Lords of the Fallen

Even with its performance issues and weak enemies, Lords of the Fallen is an amazing souls-like game with a fascinating dual-realities concept.

Lords of the Fallen – Overview

Even though it was among the first to boldly attempt to recreate FromSoftware’s lightning in a bottle, the 2014 original Lords of the Fallen fell short of expectations. There’s probably never been a better moment for a sequel to take a go at it than now, over ten years later, and a million soul-like imitators later.

Thankfully, this new, confusingly identically named Lords of the Fallen successfully delivers its blow. Its dual reality environment is really fascinating to explore, the build crafting options are varied and intricate, and the combat is so seamless and fulfilling that I’m prepared to overlook all the ways it borrows ideas from other games.

This newest push isn’t quite a death blow due to some rather serious performance issues and glitches, as well as shockingly easy boss battles, but even so, I anticipate to spend a lot more time impaling foes and searching every crevice of its neatly partitioned universe for treasures.

Another game in the action-RPG souls-like genre, Lords of the Fallen has a spooky fantasy background, other people joining you in cooperative or PvP action, and lots of death. It uses the same kind of lethal third-person fighting system, complete with dodge rolls, posture meters, and extreme disrespectful emoting over defeated foes.

There are many references to FromSoftwares’ classics, such as Dark Souls, Demon Souls Remake, just to name a few, but there are also a lot of original elements to look forward to. This includes things like some very awesome tricks involving multiple realities or a mystical light that enables you to literally flay the souls out of your foes.

And look, I know I usually complain about how overly saturated this genre is with new releases when I review one of these things, but it really is worth saying again. These days, there are a number of these games.

Even if playing more of a genre I like isn’t always a negative thing, it may be discouraging to start a new game and feel like I already know how 90% of it will end because everyone is utilizing the same methods and cliches.

For instance, it’s somewhat strange that I can look at a distant pile of boxes and think, “Ah, can’t wait for a monster to leap out from behind those and attack me,” or that I can go into a swamp and know for sure that I’m going to be jumped by animals who try to poison me.

I can no longer remember which game’s healing items are called Estus Flasks, Dragon Hearts, Flasks of Crimson Tears, Pulse Cells, Healing Gourds, and so on and so forth, for all eternity. If any of those names sound familiar to you, prepare for a lot more déjà vu.

Fallen Lord’s Lore

If the game name sounds familiar to you too, that’s because it has the same name as the 2014 video game developed by Deck13. However, as the absence of a “2” or any other comparable symbol may imply, this Lords of the Fallen is more of a complete reboot or remake than a sequel.

Although new developer Hexworks only utilized the most fundamental components from the previous version, those who played the original will undoubtedly hear NPCs refer to some familiar setting terms like “The Rhogar” and “Adyr” or see some really cool and familiar sights like the giant outstretched hand from the ground in the distance.

The good thing is that the world feels much more fully realized and the new tale, which is being told with some renovated, dusty sections, is far superior than its predecessor.

Even though the interesting characters, lore, and world building are occasionally overshadowed by a sea of common dark fantasy jargon, there are still plenty of these elements to enjoy as you come across different factions to support or oppose.

Lords of the Fallen clearly takes inspiration from other games in the genre, its most innovative concept is also its greatest one. The ability to switch between two different realms at any moment.

With the use of a magic lantern, you can enter Umbral, a ghostly realm of eerie creatures and grotesque eyes, which sits atop Axiom, the actual world as most people know it. 

You’ll need to traverse both as you go about taking out monsters and pushing scrubs off of cliffs, adding a truly interesting new aspect to the environment’s exploration.

In the real world, you might come across a broken bridge, for instance, but if you dive into Umbral, you can use an organic, gray platform that is only visible and tangible when you enter the eerie world of darkness.

This kind of reminds me of the unsettling plane that Frodo enters when he puts on the ring in ‘Lord of the Rings’, but it’s much more useful and less out of focus.

This mechanic has a significant impact on almost every aspect of Lords of the Fallen, including exploration since each area essentially has two versions, meaning you should play through a section more than once to see what you missed, and combat where normally imperceivable enemies become a serious threat when you enter Umbral.

The ability to interact with the Umbral realm without going inside is even more awesome. All you have to do is hold your handy lamp to have a little portion of it appear in front of you.

By doing this, you can catch a glimpse of what could be concealed on the other side before fully crossing over and do things like walk past physical obstacles that don’t exist in the other world.

Exploration becomes less about getting from point A to point B and more about taking your time, learning about each place, and searching for mysteries as you switch between worlds and use your lamp to illuminate the differences between them.

It’s also fairly amazing because if you are ever killed by the enemy, you will be unintentionally drawn into Umbral, where you will have one final opportunity to live.

You must locate totems buried around this dark environment in order to escape or return to a checkpoint for a break, but the longer you stay, the more formidable foes spawn and pursue you.

Gameplay

Unfortunately, Lords of the Fallen has some very significant performance problems when attempting to support its cross-dimensional goals, thus it doesn’t exactly seem to be able to handle them technically. I frequently had stuttering and lost frames, especially after extended sessions.

Every player I played with had the same difficulties, which occasionally caused such severe eye strain that I had to restart my computer in the hopes that things would get better, if only temporarily.

It’s particularly annoying when my co-op buddies get murdered during multiplayer since their game turned into a slideshow and I end myself getting hits that I might have avoided otherwise.

Although I don’t generally complain about performance benchmarks or subpar framerates, these were so constant that I had to deal with them. It was like having a great dinner accompanied with a sharp toothache and a cut on the roof of my mouth. While I hope that these kinds of issues will be resolved soon, it is now hard to overlook such serious issues.

Fortunately, these locations—from the dangerous stairs of a mountain monastery to the flaming ruins of the city of Calrath—remain incredibly entertaining to explore when game’s framerate cooperates.

With intriguing and stunning locations, a ton of mysteries to uncover, and a ton of distinct opponents to take down—one at a time via mini-boss encounters spread over the nearly 40-hour campaign—the level design is among the greatest of the genre in recent memory.

Lords of the Fallen also clearly takes inspiration from the original Dark Souls, particularly in that it makes a concerted effort to link every region of the map to a central hub and offers plenty of chances to find shortcuts and alternate routes. However, this comes at the expense of being irritated by roughly fifteen doors that are locked from the side you’re on approximately once every hour or so.

Even if that dance feels quite traditional at this point, taking down legions of hideous skeleton abominations is a vibrant maelstrom of swords and flails being swung and parried, making it play more fluidly than the great majority of its counterparts.

You can be a swift and accurate Bloodborne guy, a brawny bruiser with a trusty sword and board, or any of a variety of ranged magic users with impressive but generic skills like dousing levels in fire and lava or bestowing upon you and your friends health-regenerating benefits.

You may increase the build crafting variation even more by upgrading your spells, weapons, and equipment by adding runes and other upgrades to give them unique modifications.

One of my favorite things about action-RPGs is how much space there is for replay-ability and a number of different playstyles, especially with nine beginning character classes to pick from (plus four more that can be acquired later).

It’s also wonderful that a lot of the sections you’ll battle your way through are genuinely difficult; they’re frequently populated with elite adversaries that swarm you with powerful blows in cramped spaces where there are plenty of chances to lose your life.

Entering the Umbral world presents a thrilling and exhilarating experience, but it also brings more opponents and danger. The only real problem is that adversaries are as stupid as a sack of hair, which isn’t particularly unusual for the genre, but it’s still funny to watch these ninnies struggle to figure out the geometry of the environment and then stand there while you hit them with lightning balls over and over again.

Your magical lamp and its connection to the parallel Umbral realm are not only fantastic for exploration but also quite helpful in battle. This is mainly because you can use its Soul Flay ability to rip out an enemy’s soul, stopping them in their tracks and giving you plenty of time to deal damage.

If you’re feeling very nasty, you may even cast their soul over a cliff, causing them to plummet to their death when their body eventually catches up. This is a very handy way to get rid of annoying people who would be dumb enough to approach you close to a cliff.

Additionally, certain foes will have near-invincible supernatural protection. The only way to neutralize this protection is to shine your flashlight on a concealed eyeball nearby to destroy it. The awesomeness of the dual-reality shifting feature is brought to light when players find ways to play with it during combat.

Of course, no souls-like would be complete without spectacular boss battles against repulsive monsters, and Lords of the Fallen features some awesome ones, like a monstrous dragon that appears to pursue you throughout your journey and a gigantic crow that tries to bury you in ice.

Unfortunately, they’re not at all difficult, in contrast to the levels that came before them. Death is not common while facing bosses since they all attack you with telegraphed, sluggish moves, and surprisingly adequate health bars.

The basic AI also allows for lots of gaps in the action for healing. A lot of these bouts are relatively ordinary, serving more as a means of introducing a new elite adversary that will also be employed more frequently later on.

The Good and Bad

This otherwise fantastic bundle is surrounded by a fair amount of bugs. A few game crashes occurred to me, several awesome combat confrontations were destroyed by adversaries who were immobile in the surroundings, I was unable to execute some button instructions, like blocking, for extended periods of time, and more.

Additionally, there are a few strange non-bug quirks, such as the fact that the loading screen appears each time a player rests at a checkpoint and that Lords of the Fallen occasionally retains the unattractive original Dark Souls energy.

Some of those rough edges become much more apparent while playing with a buddy since it brings in other dubious features, such as the teleportation of co-op partners that happens when they go too far and is followed by a loading screen.

But these loading screens frequently take just enough time for the host to have moved out of view by the time you load back in, which results in an additional loading screen.

The strange absence of any sort of in-world sign guiding you in your friend’s direction also makes it impossible to determine where the host is, making it simple to lose sight of them and get split apart.

However, playing with a buddy is still enjoyable and offers the helping player a ton of resources and equipment along the road, unlike FromSoftware titles that frequently send them back to their own realm after every boss fight. My group and I are eager to revisit some of the locations and adversaries in fresh Game+ based on what I’ve played so far.

There’s fresh mythology, a whole new skill tree to try out, and, of course, more challenging monsters to defeat. It’s unfortunate that none of the boss fights have yet proven very difficult due to the increased level, but the sections in between are still well worth the trip.

Final Verdict

Lords of the Fallen is a fantastic souls-like game, and its revolutionary concept of switching between two different worlds to defeat opponents and solve puzzles is a brilliant way to make it stand out from the competition.

Although poor boss battles and a plethora of extremely frustrating technical bugs hamper that notion, amazing explorable locations and excellent buildcrafting more than make up for it. In spite of the obvious glut of action-RPGs out there, if, like me, you can’t get enough of good ones, then this relaunch is well worth your time.

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