I think I’m done with Lords of the Fallen (HexWorks, CI Games). You’ll notice I did not say I had finished the game because I haven’t. I don’t think I’m even halfway done. It’s just that when I think about playing the game, I become lethargic and unhappy. Like, I ‘should’ play the game, but I…just don’t want to. At all.
I watched a video from a guy doing a deep dive into the game (which I have included below), and he hit on many of my frustrations wit hthe game. And the fact that it at least tries to be something different. I believe he even mentions that in contrast to Lies of P, this game stretches itself. It swung for the bleachers and while it whiffed, it at least tried.
It’s interesting. While I was playing Lies of P, I was bemoaning to myself how slavish it was to the FromSoft formula. For each section and boss, I could point out a similar or exact same thing in a From game. Most people call Lies of P the Puppet Bloodborne, but to me, it’s more Puppet Sekiro. You can only play the game one way, really. You need to have your deflects on point or you’re in for a really bad time.
As I have said many times, I do not have good reflexes. I never had. They have only gotten worse since my medical crisis. I want to tell people who are good at these games to imagine if they pressed the button and then their character reacted a full second later. That’s basically my reflexes. I literally cannot ‘git gud’ no matter how hard I try. Let me put it this way. I could not finish Stray because of the QTEs. Stray! It’s a cozy little game about a stray cat by BlueTwelve Studio. It was highly anticipated and highly praised. I believe it even won indie game of the year last year.
It’s a great game about being a cat and trynig to get back to your cat friends. There are elements of a dystopian world, and it’s just amazing. And they ruined it by having these sections when you have to escape the zerg rush. No, that’s not what it’s called, but it’s close enough. Zurks. They are zurks. And they rush in groups. As they attack you, you have to click whatever button it is rapidly to shake them off. I literally could not click the button fast enough. I failed the QTEs several times each, which was really frustratitng. The game was not supposed to be hard in the sense of challenging gameplay.
Side note: Games that aren’t meant to do a certain something shouldn’t do it. This game was not meant to be about combat so why include it at all? I get that they wanted gameplay, but between this and the platforming, I did not enjoy that aspect of the game at all. I reached the third of fourth zerg rush and could not do it no matter how many times I tried. I quit the game and never looked back. They were not needed. I unederstand that the devs wanted to add danger, but they should have–well, just not had the QTEs. It’s like From and platforming. They are not good at it. They just aren’t. Yet, they insist on having it in every game. And it’s bad every time. It’s even worse in Elden Ring because you have to do some of it with your horse, and he definitely does not turn on a dime.
Anyway. Making the players have to have lightning reflexes means that you’re cutting out a chunk of people from the get-go. I’m not talking about Stray now, by the way. I’m talking about From games and soulslikes. Sekiro has a lot to answer for, quite frankly. I’ll be honest. It’s my least-favorite of the From games because you have to play it in a very specific way with ONE weapon and no leveling up individual stats. You can up all your stats every four prayer beads, but that’s it.
People gush about it and how once you ‘get’ it, it’s like dancing. I never got it. I could never consistently get the deflect just as I could never consistently parry in any of the other games. My nibling’s spouse said to me, “I did not know you could get through the game without learning the deflect.” Me: “You can. It’s just not any fun.”
That’s how I felt about Lies of P as I was playing it. If you can get the parry, you’ll probably find the game easy-peasy and fun to play. If you cannot, it’s going to be a long, grim slog. The only thing that makes it bearable is that the throwables in the game are so powerful. Before you could buy them, it was miserable farming them. Ntoably, for the end of chapter four boss. That was a dark and grim time. Then, mid-chapter five, there was a merchant who sold endless amounts of throwables. And he became my new bestie. I visited him during every boss fight to stock up. There is no way I would have beaten the game without him.
I had high hopes for Lords of the Fallen. I prefer high fantasy to, ah, puppet noir, and I was hoping it would be more customizable than Lies of P. Plus, the trailer looked sick. I have to say that it’s definitely more customizable than is Lies of P. There is much more variety, and I’m heavily into the spells–which is in the same slot as the chuckables. Heh. Elbethium on YouTube made the joke that he could not call them throwables in Lords of the Fallen after making the cheese videos for Lies of P (in every one, his suggestions were throwables for the second phase of the boss).
In the end, I hold firm that both games are a 6–for me. But for very different reasons. And I would say that Lies of P is the slicker, more polished game, whereas Lords of the Fallen is the more imaginative andcreative game. Lies of P is a tight, guieded experience that will take you through prescribed highs and lows. Lords of the Fallen is unvieldy and wild, and the lows and highs are more variant. Lies of P sticks to the formula without faltering. Lords of the Fallen tries to cast the formula mostly aside, but takes the wrong lessons from the game.
I would say that Lies of P is the safe game. Meaning,, if you go into it thinking it’s like Sekiro/Bloodborne (with puppets), you’ll be fine. Lords of the Fallen is more experimental, but you’ll adjust to its world(s) fairly early on. Except that it’s easy to miss stuff in the umbral because you (well, at least I) will be running through areas to escape the hordes of enemies that don’t stop coming.
The reason I think I’m not going back to Lords of the Fallen is because in the viedo I included above, he said that in the second half, there is so much narrow placforms and fighting on them, trying to avoid getting pushed off. I had enough of that in the first half (and he’s right that the hidden enemies looking to push you off a platform are way too plentiful and frustrating); the idea that the second half is basically all platforming, yeah no.
Overall, I have to give the slight edge to Lies of P for a more complete experience. But Lords of the Fallen had much more potential.