I recently wrote about Lords of the Fallen from 2014 and how bad it was. I wanted to play that game before jumping into the new Lords of the Fallen that was released in 2023. I did of course drop the 2014 version due to it being basically unplayable. I'm very happy to announce that the opposite in true for Lords of the Fallen from 2023. This game is great.
What is Lords of the Fallen?
Lords of the Fallen is an attempt at reviving a failed game from 2014. It's a souls-like that's heavily inspired by the Dark Souls formula and it almost feels like a spiritual successor to Dark Souls 3. The game follows the classic souls-like formula in terms of world and character progression but does some decently unique things to set it apart from the typical souls-like. Mostly in terms of having two overlaying worlds to explore and a rune system to customize weapons.
This iteration of Lords of the Fallen had a very rocky start. The reviews for the first year or so were not good. The game felt unnecessarily unforgiving and the performance was bad on basically all platforms. The developers have worked hard for the last year to release a ton of updates to the game and it is now in a really good state. Enough for me to have put almost 50 hours into the game.
First Impressions
I guess it's hard to call it first impressions after having played the game for nearly 50 hours and starting my second playthrough. It's more like a review at this point. In short; the game is good. It does enough to set itself apart as a unique souls-like while still following the classic formula that fans of the genre like.
In my first run of the game I went with a two-handed melee strength build which I always do in these games. I had a lot of fun with it and there weren't really any parts of the game that made me struggle much. That is also a bit of a critique to the game at the same time. I didn't really meet any hard bosses. I took down all of the bosses in just a few attempts and I didn't feel like I had to spent a lot of time solving the bosses and their attack moves. It's also a little bit disappointing to see so many bosses become standard enemies shortly after defeating them. They could do with some more enemy variety.
Weapon variety, armor variety and build variety is all top notch. It feels like you can build your character however you want and never go wrong. Everything is viable and that's something I really appreciate. This way the game will cater to all kinds of playstyles.
I've finished one playthrough and have already started the next. I was quite satisfied with the ending, however the last boss is one of the biggest last boss disappointments I've ever felt in a souls-like game. It could barely even be called a boss in my opinion.
So far I've streamed every minute of my adventures in this game and you can see it all with live commentary on YouTube in this playlist. There's more to come, and I'm currently streaming this game several times a week. Jump in to either my Twitch or YouTube stream and say hello if you see me online.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7wJYV54OdI71GRKEeO6mgynyAYVM9V7H
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.