(electronic beep) - [Falcon] Welcome back to another episode of Before You Buy, the show where we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions for the latest games releasing. Way back in 2014, almost a full decade ago, we got one of the first Soulslikes with Lords of the Fallen. It was not great. For whatever reason, I looked back on the original Lords of the Fallen fairly fondly, but I went back to it recently kind of because I was excited for this game and it wasn't good. Honestly, objectively speaking, it was pretty bad. Certainly the sub genre wasn't really established in the way that it is now, and the only real people with experience in that highly specific type of game was FromSoftware, but CI games is having a do-over that was originally going to be a sequel,
Lords of the Fallen 2. Remove the number, added the word the, so that it was in there twice, the Lords of the Fallen. Then just plain Lords of the Fallen, with a subtitle Dark Crusade, and now just Lords of the Fallen. Again, a reboot. It's had a hell of a
development cycle, too. Production's been rebooted at least twice, with new developers brought in and canned. The scope of the project got scaled way back and then brought way the hell back up. Like honestly, it's kind of a miracle we're even looking at a final game with all that turmoil. The developer behind the original deck 13 didn't return for this game. They actually went on to redeem themselves somewhat with the Surge games, which are honestly pretty
good Soulslike games, but they have nothing to do with this. Like I said, Hex Works, which is a new studio, is who came up with this one. I gave you a lot of background here, 'cause I kind of wanted
to set expectations. This should have been a
disaster and it's not. It's actually pretty great, if you could get past
the technical issues. Now, you're seeing the footage and you're probably noticing it already. It's the worst thing about the game. The stutter. Lords of the Fallen's PC performance at least on the build I've played pre-release, it's not good enough. Slow down and stuttering
are a constant irritant and no matter what
settings I adjusted it on, it just did not seem to make a whole lot of difference. The only way I was able to get a decent frame rate was
to drop the resolution and crank the DLSS up
to ultra performance, which it doesn't seem to do a whole lot honestly. Listen, I don't want to turn this into a Digital Foundry style breakdown, but the performance
absolutely needs to be better. I have a PC that's well among the recommended settings
on the Steam page. It's not the best PC out there, but if it's supposed to run well on the recommended settings, then it should run well on mine. I don't know what's going on here. If you're on PC, don't even think about playing it without installing it to an SSD. It's practically unplayable in a standard hard drive. It's unfortunate because it's a pretty good Soulslike. There is a story. I don't know how much it matters. I do recognize some of the elements from the original game. There's the regar demon guys and the big hand in the distance. But you absolutely do not need to play the original. It doesn't matter. This is basically a reboot. The gameplay is... have you played Dark Souls? Well, it's that. If you've ever played a Souls game, or a Soulslike, you will be at home. There are multiple classes to pick from at the start. You can customize your character, and then you're off to cleanse these five corrupted spots and save the kingdom. Along the way, you meet a whole bunch
of dubious characters with their own motives and everyone's going crazy like some kind of cackling weirdo. Everything is falling apart. It is a Souls game. It might sound like I'm
calling it a copycat, but it is a reboot of a copycat. So I mean there's some element of of course there, but at the same time I did tell you it's a good game. So I want to make it clear that I'm just kind of saying Souls likes or Soulslikes. This one actually has some
pretty good innovation. The most interesting is the lantern, this magical object you get at the start of the game that lets you see the world of the dead. It's a good looking game in general, but the lantern's light is
the most impressive trick. Turning it on reveals a
grotesque alternate reality that can open up new paths, and can be used to solve
puzzles and hidden items. It's not just a place to look at. You can also transport yourself there using the lantern and if you die, you'll come back to life
in the land of the dead, which gives it a bit
of a Sekiro-like twist. I also, I mean we've talked about effect and cause
from Titanfall before, or a crack in the slab from Dishonor 2. The one in Stilton Manor. I like to talk about those a lot, and this reminds me of that, but in Dark Souls, and not time travel but
rather alternate dimension. There's also additional things, like it's not just that
it looks different, it's also more dangerous just by default. There's a risk reward
system to just being there. You get more souls or
vigor in this game rather, the longer you're in the land of the dead. Eventually, if you're
here too long though, enemies start spawning more often, and an un-killable hunter will start stalking you relentlessly, draining your health and making it impossible
to use healing items. So when he shows up, that's your cue to go. There are a few ways out. There's the usual save points, but there's also these
corpses dotted about that let you revive yourself. The save points themselves tend to be spread pretty thin. So to survive, you're gonna want to find flower beds that allow you to paint mini-checkpoints. That could be a bit of a lifesaver in longer, more dangerous areas. Planting one of these things uses up precious resources though, so that ends another
element of risk-reward. Do you plant a seed now? Do you risk it? Try to get further? So that you're close to
the boss when you do it? These are, I think, good ideas and they work. So this isn't an open world game, but the most impressive thing about it probably is the world. It's like a true successor to the original Dark
Souls interconnected map. It's a lot bigger, I'll say. The places you explore, they're all huge, complex mazes that interact with each other in very surprising ways. There was one moment where I connected back to the hub area. I was just legitimately shocked. It seemed impossible, but if you look, it actually
makes a lot of sense. The variety of areas here, they're mostly all places you've seen in one form or another in souls games. There's rickety wooden shags hanging off the edge of a cliff, murky swamps that thankfully aren't filled with poison. Burning villages, snow covered hamlets, war torn ramparts, et cetera, et cetera. If it didn't look so good, you might just excuse it
all as another Lordran. But the environmental detail is fantastic. Every area here is so dense and complex in a way that would be exhausting if you just want a
straight up action game. But Souls games require a
good exploration element and this game just does it in spades. Just in terms of its exploration elements, it's probably one of the
best Soulslikes out there. You need a good memory though, 'cause the map is kind of worthless, and there are moments where I got a key and I didn't really know where I was supposed to go with that key. At a certain point in the game, I had five distinct directions I could explore, each leading to new areas which are all awesome, like I'm not complaining. That's actually great. It's really satisfying when these games give you
different places to go, because if you get stuck in a boss or an area too difficult, you can go somewhere else. Which I think is kind of better than the more linear
game where you hit a wall against a powerful enemy, and the only options are
to keep getting killed until you master the fight, or to kind of backtrack and grind. This game lets you go somewhere else, which kind of works as grinding, except for it's doing something different, so it doesn't feel like grinding. It's about as non-linear as a game like this gets outside
of like, Elden Ring, which is of course a
full on open world game. The combat, it's very strong. One thing that this game really embraces that a lot of Soulslikes neglect, is player choice. It gives you an absolute ton of weapons, gives you tons of armor, tons of spells, and just lets you have at it. For the most part, it all feels really good to control, too. Combat is fast and fluid. You can dodge, you can block, you can parry. And unlike a lot of these games, all three options actually feel viable. Parry timing is pretty forgiving, at least for this kind of a game. Dodging gives you a pretty decent amount of invincibility frames, turtling up even feels good. Nothing is gonna give
you a hundred percent damage absorption or anything, but the game has a bloodborne-style health recovery mechanic, that is also pretty forgiving for this type of a game. As long as you don't
get hit a second time, that health will always be there for you to get back by attacking. And this is a minor thing, but another innovation introduced here is how ammo is for ranged weapons. Instead of just buying ammo, you always have a set amount that refills when you rest. It's good 'cause there's often archers in this game hiding out
in hard to reach places. There's one use items that
can refill your arrows and bolts called ammo pouches. But otherwise you don't really have to worry about counting
every arrow you have. Ammo works more like a mana meter here, and I know that that's not realistic, but what about a Soulslike is genuinely realistic? Anyway, I like this. I think that it's a good addition. It shows that they put some effort into streamlining certain elements of these games, and maybe even, God forgive me for saying this, but balancing them. (chuckles) I don't know, it feels a little more fun honestly. One thing they didn't change though was how jumping works. You still have to dash, then press a button to jump. It's still unnecessarily awkward, and I don't know why
Soulslikes are so obsessed with replicating this. In Elden Ring, if you want to jump, you press jump. Is there really people that love how jumping works in Dark Souls 1? I know that somebody's gonna jump down my throat for that, but like I really genuinely don't understand why
this keeps popping up. It's not something I enjoy personally. That could vary. I don't know. But that's my opinion on that. Overall though, combat is great, but it's also not the
game's strongest aspect. Bosses feel a little
stock a lot of the time. There's not a whole lot that's
gonna surprise you here. They're fun to fight
and they sometimes have some interesting tricks
to spice things up, but in comparison to like Lies of P, there's not a lot here
that's gonna wow you. I do appreciate the game's commitment to old school design by having you fight a lot of the bosses in unusual areas, or ones with additional enemies that can add problems. In any other game it might be annoying, but here it really works, and actually makes certain encounters a lot more interesting. So I mean even in the fact that these are kind of old school, traditional, not necessarily
super-creative bosses, there is a silver lining. Enemy variety can feel kind of weak at times unfortunately. A lot of the enemies you're fighting at the very start will
still be bothering you near the end of the game, with more hit points, of course. Overall, kind of wanted a little bit more. Lot of standard ass zombies and knights and stuff. They do mix things up with something weird once in a while. Stuff that really keeps you on your toes. That said, it is mostly
knights and demons. The world of the undead does tease some bizarre creatures with its grotesque visuals built right in the scenery. But the actual enemy's
kind of samey here, too. Mostly zombies, grim reapers, butterfly monsters, big face guys. The last one's by the way, a little more interesting than the rest, but there does need to
be more than just that. And I know that sounds
like a serious complaint, but even Elden Ring
started to get repetitive with enemies after a while. So I don't know that
the lack of variety here is really a deal breaker. It's just an aspect of the game that could have been improved. And also, keep in mind that's from somebody who's played a lot of these games at this point. If you maybe pick out a Soulslike every once in a while, I don't know if it's gonna read as that noticeable. I don't know. I definitely try to see things from different perspectives, and it's not a big complaint for me, just a noticeable one. The music, however, really good for one of these games. They went full orchestra on this one and it absolutely shows. It does lean kind of heavy on bombast over the more kind of melodic stuff you would hear in
something like Bloodborne, which is what I generally prefer. But I also have to say
that it really works. It's done well. It comes off well in
terms of how cues line up and how the sounds and aesthetics and orchestra come. I mean it's really good. There's also an entire
multiplayer component of the game, with its own version of
covenants and everything that seems, it's fully featured, but I didn't experiment with it much in the pre-release build I was able to play it on. What I have seen seems pretty intriguing, but I don't think if I commented on it, it would really do it justice. Whether that is good or bad. The game claims you can team up with a friend seamlessly, but I, I don't know how that works, 'cause I didn't have any friends who had pre-release builds of Lords of the Fallen to play with me. But because of the multiplayer, this game has Denuvo anti cheat and there's a lot, I feel like it's worth speculating that it's the cause of the stuttering. I don't know if it's operating while you're playing single player, but if it is, oh, I would not be shocked. Denuvo kind of sucks, horrifically. It could also just be Unreal Engine 5. I don't really know, but I'll say this, I run a lot of Unreal Engine 5 stuff. I run the demos, they don't act like this. So I don't really know. Honestly this game is just a ton of stuff to like. The combat is satisfying, the exploration is excellent, and the visuals are very impressive. The problem here is just the performance on the PC. It might just be something involving my particular setup, I don't know. But for me the PC performance is not good on this game. I am assuming it fares better on consoles. So like, if you could play the game without the problems
that I'm talking about, it's really a fantastic Soulslike and I would recommend it, no problem. So like, look into it. But I have to imagine it runs better on consoles, and that's probably
where you should play it. But it's kind of hard to recommend for the PC in its current state. It's not unplayable, but it could be a whole lot better. And it's not like it's a mediocre game. It's actually a great game. Even with all of these problems, I'm personally thinking that like, this is maybe not S tier, but A or B tier in terms of Soullikes. Like okay, if you like soul's games, but you've been disappointed that they never really followed up on the first game's dense, interconnected worlds, Lords of the Fallen is gonna, it's gonna work for you. It can be a little exhausting 'cause of how dense the world is. And for a game as big
and complex as this one, the lack of a functioning real map is maybe for some disappointing, but otherwise there's
just a ton to like here. It sometimes feels more like a successor to Dark Souls 2 with all the night bosses, but they're at least fun to fight. But the thing I think
this really excels at is the exploration and world design, 'cause it does that stuff so good. It just stutters so much on the PC. You saw, you watched this video, it drove you nuts. I promise you, if you're anything like me, it drove you nuts. The performance issues
are the biggest problem with the game, period. Again, I hope that on console it plays better, 'cause
you're only dealing with one possible setup per console. It seems like a situation where optimization would be a lot easier. So I hope they have done it there. But on PC, they really need to put out a patch as soon as they can, that fixes the stuttering. If they did that, I would give it a
full-throated recommendation. I, I feel like it deserves it. But that is just one big problem that just, it's glaring. It's a problem with a
lot of games nowadays, but it's a particular
problem with this game. And I just, I just don't think that it's right to recommend these games, until they have them working. But beyond that, like to say this is 10 times better than the original Lords of the Fallen, I think is an understate-- It doesn't do justice to
the actual game itself, separate from the performance issues. And man, it's really does deserve a lot of credit on on all of these fronts especially after such a
troubled development cycle. If they get this thing running right, this is a hell of a Soulslike. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let
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for watching this video. I'm Falcon, you can follow me on Twitter at FalconTheHero, we'll see you next time right here on Gameranx.
