where I think a lot of the unique twists that it tries there do work in creating something visually interesting all of that goes in the right direction for me the different bosses and especially the Umbra world can be SES to behold but with so much of the general experience in the game being so upfront and unremarkable the key thing is that you don't care to ask questions in Dark Souls many things that you see beg questions why is this here what even is this thing why are there trees holding everything up with Dragons under the world who is spider lady and what is a ceaseless discharge come on so much of it is explained in ways that lead you to questions but in Lords of the Fallen a lot is explained and even if it weren't I don't think it would make me wonder the light Reaper is a rogar dude who kills lightbearers I got that from the word go and he has a dragon so dragons exist but I don't encounter one or fight them so why should I care they're obviously subservient to these people whatever they are I didn't even wonder why ruiners or Trappers with their animal-based appearances look like that I understood that the evil church people were evil because they're all corrupted and twisted and new to what they belonged and probably why they are this way ever since you see Peta at the start of the game The umbrell Realm is never really explained unless you dive into the secret ending but there are moths and creepy creatures and it's all blue and that's enough because its real importance is never directly hinted at so we have no reason to believe that there is one of course we've been conditioned to this sort of Storytelling buy from software already so it isn't very novel anymore taking away some of that interest but it's also not executed as well as those games even compared to Elden ring which is a far more straightforward Affair than the the others in the soul series and this really is a perfect way to describe my overall feeling with Lords of the Fallen it's halfway there but just not enough in either direction it's not original enough It's Not Dark Souls enough and even with both of those things taken into consideration it's only 50% of what it could be if I had to choose a direction I think that they should push farther and Boulder into their own direction if they like fighting hordes of enemies make the combat even faster closer to a character action game give me more crazy magic and more cool weapons that go farther than they do now but they have to get the basics down pat the checkpoint system needs work as I mentioned before as does pacing level design and encounter design there needs to be more enemies more genuinely interesting and varied locations more move sets for weapons please Lord oh please this General combat feel should be tightened up or level design should accommodate for it so I don't fear falling off things with every attack but going for a different feel than Dark Souls is good in my book and this is why I'm so disappointed and why I made this video there are good ideas in here there are very talented people at this studio and there is a world where this game or its sequel are a standout addition to the genre because there is enough here to hint at doing something not just good but different the now genre of souls likes can't stay like this forever and while Indie Games try their best to adapt the genre to other formats like Sid scrolling isometric or top down and other games like lies of PE imitate souls to a tea and prove that there is as much appetite for it as there has always been at some point we need to Branch it off and have different offers maybe even be as bold as to try and evolve it in a different direction but nobody is trying to do that in the AAA space I am not in the studio I don't know what the true intention behind this game was but while you could look at it as a game that tried some stuff and imitated others poorly I like to think it's a game that shows a first attempt at trying something different and I hope that the lessons they learned lead them to trying again hopefully with a different name this time and nail it making something truly unique that can stand as something in the genre without being a clone because we need Risk Takers we need new ideas new IP to enjoy new things that make us giddy all over again I hope with all my heart that hex Works gets a second shot I think they deserve it and I hope it's a home run and while I could end this video saying that I didn't like Lords of the Fallen that it was an exercise in frustration most of the time a mundane walk punctuated by shimmers of gold and that it tried to run before it could walk and while I could say that my criticisms should be more than enough proof of that thesis i instead choose to end this video by saying that it's a phenomenal teaching tool there are lessons to be learned by the studio itself and anyone looking to make a game like this at every corner both good and bad that is something incredibly valuable but lessons are only as valuable as what you learn from them and what you learn is only as useful as what you make with it so go on then and please make something fantastic I will be eagerly waiting thank you all so much for watching until the end if you made it here and have nothing to say in the comments below please leave a comment saying a deer was right I will heart every comment saying that to feed the machine known as the algorithm I hope you enjoyed your time found this of value and if you did you know what to do like the video subscribe for more of my horrible takes and have a fantastic day I've been mug thief and I will see you with a somehow even longer video very soon

Channel: Mugthief

Views: 155,708

Keywords: lords of the fallen, lords of the fallen review, lords of the fallen essay, dark souls essay, ratatoskr, force gaming, skill up, angry joe, asmongold, ign review, gamsepot review, lords of the fallen patches, controversy, lords of the fallen best builds, lords of the fallen best weapon, fextralife, everything wrong with lords of the fallen, act man, vaatividya, iron pineapple, Mortismal, mugthief, starfield, baldur’s gate 3, lords of the fallen 2023 review, lords of the fallen 2

Id: Z9VaGPJMrUU

Length: 66min 25sec (3985 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 26 2023