Let me state at the outset that I really don’t mind when a new game takes a lot of the ideas of another previously successful game (usually made by another developer), and copies them. As far as I’m concerned, there is always room in any genre for another entry, no matter how derivative. That said, to call Lords of the Fallen (LotF) a Souls clone is not entirely fair. Even though LotF is clearly inspired by the Souls games, there is enough evolution and sheer differences that LotF can stand perfectly fine on its own. Besides, the “punish-the-player” third person action RPG genre is still relatively scant in terms of selection, and especially vacant on the PS4/X1, so it’s exciting to see LotF help fill this void in a positive way.
So any comparison to Souls is probably founded upon the idea that whatever game you’re talking about is brutally tough. That holds true for LotF, it’s designed from the start to be a challenge. How much of a challenge is largely up to you, but any slouch coming in used to playing typical third person action games is going to be in for a very humbling and potentially infuriating time. I would consider myself such a player, as I have played the first two Souls games, but did not complete either. I disagreed with the style of difficulty and subsequent grinding repetition, and I thought I would have the same feelings for LotF. Fortunately, LotF is conscious of this, and has some elements that can make the experience much more feasible for a typical gamer. It’s still a tough as nails game, optionally made tougher by pursuing additional quests and finding hidden areas, which is what I have chosen to do, sometimes to my dismay. On the whole, most successful encounters in LotF have a great sense of relief and reward. The numerous deaths are painful and yes they do become frustrating, but these are alleviated quite significantly by the load times which tend to be just 5-7 seconds long, which is hardly enough time to throw a controller and pick it up (kidding!). In all seriousness though, LotF’s load times are a great anecdote for the numerous deaths sustained. Nevertheless, I still abhor the repetition of having to fight through the same enemies I just defeated as I work my way back to where Harkyn’s ghost (aka soul) is.
Similar to the Souls games, the XP you left when you died is available to pick up, but a timer in the lower left of the HUD shows you the percentage of the XP remaining. Interestingly, instead of immediately picking up your ghost by holding Triangle, you might instead elect to let it stay there, as being close to it gives you small health and energy boosts. So you can choose to get these boosts to help fight whatever demon killed you in the first place, or pick up the XP before its value dwindles down too far, I really liked having the option.
Furthermore, you also get an XP multiplier for each enemy you kill — it’s small, but noticeable, but you lose this multiplier if you die or use a save point. The save points are clearly marked, interactive objects in game. The damn thing is, if you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint but all nearby enemies are also respawned. The save points become inactive if there is an enemy close by, but when you go to use them, your health potions fill up and you can also decide if you want to ‘bank’ or store your current amount of XP. XP can be stored for Spell upgrades or Attribute Upgrades, with the latter generally costing less. Attribute upgrades include the gamut of Strength, Mobility, Luck, etc, while the Spell upgrades are for the handful of Spells each player class has. Once you have banked your XP, assuming it was enough to unlock upgrade points in either tier, you can either use them right then and there, or wait until any time afterwards to spend them from the character menu. This flexibility is welcomed, and I often found myself torn between which upgrades to purchase, but it was relieving to be able to store my hard-earned points and not have to use them right away.
Taking a step back now, I should add that LotF begins with a brief cutscene depicting Fallen and the game’s hero, Harkyn. Fallen is actually the name of the god that was defeated many thousands of years ago, and the lords are his like his generals (i.e. your boss fights), hence the name Lords of the Fallen. Unlike many RPGs, you do not choose your name or appearance, that is pre-determined. You play as Harkyn, a tough, fairly generic dude with tattoos on his face that denote all of the crimes he’s committed. You’re freed from prison to help fight off demons, known as Rhogar, who have come the human realm to, you know, conquer it. Harkyn is a pretty typical anti- hero, but he gets the job done and I think with a little more character development, he could become one I could get more invested in, perhaps through DLC heading into a sequel. Anyway, while you don’t pick your name or voice, you can do a whole lot to alter your appearance by choosing between Warrior, Rogue, and Cleric classes. I chose Rogue, as they intended to use stealth and attacks at a distance, combined with accuracy, while the Warrior is tank-like and the Cleric is sort of in the middle, with classic mage attributes. It’s interesting to note that each class uses magic, but they use it differently. For example, the Warrior uses it for spells that increase his damage, the Rogue uses Deception to do does cool things like clone himself, and the Cleric can heal. More Magic opens up as you New Game+ and New Game++, too, although I have yet to do either of those. Also, just a few hours into the game and you discover the Gauntlet which each character can wield. The Gauntlet uses magic and has three modes of fire, including a single shot Projectile, a shotgun-like Blast, and a Explosive mode that shoots out a spherical grenade that you can, albeit with some aiming difficulty, bounce off of walls (like down a hallway you have yet to enter).
Numerous weapons, armor, and shields become available over time. Armor comes in multiple flavors to help you decide your preferred ratio of mobility to protection. You can mix and match armor from different sets to create a custom look and feel, too. There are eleven categories of weapons, but these include three types of swords, two types of axes, and two types of hammers, as well as daggers, poleswords, claws, and staffs. I thought it was cool that as a Rogue, who had not yet spent many attribute points on Strength, I was still able to wield big two-handed hammers that I could actually use in combat, but at proportionately reduced damage rates, as well as reduced mobility. A helpful meter in the character screen (accessed by pressing the touchpad button) shows you all your stats, including weight, and from this you can get a good idea of your mobility and energy expense. A persistently critical gameplay element is managing your Energy level, which is represented by a meter in the lower left of the HUD (in between HP and Magic). This meter, which can be upgraded and also supplemented by consumables, dictates what actions you can take. If you want to sprint, roll, swing your weapons, block (i.e., just about everything), you need x amount of energy to do so. This takes some getting used to for those of us who come from games where energy is of no concern, but it makes for a very satisfying experience once you get the hang of it — you just have to be patient and get passed that initial learning curve. As your timing gets better, i.e. with consecutive attacks, you actually get energy-saving bonuses, which adds additional challenge and satisfaction to the experience.
Regarding shields, there three types of these, the Bucklers being good for parrying, the kite shields for bashing, and tower shields (which some of the toughest Rhogar love to use) provide massive protection at the expense of energy. I remember during my first several hours I simply could not find a new shield and wish I could have traded in a lot of my armor and weapons for a better one; the Bucklers are better than nothing, but still very small and not that powerful. You can also ram with your shields with a running start, and you can even block with your weapons too, although it’s not as effective as a shield. The weapons, shields, and armor you choose will change as you go along, but not just in a linear fashion. In other words, just because you found a new weapon that does more damage than your last one doesn’t mean it’s instantly the right one to use. Furthermore, Runes that you find can be used by a blacksmith to upgrade your weapons, too. I remember very clearly encountering a Rhogar in the Catacombs that had a tower shield and as a Rogue using Daggers, I was having an impossible time getting behind it and doing any damage. That’s when I realized I was using the wrong weapon, and I needed something with power, even though I wasn’t a Warrior, that could knock the bastard off balance. This helped, and at that point I really came to realize more than before that you really have to take what the opponent gives you and work with. This is true for not only what type of armor and shields they don, but their attack types and patterns. Much like yourself, a heavy weapon telegraphs itself; there is a lead-up to the action, i.e. a swing or other plainly visible action that leads up to the strike attempt. This is your time to intervene or evade (or block). A lot of Rhogar are these brute types that use this style of weapon, but there are those that carry ranged weapons, that attack fast, or in groups, or behave very sporadically with their attacks. Studying these characters is part of the challenge and fun, even though at times it feels little more than a brute and frustrating trial and error affair.
Let’s discuss combat a bit more. It’s a great idea when your about to go twelve rounds with a foe to target them by pressing R3. If there are multiple enemies (talk about a challenge), you can use the right stick to change the target. The targeting system helps with aiming and also keeps the camera focused on the enemy; you can’t move the camera around much at all with targeting enabled, but you really need to be focused on said target at that time anyway. Also with Triangle, and using the default control scheme, you can switch your off hand to using a shield, dual wield, or use the Gauntlet. You can quickly switch between these at no energy cost when you’re in the thick of battle, and it’s obviously useful to do so. Sometimes I would see an enemy who had not yet spotted me, and start things off with a bang by using the Gauntlet to launch an Explosive its way. Then, I immediately switch to my shield, or if I happen to be using a massive hammer or axe, I might press Triangle again to get both hands on it. Alternatively, for smaller weapons like daggers and shortswords, you can have a primary weapon (controlled with R1 and R2) and a secondary weapon controlled with L1/L2. Holding R2 charges up a massive attack by the way, which consumes more energy but if it lands, does more damage (called overcharging).
Looking over my notes, I had a handful of other miscellaneous negatives, or at least questionable, things I wanted to mention. The first is the most nit-picky and I almost decided against mentioning it, but, I just thought there might have been too may ‘useless’ destructible objects around. Seeing these shatter apart for a few seconds before disappearing is all fine and good, but the majority of these are empty and just kind of pointless other than to get the player to try and hit them (but since you can’t target them with R3, you can miss a few times, which is a bit annoying). Regarding the story and characters, it’s serviceable, but not terribly memorable or engaging (then again it takes more concentration than at typical game just to survive). The interactive conversations between Harkyn and NPCs are interesting as far as what choices you have before you that do affect events later in the game (most of the time), but the body language and poor lip sync during these conversations is awkward. Speaking of NPCs, I had a glitchy scenario just before encountering the second Lord in which Vetka, a key NPC, had two Rhogar clipping and standing right next to her, but they did not “notice” her and she didn’t “notice” them. The enemies sometimes behave oddly too in that if you are able to run away from them, you will see them retreat back to their predefined ‘zones’ which is weird and a game design element that should be more transparent to the player. Additionally, I have had a few glitchy/awkward jumping and rolling scenarios, sometimes involving stairs which enemies might walk off of, or rolls where I sprint, jump, and even though it looks like I didn’t jump high enough, I sort of clip through the next platform. There’s actually a pretty high amount of clipping, including clothing that clips through stairs as you walk down them. Sometimes the camera also goes first person view on you, such as when you’re in a tightly spaced area.
As for presentation, at first glance, I didn’t think LotF looked as good as I hoped. That’s not to say it’s last-gen or anything like that, it just didn’t ‘pop’ right away but as I played I either got over it or things got better. Certainly the characters, which you will be watching and studying closely, look great and detailed, and the environments have some nice detail, too. It’s just the overall appearance isn’t as vibrant and crisp as what I expected, I can’t put a finger on exactly why. Small note, I did have a lighting issue when going between two floors once in which rather than the amount of light sort of gradually receding like it would realistically, the screen literally would flash for a split second and the brightness went down as I went into the darker room — it was more of a light switch effect rather than something natural, but overall the lighting is very good. The sounds are also good, with the effects being the most memorable and impressive when compared to the voiceovers and soundtrack.
On to the summary…