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Weapons range from single handed short swords and axes, 2 handed great swords and axes, pole swords, fists and staffs. There is a good selection there and each type has its own move set. Some of the weapons like pole swords cannot be used alongside a shield and can only be used 2 handed so you can choose a weapon set that suits your play style. During your travels you will also find runes / gems, once you reach the demonic realm you will speak to a blacksmith, he can unlock the runes that you find (they have to be examined for the want of better words by the blacksmith first so you know what they are). If you have found a small rune you can sacrifice some of your experience points when unlocking it in the hopes of getting a higher quality gem. Once these runes are unlocked you can then add them to weapons and armour, this will add extra stats like elemental damage, higher poise and higher attack power etc. You can even add runes to your gauntlet to make it act in a different way, adding a fire rune will make it expel a fire projectile and adding a power run will greatly increase the dame it outputs from the standard magic type missile. You can also remove the runes at the blacksmith and put them in different weapons as and when you find and start using them. After completing your main objective in your first visit to the demonic realm you give the blacksmith an item you collect from the boss fight and this allows him to appear in the human realm wherever you see an anvil.
The magic you select when starting out has a brute force set, there is also protect and weaken set and a ranged type set. Each one has 4 available spells and pairs up with the 3 types of character class you can select. You can choose from an assassin (agility based and fast), a warrior (heavily armoured tank) or a cleric (medium armour and weapons) and pick any of the magic trees as your starter magic. You can however build your character in any way you want, it is literally just a template to start out, as an assassin for example you could choose the magic that goes with a cleric and if you wanted to start using a heavy 2 handed weapon later on you could pour points into strength. I must admit after using the magic early in the game it does feel like an afterthought, each magic type starts with the same spell regardless; your first spell casts a flaming type statue that will lure an enemy allowing you to get in a few hits while the enemy concentrates their attacks on it. I now barely use the magic and find it a little pointless and poorly implemented as cast times are quite slow, I can honestly say playing as pure cleric I am now using the ranged gauntlet to soften enemies only adding to magical level up when I find an item that gives me a skill point to spend.
Visually Lords of the Fallen looks really nice, running the game in 1080P (1920×1080 resolution) with the medium setting preset. My system is now 3yrs old and sports an AMD Phenom 2 X4 965 Black Edition, 8 Gb Ram and a factory overclocked MSI GTX 570 graphics card. The CPU in my system is the only thing that is stopping me from running this on the highest preset with everything maxxed out, I did some testing overclocking going from 3.4Ghz to 3.8Ghz and it allowed me to run the game on high with no issues at all. For the highest preset it is recommended to have an Intel Core i7 – 3770 @ 3.5Ghz or AMD FX – 8350 X8 @ 4Ghz. There are plenty options for a PC user to tweak the settings, you have available post processing, Anisotropic Filtering and can adjust shadows, world geometry, texture detail and set the resolution to whatever you want. I have found that the post processing at times during some of the cut scenes, for example chatting to an NPC after killing the 4th boss the image looked a little blurry, same can be said when you have something behind you that gives off a glow like the checkpoint crystals, it can once again make the image a little blurry. Overall though the world created is fitting and has some beautiful vistas and each of the 3 maps looks a lot different. Lighting when in the catacombs and the demonic realm is well used and adds some great atmosphere.
The sound direction on the game is really nice with fitting dramatic quieter music that plays while fighting a boss and all the cut scenes are voiced. I am not sure who the voice actors are but they have got it just right with tone and mannerisms, I have looked around to see who the voice talent is but unfortunately I cannot find any information at all. One small gripe I have actually noticed with the voice acting is that occasionally it is slightly out of sync with lip movements. Weapon sounds are what you would expect from a medieval type game, the meaty combat is complimented by thuds and clangs of blocks or a weapon hitting its mark, each weapon set once again actually sounds different; a heavy weapon will make a more bass like thud when it connects and the smaller weapons tend to chink and tear.
Go to page 4 for the conclusions on this game.
Retro at heart and lover of all things ’80s, especially the computers, the music and the awesome movies and TV shows! Crazy huge retro gaming collection spanning the ’80s and ’90s with hundreds of tapes, discs and carts for various machines on top of a 600+ strong Steam library that is ever-growing. No I am not a serial hoarder, just a dedicated retro gamer!