Lord of the Fallen, the idea was novel, but that was the end 2023.10.19 18:28 Game Mecca Reporter Kim Hyeong-jong
▲ Lord of the Fallen title image (Photo: Game Mecca)
Personally, I love Soullike games. The challenging level of difficulty and the sense of accomplishment upon clearing it are important, but more than anything, I like the beautiful tragedy that the dark world presents. That’s why ‘Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First God’, which has mixed likes and dislikes among From Software fans, is also close to being extremely popular. This is not only because it is an introductory work to the Soul genre, but also because the beautiful scenery of Madura, which I saw for the first time, and the narrative of the tragic lives of characters such as Lucatiel, the White King, Vendrick, and An Dil, touched my heart.
So, I had high expectations for ‘Lords of the Fallen,’ which was released on the 13th. I was excited early on by the fact that Soullike is a world where the world of the living and the dead are divided, and the stories that the numerous characters and attractive bosses that you can meet there will tell. At that time, I never dreamed that I would just be running away from the enemies chasing me without even thinking about the characters or worldview.
The plan and idea were good, but the exploration was overly difficult.
What differentiates Lord of the Fallen from other Soullike games is ‘Umbra’, the world of the dead. Players can use the lamp to see the world of the dead and use it for exploration. If the player loses all of their health or uses the lamp in the world of the living, they enter the world of the dead, where they will die if they take fatal damage.
It was a novel attempt to envision the world of the living and the world of the dead at the same time, and solve puzzles while moving between them. In particular, if the path is broken or blocked as you progress, if you move to Umbra, a bridge made of bone will appear or a door will collapse, allowing you to continue your adventure. Since there are many hidden items that can only be found in Umbra, exploring the two-story world was clearly a plan that could make Lord of the Fallen more diverse.
▲ In the world of Umbral, you see things that are different from the world of the living (Photo: Game Mecca) ▲ In Umbral, you can also obtain various items (Photo: Game Mecca)
The organic regional structure was also quite good. Although the map was a bit complicated, there were a variety of short cuts, so even sections that seemed impossible to connect could be accessed through hidden doors or ladders. The structure and density are so high that the area structure comparable to Sen’s Castle and Duke’s Library in Dark Souls 1, which were praised for their map composition in the past, is spread throughout the game. Stamina recovery and running speed are faster than other Soul games, and stamina decline rate is slower, which feels like the developer’s intention to encourage players to run and explore large spaces.
However, the great idea of Umbra and the organic and complex regional structure resulted in only masochistic pain rather than increasing the fun of exploration. The reason is the unreasonably high difficulty level.
▲ Enemies crowd into a narrow space (Photo: Game Mecca)
First of all, there are too many monsters you encounter while progressing through the stage, but most areas have narrow passages, which is a problem. At least three or four weak enemies are added as standard, and elite monsters such as powerful knights and fire shamans are added. When you enter the Umbra world, even Umbra monsters are added, so you can see a real scene where more than 10 enemies are swarming. there is. Even Umbra mobs regenerate infinitely. In this situation, platforming puzzles and organic map structures found in the underworld are not objects of admiration or appreciation, but rather annoyance and discomfort. This is because it is best to ignore enemies as much as possible rather than exploring the area while eliminating them step by step.
There are also serious problems with the ‘trace’ system. In the Dark Souls series, a ‘trace’ is a shelter where you can rest, level up, and move, equivalent to a bonfire. The distance between traces is very long, but it is designed so that temporary traces (seedlings) can be created using consumables. However, only one seedling can be activated at a time, and the consumables (trace seeds) to create a seedling are expensive. Other than purchasing, the only way to obtain seeds is by defeating bosses or elite monsters, but even if you kill the boss in the process, only a place to plant seeds, not a trace, appears. It was difficult to guess the intention behind this plan, as after defeating the boss, you had to immediately use the acquired goods and reorganize. Because the distance between traces is very long and there are too many mobs, you end up avoiding the adventure rather than enjoying it. Perhaps that’s why the reporter could barely grasp the terrain of the latter half of the area because he was too busy running away.
▲ Enemies that appear too often (photo: taken by Game Mecca) ▲ I beat the boss, but I have to use seeds (photo: taken by Game Mecca)
Because movement and progression provide less of a sense of accomplishment compared to boss battles, the Soullike genre encourages exploration by providing meaningful rewards (equipment) and majestic scenery to players. In Lord of the Fallen, you can find many good rewards as you explore. There are a variety of equipment items such as weapons, armor, rings, spells, and rings, and many reinforcement materials are also available. In particular, the appearance of the armor has a broken and antique appearance that matches the Soul series, so you can match the look you want as long as the weight limit or defense allows.
Unfortunately, it was difficult to find visual satisfaction that showed majesty or splendor. In Dark Souls 1, the majestic Anor Londo was revealed to players who had toiled in Sen’s Castle, and in Dark Souls 3, passing through the gloomy Catacombs of Karthus greeted them with the beautiful moon of the cold valley of Irshil, and in Dark Souls 2 and Schola, the beautiful moon appeared at dusk as well. This reflected village of Madura exists. Lord of the Fallen’s background and in-game graphics do a good job of depicting a dark, destroyed world, bringing out the Soullike atmosphere, but most areas are dark, burning, or dirty, and in particular, the frequently explored world of Umbra lacks saturation as it is the world of the dead. The atmosphere was low, dull and similar.
▲ A wide variety of equipment was prepared (Photo: Game Mecca) ▲ Umbral, mainly dark purple and gray (Photo: Game Mecca)
Soul-like combat with some flaws
The battles in Lord of the Fallen are quite difficult, even considering the nature of the Soullike genre. Basically, there is stamina, and the enemy’s attack power is quite strong, so the battle is burdensome at every moment. The prepared system itself is substantial. There are parrying and guards, and weapons can be changed between two-handed and one-handed grips. Ranged weapons and spells can also be installed in separate slots and changed when desired, allowing for a variety of strategies.
Here, the character hitbox is implemented very precisely. As I progressed through the game, I rarely got hit by an attack that wasn’t supposed to hit me. I felt that the enemy’s advance distance was long, but I rarely experienced any judgments about the attack being too wide or different from what was visible. Rather, it was more common for enemy boss attacks to narrowly pass by my head or long-distance attacks to be narrowly avoided.
▲ Actively uses magic and long-distance attacks (Photo: Game Mecca) ▲ A devastating blow to a boss in a groggy state! (Photo: Game Mecca shooting)
However, there was a disappointment that the growth system had a high specific ability build performance and lack of freedom. As it is a difficult game to play on the field, additional recovery methods are desperately needed. The problem is that only the brilliance magic system that can be used by increasing the brilliance ability of the character status has continuous recovery magic, and the only other means of recovery are consumable items. In addition, you can acquire a powerful melee weapon from the beginning whose attack power increases in proportion to the brilliance ability, so the brilliance wizard build can easily progress through the game with both a weapon and recovery magic. Because of this, there is a lack of freedom to develop characters in other directions other than the Radiance Wizard.
Additionally, several core systems make combat frustrating. In detail, the control key placement, paring and debilitating system, and lock-on were problems. First of all, the keyboard controls were different from other games, so it was difficult to get used to it. In the case of the keyboard, running is assigned to V, dodging is assigned to the space bar, and jumping is assigned to F, but it is an extremely unnatural arrangement for the hands to jump while running. In addition, the ranged attack and the lamp were placed on the same key so that you could use them while switching, but this was very inconvenient as both the lamp and the ranged attack had to be used frequently.
▲ The recovery magic performance is very good, and it is the only hope in high-difficulty progress (Photo: Game Mecca) ▲ If you make a mistake while parrying, the risk is high (Photo: Game Mecca)
The debilitating damage and stance system for parrying and guarding also feel somewhat unreasonable. Uniquely, even if you block an enemy attack or successfully parry, stamina decreases and debilitating damage accumulates. As debilitating damage accumulates, all of your stamina disappears when you are hit, so in effect, your stamina is falling. If parrying is successful, it inflicts damage to the stance, and if the stance is broken, a powerful grappling attack called ‘Grief Strike’ can be inflicted, so if you use parry well, you can easily deal with weak enemies. However, the boss has a very high stance value, so using parrying has too little reward compared to the risk. The advanced technique of parrying is actually less effective against strong enemies.
Additionally, the lock-on function that aims at enemies has a major flaw that drastically increases the difficulty of the game. Since the player character movement speed in Lord of the Fallen is faster than in other Soullikes, if you do not use lock-on, you will often miss enemies or miss attacks. The problem is that the aiming system is designed to prioritize strong enemies, so the player often ends up looking at distant enemies even when numerous weak enemies surround the player. Also, in the Umbra world, lock-on is released for unknown reasons, and fatal mistakes such as throwing attacks into the air during boss battles often occur.
▲ The boss that had a particularly severe lock-on problem (Photo: Game Mecca)
A futile boss battle that made it difficult to achieve a sense of accomplishment.
The part that felt most vain and bad while playing the game was the boss fight. Contrary to the promotion that there are over 30 types of bosses, there are actually only about 11 bosses. Of course, there were many battles in the form of boss battles, but the bosses appeared as elite monsters in the very next area, so their value was lost, and it was difficult to get a sense of challenge or accomplishment.
There are also many problems with the boss battle’s body quality and presentation. Except for a few, the main bosses in the cutscenes showed relatively diverse patterns, and the first boss Pieta, the Rejected Descendant, and the Saint were well directed. However, most bosses for which cutscenes do not play are in fact reinforced elite monsters, so the directing is poor, and the basic attack motion feels a bit floundering, which reduces its dignity. The boss design was also a bit lazy, but most attacks had first damage so it was not difficult to dodge, and with the exception of a very few, there was a rule of moving to phase 2 when health was reduced by 35%, and there was almost no difference in pattern compared to elite mobs.
▲ The main boss, ‘Rejected Descendant’, had a great production (Photo: Game Mecca) ▲ It’s a boss battle, but you’ll get tired of the cathedral knight later (Photo: Game Mecca)
Nevertheless, the difficulty of the boss battle was not easy, due to the boss’s excessively strong attack power and high stamina. If the player character did not have high stamina, certain patterns actually caused damage that was close to instant death, and some attacks and floor mats showed enough damage to kill in one hit, possibly due to multiple hits. Because of the Umbra system that provides second chances, the character’s stamina appears to have been set to be particularly low, but I felt the stamina pressure as if I had started the game in the second game of any other Soullike game.
The worst of them all was the final boss, which was a huge disappointment. In Soullike, the final boss was a grand boss that required the player to utilize all of the battle experience they had had so far, or that symbolized the end of the game’s worldview. Naturally, the challenging difficulty level was basic, and I was able to feel a great sense of accomplishment upon clearing it. Gwyn in Dark Souls 1 was like that, Arn Dil was like that in Schola, and it goes without saying that the Incarnation of Kings was like that. However, the final boss encountered just before the ending of Lord of the Fallen had virtually no pattern, and killing random mobs reduced stamina. Even the 2nd phase felt like a waste as it was virtually non-existent. Even though it is functionally the final battle and narratively a divine being, depicting it in this way seriously hindered the overall play experience.
▲ Is this… the final boss? (Photo: Game Mecca shooting)
Technical issues with optimization, poor graphics and deleted save files.
Contrary to what was reported at the beginning of the launch, the reporter did not experience any major performance problems. I am using a graphics card RTX 4070Ti, and I did not experience any major problems even though I played the game with the recommended specifications. However, if you play the game for a long time, there is a lag, but rather than a memory leak issue, it is due to the fact that the Umbral world covered by the basic field is implemented together, which uses a lot of resources, and all the vitality and items that fall on the floor in both worlds do not disappear. It appears that there was a lack of optimization.
The real problem was shaky stability. While playing for about 25 hours, the game suddenly crashed, and when I started the game again, the update took place. Shortly after that, I discovered that my save file was corrupted. All the effort I had put into playing so far has evaporated, and even the memories have disappeared as it has become a ‘damaged save’ with no character names left. It is a fatal problem that save files can be damaged in RPGs. If it wasn’t for the purpose of writing a review, I would have ended the trip then.
▲ Hello, my old friend ‘Damaged Save’ (Photo: Game Mecca)
Lord of the Fallen is a game that lacks overall quality. The underworld called Umbral was a fairly novel attempt, and efforts were made to enhance the excitement of exploration by composing the terrain in a complex and organic way, and the gloomy atmosphere of the world was well depicted. However, it was difficult to enjoy the fun of exploration due to the excessively large number of miscellaneous mobs placed, the combat was extremely uncomfortable due to issues with the lock-on and parrying system, and the quality of the bosses was so poor that it did not meet Soullike standards. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to play it if you’ve finished all the Soullike games released so far and want a more difficult game, but it’s not a game I’d recommend to beginners or seasoned gamers.
