Lords of the Fallen Preview

While the fact that they call Lords of the Fallen a strategic role-playing game leaves me more than a little puzzled, it's still worth noting that the folks at Neoseeker have published their own preview for Deck 13/City Interactive's title, based on an E3 presentation. Here's a snip:
First, you need to keep in mind that there are no class restrictions in Lords. As the game starts out, you do get to choose whether Harkyn is a Cleric, Rogue, or Warrior, but that really only determines which weapon set and armor type you start out with. Furthermore, you can switch classes later in the game whenever you find a corresponding armor set or weapons. In terms of a leveling system, points can be put into any of the three unique trees; you're never locked into a specific class.

And as you might expect with any game that lets you do this much free experimentation, the combat is meant to be pretty tough. During the demonstration, we never saw large mobs; rather, enemies were encountered in small numbers. Still, you won't have room to blindly hack and slash. The enemies are fairly intelligent, knowing when to block and when to strike pretty consistently. The devs actually likened this style to dueling.

In a boss encounter we saw demoed, Harkyn faced down against a Rhogan Lord armed with a massive sword and shield. Any direct attacks were blocked, sending him flying backwards. What then? You hang back and study the enemy, that's what. From there, we learn the Lord's patterns, and the delays around each attack. Ultimately, Harkyn was able to chip away until the Lord's armor and shield were broken.