Overall, I had to say that I enjoyed playing this game. When I first started it, I was encountering some crashes but someone's suggestion on the forum quickly cleared up anything and I never saw a crash since. Regarding the gameplay, I enjoyed it. The combat did feel grittier than a Souls game, and I like how the magic in this game was much more 'supportive' rather than primary, as it can be in a Souls game (as an aside, I feel like magic ruined Dark Souls 2, but that's just an aside).

The boss designs were decent--they could use improvement, but I did enjoy some of them. I also did enjoy all of the little details they put in the game, like different ways to defeat bosses, different ending paths based on choices (which did seem a little hardboiled at times but was still a nice effort none the less). The only thing that frustrated me from time to time was the level design, which seemed labyrinthine.

There's lots of weapons in this game, and plenty of loot. The armor and weapon design were all decent.

All in all, is it "Souls-like"? Yes, it is. Do I care? No. It's not like Dark Souls was the first Action RPG. Is it a fun game? Yes, yes it is. Do I hope they make another one and improve upon the first? Yes.

I think what sometimes people forget, especially with original titles is that to criticize it needlessly and blast it with negative reviews, and to make statements such as "don't support this publisher", will ultimately lead to less variety, innovation, and entertainment. This is not a defense of bad games, but it is a defense of "improvement". If they make another, and I hope they do, I hope they can improve the formula, add some additional features that make it interesting and continue to innovate on this extremely fun genre. The more the merrier, I say.

Rating - 81/100
Recommendation - Worth looking at, just don't expect Dark Souls

Disclaimer 1: Lots of people talk about crashing, but I had literally zero problems. I don't know if I'm super lucky or if issues have been patched, but I can't deduct points for problems I didn't have. Just be warned.
Disclaimer 2: This game is not Dark Souls. If you're expecting Dark Souls, you'll be disappointed. If you're hoping for Dark Souls, you'll be disappointed. THAT BEING SAID, I will be doing comparisons to how Dark Souls works since it's probably the frame of reference most people will be coming from.

I liked this game a LOT more than I was expecting to. Reviews for it were pretty terrible at first, and are only mediocre now, but the only thing I can think of to cause that is people coming in here with a mentality of "let's see how different it is from Dark Souls." It's clear from the get-go that the developers were trying to capitalize on a formula made prominent by the Souls games, but please try to judge this game of its own accord rather than compared to the genre juggernauts.

Right off the bat, Souls players should feel comfortable. Combat is mostly focused on patience and energy (stamina) conservation, knowing when to block/dodge/strike, etc. Jumping in and flailing will get you ripped to shreds, and studying your enemies attack patterns = success. Killing enemies gives you experience, which you can use to level up attributes or spells at shards (save points). However, unlike the Souls games, using a shard doesn't respawn enemies in the world (that only happens when you die or leave the zone), but rather resets your experience multiplier. As you kill enemies, your experience multiplier increases, giving you a reward for taking risks and saving less often. When you die, you drop all your experience, and unlike the Souls games, you have a limited amount of time to pick it back up again before it vanishes. I liked the system a lot. It's a mild evolution on a formula, but it introduced just enough to keep things interesting.

There's some frustration with combat, though. It's inconsistent and unreliable what attacks will break an enemy's guard, and even when you do, their shields are back up before you're even mid-swing. Harkyn (you), on the other hand, seems to get stunned for 8 seconds. It's frustrating. Fights with shield enemies are either shoot-from-afar-with-my-gauntlet or block-their-hit-and-hit-back-until-death. Plus, hit detection is not perfect. I had a not-insignificant number of sword swings and gauntlet shots that simply passed right through enemies. It wasn't a rampant problem, but it should NEVER happen.

Story-wise, I actually liked this game a lot more than Dark Souls (I welcome your knee-jerk reaction downvotes). A huge part of Dark Souls' mystique and whatnot comes from a complete lack of communication with the player. Lords of the Fallen is not that game. You have objectives (story quests only), the world is laid out more linearly, and while your hand is never held, the difficulty in the game is in achieving objectives rather than figuring out what to do AND THEN doing it. The story is serviceable, and moves around enough to be interesting, but it's nothing groundbreaking.

I think this game actually serves as a good halfway step between standard RPGs and Dark Souls. The difficulty is more approachable, as is the game world itself. You have a mission objective, but no map or direction markers, and side quests are never tracked at all, so it's up to you to remember where people/things are. I loved it. It still left some of the questing burden on me, but I never got that "oooookay, what do I do now?" feeling. You're told to "fight to the top of the citadel" but then left to your own devices.

Hardcore Souls players might be turned off by that type of gameplay, but I welcomed it. No getting your intestines ripped out through your nostrils right away in the catacombs here. Don't get me wrong, this game is still difficult, but I had an easier time here than in the Souls games. I can't say for sure that it's because Lords of the Fallen is easier, since it's just as likely that playing through Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2, and then Dark Souls again prepared me for this one. New players be warned, this is not an easy game. You can't really wander into an area you're not supposed to be yet, though, so there is that.

The world itself is not all that large (maybe half the size of Dark Souls), and there's a bit of backtracking, but it never feels all that repetitive. Enemies in certain areas will change and grow stronger as you play through the main story, so the parts where you do have to backtrack are at least interesting again. To be honest, most of the backtracking was due to side quests, which can be completely ignored. Fair warning, too, I did grind a bit (probably 4 or 5 hours' worth), but that's just because I wanted to try higher gear. I can't say for sure that it's necessary, although it did help.

Speaking of gear, this is one of the game's weak points. The armor sets and weapons look beautiful, and they're almost all beefy and chunky, but all of the classes end up being built the same way. I picked the Cleric class (the healing spell is FANTASTIC) and built my character for speed, but could have doubled as a tank. By the end of the game, my regular sword (there's shortswords, swords, then greatswords) did more damage than all but 2 of my great-weapons, and swung faster. I had all but one spell level unlocked (there's 4 spells per class, each with 3 levels), and enough strength/stamina/poise to withstand direct hits from the final boss with no damage. I honestly can't see how building solely as a warrior would have been that much stronger.

I suppose that's another thing I liked about this game, though. In Dark Souls, even though I played as a tanky build, I always felt extremely weak, even right up to the end. In Lords of the Fallen, however, I really got a sense of how strong I became. Maybe it's because it's easier and quicker to backtrack and fight early enemies, but it felt quite a bit more apparent what effect all that leveling up had.

Overall, I legitimately enjoyed my time here. The graphics are fantastic, the game world is beautifully-designed (even if you are in gothic castles 98% of the time), combat is satisfyingly meaty, the enemies are varied and interesting, the bosses are a decent challenge (they all have hidden bonus objectives too), and aside from a few small glitches, the gameplay was rock-solid.

If you come in to this game not expecting it to perfectly fill a Souls-shaped hole in your heart (and you have no crashing issues), you should enjoy it too. I thoroughly did, and I could easily see myself coming back to this game for another playthrough later.

Lords of the Fallen gets a lot of things right, but is also blasted by many people for not being as polished as Dark Souls, or for even trying to be like Dark Souls. Wherever you stand on that issue, I personally think the expansion of that sort of gameplay into a proper genre is good for business overall. I want more games like Dark/Demons Souls, not less.

If you can get over the fact that yes, the game is very similar to the Souls titles, I think you'll find it to be quite a good game. It lacks some of the bells and whistles of the Souls titles, such as the persistent and interesting multiplayer found in those games, but I believe it totally nails the combat, and is absolutely packed with secrets, both of which are some of the top reasons I enjoy the Souls games.

The story is a lot more straightforward than those titles (Sorry for all the comparisons, but the genre is still in its infancy and there isn't much else to compare it to, and this game wears its inspirations on its shoulders.) which can be both good and bad. Good because you have a fairly clear motivation, bad because, well, let's face it, the voice acting is pretty mediocre and the talking animations and lip synching are actually kind of embarassingly bad. Characters gesticulate wildly when saying the simplest things, all while retaining their stiff, wooden, doll-like faces and flapping mouths.

The stilted facial expressions clash furiously with the rest of the visuals, which have a distinct Warhammer (read: big shoulder pads, intricate armor, you know whether you enjoy that style or not. I do, but you may not.) feel that is very consistent. Having a very solid art style and beautiful technical work and then seeing Playstation 2-level facial animations is jarring to say the least. It's not too big of a deal, but they put it in there, so I figured I'd give my two cents. Also I feel it prudent to remind people that while the Souls games had decent voice acting, the characters rarely ever moved at all while talking and mouths never seemed to move at all, so, uhh, just throwing that out there.

So, let's talk about gameplay. This game is said to be easier than the Souls games. I never found those games to be particularly difficult so much as games that forced you to be patient. Few fights ever required a high degree of dexterity, just that you observe and wait for an opening. I think this game handles that just right. But I warn you: If you're looking for a challenge, choose something besides the Warrior play style. That class is a lot like the spell-casting class (Noble, was it?) in Demons Souls, where it was basically an easy mode for new players. Try weird weapons, if you feel too tanky, wear super light armor. I say these things because if you want the game to be difficult, then the default selections are not for you.

The game has fairly lengthy attack animations, longer than the Souls games in many cases, but it also has a bigger impact. With my great hammer during a well-placed attack I can physically knock enemies across the room, and when it strikes the ground the sound design and visual effects really sell that I'm swinging a huge, deadly weapon and that it is not to be trifled with, but it also takes timing and understanding of each type of swing at my disposal. I can out-poise some enemies if I wear heavy armor and just swing through it, or to challenge myself I can wear very light armor and rely on timing above all else.

Enemies do have a bit of cheapness to them occasionally. Not all hitboxes are perfect, you can get hit by attacks that appear to miss you by several inches, and sometimes enemies do a very familiar Dark Souls move of "sliding" forward at the end of an attack to force it to connect, which feels just as cheap here as it did in the Souls games. Luckily, both of these problems are fairly rare and tend to be limited to just a few enemy types -- and thankfully after encountering them a few times I didn't seem to notice it happening anymore. Shouldn't be there to begin with, but not as big of a deal as I thought it would be after the first few times it happened.

I want to take a moment to warn you that I don't play these types of games quite the same way I think most people do. I played a ton of Monster Hunter before I first played a Souls game, so I tend to rarely ever use the lock-on here. I don't really circle-strafe enemies to fish for backstabs and I don't have many issues with the camera that allegedly appear due to what I assume is locking on in such tight quarters. If you use lock-on for extended periods, you'll have to get that info elsewhere, as I can't provide you relevant critique on it.

Of course, while it borrows from the Souls series, it also has its own little twists that I think are genuinely interesting that may help push the genre forward. The ideas themselves aren't mind-blowing, but stuff like the experience multiplier for going longer without banking your experience is fantastic, as well as the experience degrading the longer you take to retrieve it after death. To me, these are pure upgrades to the soul retrieval system in the Souls games, hands-down. I hope this inspires future games in the genre to think of cool additions as well.

I had quite a bit more to say, but this is getting very long for a Steam review. So I'll wrap it up and give my conclusion:

Is this game as polished or as in-depth as the Souls series? No. Is it some blasphemy to the genre that you should be offended by? Absolutely not. It's a great game, marred right now by some technical problems (I knew I forgot something! The game is crash-prone at the time of this review and while performance on my Titan Black is fine, on plenty of other rigs it's all over the place. Check the updates to see if they fix that stuff in a timely fashion.) but once everything is ironed out I absolutely recommend it to any fan of the Souls series if they want more of that style of gameplay, or people intimidated by the Souls games' obtuseness. This is a good gateway game to those titles. Don't be an elitist, games like this will push the genre forward, not destroy or harm it! That's my take on it, at least. I heartily recommend this!

Short Version: Is it worth playing? YES. Is it worth the full price? HELL NO!

Long Version:

(WARNING: I will compare this game to Darksouls games a lot since it's obvious that it tries to mimic it's mechanisms and gameplay style.)

PROS: 1. Semi-Darksouls action combat - If you like the way Darksouls I & II handles combat chances are, you'll probably like the way this game handles it as well. The difference is that the combat in Darksouls is faster and more flashy.
2. Beautiful Graphics - Although the graphics are brilliant and beautiful (scenery, armor, weapons, you name it...) some of them are a bit "samey". (More on that in CONS)
3. The story - Unlike Darksouls where you have to scrape the story from item descriptions and where most of it you decide and invent for yourself, the story here is way more accessible. You are a convicted criminal whose crimes are tattooed on your face and your mission is to redeem yourself by destroying a fallen god. Sounds fun! There are more hidden lore bits found out from the few NPCs and much more numerous log files.
4. Performance - I only played the game after the latest patch and can confirm that on my system (i5 3,5 GHz, Nvidia 770GTX, 16GB ram, SSD disk, every graphics setting maxed out) the game held a stable 60fps 99% of the time with maybe 2-3 times dropping to 45-50 FPS and only on specific places.
5. Bugs - with the recent patches most have been squashed. Haven't really noticed any during my gameplay.
6. Game Mechanics - There is a risk-reward system implemented in the game that works really well. The more enemies you slay before resting at a checkpoint the more it increases your exp. multiplier which in turn increases the exp. gain from other enemies. But if you are killed, that exp. will slowly drain away until you either collect it back or it drains completely. The only real big difference from the darksouls games.

MEH: 1. Difficulty - Harder than most games, way easier then Darksouls II. To be honest I was expecting a more challenging game, but I guess this decision makes the game appeal to a broader audience.
2. Enemy variations - too little variations. Same enemy models reused through the game. Most of the bosses resemble ordinary units only bigger in size.
3. Customization - Oh my GOD. Everyone is overusing steroids in this game. From the main character to the lowliest mob. Want to role-play a squishy mage? Nope, here's a mage that bench presses 200 kg. Want to play as a sleek and agile rogue? Nope, here's a rogue with 140 kg of muscle. I prefer the big warrior class but to have the option to at least customize the face and a few sliders wouldn't hurt the game one bit.

CONS: 1. Lack of NPCs - There are maybe 3 worthwhile NPCs in the whole game.
2. Dialogue - The dialogue with the said 3 NPCs is sometimes strange and somewhat out of place.
3. Replay value - Whereas I've played Darksouls I and II with multiple characters for months, After I finished this game, I'll probably finish it once more from the beginning this time trying to get all the collectables and the special weapons from the bosses. After that I'll probably delete the game never to play it again.
4. Game duration - It's too short. It took me probably 15 hours to finish.
5. "Samey" world design - Remember how in Darksouls you have very distinct and different environments? Well there's no such thing in Lords. The whole game is one big dungeon and castle interiors mixed with a bit of snowy exterior. It looks great but it's the same most of the game. And since it's all interconnected (something I like very much, reminds me of how Darksouls I handled it's world and shortcuts to bonefires) it results in being lost quite often, trying to find how to progress further into the game (something I hate very much).

Overall Score: 6.5/10
Verdict: Buy the game if you are a darksouls fan, but get it when it's on discount.

In Lords of the Fallen, you play as Gruff McGrufferson, the gruffest, toughest dude around. But under that gruff exterior, he is actually a wobbling mound of jelly. Our pal Gruff the jelly man must wobble his way around a castle and a demonic realm, fighting a bunch of angry demons and their sickly looking pals.

Unfortunately for our chum Gruff McJellyman, his wibbly legs make him less manouverable than an asthmatic sloth, and his wobbly arms mean that swinging anything bigger than a toothpick is a real struggle for our intrepid hero. Even more unfortunate for our dashing dispatcher of ne'er do wells, the villainous villains he encounters have some deviously diabolical tricks up their muscular sleeves.

Every one of these no good rascals comes equipped with an invisible record player, which they stand upon. What this means for mighty Jellyman is that all these cads he encounters can swivel on the spot... without moving their feet! The KNAVES! The SCOUNDRELS! The UTTER CHEEK! Our poor hero must face large, brutish enemies, who hide behind mighty shields, have vast qauntities of health, and who only give miniscule openings in their defence. These dastardly fiends laugh at our delicious Jelly hero, for they know that further down the corridor, two more of their identical brethren lie in wait - and our gruff protagonist must face them all, lest he be overwhelmed! Oh the horror...

Although, it's not all bad news for our gelatinous champion.
On his quest, he is accompanied by his best pal, Jam, the friendly invisible cameraman! Jam eagerly follows Jelly Goat Gruff on his delectable adventures. Unfortunately, Jam gets a little giddy whenever his pal Jellyman charges into battle, and can't keep a firm grip on his camera.
Also accompanying our damn tasty chum is Karlo...Kaslo?...Carlos? Whatever. Our ABSOLUTELY memorable pal Karlos freed the magnificent Jellygruff from his horrible jelly prison, where our hero was placed after attempting a coup against the Ice Cream king, to supplant him from the delicious dessert throne. Mage-o Kazooie brings Gruff McJellyjelly to Keystone to fight the nasty demons, because only he, with his superior reflexes, nimble footwork, and masterful weapon-handling, can save the day from EVIL!

Our gastronomical hero also gains assistance from an amiable demon blacksmith!
"I can inscribe your weapons with runes to make them worthy of Gods!", he proudly claims.
Lo and behold!, Jellyman was overjoyed to find that his now godly weapon turned a monster that previously took 12 hits to kill, into a monster that now takes a measly 11 hits to vanquish.

Oh yeah, there's also this woman, Yetka or something. She definitely wasn't as memorable as Kazoozle, the COMPLETELY memorable wizard dude. Also, there was some bad dude who's name began with A. But who cares, he was just a butthole.


Dare you join the mighty Jellyman on his quest?

Dare you battle these fearsome record player equipped demons?

Dare you slog through dozens and dozens of said demons, over and over again?

Dare you wrestle with the dreadful beast known as the inventory?

Dare you attempt to make sense of cryptic item descriptions that tell you nothing of
an item's purpose?

Dare you listen to grim and chilling audio logs?

Dare you battle visually identical, yet stastically superior versions of foes you have
already fought?

Dare you behold Jam's shaky camera-work, while keeping your dinner intact?

Dare you become... THE JELLYGRUFF?

I decided to write a review of this game because most of the recent reviews are from people who have barely played the game (some haven't even completed the game) with very little achievement progress. I have spent almost 200 hours playing this game, and have earned every achievement. This may go without "saying", but I'll "say" it anyway: I'm going to attempt to chronicle my way through this game and the process I used to learn about the mechanics and what I found frustrating. I used an XBox 1 controller, so button references will be made accordingly.

Firstly, the game crashes. A lot. I did some research and the general consensus seems to be that one must disable "NVIDIA Turbulence". That didn't work for me, so I also disabled "Volumetric Lighting" and "Postprocessing" and that seemed to have worked.

My first playthrough was with the rogue class, whose weapons are governed by the agility trait, which, in my opinion, is disgustingly OP. Part of a rogue's special ability is having a weapon in each hand, which can be strung together into a combo. I used LB, RB, LB, RT, LT a lot. By the end of the game (level 67) I was doing around 1k damage with "claw" weapons, at 28 agility, per combo. The other ability, which the rogue can do from the start, and which other classes can do later, is parry.

There are 3 shield types, Tower, Kite, and Buckler. Bucklers are used to parry, Kite shields can stun enemies, and Tower shields can reinforce blocking. I've come to the conclusion that tower shields are useless. I began by spending the first few hours learning to parry, which can be overwhelming because I was getting hit. A lot. Which became frustrating. I stuck with it and realized the timing window for parrying is quite large. Gauging an enemy's attack is quite intuitive, which made parrying a lot easier. Definitely a plus for this game. If you decide to get this game, parrying is worth investing the time to learn. Be aware, however, that while every class can use the starting buckler, you have to invest in the agility trait to use the other bucklers, which are much better, found later in the game.

The trade-off for a large parry window, at least as far as game mechanics are concerned, is a very small and awkward back-stab activation hit-box. Every enemy has a different hit-box zone and keeping track can become tedious. The other issue with backstabbing is, if you miss the back-stab and are using larger, heavier weapon, you won't recover in-time to block or evade the enemy's attack. This, by itself, isn't a problem, as the rewards with backstabbing is great, and so too must be the risk, but because of the awkward back-stab hit-box, the risk is artificially inflated.

My second playthrough was with the cleric class, whose weapons are governed by the faith trait. I had a lot of fun with this class because most of the weapons available to this class are "hammers" and they're so fun to use in this game because of the move list. Two-handed power moves and rolling away was the strategy I employed for most of the end-game, especially the final boss. I didn't use the kite shield that often because I spent so much time learning to parry, so as soon I found the buckler, I switched to that. I found that fighting most enemies without the ability to parry their attacks became tedious; it was really difficult to fight around their shields or deal with their attacks. One of the major downsides of this game is that enemy attacks track you through the full attack animation, so the only option with rolling is to roll backward. If you try to roll to either side, the camera glitches out and you end up rolling around the enemy, directly into the attack. Another "interesting" mechanic is that enemies, especially bosses, will teleport in the direction of their attack, giving them added range, which, to me, is sloppy programming.

My third playthrough was with the warrior class, whose weapons are governed by the strength trait. This was the most difficult playthrough for me. The warrior class uses heavy armor and sits at about 95% of his encumbrance which means your character will be "fat rolling". Of course, rolling isn't necessary, because, with heavy armor, your character will just poise through attacks without interruption. This didn't happen as often as I would have liked, since most attacks will interrupt your attacks, even from weaker enemies. The weapons were the most frustrating, as the start-up and recovery frames from attacks are extremely long. I found myself unable to recovery in-time to avoid enemy attacks, so I had to use smaller weapons to keep from depleting my potions (you can refill your potions at anytime at checkpoint crystals and you can add to the total amount of potions you have, but this resets your experience multiplier, which caps at x2), which, to me, defeated the purpose of the warrior class entirely. I couldn't "roll" out of the way or block because, with these heavier weapons, the majority of your energy (stamina) is used, especially if you do a power move (RT).

The story is quite vapid. Without spoiling anything, the player isn't told why the protagonist is doing what he is doing. The protagonist doesn't seem to buy into the story and we're left wondering if we ought to ourselves. Dialogue choices are also frustrating as some options will advance the story but we don't know which. My first playthrough was riddled with accidental story advancement when I wanted to learn more about what was going on around me and why. No take backs in this game.

There isn't a quest selection option either. All secondary quests are done when you remember to do them. You won't know when or how to trigger each side quest either. For this, I highly recommend browsing the wiki:

http://lordsofthefallen.wiki.fextralife.com/Quests

Some enemy's attacks, I would argue all enemies, don't have recovery frames, something I've noticed with western studios. This means that there isn't a buffer between the end of one attack and the beginning of another. An enemy can go right into another attack as soon as the previous attack frames end. Your character, on the other hand, has recovery frames. Which means there will be a pause between attack animations. This is a personal pet-peeve.

I had fun with this game, but I recommend purchasing it during a steam sale. Like most games, it was released before the game was complete and the game won't be updated beyond 1.6 even though there are obvious issues with it. $28 for the base game and the DLC is way too much for a game in this state.

So, here goes, let's start with a TL:DR :

-Is the game better than Dark Souls? Not as a Souls-like, definitely not.
-Is the game pleasant? It is.
-Biggest Pro: A more accessible, simple Dark Souls, but still challenging.
-Biggest Con: Gets easy after a while, when you have all the OP loot.
-How much is that game worth? In my opinion, I would say that at 20-25$ (CAD) or less, you got yourself a good deal.
-How long is the story? It took me around 15 hours to complete the story, and that was me rushing it, add New Game+(+) to that and it's a bit longer assuming you do finish both NG+'s.

I didn't know what to think when installing the game, my initial thought was ''that game is going to be terrible, a cheap-ass, dumbed down Dark Souls.''

I was wrong.

LORE & SETTING:

Lords Of The Fallen sings the tale of Harkyn, your typical anti-hero, life-sentenced prisonner that got free'd as a desperate move kinda deal. Badass, fearless, man of a few words, kinda reminds you of God of War's Kratos due to his complete lack of care for imminent danger. Followed by the man who free'd you himself, Kaslo, your typical Hagrid-looking mage, huge beard, long hair, staff, y'know, the usual. So long story short, the peace and silence of the kingdom gets completely broken by the arriving of Rhogars, demon-like creatures sent by a god named Adyr. Harkyn's mission? kill every single one of them, and find a way to stop Adyr from spawning his minions into our realm. During the adventure, Harkyn will have to face stronger foes: the ''Lords'', stronger Rhogars chosen by Adyr himself to stop you. I'll leave it at that.

QUALITY:

Not much to say, there's nothing really ground breaking about the game's quality, but I have to admit that after a while, while walking through the gigantic bridge on the Rhogar realm, I actually took the time to stop and look around for a second and was greeted with a beautfiul scenery. The graphics are good looking, nothing more to say apart from some beautiful particle effects. The sound is ok, the music is very good, but that's to be expected from a Souls-like. The atmosphere is very good but again, to be expected from a Souls-like. The voice acting is... ''ok'' at best. Very straightforward, but it does the job, it's not cringeworthy at all, so that's good. The game feels a bit more polished than at least the first Dark Souls, it doesn't feel clunky in my opinion, the only annoyingly clunky thing in the game is the lock-in system... it's a bit frustrating, sometimes, to say the least, the camera too, well the camera's good, but there are some specific times like in the Worshipper boss fight when you enter the shrines, where you just can't see ♥♥♥♥, some other very specific bits like that occur.

OVERALL DIFFICULTY:

This game isn't as hard as Dark Souls like previously mentionned, (I know what you may be thinking right now, yes the Dark Souls comparisons are annoying, but there's a reason for them and I expect most people to understand very clearly why they're there.) but it IS challenging, there are even alot of moments when the game not only doesn't feel very challenging... But extremely unfair, I mean Dark Souls never really FEELS unfair, just hard, LOTF may sometimes leave you scratching your head out of frustration and confusion. A very common complaint by veteran Souls player are the shielded ennemies, if you hit an ennemy while he's got his shield up, you'll get staggered and he's most likely going to react accordingly and punish you, so you just roll... Right...? Well no, because by the time the roll animation is done, 90% of the time shielded ennemies will have turned around with their shields back up. So this leaves you with two options: either get a buckler and parry them, or find a weapon that hits so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard that it overwhelms their poise, and staggers them so you can follow up with a finishing blow. So yeah, doesn't leave much room. Some ennemies might also have some frustrating mechanics, like the ''banshee'' ghosts, who have a spell which reflects damage, and if you hit too hard you'll just end up one shotting yourself. The bosses are ok, they never feel ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I'd even be ready to say that while the fights themselves are fun, the bosses feel lackluster, barely intimidating at some point. The game becomes a breeze after a while and that is a problem. I mean you'll still maybe sometimes die, and all that, but not hard enough.

PROS:

+A more simple, accessible, toned-down Dark Souls but still feels at least a bit challenging.
+Combat and movement generally feels fluid, for the most part.
+Nice story, especially at the end, worth getting invested into.
+Nice atmosphere.
+Pleasant graphics.
+At least 15 hours of playtime, more if you add NG+/NG++
+The game just, feels fun, at least it did for me.

CONS:

-Gets way too easy after a while if you build correctly, at some point most bosses and bigger mobs don't really feel THAT threatening, you just end up rushing them and beating them up very fast.
-Some extremely frustrating balance issues and mechanics (like the previously mentionned Shielded ennemies)
-Characters feel very stereotypical and a bit bland.
-Optimization/stability issues. The game MAY crash once or twice in a full playtrough, sometimes at very unfortunate moment.
-Some camera issues there and there.

I give this game a 8/10. Very fun and a good start if you wanna get into Souls-like games without the headache of getting smashed by Dark Souls general roster of ennemies/bosses.

The tradgedy is that it's a decent game, but its trapped behind horrible instability. Potentially losing all progress since the last checkpoint because of a scene tranistion or completing a quest/objective is ♥♥♥♥ . Not issuing a patch to address the issues in the 3 years this product has been sold is unacceptable.

Lords Of The Fallen (LOTF) is a third-person souls-like set in a dark fantasy world engulfed by a devastating war. Harkyn, the protagonist, is set free by order of Antanas, the leader of Men and tasked with the arduous mission of defeating the Lords. As the Rhogar hordes advance and lay waste unto all of Mankind's lands, this unlikely hero will have to carve a bloody path battle after battle.



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2460378682

1.
Despite being a 2014 release, LOTF does definitely stand up to par with 2021 visual levels, one would expect from top-class AAA titles. Among the overall high detail, light effects, textures and environments stand out from the crowd, as they are the best of the whole lot. Despite the rather stiff controls, animations prove to be fluid and well made, the same goes for physics that governs impacts, destructible elements and moving objects.

2.
The combat pacing is one of the slowest among any souls-like, maybe even the slowest overall. However, it still proves to be satisfying with heavy and light weapons alike, as impacts and "weight" behind each slash and blow are excellently transposed - this gives a meaty feeling to any confrontation. Stamina management, smart use of magic, learning enemy patterns and saving consumables for the toughest fights, are all factors that make or break every battle.

3.
Walls housing secret rooms, hidden chests and even weapons that transform into more powerful ones are only some of the secrets LOTF has to offer. Several NPCs will task Harkyn with obscure quests as well, in good Souls tradition - which may result in great rewards. In addition, each Lord has a secret condition that when met, awards the player with unique weapons or trinkets after the boss is slain.

4.
The three available Magic schools provide four distinct spells, each with a unique effect. Only one discipline can be used with each character however, and they can't be mixed together. The combination of magic schools and equipment can create classes that play out very distinctively, and cater to a variety of playstyles. From aggressive bersekers betting it all on DPS - to sturdy, heavily armored paladins, the possibilities are many.

1.
Some balance issues definitely can make LOTF a bit too easy for the genre. Rune-crafting, which allows to upgrade equipment with different bonuses, can lead to massive amounts of damage or armor bonuses if used to its full potential. So much in fact, to make normal enemies and even bosses much less dangerous. Unlimited spell usage quantity and rather quick mana recharge make magic too powerful.

2.
The camera and lock-on function have a tendency to become wonky and unreliable, mostly indoors. This can lead to sudden camera movements that may disorient players, loss of targeting, and more hindrances. Backstab only works about half of the time and is really arbitrary, the same goes for riposting with bucklers which is not reliable at all - except against very specific enemies that were designed around that mechanic.

3.
A few bosses stand out for their evolving patterns and solid challenge no matter the build used, but these are sadly an exception and not the rule. Most Lords prove to be, in fact, only mediocre as their pattern doesn't evolve enough during the fights, and their threat level is modest once one gets around to understand their routine. Not only that, but several are so slow that may be easily kited around and bombarded with ranged magic until dead, which is sad to see.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2460378385


Exploration
Is performed on foot, across a variety of locations that range from ruined fortresses to snowy badlands and crypts. Most of the action will take place indoors, but there also are some open areas here and there. The customary Bonfires, in the shape of crystals, will be fairly plentiful to save progress and recover. They work differently than the average Souls though, as only death or a transition to a new area will respawn enemies, while Bonfires will regenerate Harkyn's HP and grant 3 Potions (Estus), while enemies stay dead. Not using Bonfires and killing more and more enemies will trigger a multiplier that awards more XP (souls) the more enemies are slain, without using a bonfire.

Character Management
Can be performed anywhere when it comes down to swapping equipment, organizing consumables or looking at newly-acquired gear, although it will respectively need a Bonfire or a Blacksmith to level-up or upgrade weapons with Runes. Leveling up allows Harkyn to spend gained XP into either Attribute Points, or Spell Points, which translate into stats or magic unlocks. Each level costs more than the, of course. Since weapons and armors often have certain stat requirements to use, as well as a weight that must not pass a certain limit, focusing on a handful stats rather than all, is recommended. Runes can be looted from the world, then unlocked at the Blacksmith, awarding a random Rune type for each Sealed Rune consumed.

Combat
Focuses on timing, stamina management and learning enemy patterns - as in any Souls game. The pacing is slower than most, alas this doesn't make it any less engaging. Each weapon has a specific combo pattern that relies on perfect timing to execute successive attacks: if players do this right, then a specail combo or attack will be executed, usually with bonus damage involved, compared to regular blows, or less stamina consumption. This unique system is nice, however not entirely reliable.

The Gauntlet allows Harkyn to use three different types of magic attacks, and it's the closest thing to a "gun" in LOTF. Its behavior can change depending on the runes used, however I admittedly never understood how to achieve this, as it's not well explained at all. The three Gauntlet attacks equal to a shotgun, a precision shot and a grenade launcher, which can be good against some enemies, but generally are costly and just not worth using instead of the much better Spells, which are definitely a must-have and the only way to succeed against some particularly tough enemies.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2460381293

Complete Ratings List here
It took me around 10 hours to finish one playthough, and I did two in a row to test another build. NG+ mode is available for those interested. Replay value is good with different builds. The price of 30€ is fair for this content amount, however the lacking quality warrants waiting for a sale.

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I played it on PS4 so I can't say if the port is good or not.

I recommend this game ... IF
- you never played any From Soft games or Soul-like before
- want to be introduced to the Soul genre in a more forgiving way.

Look at the negative comments and in most of them, you'll see a pattern emerge. They compare it to From Soft / Dark Soul.
If you already played Dark Soul and "got gud", you'll probably find this game boring. This game is not designed for you, so move along.

I never played a Soul before this game. The teen cashier at GameStop told me it was garbage but in the end I loved it. It is actually the only game I finished in NG+. I even finished it NG++. I never did that with any other game with a NG+ feature.
More importantly, it made me wanna try Dark Soul. Then I discovered the true meaning of Pain in the Ass.

On otherhand, if I played it after Dark Soul or even Elden Ring, then yes I might see it as garbage too.
The map is rather small compared to Dark Soul 3.
The level design is clearly not on the same "level". (Put on sunglass. Yes screaming in the background)

The weapon choices doesn't compare either and the game in general is a lot more forgiving.
Hence the big IF at the begining.

In my opinion, this game is a good introduction to the genre. And since it's rather cheap (when on sales) compared to a Soul, the risk of losing money trying a genre you never played before is minimal.
You can learn to drive with a Ferrari, but a Honda Civic will be more forgiving.