The First AAA Souls-Like: Lords of the Fallen — what went wrong?
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Published 2021-02-26
Lords of the Fallen was the first souls-like with a budget that tried to imitate the success of Dark Souls. It's a mixed bag, but why exactly doesn't it measure up?
twitter: twitter.com/IronPineapple_
twitch: www.twitch.tv/iron_pineapple
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 intro
0:53 the biggest problem
2:57 story/main character
3:37 starting classes
4:10 first impressions, first area, animations
4:46 boss designs(?)
5:34 bonus exp, visuals
6:38 npc dilemma
7:14 floaty combat
8:40 recovering exp is a problem
9:18 boss 3 & 4, demon zone, heavy breathing
10:16 broken magic
11:39 catacombs & sidequest rant
13:26 boss 5, the citadel, story context
14:20 enemy design problems
15:48 the remaining 5 bosses
16:57 closing thoughts
18:20 sponsor/outro
thank you to help from:
Grapfic for help with the thumbnail: twitter.com/Grapfic
Onua for creating the SFM pose of the Solaire and the Lords of the Fallen guy in the thumbnail: twitter.com/Odynom
All Comments (21)
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Hi, developer here. Let's just pretend for a second you didn't hate the game as much as you just expressed and let us clarify something: We're not involved in the development of Lords of the Fallen 2. If you want to see if we care about feedback and are able to learn from criticism, please check out the Surge games. But yeah, there were some fair points in the video, not gonna lie 😅 -Phil
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Aaah it feels good to hear IronPineapple's comforting voice again
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If you want to have an enemy that can't be backstabbed, don't just have him turn around instantly, have it be some crunchy amalgamation who is facing both directions at once
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These "commander" "guardian" "worshipper" "infiltrator" "champion" "beast" "annihilator" "judge" bosses sound very original and unique i dont see the problem
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"If everything is edgy, nothing is" A bit busy characters and environments design. So many spikes.
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"all of the dark none of the soul" this statement made me feel something.
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I think something underappreciated in the Souls games is how slow they are, or rather how slowly they encourage you to play. I think that's why something like animation cancelling and the experience regain timer stands out so much here. In the Souls games I've played I feel like 99/100 of my deaths happen because I'm not careful/patient enough.
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I like how you're actually really very fair. You end up on "mediocre" instead of an exaggerated "bad", and find purely positive things to compliment in a game you don't like. That speaks to a very commendable degree of rationality and maturity in how you evaluate games.
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Dark souls: Quick rolls, timed counters, giant but relatively quick bosses. Lord of the Fallen: I LIKE THEM CHUNKY
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I got every single achievement in this game..... The one thing I will actually give it credit for is getting the legendary weapons by defeating each boss under a certain set of criteria.... OH! And for the love of God, please look up final boss glitch, there is a chance the final boss will completely jump off the stage right at the start, allowing you to win immediately. Happened to me first playthrough
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There was one cool thing that I remember about and I didn't see you mention - there were some conditions where if you kill a boss in a certain way you get a different reward. That was kinda cool - like with cutting the tail in ds1
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Cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate the countdown during the sponsered bit. It actually made me not skip because I know exactly how much was coming and didn't gamble of 5 seconds or 2 minutes. Also, despite its flaws, the exp multiplier actually seems really cool.
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"The classic dynamic duo, Ornstein and Ornstein" lmao, that was great
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That tower shield guy is when I stopped playing. It became too clear that the design just isn't there.
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fromsoftware: "hey lets do hard enemies with various mechanics and give them some movesets" Lords of the Fallen: "hey lets do slow enemies that only have damage and HP"
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I love The Surge and The Surge 2. They did a phenomenal job with those games especially the second game and the improvement over the first.
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If you're going to make every boss a knight, why not give it an Arthur's round table theme? There's 12 knights right there for free.
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The names of the bosses are so inspired and creative. “Infiltrator” “Worshipper” “Annihilator” Truly unique names.
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at 6:38 you mention a problem with the NPCs & the story giving you a choice that doesn't actually change anything, but that choice does change things. If you save the monk from falling then you can double back & go talk to him. I don't remember all the details of what happens, it's been a while since I played the game, but I remember that part clearly.
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With the recent trailer for the sequel it's definitely looking like the franchise is evolving its style. The new art direction looks like its leaning much more into the dark fantasy/heavy metal/Mordor kind of look and I dig that, especially with the song they chose and Jospeh Quin's narration. It certainly seems like there's more personality there now, but how's the gamplay gonna be? We'll have to wait and see.
