Lords of the Fallen 2023 Review

do you enjoy reading do you enjoy reading short stories do you enjoy reading scary stories then I have just a thing for you stories of the bizarre and terrifying Omnibus 1 a complete collection of all of my short stories so far in one handy little collection it also comes with a handful of neat little extras including a glossery of all the creatures and forces I created over the years author's notes providing insight into my creative process and Inspirations and even two all new short stories that function as proof of concepts for two ideas I've had for much bigger works if you're at all interested feel free to check out the links in the description it's available in both ebook paperback and for the first time ever hard [Music] cover there's a lot of things that can be said about the souls born series one thing that I love about these games by from software is how they brought genuine difficulty back to mainstream gaming by showing it was possible to make something that can be both exclusive and challenging while also being profitable and in doing so they also inspired one of my new favorite genres Souls likes I've Loved These since the Inception of the first of their kind Lords of the Fallen to say that game was flawed would be putting it lightly but it was still an enjoyable EXP experience for what it was and most important of all profitable so it's publisher CI games could pursue their plans to make it into a series they're a publisher that I actually love thanks to their willingness to actually listen to criticism and improve upon what didn't work which is part of the reason why development on the sequel to Lords of the Fallen has taken almost a decade instead of the 2 to three years it was originally scheduled for which begs the question has the longawa sequel ended up being the Allen wake of the souls Lake genre or has it be become the Duke Nukem Forever of souls likes save to say it's Alan Wake because I had Balls of Fun playing this game and I even dare say it's my favorite Souls like now it needs to be said that when the first game came out back in 2014 CI games was very open about their intention for it being the first entry in a planned series however considering the mixed overall response from that game it is understandable that they went ultimately with the route of a reboot for the second entry but as someone who liked the 2014 game I'm glad that it's a soft reboot rather than a full-blown reset this is still the same old world as before set roughly a thousand years after the events of Harkin storming the Keystone Monastery the new Lords of the Fallen is a retread of the original narrative at the core the old God of dear is once again Awakening his demonic rogar armies are corrupting the land the beacons Main maintaining his prisoner tainted heralding his return and where the person who's most likely to have a chance at killing their Guardians in order to cleanse them opening the path to put down the Fallen God for good retreading the original premise aside this is actually a decent story I enjoyed learning more about the world as I explored it as well as learning more about the characters as I explored the land of morstead but what I found to be a real trait was the connections to the original I'm glad that the dev team at hex Works didn't approach connecting the two games with member berries in hand the connections between the two are subtle in the sense that if you play the 2014 game then you'll recognize certain names and items and will'll see the connection immediately but if you haven't they'll just go right over your head even the original protagonist Harkin he plays a role that depending on the player's actions can be either minor or major in the story and I love this don't worry that isn't a major spoiler though however I did find the the law and the background details of the story harder to follow than in other Souls likes for those who don't know in Souls borns and the likes the LW in these games is kept mostly in the item descriptions reading them not only informs the player but gives them pieces to narrative puzzles that can be solved by comparing descriptions observing the environments and taking note of dialogue connecting the dots behind the story is a rewarding charm to this genre but here it's harder because you're locked out of law for certain items based on your stats specifically radiant and Inferno these are what you need to focus on for magic builds so if you're not playing one that means you're sacrificing level ups that could have played into your character build or swapping out needed gear for items to temporarily raise those stats just to read a law description thanks to this when I first started my playthrough I only had a vague idea on how factions like the hallowed Sentinels the Church of orus and the dark Crusaders all related to one another I couldn't tell if they were rivals or former enemies now working together and to be honest this is just one decision that really does hurt the story combat is a functional and familiar Rhythm light attack heavy attack Dodge block Parry ranged 1 2 three and then dip your partner down to the dance floor but there's two unique additions that help set it apart from the usual Tango at the Disco one of them is a status Effect called wither and the other well that's tied to a mechanic I'll be talking about later with lets you preemptively stack damage on an enemy building it up until you land a regular hit causing the enemy to suffer not only that attack damage but also all the damage you stacked up however if that enemy manages to get in a few good hits then they can undo the Wither effect and get all that Health back this also applies to the player adding a nice risk and reward factor that encourages skill while trying to turn around a desperate situation if I did have to complain about the combat I would have to say there is a slipperiness to it in in the sense that every attack more or less pushes you forward very far more so than usual and this can throw off your sense of positioning but in all honesty this also makes combat comparable to the melee fighting from the original Thief by that I mean it's easy to gauge once you get the hang of it how far you'll move and as a result you instinctively learn to time your attacks not only to compensate for this but it also can help with learning when to attack to interrupt enemy attack patterns I do understand this might put some people off but compared to much bigger issue this is like winging over a gun in Shadow Warrior 2 being called the genocider that bigger issue well put bluntly the game's targeting system is just [ __ ] it constantly targets wrong enemies or even an enemy that wasn't even your target let alone part of the mob you were trying to whittle down this gets worse when there's interactable objects that you need to Target as part of a puzzle instead often it'll Target just some Rando who's in the neighboring postcode instead the latter being especially annoying when it's part of a sequence where avoiding enemies is the best course of action and you end up dying due to no fault of your own with all the patches the game has received it's annoying that there hasn't been one that addresses this part of the game which is in dire need of improvement however a rather nice aspect of the combat is the higher number of enemies that use ranged attacks compared to other Souls likes this necessitates a more varied approach to combat by the player since there's now a genuine reason to actually invest in stats that will let them use ranged weapons and magic in order to deal with these consistent threats when melee isn't exactly the most efficient solution what's more is we get a very broad sweep of weapons and Magic that indicate this was deliberate bows and crossbows with unique arrows and bols spells that do Elemental damage to debuffing combine that with the standard melee and what we get as gameplay that has more depth than it rightfully should however it needs to be said that the devs at hex work seem to be in love with Ambush encounters and I don't mean the ones that will get you every first time and you can then just easily counter these ones have been planned in such a way where they're almost guaranteed to get you every single time it doesn't matter how deep the combat is or how skilled you are from what I've seen these encounters are common throughout the game even when they should start to become more sparse they feel like they were placed in the game not for a challenge but just to throw the player off as often as possible and possibly to Pat out the run time and considering a lot of these can lead to a cheap death they're never not annoying I believe now would be a good time to talk about that other mechanic that combat is involved with this would be the Dual World mechanic and I will be real with you this is [ __ ] sweet no joke it not only adds an extra Dimension to exploring with hidden treasures shortcuts and puzzles but it also turns combat that was already as deep as a pond and makes it as deep as a lake we use this lamp called the umbrell lamp to glimpse into this other world well called the umbrell allowing us to interact with it in a more limited capacity but not without danger the umbrell has its own enemies that will spawn in endlessly and if you get too close while peering in they can hit you and pull you in this adds some more overt horror Vibes to the experience other than the demonic stuff that's going on with the Roga but that's not all the umbrell also affects combat by adding a second chance element in the sense that every time you die rather than just getting the standard you are dead message you'll instead revive within the umbrell itself and if you manage to find an exent point before dying again then you can return to the living world without any cost some enemies are also buffed by umbral parasites for extra challenge but to make them normal again you need to use the lamp to kill the parasite thing is this can leave you vulnerable to attack adding some extra risk for fun and sometimes frustration something else the lamp can do that helps set the game apart from other Souls likes is that it allows the player to create custom checkpoints at set points within morstead this can make backtracking less of a hassle and can also to let the player take a side of relief when they're on the back foot but you can't exploit this to turn the game into a cak walk far from it since you need an item called a vestage seed to make one and your only options to get your hands on one is to either grind in the umbrell or buy one from a specific vendor and only one can exist at a time so using a seed for a quick heal means sacrificing a shortcut for an area you are planning to explore after getting stronger this adds weight to every time you consider using one the only real issue with this mechanic is that the places to plant a seed tend to be either few and far between or too close together so it can be genuinely hard to tell whether or not it's actually helpful to use a seed or if you're just going to waste one until it's too late but going back to the umbrell itself you can use this world to grind which adds an extra layer of risk and reward see while you're in the umbrell you are being watched by the creatures that live there and so the longer you remain there the more frequently enemies will start to spawn in and in larger numbers with more specialized monsters eventually showing up to put their boots to your ass this is where the 2014 games XP multiplier comes in the more you kill in the umbrell the more Vigor you'll get for each kill but you just can't stay in the umbrell for too long what stops you from exploiting this mechanic too much in one go is that eventually something mean angry and near Invincible will show up to make you it [ __ ] I love this is the perfect way of organically letting the player know that yeah you can grind but there's a price that needs to be paid that'll make spending time in your local prison showers seem like a holiday at Bondi Beach the only real issue I have with the Dual world is how the umbrell lamp factors into combat it lets you use a Wither based special attack called Soul flame using this on enemies rips the soul from their body stunning them and gives the player a chance to not only inflict wither but also take some serious status damage this works and is great but when you add it on top of everything else that makes up the combat you end up with a similar situation to Doom Eternal combat primarily in the early hours of your first playthrough ends up feeling bloated and you will hesitate at times as you wonder whether or not you forgot something that could give you an edge but unlike Doom Eternal once you get into the rhythm of things using Soulfly will be second nature like using the spirit ashes in Elden ring it also needs to be said that I was disappointed by The Game's art Direction many things can be said about the 2014 game and one is that it's more colorful Larger than Life art style that clearly took inspiration from Warhammer helped the game stand out from Dark Souls and the other Souls likes that followed so seeing it abandoned for a more generic dark fantasy art style is very disheartening I won't say it's bad though mad's many locations all look distinct and the realm is a stark gigantic and creepy contrast to The Living World so some Echoes of the old art direction did survive which is good I just don't like that what could have added to both the game's identity as well as the identity of the series was abandoned for something that is considerably more humdrum on the technical side of things I have to say it hasn't been entirely smooth people have been reporting issues with the frame rate and overall stability but credit where it's due hex Works have been very diligent about rolling out patch after patch not only to fix these problems but also rebalancing the game to make enemy encounters more fair where people have been complaining about them there's even a road map released for the updates and upcoming free side content and as a side note I love the new bucket Lord quest line and what it builds up to personally I didn't encounter too many technical issues myself the frame rate was consistently aable I did notice some dips though in areas dominated with particle effects but even then it wasn't enough to render the game unplayable a bigger issue I did experience was some texture pop in but that's only been when starting the game up and whatever other issues I did have I have to be honest I attribute those more to me storing the game on an HDD Drive instead of the recommended SSD however a technical issue I have seen has been with the game's multiplayer thanks to the net code being [ __ ] every time I've invited another player into my game to help out their connection always died out sooner or later before I could get a chance to dismiss them I don't know if this means they missed out on any rewards since I never went out to other players games but there's no denying that this does suck especially when I fought Peta and the guy disconnected Midway through the fight this is an issue from what I've seen that hex works really needs to fix that being said I'm not dismissing the issues other people have seen considering that some people have reported only getting single digigit frame rates on their rigs or one guy in the Steam Reviews who couldn't even get past the title screen but from what I've seen personally net code stability is a much more pressing issue for Lords of the Fallen at the end of the day I loved my time with Lords of the Fallen yeah it's a flawed game but it's a beautiful diamond in the rough and it's one of those games where every time I picked it up I just kept playing past the time I originally planned stand for because I was just having so much fun Sonic Frontiers Bal escate 3 Deadly Premonition Pathfinder Wrath of the righteous Elden ring Robo Quest aliens Dark Descent and cold of the land before it it's just like those games in that regard I'd even dare say this is the closest we're ever going to get to a Dark Souls 4 and if it ever gets paid expansions in the future I hope we see two things in particular the first an expansion that takes us back to the setting of the 2014 game and explore the remnants of anas's ambition and an additional side quest preferably one based on the fact that this was the last game to be reviewed by Yi on zero punctuation before The Escapist imploded that would be swell get a suit of armor that's yachi themed maybe get a hat themed helmet maybe even have him voice a character that'd be sweet first of all I'm sorry this is so late but life has been hectic I've been getting ready for Christmas focusing on work and trying and failing to get a new short story done in time for the big day but hey better late than ever I suppose anyway if you guys really liked it then by all means hit the like and the Subscribe buttons I really would appreciate it and I do have two other videos planned that I was hoping to have out before New Year's Eve but unfortunately due to circumstances Beyond My Control they won't be out till at least January and I am planning to at least try to get back into doing movie reviews again as well I've got all that more coming up so please stick around

Channel: aus741LX

Views: 713

Keywords: soulslikes, gaming, lords of the fallen, ci games, PC, fantasy, hexworks, horror, fun, dark, reboot, god, israel, palestine, trump, biden, 2024, christmas

Id: 1IqbFT44j-k

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2023