THE REVIEW STARTS LOWER
This is a review from a souls veteran who has completed the following game up to Ng+6 (where applicable). This is by far my favorite genre of video game. I think I have a very good understanding what makes souls like successful and what doesn't.
Here is my resume of completed games:
Lords of the Fallen 2023 of course
Dark Souls1, 2 and 3 , Demon souls (Original + remake), Elden Ring , Blood-borne, Steel rising, The surge 1 & 2, Sekiro , Lies of P, Nioh 1 and 2 , Wo long , mortal Shell , Remnants of the ashes 1 and 2 , Star Wars Jedi Fallen order and Survivor, Code Vein , Another crab's treasure , Rise of Ronin, Lords of the Fallen 2014.
0-Where the problem started:
The initial review for this game was disastrous. The average reviewer gave it 5/10 and for good reason. The problem with a souls-like is that it has to feel like it's fair. You can die over and over again but this cannot be because of the game, the death has to be caused by the player's ignorance and/or inability which can eventually be remedied by getting better or smarter.
When LOTF 2023(not to be confused with the 2014 game) launched, it was a disaster of epic proportions. The frame rate, lag and constant bugs made this game unplayable. Certain bosses literally caused your game to freeze for 20 seconds, only to find out that you had died. The enemy placement and health ratio was so unfair that it made more sense to literally run past enemies instead of killing them, since you could barely survive an onslaught barrage of arrows and grenade in some of the segments of the game. Enemies in this game were tanky and ganged up on you, especially in the Umbar world. You can fight 2-3 enemies at the same time, but you cannot fight 20 especially in these kinds of games. The average enemy takes on average 10 hits to go down, with appropriate gear for the given level or area.
This game felt frustrating and for the wrong reasons. At launch, I played for approximately a few hours and couldn't stand finishing it. Let's fast-forward 1,5 year later. The game has now been updated several times, and perhaps now it's time to improve it's scored and review it properly.
I am pleased to report that I had a lot of fun playing this game now in its current state. They have clearly listened to the players and managed to fix many of the issues. The frame rate has improved a lot, the game still crashes, but it seems as it will get better and better as more times passes. They don't seem to be giving up on this game just yet.
===============================================================::>
The review
This game is basically a mix of Dark Souls 3 and Blasphemous in aesthetics. I am really a huge fan of the Dark Medieval religious tone where you feel as if you are fighting beasts and cult worshipers.
The game is set in some kingdom which is threatened by a God who wishes to subjugate it. The story is told in bits and pieces from item descriptions, vague NPC dialogue and short cinematics. In essence, you need to travel through many dangerous areas in order to activate 5 beacons scattered around the kingdom. Unfortunately, due to this God's return, many monsters have started taking over the lands, blocking you from reaching those beacons. This game is huge in terms of size and will easily take you 20 hours to finish. I was impressed to see that this game could stand tall next to many of the best FromSoft titles in its current state. If FromSoft had released this game as it is, it could have easily fooled me.
1-The gameplay:
The game play similarly to other souls titles, where you have to fight enemies by dodging and blocking. When you fight enemies they drop "souls" or in this game "vigor" which can be used to upgrade your character. If you die, you have to return to where you died to recover your lost vigor. This game plays identically to Dark Souls. You can choose a large selection of weapons of different sizes, speed and weight. The idea is to create your favorite type of build to take on boss and enemies. This game offers plenty of variety including duel-wielding which I find very good. The game generally consists of 2 worlds. The "normal real world" and the "umbral world" doubling the amount of content. Every area has an umbral version of reality which can hide many secrets and new paths.
2-Graphics, design and sound:
The graphics are very beautiful however at the cost of performance. I had to play on "performance mode" because a game like this requires you to be frame rate perfect, especially when fighting bosses. It even has a "Photo Mode" in order to brag about it's graphics.
The gothic religious architecture mixed with flesh and monstrosities give it a very interesting aesthetic. The music is somehow generic but fits right in, I don't remember any memorable songs like in other Dark souls games.
The voice acting is pretty good. The NPCs have decent dialogue.
3-What I liked:
Wither damage is a type of damage which bypasses armor and shield. If you are hit with wither damage you have a chance to recover it by hitting enemies, however if you are hit with a normal attack before you regain your life you lose all the accumulated wither damage. it is especially good when combined with dual wielding causing enemies to be unable to block damage.
Shields are useless, causing the player to take damage which can be recovered upon attacking. It's somewhere between Blood-borne's no shield in order to focus on aggression and Dark Souls blocking all the damage. You cannot simply tank your way out of a boss fight. The shield is used only as a last resort when you know you can't dodge the attack.
The umbral lamp's ability to look into the umbral void in order to discover secrets. You can decide to peek into the void or go to it at any given moment. Certain areas cannot be accessed in the real world, so you can use your umbral lamp to have a sneak peek at enemies, bosses which only exist in that reality before you fully commit and transition into it.
This game has many bosses. Some are new and interesting, but many are simply reskinned versions of enemy counterparts.
I like how magic is easy to access and cast. You cast magic without having to access some scroll down menu, you simply press a trigger button and a second button to cast your spell. You can choose up to 3 spells which can be instantly cast.
4-What I disliked and is in need of serious improvement:
Certain performance issues such as the Crow boss in the winter area and random lag spikes. I think they are working hard to fix this. It caused me to restart certain bosses and areas.
Sometimes you get stuck between a wall and a hole. Unable to kill yourself or be killed. Afterwards, you simply cannot recover your lost vigor. This happens in crevaces or between uphill rocks.
The rings and amulets have very flew slots and it doesn't allow many options for interesting builds. Many rings had stupid stats such as Saint Salonor's ring " Increase posture and poise when your health is full or almost full.". So you can take the first hit knowing that enemies do multiple attacks and you most likely will never be at full health since you lose health upon going into the umbral world which is a necessity to complete many of the areas making this item in turn unecessary. Moreover, they could add extra ring slots to really vary the various builds. I feel as status effects and posture damage is very low in this game, barely noticeable both on you and on enemies. You can stay in a gas cloud or fire for 10 seconds before getting poisoned or burned. All items related to posture or status effects aren't great and in need of serious balancing.
The final boss was boring. The final boss was basically -> You running around killing level 1 mobs while he talks about being a deity. It would have been a perfect opportunity to do somekind of "Enemy Trial Challenge/Endurance Rounds" by refighting previous enemies or bosses. Even secret bosses like "General Engstrom" or "the unbroken promise" are a way better fit to be the final bosses than Adyr.
Very unclear where you need to go. A game should naturally have the ability to show you where to go without being too specific about it, but this game is on another level. After deactivating beacons, how do you know certain doors would open? How do you know you need to backtrack and take a left instead? The worst were areas and door which had no clear indication of being accessible. In Calrath the entrance to the castle is blocked by a thick blob-like rock that looked like background decor. How was I supposed to know that pressing "A" in front of the rock would ask me if I wanted to clear the rubble. The level design for where and when to go places is not the best. At least place a "Magic Aura' of somekind. I don't want waypoints, simply place a glowing aura and a message "A strong entity needs to be killed to remove this barrier". This way "A" I know this door can be opened in the future, "B" it is related to completing some other quest. Another part which was confusing was "Bramis" Castle where you had to jump on a red crystal to reach the end whilst there were literally 20 passageways and rooms all around you. The worst culprit was figuring out that killing the "Fire Mage/Witch" would clear the blocking red crystals. This enemy had previously simply been a normal enemy, why is it suddendly so special? Please add glowing Auras to attract our attention to them or any other mechanic you see fit for the situation.
The trapped chests with a moth monster are annoying as hell. They will most of the time 1 shot you and don't disappear. Imagine dying regularly because every time you access an item or chest, a giant monster appears and one-shots you. They need to fix this asap. The monster should do 10-15% damage, but not one shot you. This is very frustrating. In Dark Souls , you learned to hit chests before opening them, there is no way to know which item is trapped or not. Some guides say that the items have tails or some different movements, but there is no reason why they should kill you in 1 shot.
The enemy placement and spawn rate are awful. Some areas have archers, mages and grenade throwers which spam mass "Area of Effect attacks" on your position, causing enemies to gang up on you whilst you burn alive. The worst culprit is that inferno magic, which creates a few orbs which follow you and detonate. Imagine fighting 4 enemies whilst those orbs chase you around the map and 1 shot you.
In the umbral world, the spawn rate is disastrous, and some enemies are way too tanky. Some deal way too much damage. They need to seriously look at FromSoft games and balance it better. It has to feel rewarding, not frustrating. Sometimes you enter the Umbral world and it's pretty easy and quiet, other time you enter an area and you are surrounded.
Some bosses are way too easy. The hardest boss was probably the first boss in this game since I didn't know the mechanics yet. The bosses need to telegraph more and be more random. They are very predictable. The best bosses were "Judge Cleric" and "The lightreaper". They should learn and apply lessons from their own 2 bosses to the rest of them.
Enemy design needs to be improved. They can re-use the same skins, but it would be nice if they had some aura or color to differentiate them. You often get the same basic enemies which have more damage and health throughout the game which can be confusing. Imagine getting used to an enemy just to encounter the exact same enemy now 5x stronger in a different area.
The parry/grievous strike damage is amusingly low. The poise or stun mechanics are also very underwhelming There is no point in using them. I compared doing normal damage vs a finishing blow, I ended up doing way more damage hitting the enemy normally while they were down.
Sometimes the "lock-on" Camera can be your biggest enemy. For example, some boss fights or enemy attacks take place in really small enclosed areas ( Skinstealer or Wayfarer) or enemies gang up on you, causing your camera to go crazy. On top of this, sometimes you can get stuck in a wall as this happens, making it impossible to escape.
Some areas cannot be beaten and need to be skipped. Some of the enemy emplacement is so frustrating that it simply doesn't make sense to fight the enemies. Just run past them. The frost area where ice witches, elite archers and huge vikings all gang up on you is very difficult to go through the intended way.
Bramis castle (endgame level) has previously seen enemies with unrealistic damage. Imagine that basic enemy at the beginning of the game suddenly can one shot you because he is at the final area of the game. At least give them some red aura or something to differentiate them from the original weak enemies.
Conclusion:
All in all, it's a very good game now that is worth your attention, especially if you loved the Dark Souls trilogy. I hope they fix more issues in the future. This game is 30% away from being a genuine masterpiece.