Review: Lords of the Fallen

I went into Lords of the Fallen waiting to be convinced. I have never been overly excited by the Dark Souls formula of tough-as-nails gameplay and minimal story. My preference lies in narrative-driven games with gameplay that service that goal, like the Uncharted series.

When the opportunity arose to review Deck 13’s homage to From Software’s popular fantasy series, I decided that it would be a good chance to get in on the ground level of a franchise. I can’t say my views have changed drastically after playing Lords of the Fallen though.

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It is actually odd how long it has taken for another developer to pick up on the Dark Souls phenomenon. It is a niche idea but the popularity of the series almost demands emulation. Lords of the Fallen tells the story of Harkyn, a former prisoner, who is freed in order to protect the realm from the Rhogar invasion. As I indicated earlier, while a story exists, it is clearly not the focus of the game.

What you do get is a continuous reminder of the next task you need to complete in order to progress – of course, the hard-as-nails approach means you do not get a map to help you navigate to that task. Without a map, you stumble around initially with only your exploration skills to aid you. As I can get lost in a phonebox, the start of the game was particularly difficult.

As I started Lords of the Fallen, I needed to create a character. This is where the first of many head-scratchers popped up. Firstly, when choosing what type of character you want, you must decide between three magic types and equipment set-ups. Magic types include Deception, which involves decoys and passive damage against enemies, Solace, which recovers and buffs defences, and Brawling, which revolves around physical damage to enemies. Once a type is chosen, it is then combined with your equipment choice – Warrior, Rogue or Cleric. These selections decide on what abilities you have, but being new to this type of game, I stuck with a brawling warrior, hoping that would make it easier.

Thankfully, outside of abilities, your choice still allows you to use almost every weapon in the game. That comes in handy later on when you will need to use different strategies against some of the more dangerous enemies. To be honest, it felt like the weapons were on par with each other in terms of damage and such, with range and speed of use being the distinguishing factors.

When talking about more dangerous enemies, it seems obvious to talk about the boss battles. Like Rik in his earlier preview, I died… a lot. While I did eventually persevere, I never felt like I won the fight. It took a few (or a lot of) deaths to figure out the chink in their armour but when I did, it usually felt like I was exploiting something, rather than using my know-how. It just felt unjustified and unfulfilling at times.

The weapons and equipment found in the game are not overly diverse. They do not require vast changes to your gameplay to master or accommodate. Blacksmiths can also be used to craft items but I never felt like I had to. Usually, the abilities I had allowed me to progress so long as I was smart about the weapon or equipment type I chose for each situation.

Lords of the Fallen looks fantastic. It mixes the real-world feel of Game of Thrones with its more fantastical elements really well. I cannot be sure if this was an aesthetic choice or not, or whether it was just another way of making things difficult, but the way destructible items appear (actually, how they do not ‘appear’) put me off. They are practically indistinguishable from everything else so finding objects or destroying obstacles was a case of hit and miss at times.

The overbearing atmosphere that runs throughout the game, from one dark dungeon to another, is helped greatly by the sound design. The eerie sounds of far off creaking and hollowed out thumps that reverberate through the rooms in a dank cave helped to drive home that feeling. Unfortunately, I thought the voice-acting was poor, and that wasn’t helped by the stiff writing either.

One point Kev raised in a recent Big Red Barrelcast was the fact that Lords of the Fallen assumes you have played Dark Souls and so neglects to teach you anything. I bore the brunt of this – the early hours were a slog that crushed any enjoyment I had with the game and I finished the game in spite of itself rather than to get some satisfaction. Based on the opinions of other Dark Souls fans, this seems normal but it didn’t resonate with me in the same way.

I can certainly see why Lords of the Fallen may go down well with people who enjoy Dark Souls. It scratches an itch that many may have since upgrading to the current set of consoles. With From Software’s next title being a PlayStation 4 exclusive, PC and Xbox fans may want to jump on board with this to get their fix. I think I will stick to Naughty Dog’s output.

Tags: CI Games, Dark Souls, Deck 13, Lords Of The Fallen, PC, PlayStation 4, square enix, Xbox One