Nyteshade517
Member
October 28th in the US
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Lords of the Fallen: Early Impressions
- Thread starter Jindrax
- Start date
October 28th in the US
They are not "advertised as a Souls like game".. yes, they took many influences, elements & features from those games, but in interviews and videos they are clearly saying that there is a empty spot between most modern games and Souls games, and they want to take that spot with their game.. they want to offer challenge for those who want more challenge from a game(s) but they find the Souls games too hard..
Yoshichan
And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Only 31th in Australia. They pushed the EU release forward to 28th.
I don't personally find the Souls game hard but they have a lot of obtuse stuff in the game that you learn from failure or lots of time down the tube. I have died 5 times more in a NG/DMC3 type game than in a Souls game for example.
The developers are right in that there is a gap between the Souls game and AAA games that can be used up although that gap is usually occupied by the character action games. Character action games are decently hard but they are not obtuse, you don't get punished for speccing improperly and you know where to go.
A Souls game that occupies the space between can appeal to a lot of gamers though I am not sure if this is that game. Souls game have a ton of other things going for it like the soundtrack, atmosphere, art, lore etc and this game has to nail it in that department too.
The developers are right in that there is a gap between the Souls game and AAA games that can be used up although that gap is usually occupied by the character action games. Character action games are decently hard but they are not obtuse, you don't get punished for speccing improperly and you know where to go.
A Souls game that occupies the space between can appeal to a lot of gamers though I am not sure if this is that game. Souls game have a ton of other things going for it like the soundtrack, atmosphere, art, lore etc and this game has to nail it in that department too.
If the game not really advertised as Souls like game, then I would blame the media for name dropping Dark Souls too much on the pre-release material for this game.
Thanks for the correction yoshi.
Sanctuary
Member
That is precisely what the developers have said. They've even said that they aren't trying to out do FROM at their own game, because they wouldn't be able to do it anyway. They have said multiple times that they are taking the formula (see:genre) that FROM came up with and tweak it to their liking.
It's kind of funny how much love around here Shadow of Mordor gets, when the only original thing about it is the Nemesis system, and even that's not enough to overlook at how blatantly everything else was directly lifted from more popular series. But does that even matter really if people actually think the game is fun?
So wait, you actually blame the developer for what gaming site previewers or just random posters around the internet have been saying? The Souls name bomb has been dropped by pretty much everyone other than those you're blaming. Can you show a single example of where the developers said "Yeah, it's just like the Souls games!"? Did you ever play The Witcher 2? They actually mentioned both Batman and Demon's Souls inspiring the combat, but that's all they said. And it did feel like it was inpsired by Batman, yet not really a copy and it felt nothing like the Demon's combat other than enemies hitting pretty hard. Tomasz Gop has been in love with the Souls series long before this game and no one seemed to be bashing TW2 for it.
SlasherJPC
Banned
I've played up to the 4th lord. Which was as far as I could stream thus talk about. I dig it. I started as one class. Got to the 4th lord. Started a new class on new game for the stream, and I just defeated the 4th lord. The bosses def take some time. I found new area I missed the first time. I still do not really understand much of the story, but fans of the Souls game will have stuff to love here. It's not as hard but still can be challenging and regular enemies can and will kill you. I think for people wanting another style of the souls games will def enjoy it. If your wanting a carbon copy or expecting the exact same, you might walk away dissapointed. I've had a good amount of time with the game and look forward to playing more.
Yoshichan
And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
The risk/reward of not leveling up (stack up loot/exp multiplier)
and
The risk of not grabbing your souls when dying and instead getting the attack/hp-regen-buff around your 'corpse'
are the two best new mechanics imo
Sanctuary
Member
Store = lore?
Again, I think people should be comparing this game's difficulty to something like Lords of Shadow 1&2 (the name is just a coincidence) on the Hard difficulty. It wasn't as difficult as a Souls game, but it definitely wasn't a "button mashing GoW clone" like so many parrots claimed.
SlasherJPC
Banned
Story, sorry corrected up above!
The XP multiplier is a genius mechanic. It adds a nice element of risk/reward, is strategic, but also not too punishing.
The 2nd one seems abusable as you can die at a boss fight then fight near your corpse for HP regen bonus.
First one is interesting but these mechanics are very minor changes from the Souls game. Does this game still have backstabs/ripose? Gear impacting speed? Lock on based movement? Stamina based combat? Uncancellable attacks? If yes then this is pretty much a Souls game game play wise.
Yoshichan
And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Abusable, yeah but you're risking out losing all your exp if the boss kills you before you take your experience back (if you have any on the corpse, that is).
Backstab/ripose = Yes
Gear impacting speed = Yes, three different rolls (light, medium, fat)
Lock on based movement = Yes, like the one from DkS1, not DkS2
Stamina based combat = Yes
Uncancellable attacks = Yes. Most attacks are uncancellabe, the rogue has plenty of canceballe moves though.
I recommend watching this video (EpicNameBro, you most likely know who this guy is):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkDn5r1CieI
Sanctuary
Member
Good video. The other one that's been frequently linked is also very good by a veteran Souls player.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3l-3iipy8
edit: I hate hearing someone pronounce riposte as though poste is like toast. Pretend the "e" isn't even there.
31th, lol. I'm in Aus and my steam was telling me 28th, not 31st... Did they change it for everyone?
Wait, so pronouncing it like that is wrong?
That the because the game sucessfully managed to make Nemesis system as the face of the game, rather than cuing other element from other poular game. There are attempts before it released that try to knit Shadow of Mordor with Assassin's Creed, calling it AC in Middle Earth, fortunately that failed and Nemesis system quickly replaced it.
That was my ignorancy on my part, especially after reading this interview. Makes me feel bad really, and I want to aplogize for blaming the developer. But you can't ignore that too many people drawn the likeness to Dark Souls far too often and far too deep, which only done a great disservice to the game. If we would like to take Shadow of Mordor as example, that will like using the likeness of it to AC as the main attraction instead of the Nemesis system.
In case of TW2, nobody can draw a likeness to anything because it's the mixture of two source of inspiration, a good thing on CD Projekt because TW2 can stand on its own.
Note to mine is that I have to be more careful with media buzzword next time. This shit already caught me more often than not.
Yoshichan
And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Oh wow! Nice.
How the hell do you pronounce it then, lol
badnewsbeers
Member
...that's how it's pronounced.
cleveridea
Member
I'm actually pleased that the game is easier and sounds like I would be able to complete the game. I loved demons souls, dark souls and dark souls 2 but could never finish them. I loved these games for the atmosphere, deep combat systems with complex regular enemies that required strategy and skill to defeat, complex and varied movesets of weapons.
Some of the concepts I did not actually like though, like the lack of guidance of what to do (demons souls was bad for this) and the large amounts of time that could be wasted if you died (eg no checkpoints before a boss).
I love the DS series & dont want them to change. I DO however think that there is room for other games like fallen that bring the excellent core gameplay and combat systems from dark souls with an easier difficulty curve. I personally dont care about the story telling but I think its a good thing to have some diversity there.
I think of something like Skyrim which I think is an exceptional game when you play all its different types of gameplay (stealth, illusion magic etc) but the one thing its lacking is a good combat system - especially melee is terrible in comparison with DS.
So hopefully we get more DS type games with options for all player types. And have options for both easy and hard, with systems in place to reward the expert players (like best weapon drops being disabled if you pick easy, or want to enable some kind of auto-navigate hint system or something).
Some of the concepts I did not actually like though, like the lack of guidance of what to do (demons souls was bad for this) and the large amounts of time that could be wasted if you died (eg no checkpoints before a boss).
I love the DS series & dont want them to change. I DO however think that there is room for other games like fallen that bring the excellent core gameplay and combat systems from dark souls with an easier difficulty curve. I personally dont care about the story telling but I think its a good thing to have some diversity there.
I think of something like Skyrim which I think is an exceptional game when you play all its different types of gameplay (stealth, illusion magic etc) but the one thing its lacking is a good combat system - especially melee is terrible in comparison with DS.
So hopefully we get more DS type games with options for all player types. And have options for both easy and hard, with systems in place to reward the expert players (like best weapon drops being disabled if you pick easy, or want to enable some kind of auto-navigate hint system or something).
Sanctuary
Member
cleveridea
Member
I really enjoyed shadow of mordor but I am looking forward to equipping more types of melee weapons than 1 sword and 1 dagger
KCroxtonJr
Member
to-mAY-to, to-mAH-to...I really hope english is not your first language lol.
So because they marketed a specific feature of the game, that made it ok? lol. No matter how much they marketed the Nemesis system, the core of the game was still very much asscreed formula.
Basically, you (and many others) are/were upset because the MEDIA heavily portrayed the game as a Souls type game, instead of listening to what the devs themselves had to say about the game and finding out what it is all about yourselves. smh
It may not have one huge system that sets it apart from the game that inspired it, but all of the tweaks and changes the devs made to the formula do make the game stand on its own. I can't think of a single mechanic brough over from Dark Souls that hasn't been changed or improved upon.
Game looks good and fun, being built upon the formula of one of the best game series of ALL TIME, I don't understand the problem, especially if you enjoy the souls series...
Sanctuary
Member
Does that include the sidequests, and if so are they actually enjoyable and not boring collectathon, Fedex repetitions?
If you're referencing that site, notice it even specifies the differences between British and American pronounciations of words. This pronounciation of riposte didn't actually seem to become a thing until more recently. It was never said like that in school and it was never said like that on television or at the theaters while growing up.
Anyone remember how to actually pronounce homage? Here's a hint: you actually pronounce the "h".
SatelliteOfLove
Member
One virtue at a time, starting with the combat. Patience, patience.
Spainkiller
the man who sold the world
Finished. Fucking finally.
Managed to carry on after three or four solid hours of doing nothing but backtrack throughout the entirety of the demon world and finally finding a thin corridor that was almost impossible to spot if you didn't have the camera at a certain angle. After that, some shitty story bits, an OK boss fight, a shitty boss fight, some backtracking, some exposition, some fighting and then the final, lackluster boss fight.
I have managed to kill every boss within two tries. That should tell you enough.
It's really not very good. There aren't that many different kind of enemies and they're all pretty straightforward. The bosses aren't hard either, especially if you've managed to collect enough bottles throughout your journey. Everything else is just a simpler, shittier version of what we could find in the Souls games, from the "crafting" (you put a rune in a weapon and now it does more damage. Yay) to magic to the character building. The story is horribly written and nothing special, the sidequests are really dumb, the NPCs don't really matter to the story or do anything helpful, and the level design is a confusing mess. The areas in Dark Souls were beautifully designed and huge, and somehow managed to be connected in such a genius way that traversing these areas was still fairly easy to remember and fun to do. In Lords of the Fallen the areas are actually really small, but they're overly messy, repetitive, and interconnected in so many, convoluted ways that you constantly feel trapped and lost. Like you're in some kind of sadistic maze. The loading screens don't help either.
And don't get me started on the technical problems. Text that pops up in the wrong places, enemies that suddenly die or regain health or simply vanish mid-fight, clipping problems, quest items that fail to appear only to appear after you've reloaded the game, etc.
I'm a sucker for action RPGs and the core mechanics aren't bad (not saying much, since they were stolen from Dark Souls) so fans of the genre, like me, will still get their money's worth, but I wish I'd had replayed one of the Souls games instead.
It took me 18 hours to finish the story, but like I said: 4 of those have been spent doing nothing but wandering around, not knowing what the fuck to do.
5/10
Managed to carry on after three or four solid hours of doing nothing but backtrack throughout the entirety of the demon world and finally finding a thin corridor that was almost impossible to spot if you didn't have the camera at a certain angle. After that, some shitty story bits, an OK boss fight, a shitty boss fight, some backtracking, some exposition, some fighting and then the final, lackluster boss fight.
I have managed to kill every boss within two tries. That should tell you enough.
It's really not very good. There aren't that many different kind of enemies and they're all pretty straightforward. The bosses aren't hard either, especially if you've managed to collect enough bottles throughout your journey. Everything else is just a simpler, shittier version of what we could find in the Souls games, from the "crafting" (you put a rune in a weapon and now it does more damage. Yay) to magic to the character building. The story is horribly written and nothing special, the sidequests are really dumb, the NPCs don't really matter to the story or do anything helpful, and the level design is a confusing mess. The areas in Dark Souls were beautifully designed and huge, and somehow managed to be connected in such a genius way that traversing these areas was still fairly easy to remember and fun to do. In Lords of the Fallen the areas are actually really small, but they're overly messy, repetitive, and interconnected in so many, convoluted ways that you constantly feel trapped and lost. Like you're in some kind of sadistic maze. The loading screens don't help either.
And don't get me started on the technical problems. Text that pops up in the wrong places, enemies that suddenly die or regain health or simply vanish mid-fight, clipping problems, quest items that fail to appear only to appear after you've reloaded the game, etc.
I'm a sucker for action RPGs and the core mechanics aren't bad (not saying much, since they were stolen from Dark Souls) so fans of the genre, like me, will still get their money's worth, but I wish I'd had replayed one of the Souls games instead.
It took me 18 hours to finish the story, but like I said: 4 of those have been spent doing nothing but wandering around, not knowing what the fuck to do.
5/10
uh oh
Fix The Scientist
Member
Yikes. Guess i will wait for more impressions before buying.
Probably should wait for more impressions. Then again a lot of gamers take a single persons opinion as gospel sometimes...
Not to sound mean, but exactly what I had just said about gamers. XD
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Yep good thing I didnt put in a pre-order for this. Will pick it up once it drops in price most likely to look at the design aspects, but asides from that dont give a shit about the story and from what it seems reading other accounts, there isnt much of one let alone done in any sort of way that would make you as the player care about the story / setting.
This... sounds rather concerning. I wonder what the general consensus will be on this one.
those impressions sound about right actually from what Ive seen. Again, coming from someone who both pre ordered AND is looking forward to playing it
the small maze-y levels is exactly what I saw in videos so I have no clue why people expected dark souls style open world. The bugs are a shame tho, hopefully I wont run into that many
the small maze-y levels is exactly what I saw in videos so I have no clue why people expected dark souls style open world. The bugs are a shame tho, hopefully I wont run into that many
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Ive been watching this title and the info flow and generally from what Ive seen and stated in my original post its not taking a single account into consideration. Learn to read before attempting to be funny.
Not really trying to be funny. It's a thing I noticed about a lot of gamers, they hear something that confirms their thoughts and then proceed to take that one person's account into gospel.
So yeah, not trying to be funny, so don't be an ass. :/
Karak
Member
It happens every thread. People can be on one tract and no one says a thing then someone says something different and you suddenly get the "concerned warnings" that people just happen to have forgotten to give originally when attitudes matched their own. Its repeated in every single thread. We should just have every OP with a warning to both sides to not panic and also not get excited. Robots I tell ya. Everyone should react like robots.
Overall it included a good deal of getting the fuck lost
A good deal of tracking down areas I missed, and a couple areas where I couldn't find the exit. Someone else mentioned mazelike in their description and for good or bad that is true of many areas. I wasn't a huge fan of Dark Souls to be honest but one thing Dark Souls did do right was make things make some kind of overall sense in their connectedness where 'this area connects to that area" in a way that made mental sense even if it wasn't perfect.SlasherJPC
Banned
For some reason I think this game will be better or worse depending what your rexpecting from it. I've played the first 5 or so hours twice. With two different classes. Still had fun.
Karak
Member
Never heard it described this way but I must say that is perfect.
This game will most definitely be split along reviewer opinions. I'm enjoying it quite a lot, but can attest that there are flaws to the game, especially the voice acting quality. I don't it is a 5/10 game, but some may wait until it is cheaper (on PC it is rather easy to find it at $30 mark).
Is it a souls game? Somewhat. I believe it takes the best of many worlds and puts them together, maybe not working so well in some aspects but in others does a better job than the original.
Is it a souls game? Somewhat. I believe it takes the best of many worlds and puts them together, maybe not working so well in some aspects but in others does a better job than the original.
Stratosphere
Member
Has anyone played extensively with the cleric starting class? I'd like some early feedback on how it plays comparatively to rogue/warrior.
I pretty much agree with all of this.
The bugs in the game can be frustrating. Audio cut out and wouldn't come back until I restarted my game (as in shut it down and loaded it back up from the main menu). It took me three tries to beat the fourth boss because the game froze on me the first two tries... then I had to backtrack for what seemed like miles and miles, dealing with respawned enemies most of the way to continue the story.
If you die to a normal enemy in this game, you wouldn't make it beyond the first area in Dark Souls 2. I have yet to die to a non-boss character and the only boss I died to was the third one with the instant kill mechanic.
The level design... you gain access to a bunch of shortcuts that only make navigating more of a chore because you have to figure out where the shortcuts lead you. I never once got lost in Dark Souls 2. I've been lost multiple times in this game. It doesn't help that most of the rooms/environments look the same within a given area.
Side quests are okay, but they seem backward. I've been collecting a good number of quest items before I've spoken to the NPC about the quest, and I'm going through the game in a fairly straight forward manner. It's not like I'm cutting corners or skipping things.
This game is basically Dark Souls 2 for the people who were frustrated they couldn't beat Dark Souls 2.
where??