Lords of the Fallen
In the Time of the Ancients, the Worldly Realm was ruled by a God of pure evil, who enslaved all humankind under his Dominion. But fear turned to anger as rebellion grew in the hearts of men – until the dawn of the Great Rising, when the fight for freedom began. After a glorious victory that cast aside the Fallen God, humans dictated a new order… a world where no sin can ever be forgiven and redemption was not an option. Now, millennia later, the world trembles in fear as the Demonic Rhogar Legion returns from their dark realm, driven by a foul hunger for innocent spirits. Humanity, in a desperate last act, calls upon an unlikely defender – a convicted sinner, rejected by society and cast out of the light… a man known as Harkyn. Now, alongside his mentor, Kaslo, they must travel to the source of the Darkness… to face the Lords of the Fallen.
fosiho 2
This game i have had for a while and although not completed in the time i have had it is a really enjoyable game. i have recently came back to it in 2019 and got slightly further than i did so im progressing slowly. this game is a learning curve and a challanging game from being a souls fan and other soul game a likes this is one of them from challanging combat to the awesome soundtrack. lords of the fallen is a lot slower however and bosses moves sets are very few and repetitive their are sometimes ganks in the boss fights which can also be annoying but if you can master parrying/backstabs then you can easily kill the small mobs. the world can also be confusing at times and may not always be clear on where you need to go.
Steam User 102
I played it on PS4 so I can't say if the port is good or not.
I recommend this game ... IF
- you never played any From Soft games or Soul-like before
- want to be introduced to the Soul genre in a more forgiving way.
Look at the negative comments and in most of them, you'll see a pattern emerge. They compare it to From Soft / Dark Soul.
If you already played Dark Soul and "got gud", you'll probably find this game boring. This game is not designed for you, so move along.
I never played a Soul before this game. The teen cashier at GameStop told me it was garbage but in the end I loved it. It is actually the only game I finished in NG+. I even finished it NG++. I never did that with any other game with a NG+ feature.
More importantly, it made me wanna try Dark Soul. Then I discovered the true meaning of Pain in the Ass.
On otherhand, if I played it after Dark Soul or even Elden Ring, then yes I might see it as garbage too.
The map is rather small compared to Dark Soul 3.
The level design is clearly not on the same "level". (Put on sunglass. Yes screaming in the background)
The weapon choices doesn't compare either and the game in general is a lot more forgiving.
Hence the big IF at the begining.
In my opinion, this game is a good introduction to the genre. And since it's rather cheap (when on sales) compared to a Soul, the risk of losing money trying a genre you never played before is minimal.
You can learn to drive with a Ferrari, but a Honda Civic will be more forgiving.
Steam User 76
Just finished the game and I honestly don't know whats the bad reviews are all about. To me, its either people without any patience, lazy or lack common sense, or combination of either of those.
This game is awesome. Combat is not the best in the world, but its nice. Variety of weapons which you can utilise for different encounters and specialisations. The story is nice and is not dragged out. You can make choices within the story.
Graphics are very good still. Character animations, armour looks, sounds, music, level design and looks all are very well made.
If you like games where no one is holding your hand where you can think for yourself and apply some logic on how to defeat bosses, while mashing mobs on your path, I would recommend this game.
Steam User 28
at THE JUDGE
the very last boss in the game, crashing like nobody's business.
If you play souls-like games, a few things to keep in mind;
-all enemies except bosses shall respawn,
-this game does follow a lot of the usuals we're aware of in SOULS' LIKE games, I was impressed with
symphony & choirs during the boss fights
-you UNLOCK your spawn points, 'bonfire', they aren't 'just there'.
The game can feel restrictive at times for the following reasons
1.there is no 'MAP', not even a circling compass on your screen, no 'M' button,
the 'WORLD' must be memorized,
2.no 'FAST-TRAVEL',
3.it doesn't hold hand
4.at respawn points, it became a little confusing, though, your flasks refilled, confusion set in when sometimes NOT ALL YOUR FLASKS DID REFILL, some of the time, other times they did, I was philosophising with myself, why & gave myself various reason's for this occurrence.
Then there are things which feel like a plus;
+for it's age, it looks good, gothic,
+the lore is deep,
+certain items refusing to unlock implying the existence of NEW ITEMS for NG+
+WHEN you accumulate XP, you are able to BANK it, & not lose it (i was impressed with this), how many times
I have played SOULS-LIKE to lose my XP,
+the narrative draws you in, & for it's time (released 2014), the voice acting was a great effort,
+the world is itself really beautifully made & fantastic to look at, NOVEL quality, just waiting to be explored,
DLC provides another REALM, totally to explore & surivive, in the main campaign accessible, it isn't separate.
I remain unsure as to what the sequel shall present us with,
there are those that would say (bugs/glitches/crashes) that this game was broken,
I'm aware it shall be rendered in UE5, beyond that, I'm unsure what shall be the result, though having COMPLETED THIS I'M HOPING FOR THE BEST, strong idea here for a good game
Finally,
if you're familiar with SOULS-LIKE games you should be at-home here,
have fun,
here is my recommendation.
Steam User 36
Buy it on sale and only if you are desperate for a souls-like. The combat is slower than even Dark souls 2, fully encumbered lol. But you get used to it. Lots of potential here for a solid souls-like, just needs some re-tooling.
Bring loads of patience with you when playing this game.
Steam User 15
I bought this game on it's original release back in 2014. I remember getting to the second boss beating him and never going back to the game. Thinking to myself that "i want to enjoy it but it's too clunky and unplayable" "The weapons do no damage and it feels like it takes forever to kill anything"
Well I come back in 2022 to tell you that it's not as unplayable as I remember and that I highly enjoy the game and having fun playing it. Don't get me wrong it's still clunky and slow but if you were like me in the past you were trying to play it like a souls game.
Sure it's very much a souls-like game but you can't play it like one. Stamina conservation is key to this game. When to attack and not. You can't necessarily sprint, dodge, and roll like you can in any souls game. You tire quickly One or two swings and you need to back up. The enemies are almost always just as slow as you are. So bait out their attacks and go in. This is more of a slowed down souls game. Be patient and just think about when to attack. It doesn't take long to get use to the game play loop.
Game has crashed on me once or twice and I've experience only one real bug and it's apparently been in the game since it's release. Using certain magic can make the audio bug out and won't go away until back out to the main menu and even then once you use the magic again well the sound is back.
I guess my main issue with the game is the damn camera. For the most part it can be alright but at it's worse oh boy good luck seeing anything. Worse than the Dark Souls camera especially if you go in for an attack and the enemy might do the same and you two end up close or behind one another and the camera just doesn't know what to do. One boss so far is the worse example of this. It's much bigger than you so when you get close the camera decides it's now working for the enemy and will fight you and more often than not will get you hit because you can't see what the boss is doing.
After all these years I kept telling myself that I'd go back to this game and give it another try and I'm glad I did. The game is surprisingly fun. If you're a souls fan I'd say try it out hell there's even an over arching story and dialogue. You might like it or you'll hate it. Get it on sale. If i'm going to give it a score a 3 out of 5. There is enough here for you to enjoy and doesn't overstay it's welcome.
Steam User 20
Looking at the reviews, typically all of the negative reviews only have less than a 1/40th played of the amount of time this game requires. Fair enough, if you're only playing for 2 hours total and think the game is terrible, then you value your time, nothing wrong with that but it's hardly a balance critique .....Surprisingly though, there are some really good "against" reviews with excellent points that you can't give a rebuttal to.
This souls like shouldn't really have such a bad review rate, understandable that some of the bad review points are absolutely valid, such as sound glitches, the slow pace and some of the environmental bugs but not so much to warrant a horde of angry souls fans to downgrade this game.
It is one of the worse (no I don't mean worst) examples of how good the souls like games can be but one thing you have to understand that this was probably one of the earliest games to follow in the footsteps of Demon souls and Dark souls, so it's not like a carbon copy at all, not even close and it gets some of the souls
formula translated differently.
My negative points for this game would have to be the obscure story, which I'm sure makes sense on a second play through or NG+, the not so straight forward direction on what you have to be doing or where you are supposed to be going at any given time in the story, there are occasionally some head scratching moments as to where the heck you are and where to go.
There is a lot the game isn't clear on telling you, like beating bosses in a certain way to get an upgraded version of a weapon you gain from killing that boss.
One of the worst things though for me and I can't remember if this is inherent with all souls games but there is an extremely steep attribute point investment the further you get along in the game, which makes the endgame exp farm grind VERY repetitive and expensive if you intend to min/max. But if that's your thing, it might be a positive.
What I did like about LOTF however is that it doesn't make any showy display that it's trying to compete with games of the same genre. Also, graphically it still stands up really well here in 2022, the game is 8 years old!
Multiple endings with explanations of your choices during the game.
It's also not 100+ hours for a play through, I could have managed to finish this in around 30 hours but my play style and need to find all of the secrets saw me finish this around 40 hours.
Not sure this could be worth playing through on an NG+, things don't play out differently, you're still bashing things the same way but there are some secrets and audio files that get unlocked the 2nd time around, also the ability to see how other choices would have gone.
I didn't hate it, I didn't love it though but I still think it's worthy of putting at least 10 hours into before casting judgement bolts.
Steam User 11
Don't spend your XP on unlocking spells, you can find enough items that give you a spell point to unlock everything (which you don't need anyway)
Character creation: class determines your starting stuff and equipment, magic type what spells you have access to. You can alter stats, you can't pick another spell school until NG+; that being said, the game is easily beatable without magic.
Speaking of, every magic type has a decoy spell, a ranged attack and a self-buff. They aren't necessary but if you find a spell you like, it can make your life a lot easier. If you want to focus on magic, it's probably best to take the deception school: Stab is probably the best offensive move and Shift makes you go invisible and do crazy backstab damage.
The combat is slow. If you want the maximum bang for your buck, focus on slow, heavy weapons, killing a boss with knives will take a while.
You'll find the ranged weapon pretty early in the game and it's mostly independent of stats (damage scales with faith but you can customize it for other purposes). The flip side is that it goes in your shield hand so if you want to use it, you'll have to rely on dodging.
If you beat a boss while fulfilling a special condition, you get a slighly better version of their weapon; look those up in a guide if you want them. With the first one it's taking no damage.
If you have trouble with a boss, try poison. Some enemies are immune but it's an amazing way to cheese most of the game.
Explore, backtrack. The game world is pretty small but chock-full of secrets. Also, characters that give you quests usually aren't too helpful regarding the location of what they send you to find.
Early on in the game you'll encounter a monk dying from a poisoned bite. Cut off his hand; you'll meet him again later on that way. Letting him die has no benefits whatsoever.
In the first building, you'll probably find an item called "Shard of Heroes" which the game is supremely unhelpful about. It doesn't come into play until you fight the second boss: the arena they're in has three statues. You can either kill the boss and use the shard at one of the statues to change your class to that and reallocate any stats you added OR you can insert the shard in one of the statues before/during the battle and then lure the boss into breaking it. After the battle, you'll find a pretty good weapon for the class of the statue you used. If you want the item and didn't get the statue broken or the shard in it, there's going to be another boss fight in this arena later on so there's another shot at it.
Don't fear death. You learn by dying and the consequences of it are very little. It's a good idea to take a moment and think about what killed you and how to avoid it the next time, though.
Dodging is almost always better than blocking, but blocking is much easier. Experiment.
Weapons damage calculation is based on two things: a base damage of the weapon and a scaling based on your stats. Different weapons scale differently so pay attention to the little numbers.
There's a fuckton of secrets. If you see a locked door, feel free to jot down a note, the game won't remind you about it and is pretty vague about what keys go where.
You can sort of upgrade your equipment at an NPC you'll meet a bit into the game. There are runes that go into sockets on items. Remember that you can also pull the runes out - so you don't need to save the good ones until you find a weapon you think will last you a long time.
Not good, not bad= average. But nice if bought on sale!