No thread for this yet, or am I simply not using the search-option right? Anyway: Lords of the Fallen!
Designed by Deck 13 / published by CI Games, due in 2014. Apparantly it’s a lot like Dark Souls in gameplay (hack and slash will only get you killed, tactics and carefull play are required) but also accesible for not so hardcore-players like myself, because you have the ability to use powerfull magic to help out with the more difficult monsters. However, using magic will result in less loot, and lesser quality loot, so the purists still have a good reason to play it the hard way!
For someone like me who liked Dark Souls a lot, but also was frustrated by the difficulty of it sometimes, this sounds like a good combination: challenging, but only punishing if you want it to be. Previews are carefully optimistic…
Man, sign me up. I really loved Demon’s Souls on the PS3, but coupling a brutal, unforgiving game with my novice skills with a gamepad proved to be a mistake. I spent hours and hours with the game and never made past the Tower of Latria, 3-1. So good, yet so disappointing.
It does look good. I got a bit farther in Dark Souls, but I did get frustrated enough to quit a good while before I finished it. It was fun for a while though.
I agree. The whole point of Dark Souls is for the player to be constantly challenged and master the difficulty. It’s not something I care for, but I can see the appeal.
In this case, using the magic to get out of a jam appears to create a spiral of failure. You’ll get less loot to overcome later fights, so you’ll need to resort to the magic more, etc.
If Dark Souls/Demons Souls would give you the option to checkpoint right before a boss battle, they might have been my favorite games of all time.
As it stands now, fighting for 20 minutes to get 1 hit killed by a boss then having to run through 20 more minutes just to get one hit killed again makes the game completely unplayable for me.
Arguably, the naked balance of risk and reward is very much a part of the DS-games. To an extent, this just takes de-couples gameplay progress from that any dependency on that balance.
With properly designed combat mechanics, it could work. Efficacy of loot doesn’t need to be gated on the rarity per se. (I.e. if you find something that works for you, it can be possible to play through the whole game “honestly” with a starting weapon).
Biggest problem I could see is running out of content. It would need to have some degree of random enemies / levels, which is a huge departure from the Souls games.
I think that this is a pretty inaccurate statement concerning the structure of the Souls games. While there where a few levels/areas that were like this, if you properly explored you generally found shortcuts that would take you directly to the boss with very little opposition.
Well, I think you are saying it all: if you properly explored. Darks Souls is so unforgiving that even easy monsters can kill you if you don’t pay full attention. That’s oke, but it also meant (in my case) that exploring everything would constantly lead to encountering more monsters that I, with my limited skills in this game, could not defeat, not easily at least. Which would lead to more dieing and more running back only to die again, not only at the boss’ location but everywhere, and this got annoying after a while.
If this game gives me the fighting mechanics and controls of Dark Souls but allows me to get further with less frustration, I’m happy with that. I can see and understand why anyone capable of beating Dark Souls would disagree though…
I love how folks who never got over the hump in Dark Souls justify why it’s not their cuppa to those of us who drank the koolaid. Step aside and leave it to the professionals!
This is headed by Tom Gop who was a producer on Witcher 1/2 and self admitted big Demon/Dark Souls fan. So it has good potential, personally I expect it to be great.
Screenshots look great
Yeah, I didn’t get Dark Souls at all. One of the worst games ever made, in my opinion. Just no point. To me, it’s a game invented by and for people who loved The PacMan/Mario Bros era. Do this a millions times till you master this little section, repeat. Reminded me very much of Ghosts and Goblins, another game I hated.
But without that punishing checkpoint system, I could see a fun game there. The core combat system was great, just packaged with a terrible game. Give me that combat system in a more open world instead of a corridor crawl and I’d be very interested.
I loved dark souls but I too would have loved some kind something right outside boss fights. Let them be discoverable with a lot exploration or whatever in the most dark soulsy way but have them in there. Those few minute runs back to the boss were not challenging at all, especially after the tenth time. They were just an impediment to my fun.
Yeah, I guess I never got to that level of frustration since the few fights I just couldn’t do solo (Like Smaugh and Ornstien or False King Allant) I just summoned in help before I got to that level of frustration. For me summoning was the equalizer.
Dark Souls is ace. I mean, yes, it took me hour and a half to beat Orstein and Smough on my own, but when I finally did it…ah the feeling was great. Hardest fight in the game hands down. The rest of the game was not too difficult, as long as one is careful.
