Lords of the Fallen Previews
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City Interactive and Deck13's Lords of the Fallen continues to garner previews (and Dark Souls comparisons) around the web, so I thought I'd round up the latest two for your reading entertainment. Tor.com kicks things off:
From Software's Dark Souls franchise went a long way toward mainstreaming the concept of insanely difficult, yet fun gaming. Polish developer CI Games, in conjunction with German studio Deck13 Interactive, is making no secret of the fact that they hope to follow in From's tradition with their latest title, Lords of the Fallen.
CI certainly isn't hiding from any comparisons made between their game and the Dark Souls franchise; after all, why would they? The success of a brand like Dark Souls works in the favor of any game being compared to it. While the graphics style of Lords of the Fallen seems slightly more cartoony in contrast to the pervasive grime and darkness of Lordran and Drangleic, the monster design is suitably impressive and initial previews indicate that the difficulty level is sufficiently aggravating. Gameplay trailers seem to suggest a game that plays like a hybrid of God of War and Dark Souls the combat influenced by God of War, the enemy design influenced by Dark Souls.
And Strategy Informer concludes the preview festivities:
It's textbook Dark Souls gameplay in all but look. That's not to say there aren't differences, however. Enemy attacks patterns are a terror to read in Lords of the Fallen. Jumping in to what I was told was some way into the game, I found it a challenge to navigate even simple one-on-one fights without suffering heavy hits. Enemies just have... so many bits. It's why the skeletal zombie enemies in the first Undead Burg stretch of Dark Souls are so perfectly designed; they act like wire-frame puppets, each swing of their blades so easily readable that the opening hour or so act as a training session for the rest of the game. The warped enemies I fought in Lords of the Fallen were such a twitchy mass of spikes, nasty growths and dribbling fluids that reading them was a sight more difficult.
Weapons also seemed slightly less precise, with what seemed like a shorter range. Is this just me moaning after becoming so used to the combat system of Dark Souls? Possibly. Lords of the Fallen might use the same control scheme, but it's hard to capture the razor-sharp tightness of From Software's sword-fighting. The range was what really got me; only the staff weapon seemed to keep the distance I liked during combat, while swords and daggers required far too much closing with the enemy. I'll stay as far away from that demon with the tower shield as possible, thank you. As for magic, my mana supply was too limited to judge how useful it will be in the long run, but it seemed to act like more of a one-shot smart bomb that does heavy damage than an alternative main attack source. Different builds I'm yet to see may affect that, though.
