REVIEW: Lords of the Fallen

Lords of the Fallen since it’s announcement at E3 2013, has long since been cited as being a Western brother of Japanese From Software’s Souls series.

After playing the game at the PR event in London and since being graced with a copy to review, it’s hard to refute. They ARE very similar.

So similar in fact, that the developers gave up caring about the comparison. And for good reason. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having your game being compared to any game of the Souls franchise. They fill a very niche, yet hardcore corner of the gaming market, and any game aimed at that market by a different developer since Demon’s Souls was always going to be scrutinized.

So its probably no cause of surprise that I am a BIG Soul’s fan. Big. And when the opportunity arose to review the game, my hand was in the air quicker than a squirrel sling-shotting round the moon. I’ve been keeping my eye on this game since I first glimpsed it at E3.

With nips that could cut glass, I lovingly tore open the cellophane wrapper and inhaled that ‘new game’ smell. With trembling hands, I slid the disk into the slot and while it was installing, I changed into a fresh pair of pants. I knew I was going to be needing them.

Admittedly, if you’re not already a fan of these kinds of high calibre, patience, nerve and heart testing action adventure games, this might fly straight under your radar. Perhaps you’ve already heard it likened to other games, but let me say this.

It’s far more accessible.

The tutorial is graciously in depth. Pitting you against enemies from the get go drops you straight in at the deep end, and I may even be bold in saying that the game is nothing BUT deep end. But who am I kidding, we all know I like it deep and hard… games that is…

I may have tore through the beginning sections more times than I’d care to admit, given that I’ve put all the classes through their paces AND mix and matched their magics.

Three classes and three magic types – rogue, cleric and warrior, deception, solace and brawling , and you’re able to mix the both into about 9 hybrid characters, so a warrior with solace magic becomes a paladin, for example.

Your starting class literally dictates your starting equipment and your stats. As long as you have the stat requirements for the weapons and armour you want to use, there’s no reason you can’t. There are some drawbacks and limitations for this.

Naturally if you’re a rogue, light armoured character and have levelled in keeping with a particular build you had in mind, finishing off enemies with a hammer might make your swings cumbersome and slow, and in some cases you might be over-encumbered altogether, suffering a mean hit to your move speed.

This is why the tutorial area is a good place to get to grips with how you want to play. Is playing as a Cleric too slow because of his hammer? Are you not doing as much damage as you’d like as a rogue?

The use of magic is an excellent addition. As I progressed through the game, I found I was often struggling. Health potions are not always plentiful in supply, and some ‘lowly’ enemies begin packing a fair punch if you’re taken by surprise. I’m a pretty offensive player (in more ways than one, please don’t tell my mum!) so often I value speed, critical attacks and DPS over tanking it out.

Rule number one of any game like this is: Don’t forget your defence! This can come in so many forms, from shields, better armour and spells. Investing XP (which I’ll get to) into your spells is actually a REALLY good idea, at least for the first time player, because they can offer that breathing space which can literally be the difference between life and death.

I found Solace magic to be a real life saver while battling against bosses. When you’re getting ganked left, right and centre and your bumhole is beginning to resemble cottage cheese, slipping out a spell that buffs your defence and regens your health at the same time makes you feel invincible! Take THAT, shield-smashy man!

Levelling up is done in an interesting and somewhat risky way, and it’s entirely up to you in which way you do it.
After defeating enemies you earn XP. However, for each successive kill, your XP multiplier increases until you die, or you bank it. Red crystals are dotted few and far between, and within them you can bank your acquired experience into attribute skill points (for increasing things like your strength, vitality, energy) or magic skill points (to increase the effectiveness of your spells).

Doing so will then reset your multiplier.

However not doing so, and carrying on and bumping that up can reap some hefty rewards. It just depends how brave you’re feeling. There is an achievement for defeating a boss with more than 20k unspent XP. I guess you’ve gotta ask yourself one question… “Do you feel lucky?” Well do ya, punk? Only kidding, you’re a scrub, not a punk…

Upon your death, your ‘ghost’ remains; holding tightly to your experience for you until you get the chance to reclaim it. However, the experience ‘leaks’ away and there is a timer in percent for you to get it back. The XP will spill away over time and if the timer counts down, you’ve lost it. However, it’s pretty generous and there aren’t very many places too far from checkpoints so I don’t think there is any reason you shouldn’t get most of it back.

When I mentioned that Lords of the Fallen is accessible, I wasn’t kidding.

It doesn’t hold your hand in the sense that it points you in the way you need to go, but the lore is freely given by way of dialogue and collectible items, and an on screen reminder tells you what your current objective is, lest you smash your tv screen and leave the game waiting for a month until you’ve calmed down and come back and have no idea what you were doing.

It’s accessible. But, that it doesn’t mean its easy.

Oh, it’s not easy.

One of the great things about this game is that it emulates that uneasiness, the vulnerability that veterans of such games would be familiar with. This was something in particular I was slightly concerned about. I didn’t want to be too comfortable. I wanted to be worried about where I was going and what I might run into and whether I had levelled right for what may lay ahead and whether the weapon I was using was right for this particular enemy. Especially as you progress and come across new looking enemies, how much stronger will these guys be than similar ones you met previously? The answer is often “significantly so”, to the point I actually couldn’t bear to do one section because as I continued to die and the enemies respawned every time, it meant the harder ones would often take out a good portion of my health potions before I got to pick off a team waiting for me further down the road.

It’s not completely open world, but at the same time, I personally feel that it doesn’t feel linear. You progress through what I presume is an intended path, but the scope and scale of the world you’re in is very large indeed. Almost labyrinthine in a way, tunnels, corridors, winding paths connect to previous areas which serve to open shortcuts. Not to mention the plethora of secret chambers, and rooms. And it’s easy enough to get lost and be completely uncertain of where you’re supposed to be heading next.

To get down to the real nitty gritty of the game, the graphics are terrific. Cinematic sequences are sharp, and still frames are rendered so superbly, that it’s almost scary to think that the people you’re looking at aren’t in fact real. The photo-realism in parts is a real credit to the graphics developers.

There is a lot of ambient lighting, which gives Lords of the Fallen a very natural feel, with lense flares, and particles floating about in the air. Many environments also have weather effects, so if you’re outside and it’s snowing, expect snow particles to be landing on the screen, or tumbling leaves to add depth to the outside ambiance.
There are some slight texture blips now and again when it comes to secret walls, where the breaking texture is removed completely and leaves a perfect rectangular gap.

Controlling is great, it works perfectly. A nice addition to the combat is the ability to cancel out moves, like going to heal and cancelling it with blocking because you didn’t mean to.

I’m a stickler for subtitles in games, I think they’re almost always absolutely necessary, and not only because I’m certain I’m becoming deaf in my waning years. However, there are some typos and errors in the subtitles which are a little disheartening. With a game as polished as Lords of the Fallen, it seems such a silly oversight.

You know, yes this game is a lot like Dark Souls, but in some of the most fundamental ways, it’s not. And it’s a bit of a contradiction really, because the ways in which it is most like Dark Souls is also the ways in which it isn’t.

While From Software made their game to be played almost on the fly, with the ability to evade literally every attack going, CI Games made their game so that it was almost necessary to take damage. You know you’re going to have to take it at some point, and that is something that is very clear in Lords of The Fallen.

It feels heavier than Dark Souls, slower even, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It all boils down to socio-philosophical differences between cultures.

It’s clear the Japanese laud the ability to foresee and evade attacks, whereas Lords of the Fallen, having been developed by Central European creators, seem to adhere to the “can’t learn without getting bashed” school of thought.

Should you get this game?

It’s REALLY up to whether you have the time and the patience for it. It really would be a shame to miss out on a game because of its similarities to other games within the genre, on the other hand, it would be an absolute waste of money to do so and feel like you’ve been repeatedly punched in the back-door with an iron fist… Unless that’s your thing.

So expect to have your ass handed to you time and again, expect to rage and cry and try to force the controller into your bum like a kid who just had his WOW subscription cancelled. It’s every bit as brutal as you should be expecting at this point. It’s ‘Souls’ without the Neo-Confucian sociological gestalt of Japanese culture. It’s ‘Souls’ if Dark Souls went and made dirty, hairy love to a Viking at 3am in the morning absolutely tanked to the guts on mead.