Lords of the Fallen is a Dark Souls clone, with the same controller scheme, same checkpoint, experience and leveling scheme. Let’s break Lords of the Fallen down into the ways it is different: story, art style, enemies, bosses and weapons.
The story is weak, confusing and supplemented with sometimes hard to find story bits hidden throughout the game. The story of Dark Souls is nearly impossible to follow and even hardcore players like EpicNameBro debate about what certain things mean in the game. It would take huge flow charts to map out all the relationships as time seems to not travel in a straight line in the Dark Souls world. Lords of the Fallen, however, is confusing in that it is poorly written and the dialogue adds little to the game. Antanas is a king, he can pull the evil out of people. They never show him do this, nor show why he became king of the world nor why it’s snowing everywhere. They show no normal people whatsoever and you’re essentially sequestered into this monastery/castle grounds for the duration of the game. You get voiceovers from notes left throughout the game telling you the devastation wrought by Rhogar but every Rhogar you see just hovers and waits where they are until you show up, no prowling, no setting fires and no killing. That’s all already been done by the time you show up so you don’t even get cutscenes where you see the brutality. In a medium based heavily in visual appeal we are told the main characteristics of our adversaries. We never see the burnt fields, destroyed towns and slain citizens of whatever kingdom this is. We only see soldiers dead to weapons that no enemy in the game wields. The way it sounds and looks is that there would be huge crowds attempting to enter the castle or refugee swarms everywhere. In Dark Souls the world was devastated long before and thus no remnants remain. Except for a few champions everyone is dead. You’d never see a town or townsperson except to view the decrepit remains. Lords of the Fallen does itself a disservice by saying this conflict with the Rhogar, the game’s main adversary, is on-going and has lead to widespread devastation. It makes the whole world surreal when Rhogar wait quietly for someone to show up and soldiers sit around doing nothing. You never see anything they mention, only in the middle and near the very end of the game do you see someone who isn’t a main character or soldier. The story, instead of intriguing with mysteries, baldly tells itself to the player and shows nothing. The main ally in the game reveals himself to be an observer god-like being who is beyond the pantheon (of which only 1 is mentioned) you know. To do this his character model is shown in the ‘ghost’ palette, transparent blue and white. No crazy form, no images showing his great power, nothing to belie his true nature. Antanas is said to be this amazing king who everyone sees as being able to defeat gods and is the reason for the whole story. He’s just as bland as everyone else but his steel armor is slightly more silvery than the rest and he has a unique sword and cape. Nothing is ever shown of his magnificent powers, nor does he look unique or have an unusual aura about him. The Guard Captain and he look almost identical. The story repeatedly paints these pictures and the game consistently let’s you down in showing them.
This moves into the art style. Dark Souls had a recognizable
art style that combined a dark palette with larger than life environments.
Lords of the Fallen uses the same color scheme on nearly everything in the game
and creates very same-y bland environments that grow dull swiftly. At one
point, when the main character is told to go into another dimension/world I got
excited, thinking we might see the artist’s vision of an alien hell-world ruled
by the ‘evil’ god Adyr. Instead we see the same palette, the same textures and
roughly the same architecture as the rest of the game. The only real way you
can tell if you’re in one place or another are these statues ubiquitous
throughout the demon world (of Adyr? Never found an explanation in game) and
the gates are different. Other than that the colors, snow white and grey stone
mixed with blackish gunmetal steel, are continuous throughout both environs.
I’m annoyed that so little was done to differentiate between the two. The issue
is the same with enemies in the game, most of them are humanoid except for
spiders and use some form of handheld weapon. One enemy has a tower shield and
is gunmetal with a reddish torso. One enemy carrys a battle axe and is gunmetal
with a reddish torso. One enemy carries a huge sword and shield and is gunmetal
with a reddish torso. And so on. Spiders and former humans infected with something
have a different color pattern of a muddy skin color mixed with light green
spots. Spiders can give birth to smaller spiders that are totally brown with
black legs which is one of two enemies that have their own color pattern, the
other being ghost enemies.
Enemies in the game have very little differentiation in
attacks, weapons and abilities. Big guys with big shields have infinity defense
(cause that’s fun) and block in every direction simultaneously. The game pits
you against really boring enemies because you just have to wait and wait until
the attack before you can. It’s very dull and gets boring early when you
realize you can tackle every enemy in the game the same way. Get up within one
or two steps of the enemy, move to the left and jump between 1 and 4 times when
they start to attack and attack after. Rinse repeat. The reason you have to
wait is because so many enemies have uninterruptable attacks or impenetrable
shields. The shield thing gets really annoying when you are behind them and
swing and somehow hit their shield they are carrying in front. Lazy programming
is what that is. There are also a preponderance of enemies whose every attack
is faster than your attack should you have anything sword-sized or larger which is
roughly half the games weapons. When playing as a Cleric or Warrior this can
make many fights really boring when you know you have to wait until a specific
pattern starts before you can attack. Also if there are 3 or more enemies
attacking you at once the game has no real way to cope, you either have to run
away or die. The lack of differentiation hurts most in the mid-to-late game
where every enemy you encounter for about 5 hours is the same. There is also
the issue of forced differentiation in enemies. There are two enemies in game,
ghosts and sorcerers, who make it very hard for non-magic characters to beat.
In Dark Souls you were given items that could allow you to hit them or ways
around them where they couldn’t follow. Lords of the Fallen is having none of
that. They force you into having this totally out of style ‘gauntlet’ (and by
style I mean the in-game style of weaponry used by you and enemies) that shoots
magic. It comes out of nowhere, is found just lying on the ground, and has
nothing like it anywhere else in the game. It’s just there so non-magic users
can defeat broken enemies later in the game and so patient players can deal
with annoying bosses and enemies, all of whom are close-combat oriented or have
slow ranged attacks that can be dodged easily. Like Dark Souls this game also
has the issue of dodging being wayyy more important than armor for most
enemies. Most enemy attacks will interrupt you no matter what armor you’re
wearing (including a human archer whacking you with his bow, illusion breaking
when my great hammer does the same as a bow) and thus dodging becomes the only
way to really beat on some enemies. The first boss I faced naked and had no
trouble beating because I could dodge all of his attacks and deliver some of my
own. The game punishes wearing heavy armor. Finally, there is a huge issue with
late game enemies being all these humans who have been getting their asses
handed to them across the countryside. Not because they are easy, quite the
opposite, they are crazy strong. When you see 3 humans in an area you think to
yourself, ‘There’s no way I’ll be able to take them’ and you’ll try to lure
them off one at a time. You shouldn't feel that way about humans who you've
seen cower and tremble throughout the game and, after defeating Antanas, cower
and tremble in your presence again. They take insane amounts of damage (equal
to a lord) and deal insane amounts (equal to a lord). The icing on the cake is
the archer with his meek bow doing high damage whacking you with it and
interrupting your heavily armored body. Just lazy programming. ‘End of the game
has to be hard so these guys have to be hard!’
Bosses in this game are very alike except for one or two
standouts. Close range, slow attacks come in 3’s or 4’s that you dodge then
take hit once or twice on the boss after, ranged ‘magic’ attacks that are
either fire, lightning or a color coming at you. The last boss has a reddish
color and a greenish color that can hit you, this hulking champion boss has a
color that comes after you along the ground, a graveyard boss lets out a
blinding light that instantly kills you, the first boss fires a red color at
you from the tip of his sword after he’s sufficiently damaged. All in all the
bosses are very same-y and uninspired. In order to be unique some of them don’t
even fit the game’s art style and thus break the illusion. Most of them are
generic, cool-looking humanoids with some close combat weapon. You can follow
the same pattern with most bosses as you do with most enemies, get within one
or two steps, dodge the 3-4 attacks they do and then strike once or twice.
Rinse, repeat for 15 minutes. The game even breaks the 4th wall at
one point by having the main character call out that it’s mostly a game of
patience and not a game of skill when beating the Rhogar Lords; very telling. The
last boss is as hard as the first boss and will take roughly the same number of
attempts and roughly the same strategy.
The weapons in the game are supposed to feel much stronger
than in Dark Souls and they do but leave very few playstyles to goof around
with. When attacking somebody as a rouge with fast weapons you follow the same
pattern as someone with a sword or great hammer. You just do more attacks. A
rouge will attack 5 times for 100 damage. A warrior will attack 2 times for 100
damage. A cleric will attack 1 time for 100 damage. There is very little to
differentiate when you face all enemies the same way.
Overall, Lords of the Fallen is a lesser clone of Dark Souls
with little going for it over Dark Souls. It’s mercifully brief and can be beaten
in roughly a day or two of play. Walkthroughs are ubiquitous online and can
help you get through less than straight-forward parts where poor writing and
gameplay leave you confused as to what to do next (looking at you ghosts of
bosses past scene). I’d give Lords of the Fallen 7/10 if I worked at IGN but
since I don’t I’ll give it a 5. It’s a mediocre game that fails in every way to
live up to its parent game Dark Souls.
