Lords of the Fallen is... interesting...

 

So recently I've been in a bit of a Souls-Like kick- which is to say I've been playing a bunch of them simultaneously in order to catch up with the general state of the genre. Now I have Wolong Fallen Dynasty under my belt which was actually a little short and straightforward for my tastes, finished it way too quickly and recently I finished two in the same day- Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen. (The new one, that is.) And I'm not sure if it has been the act of sharing those two games over the past few days but I feel uniquely touched to comment on the state of what Lords offers and compare it, eventually, with The Lies of P experience to see if this surprise franchise revival was really worth the effort. Do we need Lords of the Fallen to come back into our lives with a sequel that isn't called a sequel for some incomprehensible reason?

Lords of the Fallen picks up on the same world as the original but nearly a thousand years later as entirely new kingdoms and cultures have arisen and protagonists the world over have learned how to keep their bloody mouths shut. No more chatty heroes, just call old fashion character creation- and it's here where I'll award Lords it's first point. Their starting classes hold a bit more significance than those in other Souls-Likes both because of the scarcity of equipment and how laborious the levelling process can be. Meaning you'll likely be setting into largely distinct playstyles from the class selection screen which I've never really experienced before. What's more, each of the three endings you achieve unlocks new powerful special classes that make for fun early roll playing opportunities for your next character. It's all rather thoughtful and "mind on the replayability" which not enough Souls-Likes pay mind to.

Another point worth commending- the controls! Considering that the original Lords of the Fallen was widely lambasted for feeling about as sluggish as everyone assumed Dark Souls felt before they actually played the thing- it really is a point of wide praise that this game feels like one of the most responsive titles on the market right now! From the fluidity of just moving about, the basic range of controls to make the easiest to pull of 'kick' this genre has ever known- I really loved getting the game in my hands whenever I booted it up. I never thought a dodge-based rogue build in a Lords of the Fallen game could actually feel nimble- but the team really stepped up to address the biggest critique of the original and that deserves praise.

And that... that's pretty much the extent of the completely good things I have to say about the new Lords of the Fallen. Everything else comes with a caveat. Yeah, the new world is so much more interesting and full of nuance than the original- but it still feels like garden variety Dark Fantasy with pseudo-Christian themes that someone tried to stretch across an entire game and largely failed. There are actual characters with genuine backstories, but for some reason the team decided to opt for the early Souls-like model of "totally obscure quest paths that are physically incapable of following with a guide because these characters literally sod off any which way without any hint or communication" when all recent Souls-likes have kind of relaxed that kind of practise at least a bit. And sure, you have a breadth of new environments to visit compared to the 'couple' of the original- but some are designed in such a unnecessarily labyrinthian and dragged out manner that it's incredibly easy to get lost and grow frustrated with the seemingly thoughtless level design employed knowingly by these world builders.

Lords of the Fallen feels like a Souls-Like created by a team who, for some reason and to some degree of significance, deeply dislikes Souls-Likes. Or at least- they refuse to play any from the past 5 years to actually learn where the genre has grown to- what it feels like now and how they can match the innovation or at the very least play upon it. It feels like a team made up of those annoying 'Reddit purists' who only accept Demon Souls and the original Dark Souls as 'legitimate' Souls-Likes because they were considered Cult Classics. The second the franchise became a bit more popular they disavowed it and everything those newer games did to feel more accessible and fun because those were 'pandering to the weak mob who can't take the hardships of a dog-ass control scheme where sprint and jump are the same button!" (Thank god 'controls' are the only thing that Lords of the Fallen actually pushed the needle on.)

Rather than literally every other game in this genre that places their focus on either character builds, thrilling bosses or a mixture of both- Lords of the Fallen places the majority of the game focus in everything inbetween bosses. Drawn out gauntlets of mobs, lopping hallway-like design, frustrating puzzles of three types the game seems enamoured with showing off every couple of minutes- it almost feels like they wanted to make a mature action adventure game but seeing as how God of War is the only kind of game in that style which exists in the modern age they thought it was safer to make a Souls-like instead. 

This really comes through in the bosses- many of which are built around large-scale gimmicks that colourise the fight rather than conflict to test one's build against. You'll have to knock an enemy off their horse by exploding soul-pods at the right time, dart between endlessly spawning dogs in order to take down an archer, flirt with an umbral ghost whilst a giant demon crow pulls a bullet hell on your head. It's all very creative stuff, but not necessarily additive to a Souls-like style game- at least until the late game where the team throw so many more traditional boss fights at you one after the other that it feels like they kind of ran out of time to properly build and balance it all. One fight in particular is against an enemy with such a rudimentary and basic moveset that the team just shrugged their shoulders and trapped the battle in a box so embarrassingly tiny that you simply can't play normally for all the splashing colour effects blinding the whole screen. It's that kind of stuff that makes it feel like this was a game designed intentionally against it's own better nature.

Lords of the Fallen is a vast improvement over the original game and if this had released in place of the original I think this franchise would be brought up in conversations about Souls-Likes a lot more often, but given all the many years of incremental and substantial improvements the genre type has gone through over the years, all of which this game seems wistfully oblivious to, it's hard to rate this against it's peers. Lords never learned how to deal with enemy composition in a manner that doesn't feel random and amateurish, never learned organic level design that doesn't span out like unnatural padding drowning out the world's artistry. They never even learnt how to do New Game plus and just slapped modifiers on all the enemy health pools. To be fair, most Souls-Likes don't really know how to handle these modes either- so I guess they're no different in that regard. For me, my playthrough ended when I finished the game, clicked on new game +- the game crashed and then spawned me in the inferno field with no means of escape essentially bricking my save. Lords in a nutshell- a non-starter. C-.