Lords of the Fallen Review

From the guys at City Interactive and Deck 13 comes Lords of the Fallen (LOTF), an action RPG that many have accused of cloning the Dark Souls games and just giving them a lick of new paint. To an extent that may be so, but when you have games as successful as Dark Souls 1 & 2 have been you’re always going to find people wanting to match their success, and the best way of doing that is to follow tried and tested methods. For me, I see it as an opportunity to take the best from games like these and to try and improve upon them, adding new features and such; then you can stand proud with your creation and issue the challenge to others to see if they can do better. Will this be the thoughts behind the developers of LOTF though, or have they done as people suggest and just shamelessly stole another game without even trying to cover it up?

Well luckily when it comes to the story it isn’t exactly a doppelganger of the Dark Souls plot. You’ll play through the game as Harkyn, a human who looks like one tough son of a gun (keeping it clean for the kiddies), he kind of reminds me of a slimmer and younger Ray Winston. Anyway he is tasked with the perilous quest to battle an unstoppable supernatural force, the Fallen God. As you make your way through the beautifully crafted game world you will be forced to make a series of decisions which will affect the storyline by changing both the world and Harkyn.

Now the story isn’t the most engrossing of any game I have played, it’s probably slightly better than mediocre but it fails to run strongly through the entire game. It does however have a few nice touches like audio logs; you collect these as you journey through the game and it helps fill in little bits of the story here and there. What did annoy me slightly though was that some of the characters to me seemed to lack a personality, for example Harkyn; he looks like this big tough guy covered in tattoos and who has probably got a few tales he can tell the grandkids. But when he opens his mouth he just isn’t what I expected to hear, I was thinking he’d have a husky voice that would strike fear into his enemies and make ladies weak at the knees. Instead you get quite a softly spoken voice which lacks any charm in my eyes, no fear felt just the feeling like if they wanted, enemies could run up offering hugs and he’d accept them with open arms.

Now I could possibly accept the softly spoken voice of Harkyn if he was the only character that lacked pizazz and if the playable character was customisable. I mean you could make the voice match the man (or woman) or change the voice to something with more feeling in it. But alas this is not the case, unfortunately many of the characters feel like they are dead inside and character customization goes as far as selecting your class and weapon. Now this doesn’t necessarily make the game bad, what does is the fact that each of the classes should be completely different yet they aren’t that dissimilar. For instance each class has a magical ability which acts in the same way just with a different effect, i.e. more damage or better defence. You don’t even have set equipment for certain classes either like you would find on the Diablo games where you have specific class type gear. Adding features such as these would’ve definitely made this area of the game feel less monotonous.

However do not fear, from here the game does get better. The main thing you will be doing in the game is kicking evil’s behind and this area of the game is thoroughly enjoyable. Depending on which weapons you go for the style of combat will differ slightly, for example if you go for the hammer your attacks will be slower but you’ll also do more damage just like a heavyweight boxer. Then you have the likes of the small daggers who are more like Floyd Mayweather, movements a lot faster and may not have as big an impact damage wise but still packs a decent enough punch to take down your opponents. These are just for primary attacks though; you also have magic abilities which act as a supporting weapon of sorts, helpful when you begin to get a little overwhelmed.

What is special about the mechanics in this area of the game is the way that you earn your XP which will be used to help develop your character. It’s very similar to the newer Dynasty Warrior Empire game’s in which you go out to battle, and you can continue to future battles without returning to camp or replenishing health and it multiplies the XP you earn. It is pretty much the same here where if you leave using potions the lower your health the more XP you get for kills, don’t be stupid though and let it drop too low or else you’ll die.

The next area of the game that impresses is the first bit you see, the beautifully crafted fantasy world in which the game takes place. It’s not a huge land that allows endless hours of exploring like some RPGs, instead it is a lot more restrictive but you can’t help but admire the detail in the scenery. Unfortunately this does mean that compared to some rival games in the genre there isn’t a lot of game time to be played, in fact it only took me a couple of sittings to complete but I could well have done it in one sitting if the pub didn’t call my name. That said if you really wanted to you could replay the game with different classes and such and it would still be just as enjoyable to play, although may get a bit repetitive.

Going back to the graphics though the developers have done a solid job by creating not just a beautiful world but putting immense detail into the characters and enemies, especially bosses. The AI of the enemies was just as impressive as well often forcing you to tactfully approach battles by studying enemies armour for weak points and also looking at how they attacked, allowing you to manoeuvre around them and strike while they were off guard. This doesn’t completely make up for the lack of personality some of them have but if like me you occasionally play games listening to your own music over the top of the game sound (thanks goes to my Plantronics Rig mixer for this) then you’ll notice it less. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the game soundtrack (it was just the voice acting I disliked); in fact the music was often perfectly synced with the mood of the game, and the choirs that sang on some tracks were almost angelic and really helped lift the mood and set the scene.

Overall Lords of the Fallen, considering it is made by two studios that are relatively unknown, was a solid entry into the genre. Graphically it trumps Dark Souls for me, although I would’ve liked to see a bigger game world in which you can explore new regions and discover hidden secrets of the fantasy world the developers have created. The combat system was probably on par with Dark Souls since it followed a similar style but the impressive AI for me, made it a more enjoyable game which provided a worthy challenge. I won’t lie though, it still needs work; it could use some better voice acting and maybe a storyline that runs through the game a little stronger but these are things that are learnt along the journey of game development and they will surely come with time if City Interactive and Deck 13 continue to make games of this style. The game could also do with giving itself something that makes it stand apart from Dark Souls in a completely unique way. Still, having said that, it is definitely worth purchasing if you enjoyed playing the Dark Souls games or other games of this category.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.