In my last post, I said I was done with Lords of the Fallen (HexWorks/CI Games). I wasn’t. This is like Lies of P in which I feel done with it, but I keep going. A funny note about the latter. My nibling messaged me asking if I’d heard of a game called Lies of P. Heh. I might have heard of it once upon a time! If it’s a soulslike, I would have heard of it. I may not have played it, but I definitely would have heard of it.
I decided to play a bit more of Lords of the Fallen yesterday. I was still frustrated with the clunky mechanics and the shit-ton of enemies thrown at me, especially when they were in mobs. Which was all the time. And this game is in love with having casters that you can’t reach from where you are blitzing you constantly with overpowered spells. In the section I was in, there was a radiance caster across the way that I could not reach from the place I was. Then, there were two of the ‘hiding pushers’ who are, well, hiding and pushing. The caster was on the other side of two of those swinging platforms I mentioned yesterday, which are the bane of my existence.
I made my way to the next boss, and, I’ll be honest. I just could not be bothered.
*SPOILERS*
It was a rip-off Capra Demon except there wer up to three dog/wolves at a time. And the boss shot radiant arrows at me while her damn dogs were stunning me with their hits.
Side Note: It’s interesting to me that the first three bosses were women. I don’t know if that eans anything, but it’s highly unusual. It’s also funny that a video I watched for this boss kept calling her ‘him’. Her name literally has ‘Mistress’ in it. Rory from RKG did this with the female bosses in Dark Souls III, like Sister Friede. Again, it’s right in her name. In fact, he did it with Mama Finchy in Dark Souls II–who has Mama in her name. It shows how entrenched the patriarchy is in gaming. It’s changing, thankfully, but it’s still annoying.
I will say at least there is an elevator from a bonfire to this boss with very few enemies in between. Granted, one of them is one of the hidden pushing ones who can knock you down to a lower area that is crammed with enemies and which I have not explored yet, but still. Three enemies to run by and, a ladder to go down, and another elevator down–and I’m at the boss entrance.
Here’s the thing. I have no desire to fight bosses a million times. Because of my issues, I don’t have an easy time with these bosses that many people do. I can’t parry, which is the biggest issue. The second issue is that the dogs are constantly attacking. And they hit hard. And they take nearly half my health with one bite. Or maybe a third. And if you kill the dogs, more will spawn. So there’s no point in killing them.
What I found out to work, kind of, was to walk around in a wide circle and shoot off one or two ranged attacks before rolling and walking/running in a circle again. But this was very slow-going, and because of my spatial issues/shitty camera, I could not keep an eye on the dogs and the boss at the same time.
I got the boss down to roughly a quarter of her health more than once, but then the dogs would inexplicably change their patterns and hit me, stunning me, before the boss would zing me with her arrows and kill me. I don’t think making a boss more difficult by simply throwing adds into the fight is either fun or interesting. Plus, she has a hefty health bar, so I don’t feel I’m doing enough damage.
I haven’t found a blacksmith, by the way. Also, in a video review I watched, the guy complained about not being able to make weapons form the boss souls. That’s because the vendor for that is in the umbral–and I never would have thought you could go into umbral in the hub world if Ian hadn’t mentioned it.
Here’s the thing about From games that other dews don’t understand (and not even From nails it every time). There should be bread crumbs that lead you to the secret. Or sly nods in some ways. I mean, thinking about it, your lamp probably vibrates when you get close to Molhu in the hub area.
By the way,I think that’s one of the coolest things about the game–that you can go into umbral in the hub world. I’m hoping that means there will be other events in umbral in the hub world. I love Molhu’s voice. I recognize it from a From game, but I’m not sure which one. Ludwig from Bloodborne, maybe? Anyway, he’s the transmogrify boss weapons dude. And, I cannot stress this enough, you can only see him in the umbral world.
Back to what was cool about this game. It took me long enough, didn’t it? It’s the summoning. I decided I was done with the boss. I did not want to plink, plink, plink for ten minutes only to be stunned and taken out in a second by one of the fucking dogs. So I summoned a human. And it was really easy. It’s crossplay, by the way. Which is great because the person who is playing it in the RKG Discord is on Ps5 I think. Anyway, you can summon a friend or a rando. I summoned a rando, Furious, and we went to face the boss. Furious died, and I managed to revive them (which I later found out you could only do if no enemy is nearby. Which I think is bullshit. I think I should get to decide whether to take the risk to revive my friend or not, possibly dying in the process), but then I instantly died.
When I revived, Furious was still with me. We tackled the boss again, and died again. We got her on the third or fourth try, and after we were done, Furious was still there. I didn’t know what to do about that, so I quit the game. I suppose I could have returned to the bonfire to dismiss them–which I tried to do, but I could not find my way back to the elevator.
I love this way of co-oping, though. I get why From makes co-op the way it is, but it’s frustrating. This is not as seamless as the devs claim it to be, but at least for the boss fight, it was a really cool way to do it. Summon for the boss fight and keep the summon until you beat the boss. There is no cost to summoning, which I appreciate. Yes, I understand why From does it the other way, but as someone who is not into these games any longer simply for the back-breaking boss fights, I’m all about making the summoning as easy as possible. Those who do not want to summon don’t have to. Those of us who do, can. It’s a win-win situation.