I've been playing this year's two wannabe-Fromsoft entries: Lords of the Fallen 2023, and Lies of P.
My experience is EXACTLY the opposite of the response to those games.
Lies of P has been a slog of an experience outside of bossfights, and bossfights are often so uninteresting that they end up being facetank-and-heal-through-it affairs. Andreus had masterful visual design, but almost no health and an entire military's worth of attacks that will just autowhiff, so it was over in an eyeblink and I hardly fucking noticed. When they aren't, they suck so fucking bad. Puppet of the Future is "what if we made DS2's Last Giant less interesting and put it in a poison poop pool". If you drained the pool beforehand, I'm sorry, you had the worse experience with this fight, because there's almost no positioning, everything has year-long telegraphs and it has little mobility and less reach. Combat in general has the consistency of gravel: rocky and slow with unexpected bursts of hyperspeed that feel totally out of character. You never feel like you need to use anything you don't want to use, which could be a good thing except that the game DESPERATELY wants you to be using Fable Arts and Legion Arms and thrown consumables. I say no. Fuck you.
Lords of the Fallen has been a delight to explore, and the bossfights have been, if too easy, at least very refreshing. They don't just have phases, they have MECHANICS! Knocking the Hushed Saint from his horse. Making sure to stay in the clear lane for Pieta's second phase. Hiding from the Spurned Progeny's nuke. Reinhold's knockdown mechanics. They even spice up the fucking minibosses that end up becoming normal enemies later with mechanics of their own. It's a wonder and a joy, it feels like a step toward a modernized Soul Reaver. The combat mechanics are janky, but overall fluid and consistent, and you really feel like using your whole toolkit when you get to understanding things like using the Lamp to create breathing room, or to stun a heavy hitter so you can mop up the trash in a room. It's designed like a puzzlebox, every encounter becomes manageable once you learn the way to approach it, and they give you a steady evolution of those encounters to teach you HOW to approach it.
Lies of P has the most sickeningly linear level design I've seen in a game claiming to be a "Souls-like". We are talking straight out of the school of Call of Duty. Bethesda does better levels, in the garbage side content they don't care about. If there are shortcuts they're rarely more than perfunctory nods at Fromsoft's use of shortcuts, and quite often there are none. It's like if you turned the progression pathing of Elden Ring's most linear caves into a whole game. Deathtouched Catacombs has more meaningful interconnection of the various parts of it, and I'm not joking. Disgusting.
Lords of the Fallen has a veritable warren of paths that turn its two more or less linear main paths (Pilgrim's Perch->Empyrean, Pilgrim's Perch->Calrath) into a complete maze. Even some completionist players will miss an entire miniboss just hanging out and chilling in the Fen. Paths often diverge and intertwine in ways even Fromsoft can't quite manage. The game is nearly ropy in its level complexity, a million fibers twisting together. Shortcuts are everywhere and make backtracking and dealing with the honestly stellar encounter design into a joyous ride, because you'll find ways to loop around you didn't know were possible your first ten times through. Honestly, the best level design in games right now. People should take notes.
Lies of P has a miserable story that cribs its core conceits from Isaac Asimov, its writing conventions from Ken Levine, and most of its weirder ideas from Nier Automata, all wrapped up in ...fucking Pinocchio. It's shameless in how it rips off better writers, and yet it doesn't even manage to make the results interesting. Yoko Taro and Ken Levine collabing sounds like a recipe for a game whose twists and turns give you violent nausea in the best way, but here they're stealing the existing works and just mashing them together without regard for how well they work together or apart. It feels like plagiarism in the cheapness of it all.
Lords of the Fallen has a main plot ripped straight out of Lord of the Rings and still manages to not only make the characters around that and the evolution of the main plot interesting, but has a dozen or so fascinating sideplots to uncover, deep and rich lore, and it takes time out to try and do right by the original game. It's a 7/10 story but it's the best possible version of a 7/10 story, hiding 10/10 flash fiction in its depths. Truly more than the sum of its parts.
Lies of P has a lackluster art direction that cribs in equal parts from Dishonored, Sir You Are Being Hunted, and either Grim Dawn or Remnant (it's hard to say which because it's the boring parts!) while bringing only dew drops of its own concepts to the table. In the process of mashing these three things together, it sucks the character out of them leaving you with a sparse collection of memorable images that lack any emotional resonance and all inexplicably remind you of better games you could be playing.
Lords of the Fallen has art direction that has noticeable core themes, strong color theory, a cohesiveness, and which borrows from a small handful of aesthetic forebears without actively making me wonder if its legally actionable at any point. It's not the best art direction you've ever seen (call it an 8.5/10) but its very solid and I'm hard pressed to think on approaches for improvement to it.
I do not understand why Lies of P is the critical darling and the fan favorite.
My experience is EXACTLY the opposite of the response to those games.
Lies of P has been a slog of an experience outside of bossfights, and bossfights are often so uninteresting that they end up being facetank-and-heal-through-it affairs. Andreus had masterful visual design, but almost no health and an entire military's worth of attacks that will just autowhiff, so it was over in an eyeblink and I hardly fucking noticed. When they aren't, they suck so fucking bad. Puppet of the Future is "what if we made DS2's Last Giant less interesting and put it in a poison poop pool". If you drained the pool beforehand, I'm sorry, you had the worse experience with this fight, because there's almost no positioning, everything has year-long telegraphs and it has little mobility and less reach. Combat in general has the consistency of gravel: rocky and slow with unexpected bursts of hyperspeed that feel totally out of character. You never feel like you need to use anything you don't want to use, which could be a good thing except that the game DESPERATELY wants you to be using Fable Arts and Legion Arms and thrown consumables. I say no. Fuck you.
Lords of the Fallen has been a delight to explore, and the bossfights have been, if too easy, at least very refreshing. They don't just have phases, they have MECHANICS! Knocking the Hushed Saint from his horse. Making sure to stay in the clear lane for Pieta's second phase. Hiding from the Spurned Progeny's nuke. Reinhold's knockdown mechanics. They even spice up the fucking minibosses that end up becoming normal enemies later with mechanics of their own. It's a wonder and a joy, it feels like a step toward a modernized Soul Reaver. The combat mechanics are janky, but overall fluid and consistent, and you really feel like using your whole toolkit when you get to understanding things like using the Lamp to create breathing room, or to stun a heavy hitter so you can mop up the trash in a room. It's designed like a puzzlebox, every encounter becomes manageable once you learn the way to approach it, and they give you a steady evolution of those encounters to teach you HOW to approach it.
Lies of P has the most sickeningly linear level design I've seen in a game claiming to be a "Souls-like". We are talking straight out of the school of Call of Duty. Bethesda does better levels, in the garbage side content they don't care about. If there are shortcuts they're rarely more than perfunctory nods at Fromsoft's use of shortcuts, and quite often there are none. It's like if you turned the progression pathing of Elden Ring's most linear caves into a whole game. Deathtouched Catacombs has more meaningful interconnection of the various parts of it, and I'm not joking. Disgusting.
Lords of the Fallen has a veritable warren of paths that turn its two more or less linear main paths (Pilgrim's Perch->Empyrean, Pilgrim's Perch->Calrath) into a complete maze. Even some completionist players will miss an entire miniboss just hanging out and chilling in the Fen. Paths often diverge and intertwine in ways even Fromsoft can't quite manage. The game is nearly ropy in its level complexity, a million fibers twisting together. Shortcuts are everywhere and make backtracking and dealing with the honestly stellar encounter design into a joyous ride, because you'll find ways to loop around you didn't know were possible your first ten times through. Honestly, the best level design in games right now. People should take notes.
Lies of P has a miserable story that cribs its core conceits from Isaac Asimov, its writing conventions from Ken Levine, and most of its weirder ideas from Nier Automata, all wrapped up in ...fucking Pinocchio. It's shameless in how it rips off better writers, and yet it doesn't even manage to make the results interesting. Yoko Taro and Ken Levine collabing sounds like a recipe for a game whose twists and turns give you violent nausea in the best way, but here they're stealing the existing works and just mashing them together without regard for how well they work together or apart. It feels like plagiarism in the cheapness of it all.
Lords of the Fallen has a main plot ripped straight out of Lord of the Rings and still manages to not only make the characters around that and the evolution of the main plot interesting, but has a dozen or so fascinating sideplots to uncover, deep and rich lore, and it takes time out to try and do right by the original game. It's a 7/10 story but it's the best possible version of a 7/10 story, hiding 10/10 flash fiction in its depths. Truly more than the sum of its parts.
Lies of P has a lackluster art direction that cribs in equal parts from Dishonored, Sir You Are Being Hunted, and either Grim Dawn or Remnant (it's hard to say which because it's the boring parts!) while bringing only dew drops of its own concepts to the table. In the process of mashing these three things together, it sucks the character out of them leaving you with a sparse collection of memorable images that lack any emotional resonance and all inexplicably remind you of better games you could be playing.
Lords of the Fallen has art direction that has noticeable core themes, strong color theory, a cohesiveness, and which borrows from a small handful of aesthetic forebears without actively making me wonder if its legally actionable at any point. It's not the best art direction you've ever seen (call it an 8.5/10) but its very solid and I'm hard pressed to think on approaches for improvement to it.
I do not understand why Lies of P is the critical darling and the fan favorite.