2020 marked the launch of the PlayStation 5; a new generation of gaming. Inspired by this spirit, I made the decision to try my very first souls game. The Demon’s Souls remake had some of the best visuals I’d ever seen, with gnarly enemies and bosses to boot. It was hard but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then came 2022, the year of Elden Ring.
I, along with every other serious gamer on Earth, jumped headfirst into this masterpiece. A much different souls experience for sure, but one I absolutely loved. It was this game that affirmed the idea in my brain that I was now a ‘souls gamer’.
When Lords of the Fallen was revealed last year, I was excited, to say the least. The graphics looked great, and the world was shaping up to be pretty dark and spooky. The twin worlds of life and death (Axiom and Umbral) reminded me of the different world tendencies in Demon’s Souls.
It’s regrettable then, that now I’m playing the game, I haven’t found that same excitement and enjoyment that I got out of my other souls experiences. I’ve played a little over 10 hours and I’m struggling to make much progress in the game.
I have to stress, that this is not a review, it’s a surrender.
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The Wrong Foot
Upon starting the game, you’re prompted to design your own character. While serviceable, the creator wasn’t very polished or intuitive. The facial presets were nightmare-inducing, many of the tattoo choices were too faint to make out, and some of the pre-set options like skin colour were pretty lacking.
Some of the hair choices look straight out of a PS3 game… I eventually chose to go bald, with a thick Victorian-era moustache. Weirdly though, the moustache would disappear when I put on my Ranger hood, and reappear when I took it off. I wonder why they even bothered to put in a character creator in the first place if your choices are going to be superseded so easily.
Small annoyances, especially when your character will probably spend 99% of the time covered in armour anyway! But it doesn’t really set the best tone for the beginning of a new game when your first actions feel so unpolished.
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My short time was also plagued with frame rate issues, pop-in and other visual bugs, especially during the in-game cinematics. This was odd as you’d expect frame rate drops to be more likely during intense boss battles, not when watching a cut-scene.
A Lifeless World
The world, level, and enemy designs did little for me; not to say they were terrible, but it all just felt a bit bland. The first few areas felt overly grey and empty, and the enemy variety limited. The twin worlds of Axoim and Umbral added little more than a few puzzle elements to the game. Shifting to Umbral, the world of the dead, makes everything even more grey and wearisome.
Demon’s Souls‘ first hours were filled with thrilling set pieces like dodging fire-breathing dragons and taking down a colossal tower knight. Elden Ring throws you into a fantastical open-world and lets you uncover countless wonders and jaw-dropping action sequences, whichever direct you choose to go. Lords of the Fallen, however, pales in comparison — I was never wowed in my time with the game.
Maybe these elements get more varied and interesting the further into Lords of the Fallen you get, but without being able to actually get there I can’t say. The opening hours of a game need to set up what your experience will be going forward, and I wasn’t vibing with what was being offered.
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As a casual souls player, the world around the tough combat needs to be thrilling and intriguing, to provide that drive to face death at the hands of a boss again and again; because you want to experience more of what the world has to offer.
Poor Wretched Soul
The sword that sliced the camel’s back (does that pun work?) was the punishing boss battles… Or the boss battles in conjunction with the very linear nature of the game. Frustration turned to desperation as I was skill-locked out of the game.
I breezed through the tutorial boss. Most enemies in the first level gave me no trouble; even the formidable Proselytes with their devastating ranged-nail attacks didn’t cause me too much concern. But upon encountering the first real boss of the game, Pieta, I was hit with a skill wall that I struggled to break through.
With her wide sweeping melee attacks and devastating long-range blasts, Pieta gave me grief to no end… And that’s only her first phase of battle. I’m not the best at parrying attacks, I’m much more of an attack and dodge-roll-away type, so that might be where my trouble stems from. But even with the help of a summon I struggled to get her down below 50% health.
I lost count how many attempts I had at her; I tried to study her attack patterns and learn her move telegraphs, but I just felt like Sisyphus forever rolling that boulder up that damn hill. It was a bit hard to believe that a boss was giving me so much trouble so early on; I was sure I had missed something, so I proceeded to scour the level to find an alternate route.
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When it was clear that I had to defeat Pieta or quit the game, I resigned myself to a few hours of grinding out levels for some stat increases. I found I was doing every so slightly more damage and I was able to survive a little longer… But I still couldn’t finish the job.
After more hours grinding for levels and still being stomped, I was well past fed up with the fight. I had no way of changing my build to try something new, I hadn’t even come across any better loot during my leveling.
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Eventually, I was able to prevail with a combination of luck and cheese; relying on a bow and arrow (and bags of ammunition) to chip away at her health. Even in my victory I only got through by the skin of my teeth.
I felt no sense of accomplishment here, no joy in winning; I was just relieved it was over.
I understand and appreciate that ‘skill checks’ are a big part of any soulslike, and the games aren’t meant to be easy, but this one just seemed hard to the point of torment. With no difficulty or accessibility settings, you either have to have the skills to win or your game is over before it properly starts. Even a simple option for a more forgiving parry window would have done wonders to help.
To give a comparison to my other souls experiences; even when I was butting my head against a boss, I always felt like I was making progress and I was gradually doing better.
In Demon’s Souls, if I was hitting a wall, I was able to try my hand at a different pathway and potentially get better gear and accessories. That was taken to the extreme with Elden Ring; There were dozens of directions to go, bypassing bosses if needed, until I felt I was strong enough to return. The player hub wasn’t locked behind a sadistic boss, and there were so many loot options to experiment with and find a combat style that leaned into your strengths. In Lords of the Fallen, I was locked onto one pathway; I felt like I was being forced into one way of doing things.
Defeating Pieta granted me access to the ‘player hub area’ where I could purchase much-needed weapon upgrades and respec for a hefty sum. Something that would’ve made a world of difference BEFORE the fight.
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I pushed forward and slipped back into the loop of exploring and dispatching enemies without too much trouble; but after the slog of that first skill check my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. When I hit the next boss, Scourged Sister Delyth, I knew it was time to bow out. While nowhere near as hard as Pieta, there was nothing in the game I was enjoying enough to make the punishment worth it.
Waving the White Flag
It’s hard to put my finger on why Lords of the Fallen isn’t working for me. Are the bosses too hard? Is the pathway too linear? Do I actually just suck at soulslike games? I’d like to think it’s not the latter; I beat Demon’s Souls without too much issue and all the bosses in Elden Ring tasted defeat by my hand.
My best guess is that I just couldn’t find enough enjoyment in the game to make repeatedly battling bosses worth the effort. Such a brutal skill-check early on destroyed what fun I’d been having up to that point.
No matter how many times I was butting my head against the bosses in Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring I was still having fun. The world and enemies were so cool that it gave me the drive to persevere through the tough times… I mean, I even struggled through fifty-odd attempts to defeat Malenia, Blade of Miquella! If that’s not love…
Lords of the Fallen was all stick and no carrot.
Quest Daily was granted access to Lords of the Fallen by the publisher.
