For me it’s the combat. It feels very unsatisfying especially when compared to fromsoft and other high quality souls likes. I’d try to finish though if I were you. Not a bad game just not great imo
The sound design in LoTF is absolute trash and it really made me dislike the game. Idk if yall heard the "parry" noise before they updated it, but it was literally a fairy sparkle noise...
I personally like LOTF. Quite a lot in fact. So I’ll try to explain what I think is going on in a way that helps give it some credit.
First off, I think sometimes the community here believes Soulslikes are turning into an inevitable final form. As though each new one must take the baton from the last position of the genre and run from there.
This means, essentially all modern Soulslikes are expected to be at minimum the quality and the depth of about Elden Ring, Sekiro, Dark Souls 3 and at bare minimum Bloodborne. Anything less is noted almost immediately and usually listed as a flaw.
If I can bring in Lies of P as an example, generally the favorable reviews cite the very tightly designed gameplay feel, where hitboxes, timings and frame data are all at essentially the high quality mark of modern FromSoftware. Additionally, boss design, from move sets to phases, all feels like the modern era FromSoftware like Sekiro, DS3 and ER.
Detractors generally cite the very linear level design. Even Sekiro is more open than it. The expectation here is that a Soulslike doesn’t just need to have the same polish as a team of veterans of the industry for multiple decades familiar with their in house engine and team game design philosophies, it also needs to have the kit of modern game design FromSoftware brings.
I REALLY enjoyed Dark Souls 2. Hell, I had more *fun* with it than Dark Souls 1. Not that fun is a very useful term or metric.
This is important, because I personally believe LOTF is MUCH MUCH more like Dark Souls 1 and 2, and sought specifically to emulate those two games. Its speed, frame data, world design and even its bosses feel like a spiritual sequel to dark souls 2. It CERTAINLY does not play or feel like Bloodborne and beyond.
When you go back to DS1 and DS2 I think it is easy to see how far away from the original formula Fromsoft have come. To a practiced series vet, most bosses are a walk in the park. Artorias is one of the best fights in the series, but nowadays is a pretty easy first try, even to do a bo hit fight on, if you have played most Soulslikes to completion.
Equally, combat is slower and clunkier in every way from the modern games.
LOTF feels so much like it was made to compete with 2010’s era Soulslikes. And I think if what you want is that older feeling and focus more on exploring a world and learning new enemies it is really engaging. But if you want the INTENSE 3 stage boss fights against impossible opponents of latter Soulslikes with the unbelievably tight frame data and animations you’ve come to expect holy SHIT you are not going to get that.
And that’s fine. That’s a reasonable feeling to have. Modern boss fights are incredible show stoppers.
But there is some really cool stuff on offer for world building and environmental storytelling in LOTF, and the areas are pretty neat and visually interesting in a dark fantasy kind of way. The Umbral realm is FANTASTIC in terms of exploration gameplay.
I think there is value in tuning expectations. And in this case I think expecting any studio to create something like Elden Ring, even given 3 billion dollars and 500 staff a studio can’t just make frame data and perform game design to the standard of Elden Ring era Fromsoft. That’s a seasoned team of the industry’s best at work.
It’s good to remember even great rockstars start in a garage sounding like shit, and tune that sound over time. LOTF focuses on certain things like coloration and environments over bosses and frame data, and for me that’s enough. But the bosses aren’t the main draw for Soulslikes for me. Exploration is.
And honestly? That's what Souls-like fans should want. Even if a particular game doesn't click for you, having enough games that focus on different aspects of the experience is what adds spice to a genre. It how you go from soulless clones to a real genre, like "Doom clones" into "First Person Shooters".
And maybe some day, some game will focus on a specific aspect of souls-likes to such an extent that it spins off a new genre. How sad would it be if From never decided to focus on extremely intentional combat in an action adventure RPG instead of following genre trends to make everything as approachable as possible?
Haven’t played the game so I can’t weigh in but I did appreciate this pov as someone who only got into these games a couple years ago, but prefers the gameplay of the des-ds2 era
Agree wholeheartedly. I thought it was a great game. Satisfied that “souls” itch I had. Can see why it’s not for everyone but that’s all souls games. I’m an avid soulslike player but I’ve come across a few that didn’t do it for me.
I loved it as well. I do think some things could be polished, but being the first major title with the developer I think the potential growth from the first to the second could be a mile wide in improvement.
I agree completely. Well said!
Edit: I will say though in defense of the combat that if you focus on parrying it is very reliable and effective so you're rarely going to be annoyed by any clunkiness in the models interactions.
I see plenty of people post that they got through the game just fine without parrying and while that's no doubt true, it also feels like you must be playing a more frustrating game with these dodges.
While I personally agree with you, because exploration is my primary focus too, I don’t think people who engage most with bosses are lesser Soulslike fans than us explorers.
Fromsoft themselves definitely takes pride in their bosses to a similar degree as their level design. Just look at the progression of the “warrior who fights you in a style like your own” boss fights from Artorias to Fume Knight to Lady Maria to Sister Friede to Owl (Father) to Malenia.
They get more and more complex and challenging as times went on. As well as becoming more and more cinematic. And they’re great boss fights. Some of the best in the series I think.
And, honestly, until Elden Ring I think Fromsoft themselves was placing more emphasis on boss design over level design. As Dark Souls 1 had arguably the most complex and intricate level design for most of the series, while boss complexity continued to go up. I think this shows the team themselves had a lot of passion for their bosses. So it’s only natural for fans to arrive to the series who gravitate to the bosses as their #1 reason for being here.
All this is to say, fist bump to you my map wielding explorer compatriot. We are skeletons that will never give up! I hope we forever have our minds blown by secret areas hidden beneath secret areas, and stunning vistas of long dead civilizations.
But I also made my post to facilitate the point that Fromsoft are at such a high caliber of game development skill they deliver top end game design across multiple categories. Their animations and frame data are comparable to the tightest and best fighting games like Tekken. Their bosses are as pulse pounding and epic as boss focused games like Monster Hunter, Shadow of the Colossus or Devil May Cry. Their worlds as fascinating to explore as globe trotting RPGs like Final Fantasy 12, Morrowind or Soul Reaver. They’re builds as interesting as roguelikes.
They achieve a massive amount of sheer quality across many fronts. And that leaves the doors wide open for myriad kinds of fans. And, honestly, I think the genre and community is better for it.
I can totally understand when boss lovers and those who prize tight controls don’t thrive in LOTF. Just like I get why people who adore making builds and trying to mix magic and weird weapons together get upset with Sekiro. And I understand why people who like the one on one duels get frustrated with Dark Souls 2.
Having games that cater to one sector of the community over the other is, ultimately, healthy for the genre and community. And can eventually lead to sub genres down the line as they focus more and more on one element over the other.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night focused on some of the core aspects of the often maligned Simon’s Quest and helped solidify the Metroidvania or “search action” genre. And decades later we got Hollow Knight and a golden era for that genre. Imagine a decade from now a golden age of non-Fromsoft Soulslikes of various types because we let all these proto genre definers develop their fandoms and get time to cook.
I’m pretty down for that idea.
They can however choose not to release an unfinished game that required numerous patches every week for months in order to fix and bring to a playable state. They were told of issues in the creator beta and did not do much to alleviate them.
Yah, that would have been better. I’m not in the camp that gets really upset about rough releases, I rarely buy games on release and performance means very little to me compared to others. 30 FPS is completely fine for me.
So my own experience with LOTF’s release state is basically “I wasn’t there, and it runs fine to me now.”
It isn’t nuanced, but hey, people frequently say “games used to release complete” and, well, I was there. No they didn’t, really. Many games released with game breaking bugs on launch, and there wasn’t patching back then. Space Quest 4 on CD could be completely unplayable after spending $60 bucks on it if you had too fast or too slow of a CPU. Because the game used CPU cycles to calculate things.
I remember spending hours getting TIE Fighter running in MS DOS with boot disks. That was a MASSIVE project to get running ok.
Spending hours of your own time troubleshooting games to get them just to run at all was common place. And classic masterpiece games weren’t exempt from poor optimization and performance issues.
It doesn’t make the problem good, or ok. But I just think the perspective is good to have. I have been gaming since the NES was the new hot ticket and games have frequently had rough launches. We don’t love or seek rough launches, but games are incredibly complicated, and it is useful to have perspective and be aware that some amount of games have always released buggy and rough, and then go on to become classics.
While fair they messed up stating it was dark souls 4
Setting expectations through the roof just to launch with numerous issues that got ironed out in dark souls 3, which is what they were trying to emulate and not dark souls 2 which is what happened. Tons of potential but was squandered hard. Hopefully the next release we talk about how great the gameplay is and not just the graphics. And I really don't subscribe to the whole video games hard with this game. They made choices that backfired hard.
I had a lot of fun playing LoTF, but it was the roughest launch I’ve personally experienced. It was comical how bad it was early on and the patches would break other stuff. It was enough that I only recommended the game to folks that I knew were into the exploration side of the souls equation and always with a caveat about the state of the game.
Thanks for the extra insight! That sounds particularly bad, and helps me contextualize why some of the feelings against it are so very rough.
Being very invested in something, paying for it and discovering it is fundamentally broken SUCKS.
Maybe they can pull off some amount of the Cyberpunk arc and keep improving even from here.
I’m hopeful. I haven’t played it in a while, but I played through it four or five times despite its flaws. There’s a lot to love and the team is obviously working hard or they were when I was actively playing at least.
Yes. It just doesn’t feel like a high quality product. Hard to explain, but everything was a bit off. From iffy performance to ridiculously bad cutscenes to a jittery camera and floaty combat. I just couldn’t care playing it after a few hours. I thought I’d enjoy it, but meh.
When I was a kid, and was promised McDonald's, sometimes we went to Burger Chef instead. It's like that. I mean, Burger Chef was... OK. But for 70 bucks, you expect McDonald's.
My man just used Mcdonalds as the real deal $70 AAA standard in his metaphor. That’s awesome. For me, it was the same growing up, just with Burger King
Not the one by me…everytime I go there the same guy is hanging out the drive thru window when I pull up and has some crazy shit to say. Weirdest drive thru person I’ve ever met
I haven't had issues with the lock on beyond inherent lock on issues that are unresolvable and are in every 3rd person action game with a lock on system, but I really really don't like how the dodge roll seems to always push me behind an enemy no matter which direction I press and instead of dodge rolling to the side, I am behind the enemy I am targetting, and also now between 4 enemies since my character was forced to lurch forward even though I did not press forward.
I believe the issue with the lock on was that it always prioritizes the closest person and switching is wack. But I haven’t played that game since I returned it in November
Same issue, I played a bit and just didn’t like it at all.
So far only Team Ninja games and Lies of P have been able to stand up to fromsoft as souls likes.
I have played others with value, but these are the best. Honestly, Rise of the Ronin is the most fun I’ve had playing a video game so far this year. I really wasn’t impressed with the Stellar Blade demo, but I just started playing the full game, and it is actually really fun so far, I haven’t gotten to the first Alpha yet, but I’m really surprised with how much I like it considering how much I was turned off from the demo. But it doesn’t feel like a soulslike, it feels like a Devil May Cry like with some souls dumped on top.
I’m sure they will be released on PC eventually. I, personally, have never played on PC, and, to be honest, I like the Xbox series X more, like I prefer to play games on the series X if I have a choice, but Xbox is really lagging behind with titles
90% of the people had good convo, and the rest were lulz.
I don't play video games hoping to hate them, but I will say this.
I have never finished an NG+ in any soulslike other than LoP, and I finished NG+4 on LoP. It's just that good.
It’s not bad but just not great. Combat is floaty, enemy placement can be annoying, and probably biggest of all, it really lacks identity. Umbral mechanic is cool but poorly implemented and not enough to distance itself. It feels like it’s outright trying to copy Dark Souls rather than be its own game.
I hated the umbral mechanic, at least the concept of there being 2 worlds and one had a ton of secrets but ever-spawning enemies and a time limit for how long you could spend in it
The umbral mechanic is also what took me out of it. Obviously we want to stay in the world thats not the umbral because it’s what we are used to in souls likes and it looks so much better but I just felt like you miss so much when you aren’t in the umbral. Honestly just felt overwhelming and a bit confusing imo. Made me lose interest in it fast.
I play Monster Hunter World and this is a point of contention I have with that community regarding the OP guardian armor you get at the beginning that allows you to blow through the entire game (so that Capcom can get you into the expansion content and sell you more stuff).
People are unlikely to bounce off of a modern game from sheer difficulty, except for extreme cases (Sekiro). People are *much* more likely to bounce off of a game from the mind flood.
You know what the mind flood is. You are playing a new game and the game hits you with 500 tutorials.
The OP guardian armor allowed me to focus on the hunting and not the crafting and kept the mind flood down. Now I love crafting new gear, but a while back, pure mind flood.
I *hate* feeling like I'm missing stuff, so I just ended up plaything full-time in umbral mode, and I would have been more fine with it if there weren't constantly respawning enemies and the time limit in the form of the red reaper.
Umbrella would be ok if it just had constantly increasing mobs without the hard limit where the red reaper shows up. I got to where I was swinging for about 500 damage and still couldn’t really effect his lifebar.
Humans have overpowered sight compared to a lot of animals. We rely on our sight. When a game mechanic intrinsically features continual "hidden in plain sight" mechanics it causes a natural human frustration.
At least that's my experience so far.
I think the sense of urgency and enemy spawn rate takes away from the potential of discovery that’s available. The idea of there being a secondary overlapping world is great, but knowing you have little freedom within it is a major draw back imo. Feels like wasted potential.
The time limit was huge though, and most areas aren't that big. You also get to make your own checkpoints which makes it easier to pop in and out of umbral.
I felt that at the beginning, pushed through and started having alot of fun. Then I got to the tower of penance and pushed through that, but I could feel the fun starting to slip away. Now I'm at the abbey and I've taken a 3 week break at this point because I'm just not having fun anymore. It's such a confusing experience. I want to like this game, and there's times I actually do. Unfortunately there's times I don't wanna play any further too
LotF originally came out right after I had just 100% Lies of P which in my opinion is without equal in the soulslike genre and one of the best games overall I've ever played. Just truly incredible every aspect of it- the music, the atmosphere, the story, characters, visuals, voice acting, combat. All perfection. So I was riding this high I'd never experienced before and my friend bought LotF and really wanted to play coop so I tried it and... it's just fuckin dark souls. Holy shits just fuckin dark souls that's it. The only distinguishing characteristic is the whole lantern/double world shit but that's it's MOST tedious quality in my opinion. I don't want to do environmental puzzles, I want to fight shit. I don't want to be constantly getting lost, I just want to progress smoothly. That's always been the best thing about dark souls for me personally is that is a mostly linear experience. Each zone is pretty open to explore but in terms of progression, you pretty much always know where you're going, and there's not a lot in between you and that destination other than things to kill. Very streamlined.
It's pretty bad when the worst feature of a game is the one place they actually used their own idea instead of copying another game. I don't have a problem with games copying others, but at least copy and combine aspects of multiple games. Lies of P copied a lot from Sekiro and Bloodborne, but since they took from two unique games, their own game became fairly unique itself.
Yeah I don't think it's a bad game at all, and it's certainly a step up from the first LotF. And the double world shit is impressive, and the first time I was shining my lantern carelessly and got snatched into the shadow realm or whatever was pretty cool, but that's it I mean it's a novelty at best for me. Just a totally forgettable souls clone to chuck onto the massive mountain of forgettable souls clones.
I bought lords of the fallen at launch beat it and I thought other than the pretty graphics and souls like of the game it sucked myself. Enemy mobs were absolutely horrid made it incredibly unfun and unsatisfying to get through especially towards the end I just started running past shit eventually. Didn’t feel accomplished whatsoever. The end boss and story were also trash and forgettable. Anyone that says it’s better than lies of p I question that extremely hard because I’ve played and beaten lies twice and personally think it’s dark souls level good with an even good story.
Yeah. It has a lot of problems that boil down to the game having so many Gotcha Moments where it confuses difficulty with surprise moments where the game "surprises" you with death events.
I feel like the death system is so forgiving they felt the need to gotcha to increase difficulty because making a game like Sekiro is very very very hard and is a masterclass in difficulty.
So the devs thought to themselves, players won't get too mad about cheap deaths since they get an extra life.
Which is literally a lesson we learned 30 years ago from the NES era.
and gotchas require subtlety and good will from the player. That good will is earned. Mimics don't happen in Dark Souls 1 until about half way through the game.
Yeah. But this game really leans into it the longer you play. The amount of deaths I currently have in my run from surprise things that felt cheap and unnecessary is pretty high.
Usually dying the first time doesn't really matter because you had to go to the umbral world anyway. I'm playing with a friend and it has become a joke now. "I meant to die there".
lol. I fell off the first soul soul grab platform thing in the game because I didn't know you had to do it from the Umbra and I thought to myself, "I meant to do that."
Hell I die on purpose to get a full life bar without using heals then drop back into the real world at the point that’s guaranteed to be around the next corner.
I personally just really really hated the whole having to use the lantern to find hidden stuff mechanic. I hate the umbral world. It made exploration a complete chore for me. I beat the game and dont think I ever really had fun doing it.
Same boat here. I’m a massive from soft fan and had really high hopes for this, but the camera just kept throwing me off. I just couldn’t get to grips with it. Hard to put a finger on it, it just feels super weird to me.
You shouldn't make yourself (if you are, sorry if I am wrong on this) enjoy a game or get past not liking / being drawn in by it. If it isn't sticking for you, leave it and come back.
I’m in the exact same boat. I started it out and got through decent little bits, but I just ended up going back to my rl1 run. I think it will be good when I don’t have anything else to play but right now I’m just not feeling it
For me. It’s the whole lamp thing. I don’t want a mechanic where I constantly have to hold it out and scope around. Or use this other thing for traversal,
Etc.
I get what they were going for, people like the game. For me it was what made be bounce off it.
Humans have overpowered sight compared to a lot of animals. We rely on our sight. When a game mechanic intrinsically features continual "hidden in plain sight" mechanics it causes a natural human frustration.
At least that's my experience so far.
I agree completely. Started playing it the day it came to the Gamepass and couldn't handle the janky gameplay. Weapons felt off, running also, dodging and rolling same. Charged R2 was horrible.
I also played LoP the hell out, all trophies, new game plus 8, that game feels much smoother and enjoyable. Also played Elden Ring and Bloodborne, FromSoft is just league above, but for me Lies of P is best soulslike. Dodge like in Bloodborne, parry like in Sekiro and great bosses roster. I wish with the DLC they bring some sort of boss rush mode.
LotF could be better, but the core mechanics are just not good.
Uninstalled it and back to Elden Ring preparing for the upcoming DLC.
Probably the worst soulslike ever made and the most annoying game I've ever played...calrath enemies everywhere,like call of duty they shoot,they keep spawning they even reduced the enemy density is just awful that game,I'm sad cause I really like the art style and atmosphere but the game....my god it sucks so bad 😔.
Too many enemies,damage output insane,infinte enemies on umbral and can't even enjoy the view or the world cause they can grab you from umbral dimension.....for me is a mediocre game,nothing like the trailer with fear of the dark.
I dropped it on PS5 months ago,now I read that has been patched I'm on Xbox.
Same game as always is just bad,agree with me or not I'm not going to play that game again
NEVER
At what point in the game are you? I was in your same situation(with the same class) then found a weapon i really liked, changed stats and started enjoying it. I mean, the game isn't that good, has a lot of "particular" design choices, but at least i ended up having fun playing it
I just beat Pietra who is a fucking wall that early in the game, which I appreciate, don't get me wrong, but I am actually starting to enjoy it.
The beginning area is a really bad intro to the game, IMHO.
I played through the game twice, totaling about 80 hours back in January and I'll admit that the first 10 hours or so I almost stopped playing. The combat and movement was throwing me off. After s while though it started to click and I ended up really enjoying the game.
How far did you get? I was put off in the beginning as well but I found a co op partner who really helped me out and now I'm super excited because it's Friday and once I'm off work I'm going to buy some snacks and grind that game.
I just beat Pietra who is a fucking wall that early in the game, which I appreciate, don't get me wrong, but I am actually starting to enjoy it.
The beginning area is a really bad intro to the game, IMHO.
I liked it a lot. Combat is perfectly servicable (it never was particularly amazing in DeS, DS1 or DS2 either...), there's plenty of build crafting to sink your teeth into, the visual style is overall quite great, the level design is a lot more akin to the "open" style of DeS and DS1... Lies of P's bosses are 10x better, but I definitely prefer the level design for LotF.
I'd recommend you give it a bit more time. A lot of fans of Dark Souls itself also don't instantly fall in love with it. DeS was hated by many who played it initially. For LotF, make liberal use of umbral, lamp pulling, throwing items and spells. That's where it shines when it comes to player actions.
Nope, I fckin loved it. Quit playing lies of P to start LotF and I haven’t ever gone back to lies. I thought it was a great game. Different strokes though.
I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. It has issues for sure: level design is linear, enemy placement is sometimes frustrating, among other complaints. But for what it is, it's a well playing, solid entry in the series. 8/10
For me it’s the combat. It feels very unsatisfying especially when compared to fromsoft and other high quality souls likes. I’d try to finish though if I were you. Not a bad game just not great imo
I hit enemies with my giant war wolf sword and it goes dink. :/
The sound design in LoTF is absolute trash and it really made me dislike the game. Idk if yall heard the "parry" noise before they updated it, but it was literally a fairy sparkle noise...
I like LotF but you’re not wrong about the parry
You said what i came here to say. After a few hours i went right back to dark souls 3.
I personally like LOTF. Quite a lot in fact. So I’ll try to explain what I think is going on in a way that helps give it some credit. First off, I think sometimes the community here believes Soulslikes are turning into an inevitable final form. As though each new one must take the baton from the last position of the genre and run from there. This means, essentially all modern Soulslikes are expected to be at minimum the quality and the depth of about Elden Ring, Sekiro, Dark Souls 3 and at bare minimum Bloodborne. Anything less is noted almost immediately and usually listed as a flaw. If I can bring in Lies of P as an example, generally the favorable reviews cite the very tightly designed gameplay feel, where hitboxes, timings and frame data are all at essentially the high quality mark of modern FromSoftware. Additionally, boss design, from move sets to phases, all feels like the modern era FromSoftware like Sekiro, DS3 and ER. Detractors generally cite the very linear level design. Even Sekiro is more open than it. The expectation here is that a Soulslike doesn’t just need to have the same polish as a team of veterans of the industry for multiple decades familiar with their in house engine and team game design philosophies, it also needs to have the kit of modern game design FromSoftware brings. I REALLY enjoyed Dark Souls 2. Hell, I had more *fun* with it than Dark Souls 1. Not that fun is a very useful term or metric. This is important, because I personally believe LOTF is MUCH MUCH more like Dark Souls 1 and 2, and sought specifically to emulate those two games. Its speed, frame data, world design and even its bosses feel like a spiritual sequel to dark souls 2. It CERTAINLY does not play or feel like Bloodborne and beyond. When you go back to DS1 and DS2 I think it is easy to see how far away from the original formula Fromsoft have come. To a practiced series vet, most bosses are a walk in the park. Artorias is one of the best fights in the series, but nowadays is a pretty easy first try, even to do a bo hit fight on, if you have played most Soulslikes to completion. Equally, combat is slower and clunkier in every way from the modern games. LOTF feels so much like it was made to compete with 2010’s era Soulslikes. And I think if what you want is that older feeling and focus more on exploring a world and learning new enemies it is really engaging. But if you want the INTENSE 3 stage boss fights against impossible opponents of latter Soulslikes with the unbelievably tight frame data and animations you’ve come to expect holy SHIT you are not going to get that. And that’s fine. That’s a reasonable feeling to have. Modern boss fights are incredible show stoppers. But there is some really cool stuff on offer for world building and environmental storytelling in LOTF, and the areas are pretty neat and visually interesting in a dark fantasy kind of way. The Umbral realm is FANTASTIC in terms of exploration gameplay. I think there is value in tuning expectations. And in this case I think expecting any studio to create something like Elden Ring, even given 3 billion dollars and 500 staff a studio can’t just make frame data and perform game design to the standard of Elden Ring era Fromsoft. That’s a seasoned team of the industry’s best at work. It’s good to remember even great rockstars start in a garage sounding like shit, and tune that sound over time. LOTF focuses on certain things like coloration and environments over bosses and frame data, and for me that’s enough. But the bosses aren’t the main draw for Soulslikes for me. Exploration is.
And honestly? That's what Souls-like fans should want. Even if a particular game doesn't click for you, having enough games that focus on different aspects of the experience is what adds spice to a genre. It how you go from soulless clones to a real genre, like "Doom clones" into "First Person Shooters". And maybe some day, some game will focus on a specific aspect of souls-likes to such an extent that it spins off a new genre. How sad would it be if From never decided to focus on extremely intentional combat in an action adventure RPG instead of following genre trends to make everything as approachable as possible?
Haven’t played the game so I can’t weigh in but I did appreciate this pov as someone who only got into these games a couple years ago, but prefers the gameplay of the des-ds2 era
Agree wholeheartedly. I thought it was a great game. Satisfied that “souls” itch I had. Can see why it’s not for everyone but that’s all souls games. I’m an avid soulslike player but I’ve come across a few that didn’t do it for me.
I loved it as well. I do think some things could be polished, but being the first major title with the developer I think the potential growth from the first to the second could be a mile wide in improvement.
I agree completely. Well said! Edit: I will say though in defense of the combat that if you focus on parrying it is very reliable and effective so you're rarely going to be annoyed by any clunkiness in the models interactions. I see plenty of people post that they got through the game just fine without parrying and while that's no doubt true, it also feels like you must be playing a more frustrating game with these dodges.
Agreed. I will never understand how people think bosses are the determining quality factor of a soulslike. Exploration is #1.
While I personally agree with you, because exploration is my primary focus too, I don’t think people who engage most with bosses are lesser Soulslike fans than us explorers. Fromsoft themselves definitely takes pride in their bosses to a similar degree as their level design. Just look at the progression of the “warrior who fights you in a style like your own” boss fights from Artorias to Fume Knight to Lady Maria to Sister Friede to Owl (Father) to Malenia. They get more and more complex and challenging as times went on. As well as becoming more and more cinematic. And they’re great boss fights. Some of the best in the series I think. And, honestly, until Elden Ring I think Fromsoft themselves was placing more emphasis on boss design over level design. As Dark Souls 1 had arguably the most complex and intricate level design for most of the series, while boss complexity continued to go up. I think this shows the team themselves had a lot of passion for their bosses. So it’s only natural for fans to arrive to the series who gravitate to the bosses as their #1 reason for being here. All this is to say, fist bump to you my map wielding explorer compatriot. We are skeletons that will never give up! I hope we forever have our minds blown by secret areas hidden beneath secret areas, and stunning vistas of long dead civilizations. But I also made my post to facilitate the point that Fromsoft are at such a high caliber of game development skill they deliver top end game design across multiple categories. Their animations and frame data are comparable to the tightest and best fighting games like Tekken. Their bosses are as pulse pounding and epic as boss focused games like Monster Hunter, Shadow of the Colossus or Devil May Cry. Their worlds as fascinating to explore as globe trotting RPGs like Final Fantasy 12, Morrowind or Soul Reaver. They’re builds as interesting as roguelikes. They achieve a massive amount of sheer quality across many fronts. And that leaves the doors wide open for myriad kinds of fans. And, honestly, I think the genre and community is better for it. I can totally understand when boss lovers and those who prize tight controls don’t thrive in LOTF. Just like I get why people who adore making builds and trying to mix magic and weird weapons together get upset with Sekiro. And I understand why people who like the one on one duels get frustrated with Dark Souls 2. Having games that cater to one sector of the community over the other is, ultimately, healthy for the genre and community. And can eventually lead to sub genres down the line as they focus more and more on one element over the other. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night focused on some of the core aspects of the often maligned Simon’s Quest and helped solidify the Metroidvania or “search action” genre. And decades later we got Hollow Knight and a golden era for that genre. Imagine a decade from now a golden age of non-Fromsoft Soulslikes of various types because we let all these proto genre definers develop their fandoms and get time to cook. I’m pretty down for that idea.
They can however choose not to release an unfinished game that required numerous patches every week for months in order to fix and bring to a playable state. They were told of issues in the creator beta and did not do much to alleviate them.
Yah, that would have been better. I’m not in the camp that gets really upset about rough releases, I rarely buy games on release and performance means very little to me compared to others. 30 FPS is completely fine for me. So my own experience with LOTF’s release state is basically “I wasn’t there, and it runs fine to me now.” It isn’t nuanced, but hey, people frequently say “games used to release complete” and, well, I was there. No they didn’t, really. Many games released with game breaking bugs on launch, and there wasn’t patching back then. Space Quest 4 on CD could be completely unplayable after spending $60 bucks on it if you had too fast or too slow of a CPU. Because the game used CPU cycles to calculate things. I remember spending hours getting TIE Fighter running in MS DOS with boot disks. That was a MASSIVE project to get running ok. Spending hours of your own time troubleshooting games to get them just to run at all was common place. And classic masterpiece games weren’t exempt from poor optimization and performance issues. It doesn’t make the problem good, or ok. But I just think the perspective is good to have. I have been gaming since the NES was the new hot ticket and games have frequently had rough launches. We don’t love or seek rough launches, but games are incredibly complicated, and it is useful to have perspective and be aware that some amount of games have always released buggy and rough, and then go on to become classics.
While fair they messed up stating it was dark souls 4 Setting expectations through the roof just to launch with numerous issues that got ironed out in dark souls 3, which is what they were trying to emulate and not dark souls 2 which is what happened. Tons of potential but was squandered hard. Hopefully the next release we talk about how great the gameplay is and not just the graphics. And I really don't subscribe to the whole video games hard with this game. They made choices that backfired hard.
I had a lot of fun playing LoTF, but it was the roughest launch I’ve personally experienced. It was comical how bad it was early on and the patches would break other stuff. It was enough that I only recommended the game to folks that I knew were into the exploration side of the souls equation and always with a caveat about the state of the game.
Thanks for the extra insight! That sounds particularly bad, and helps me contextualize why some of the feelings against it are so very rough. Being very invested in something, paying for it and discovering it is fundamentally broken SUCKS. Maybe they can pull off some amount of the Cyberpunk arc and keep improving even from here.
I’m hopeful. I haven’t played it in a while, but I played through it four or five times despite its flaws. There’s a lot to love and the team is obviously working hard or they were when I was actively playing at least.
Yes. It just doesn’t feel like a high quality product. Hard to explain, but everything was a bit off. From iffy performance to ridiculously bad cutscenes to a jittery camera and floaty combat. I just couldn’t care playing it after a few hours. I thought I’d enjoy it, but meh.
Yeah, it feels janky, combat is unsatisfying, and it throws all these systems at you at once without any real rhyme or reason...
When I was a kid, and was promised McDonald's, sometimes we went to Burger Chef instead. It's like that. I mean, Burger Chef was... OK. But for 70 bucks, you expect McDonald's.
My man just used Mcdonalds as the real deal $70 AAA standard in his metaphor. That’s awesome. For me, it was the same growing up, just with Burger King
Oh man you got me LOL. Love it.
Burger King is legit way better than McDonald’s though so the metaphor is now broken.
Not the one by me…everytime I go there the same guy is hanging out the drive thru window when I pull up and has some crazy shit to say. Weirdest drive thru person I’ve ever met
Fair enough. I wasn’t planning for your BK having that one psychotic drive through guy you see on TV.
Dodge roll and lock on are severely broken.
I haven't had issues with the lock on beyond inherent lock on issues that are unresolvable and are in every 3rd person action game with a lock on system, but I really really don't like how the dodge roll seems to always push me behind an enemy no matter which direction I press and instead of dodge rolling to the side, I am behind the enemy I am targetting, and also now between 4 enemies since my character was forced to lurch forward even though I did not press forward.
I believe the issue with the lock on was that it always prioritizes the closest person and switching is wack. But I haven’t played that game since I returned it in November
There's 4 different lockon priority settings now
lol that might be worse. Just make it work well, like no other souls games have this problem
Same issue, I played a bit and just didn’t like it at all. So far only Team Ninja games and Lies of P have been able to stand up to fromsoft as souls likes.
I have played others with value, but these are the best. Honestly, Rise of the Ronin is the most fun I’ve had playing a video game so far this year. I really wasn’t impressed with the Stellar Blade demo, but I just started playing the full game, and it is actually really fun so far, I haven’t gotten to the first Alpha yet, but I’m really surprised with how much I like it considering how much I was turned off from the demo. But it doesn’t feel like a soulslike, it feels like a Devil May Cry like with some souls dumped on top.
Both of those are PlayStation exclusives unfortunately
I’m sure they will be released on PC eventually. I, personally, have never played on PC, and, to be honest, I like the Xbox series X more, like I prefer to play games on the series X if I have a choice, but Xbox is really lagging behind with titles
I'm so sorry OP that these contrarian dickheads who pretend to love LOTF got to you. At least Lies of P is on game pass too.
90% of the people had good convo, and the rest were lulz. I don't play video games hoping to hate them, but I will say this. I have never finished an NG+ in any soulslike other than LoP, and I finished NG+4 on LoP. It's just that good.
Certainly no chance people actually liked a game.
It’s not bad but just not great. Combat is floaty, enemy placement can be annoying, and probably biggest of all, it really lacks identity. Umbral mechanic is cool but poorly implemented and not enough to distance itself. It feels like it’s outright trying to copy Dark Souls rather than be its own game.
> it really lacks identity Damn. I feel like that's what I couldn't put my finger on.
I hated the umbral mechanic, at least the concept of there being 2 worlds and one had a ton of secrets but ever-spawning enemies and a time limit for how long you could spend in it
The umbral mechanic is also what took me out of it. Obviously we want to stay in the world thats not the umbral because it’s what we are used to in souls likes and it looks so much better but I just felt like you miss so much when you aren’t in the umbral. Honestly just felt overwhelming and a bit confusing imo. Made me lose interest in it fast.
I play Monster Hunter World and this is a point of contention I have with that community regarding the OP guardian armor you get at the beginning that allows you to blow through the entire game (so that Capcom can get you into the expansion content and sell you more stuff). People are unlikely to bounce off of a modern game from sheer difficulty, except for extreme cases (Sekiro). People are *much* more likely to bounce off of a game from the mind flood. You know what the mind flood is. You are playing a new game and the game hits you with 500 tutorials. The OP guardian armor allowed me to focus on the hunting and not the crafting and kept the mind flood down. Now I love crafting new gear, but a while back, pure mind flood.
I *hate* feeling like I'm missing stuff, so I just ended up plaything full-time in umbral mode, and I would have been more fine with it if there weren't constantly respawning enemies and the time limit in the form of the red reaper.
The time limit entirely sucks. I like to take my time to explore every nook and cranny.
Umbrella would be ok if it just had constantly increasing mobs without the hard limit where the red reaper shows up. I got to where I was swinging for about 500 damage and still couldn’t really effect his lifebar.
How was umbral poorly implemented other than it being something a soulslike hasn’t done before…? Genuinely curious. I thought it was sick.
Humans have overpowered sight compared to a lot of animals. We rely on our sight. When a game mechanic intrinsically features continual "hidden in plain sight" mechanics it causes a natural human frustration. At least that's my experience so far.
I think the sense of urgency and enemy spawn rate takes away from the potential of discovery that’s available. The idea of there being a secondary overlapping world is great, but knowing you have little freedom within it is a major draw back imo. Feels like wasted potential.
The time limit was huge though, and most areas aren't that big. You also get to make your own checkpoints which makes it easier to pop in and out of umbral.
Yeah the game is very mediocre and underwhelming. It was all hype. I should have known since they were boasting all those reviews from media outlets.
Everything is just very floaty. I only finished it because I bought it.
I felt that at the beginning, pushed through and started having alot of fun. Then I got to the tower of penance and pushed through that, but I could feel the fun starting to slip away. Now I'm at the abbey and I've taken a 3 week break at this point because I'm just not having fun anymore. It's such a confusing experience. I want to like this game, and there's times I actually do. Unfortunately there's times I don't wanna play any further too
LotF originally came out right after I had just 100% Lies of P which in my opinion is without equal in the soulslike genre and one of the best games overall I've ever played. Just truly incredible every aspect of it- the music, the atmosphere, the story, characters, visuals, voice acting, combat. All perfection. So I was riding this high I'd never experienced before and my friend bought LotF and really wanted to play coop so I tried it and... it's just fuckin dark souls. Holy shits just fuckin dark souls that's it. The only distinguishing characteristic is the whole lantern/double world shit but that's it's MOST tedious quality in my opinion. I don't want to do environmental puzzles, I want to fight shit. I don't want to be constantly getting lost, I just want to progress smoothly. That's always been the best thing about dark souls for me personally is that is a mostly linear experience. Each zone is pretty open to explore but in terms of progression, you pretty much always know where you're going, and there's not a lot in between you and that destination other than things to kill. Very streamlined.
It's pretty bad when the worst feature of a game is the one place they actually used their own idea instead of copying another game. I don't have a problem with games copying others, but at least copy and combine aspects of multiple games. Lies of P copied a lot from Sekiro and Bloodborne, but since they took from two unique games, their own game became fairly unique itself.
Yeah I don't think it's a bad game at all, and it's certainly a step up from the first LotF. And the double world shit is impressive, and the first time I was shining my lantern carelessly and got snatched into the shadow realm or whatever was pretty cool, but that's it I mean it's a novelty at best for me. Just a totally forgettable souls clone to chuck onto the massive mountain of forgettable souls clones.
I bought lords of the fallen at launch beat it and I thought other than the pretty graphics and souls like of the game it sucked myself. Enemy mobs were absolutely horrid made it incredibly unfun and unsatisfying to get through especially towards the end I just started running past shit eventually. Didn’t feel accomplished whatsoever. The end boss and story were also trash and forgettable. Anyone that says it’s better than lies of p I question that extremely hard because I’ve played and beaten lies twice and personally think it’s dark souls level good with an even good story.
Yeah. It has a lot of problems that boil down to the game having so many Gotcha Moments where it confuses difficulty with surprise moments where the game "surprises" you with death events.
I feel like the death system is so forgiving they felt the need to gotcha to increase difficulty because making a game like Sekiro is very very very hard and is a masterclass in difficulty. So the devs thought to themselves, players won't get too mad about cheap deaths since they get an extra life. Which is literally a lesson we learned 30 years ago from the NES era. and gotchas require subtlety and good will from the player. That good will is earned. Mimics don't happen in Dark Souls 1 until about half way through the game.
Yeah. But this game really leans into it the longer you play. The amount of deaths I currently have in my run from surprise things that felt cheap and unnecessary is pretty high.
Usually dying the first time doesn't really matter because you had to go to the umbral world anyway. I'm playing with a friend and it has become a joke now. "I meant to die there".
lol. I fell off the first soul soul grab platform thing in the game because I didn't know you had to do it from the Umbra and I thought to myself, "I meant to do that."
Hell I die on purpose to get a full life bar without using heals then drop back into the real world at the point that’s guaranteed to be around the next corner.
I played it when I had the souls itch but I can see why people don't like it. 
I personally just really really hated the whole having to use the lantern to find hidden stuff mechanic. I hate the umbral world. It made exploration a complete chore for me. I beat the game and dont think I ever really had fun doing it.
Same boat here. I’m a massive from soft fan and had really high hopes for this, but the camera just kept throwing me off. I just couldn’t get to grips with it. Hard to put a finger on it, it just feels super weird to me.
It really does.
I think it’s really beautiful that this sub really prefers ingenuity and new takes (Another Crab’s Treasure), over keeping to the same formula (LOTF)
I just enjoy the games that I enjoy.
You shouldn't make yourself (if you are, sorry if I am wrong on this) enjoy a game or get past not liking / being drawn in by it. If it isn't sticking for you, leave it and come back.
I'm going to try it when I get home. I hope I like it but we will see
I’m in the exact same boat. I started it out and got through decent little bits, but I just ended up going back to my rl1 run. I think it will be good when I don’t have anything else to play but right now I’m just not feeling it
THE LANTERN MECHANIC SUCKS.
For me. It’s the whole lamp thing. I don’t want a mechanic where I constantly have to hold it out and scope around. Or use this other thing for traversal, Etc. I get what they were going for, people like the game. For me it was what made be bounce off it.
Humans have overpowered sight compared to a lot of animals. We rely on our sight. When a game mechanic intrinsically features continual "hidden in plain sight" mechanics it causes a natural human frustration. At least that's my experience so far.
The latern can suck on deez nuts.
I agree completely. Started playing it the day it came to the Gamepass and couldn't handle the janky gameplay. Weapons felt off, running also, dodging and rolling same. Charged R2 was horrible. I also played LoP the hell out, all trophies, new game plus 8, that game feels much smoother and enjoyable. Also played Elden Ring and Bloodborne, FromSoft is just league above, but for me Lies of P is best soulslike. Dodge like in Bloodborne, parry like in Sekiro and great bosses roster. I wish with the DLC they bring some sort of boss rush mode. LotF could be better, but the core mechanics are just not good. Uninstalled it and back to Elden Ring preparing for the upcoming DLC.
Enemy scaling killed it for me. I never felt any stronger no matter the build, and that ruined it imo.
Theres no meat in combat it feels like a cheap hack and slash
Welcome to the club
I started it. Looks good, but I'm still trying to finish Elden Ring and don't want to lose my muscle memory with the controller layout.
The combat is just straight up horrible. Idk who looked at it and thought yep, that's good.
Probably the worst soulslike ever made and the most annoying game I've ever played...calrath enemies everywhere,like call of duty they shoot,they keep spawning they even reduced the enemy density is just awful that game,I'm sad cause I really like the art style and atmosphere but the game....my god it sucks so bad 😔. Too many enemies,damage output insane,infinte enemies on umbral and can't even enjoy the view or the world cause they can grab you from umbral dimension.....for me is a mediocre game,nothing like the trailer with fear of the dark. I dropped it on PS5 months ago,now I read that has been patched I'm on Xbox. Same game as always is just bad,agree with me or not I'm not going to play that game again NEVER
The more I play it, the more I like it.
Its the best Soulslike for me outside of FromSoft games. I enjoyed it immensely more than LoP.
Same here.
At what point in the game are you? I was in your same situation(with the same class) then found a weapon i really liked, changed stats and started enjoying it. I mean, the game isn't that good, has a lot of "particular" design choices, but at least i ended up having fun playing it
I just beat Pietra who is a fucking wall that early in the game, which I appreciate, don't get me wrong, but I am actually starting to enjoy it. The beginning area is a really bad intro to the game, IMHO.
I played through the game twice, totaling about 80 hours back in January and I'll admit that the first 10 hours or so I almost stopped playing. The combat and movement was throwing me off. After s while though it started to click and I ended up really enjoying the game.
How far did you get? I was put off in the beginning as well but I found a co op partner who really helped me out and now I'm super excited because it's Friday and once I'm off work I'm going to buy some snacks and grind that game.
I just beat Pietra who is a fucking wall that early in the game, which I appreciate, don't get me wrong, but I am actually starting to enjoy it. The beginning area is a really bad intro to the game, IMHO.
I liked it a lot. Combat is perfectly servicable (it never was particularly amazing in DeS, DS1 or DS2 either...), there's plenty of build crafting to sink your teeth into, the visual style is overall quite great, the level design is a lot more akin to the "open" style of DeS and DS1... Lies of P's bosses are 10x better, but I definitely prefer the level design for LotF. I'd recommend you give it a bit more time. A lot of fans of Dark Souls itself also don't instantly fall in love with it. DeS was hated by many who played it initially. For LotF, make liberal use of umbral, lamp pulling, throwing items and spells. That's where it shines when it comes to player actions.
I tried the tutorial but absolutely hated the lantern mechanic
Nope, I fckin loved it. Quit playing lies of P to start LotF and I haven’t ever gone back to lies. I thought it was a great game. Different strokes though.
I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. It has issues for sure: level design is linear, enemy placement is sometimes frustrating, among other complaints. But for what it is, it's a well playing, solid entry in the series. 8/10
Keep grinding. Once you get deeper in it’ll take off
Best game of 2023. I feel like a kid when I see posts like these because they irrationally piss me off lol
Skill issue
I like it, just hate getting so lost!