Lords of the Fallen - the first Dark Souls clone!

[endtherapture]

I'd personally like a "casual" Dark Souls. I really like the combat and responsiveness of Dark Souls as well as the general art direction and level design, I just feel like it's a bit too hardcore sometimes and could do with a quicksave, because some of us do have lives outside of wasting hours walking back to retry a boss

I totally agree, its what has kept me from still finishing Dark Souls 2. Now I've seen it played through and talked about again and again by my friends so I have intimate knowledge of the ending and such, but it gets exhausting to play in big chunks to me. Having to retread your steps again and again just stops being fun after awhile. When it stops being fun I get sucked into another game and by the time I come back, I've got so many bonfire travel spots I can't even remember where my path forwards was again. I played through the entire black knight lava castle again only to remember at the very end I already killed the lava demon. It and Dark Souls 1 have incredible art styles and boss fights of unparalleled scale, the gameplay is sharp as all hell, and the weapon and armour variety is pretty damn cool. It's just that neither has any consideration for the gamer who can't play the entire game straight through in a few sittings. I can come back to a Skyrim save years later and with a look at my quest log start piecing together and remembering where I was and what I need to do. I don't necessarily think laying the quest all out on a silver platter with a nice arrow and infinite quicksaves is the option, but a general direction and a better autosave system I don't think should be out of the question. Hopefully the new games in this genre can take some steps in a more casual sense, perhaps with a heavier focus on being more of a long rpg. Then we could have the excellent fighting mechanics, better saving and direction mechanics, and all that sweet story and character goodness a more committed RPG gives you

It's what has kept me from finishing Dark Souls 1 haha! I simply can't find the time for it. I can find the time for some games of FIFA, some session of The Witcher, some matches of Dota, a mission of Assassin's Creed or three, even some time for Guild Wars 2. I know that in an hour or so I can have some fun and make some progress on the game. Not the same with Dark Souls sadly. I could pump an hour or two into the game and only end up replaying the same section a couple of times and not have any progress on it, which is quite annoying.

But yeah I think a quicksave or autosave mechanic with more checkpoints would be a good idea for those of us who love the design, gameplay and world of Dark Souls without the repetitiveness and hardcoreness. Because honestly so many aspects of the game are top notch, it's just that sometimes catering for a more casual audience is actually a good idea.

 

[Shocksplicer]

Not interested, immediately turned off by the full art style and awful-sounding Lore.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I really really really want to have a knee jerk reaction here, but this is still going to be one of the not-shitty releases this year, so I can't really complain.

It still puts me off, though. Dark Souls just looks and sounds better, and judging from this guy's use of the term "realistic" to describe the combat, it also sounds much worse than Dark Souls.

 

[stroopwafel]

King's Field was made by From Software, which also made Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2. You can't say that it's a clone if it's from the same studio.

Kings Field(or Shadow Tower for that matter) isn't at all like Souls though. Artistically they are similair but gameplay wise they are night and day. Souls is only as good b/c Demon's Souls was made in collaboration with Sony Japan Studios which provided the resources and technical expertise to really bring From's(or rather Miyazaki's) vision to life. Without SCEJ's involvement though I doubt any of From's titles other than Armored Core would have even made the transition to HD. And without Demon's no Dark.

Anyways Lords of the Fallen looks interesting. I'm sort of on the fence about this game. Gameplay wise it looks fun but that aesthetic...ugh. Then again Kingdoms of Amalur had that similar kind of WoW/Diablo artstyle and I still really liked that game. So who knows.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The art style, forced character and storyline don't do anything for me at all. Also, and perhaps even more negatively, I don't like that the engine lends itself so much to a slower and more deliberate pace. That slow and deliberate approach is quite decidedly the way I don't like to play games like Souls. It just looks to me like Lords is stuck in molasses the whole time, even when the hero is barely wearing armour and is using small one handed weapons. Bleh. I won't be playing it.

Oh well, I can at least appreciate some of the things it's doing with the experience drop/loss mechanics and alternate attack moves.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

It still puts me off, though. Dark Souls just looks and sounds better, and judging from this guy's use of the term "realistic" to describe the combat, it also sounds much worse than Dark Souls.

This video and the game just made me yearn for another Dark Souls entry. Preferably one that can compensate for the disappointment of number 2.

 

[stroopwafel]

I'm sure we'll see a Dark Souls 3 sooner or later. I have no doubt Bloodborne will be incredibly well-received and with the success of Dark Souls I doubt Namco Bandai won't push for another entry. Then Sony again. It's gonna be a busy year for From.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Considering Dark Souls 2 dun goofed. I'm excited to see similar titles with their own shenanigans and such.

 

[klaynexas3]

I'd personally like a "casual" Dark Souls. I really like the combat and responsiveness of Dark Souls as well as the general art direction and level design, I just feel like it's a bit too hardcore sometimes and could do with a quicksave, because some of us do have lives outside of wasting hours walking back to retry a boss

This would be nice. I don't have the time to pour hours upon hours into a game, but I love the Souls games for a lot of what they are, and I'm not saying baby us, but tone it down just a few notches. I like the exploration, the environments, the way the story is told, that whole thing, but I don't quite like having to dedicate days/weeks in game just to be able to beat it. Master it, sure, but just to play through once in a while, enjoy wandering around, seeing new sights, not having to dig the club out of my ass and go through the same area again just because I didn't have my shield up walking through a doorway, that would be nice.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

Looks interesting. I'd rather have a good clone than a bad new titel. So, yeah DS (all three) are my favourite titels of the last generation, so if this works out good, I'm on board.

 

[DementedSheep]

Hmm well I want another DS game and I'm either going to get DS2 or this. Probably DS2.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

After more than a decade of releasing horrifically dreadful shooters and nothing else, I think it's reasonable to be sceptical about games developed by City Interactive. The game might look good now but I'm not holding my breath.

Call it a knack for pattern recognition.

 

[jhoroz]

Watching that video literally feels like I'm watching footage from Crown of the Ivory King, and since I've kind of had my fill with Dark Souls 2, I think I'll skip this.

 

[ninja666]

I really hope they won't make it too easy. Easier sounds good, cause Dark Souls was mercilessly hard, punishing, and unforgiving at times, but I really hope it won't be a "Casual Souls" and will still pose a reasonable challenge. Come to think of it, it even has to , considering the target audience being Souls' fans.

 

[Rednog]

If the game is in any way decent they kind of missed a big marketing opportunity. They could easily market this to Xbox and PC games. Hey gamers Bloodborne is around the corner, what's that you don't own a PS4? The let us tide you over until Dark Souls 3.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I really hope they won't make it too easy. Easier sounds good, cause Dark Souls was mercilessly hard, punishing, and unforgiving at times, but I really hope it won't be a "Casual Souls" and will still pose a reasonable challenge. Come to think of it, it even has to , considering the target audience being Souls' fans.

I actually really hope they make it easy. Maybe that would get people to stop asking From Software to make Dark Souls "more accessible."

 

[ninja666]

I actually really hope they make it easy. Maybe that would get people to stop asking From Software to make Dark Souls "more accessible."

"More accessible" doesn't equal "easy". The game's already more accessible than Dark Souls. Plus, there's enough easy games already, hardcore gamers want something for themselves, too.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I actually really hope they make it easy. Maybe that would get people to stop asking From Software to make Dark Souls "more accessible."

"More accessible" doesn't equal "easy". The game's already more accessible than Dark Souls. Plus, there's enough easy games already, hardcore gamers want something for themselves, too.

I dunno, the more games that incorporate DS into their own the less games there are for those that want to play on normal/easy, defining easy games isn't easy itself and I wouldn't say there's plenty of easy games at the moment, everyone has a different perception of difficulty.

Plus I hate seeing a reversal imbalance where more games try being like DS which fucks over people who just want to play the game and not having to be forced into ultra hardcore.

 

[ninja666]

I dunno, the more games that incorporate DS into their own the less games there are for those that want to play on normal/easy, defining easy games isn't easy itself and I wouldn't say there's plenty of easy games at the moment, everyone has a different perception of difficulty.

You're talking about the future and how Dark Souls-style gameplay can potentially lead to lack of easy games. I was talking about games in the past and in the present - games that are made for the mass market and the "lowest common denominator", therefore are made to be stupidly easy, so everyone can complete them and feel like a boss. There's plenty of games of that type, from the top of my head (and relatively similar in gameplay): Assassin's Creed, Shadow of Mordor, Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, Prince of Persia 2008, Tomb Raider 2013. There are some gamers who were fed up with it and turned to Dark Souls - basically the only action RPG/action adventure in the recent years that made them actually stay focused the whole time and think about what they're doing. What do these gamers had until now? Demon's Souls, which was Dark Souls creators' previous game. They had it only if they had a PS3, though. What if they had only a PC or an X360? They were left with nothing because there was no another developer brave enough not to make a game that sells to mass market, but rather to the (rather large) minority of hardcore gamers that crave a challenge. Lords of the Fallen is kind of a ray of hope for those gamers. If the devs screw the game up by making it easy, it'll be just another "mass market" action RPG that are plenty nowadays.

 

[endtherapture]

I dunno, the more games that incorporate DS into their own the less games there are for those that want to play on normal/easy, defining easy games isn't easy itself and I wouldn't say there's plenty of easy games at the moment, everyone has a different perception of difficulty.

You're talking about the future and how Dark Souls-style gameplay can potentially lead to lack of easy games. I was talking about games in the past and in the present - games that are made for the mass market and the "lowest common denominator", therefore are made to be stupidly easy, so everyone can complete them and feel like a boss. There's plenty of games of that type, from the top of my head (and relatively similar in gameplay): Assassin's Creed, Shadow of Mordor, Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, Prince of Persia 2008, Tomb Raider 2013. There are some gamers who were fed up with it and turned to Dark Souls - basically the only action RPG/action adventure in the recent years that made them actually stay focused the whole time and think about what they're doing. What do these gamers had until now? Demon's Souls, which was Dark Souls creators' previous game. They had it only if they had a PS3, though. What if they had only a PC or an X360? They were left with nothing because there was no another developer brave enough not to make a game that sells to mass market, but rather to the (rather large) minority of hardcore gamers that crave a challenge. Lords of the Fallen is kind of a ray of hope for those gamers. If the devs screw the game up by making it easy, it'll be just another "mass market" action RPG that are plenty nowadays.

What's wrong with just having difficulty levels in a game? Serious question. Whether it's reducing damage from enemies, or adding quicksave to cut on the reptition in Dark Souls for a certain mode, why is it so tough for a game to be inclusive of people of all skill levels?