Summary
- Lords of the Fallen draws inspiration from Dark Souls, but its outdated jump mechanic hinders exploration in its beautifully designed world.
- The game requires players to master the cumbersome jump controls, as there are many platforming sections that are necessary for progress.
- Lingering performance issues add to the frustration, combining choppy visuals with finicky controls and resulting in unintentional deaths. The game's respawn mechanic can also lead to permanently lost progress.
Like virtually every other Soulslike before it, Lords of the Fallen can trace its inspirations back to the games in the impressive catalog of titles from developer FromSoftware. Specifically, Lords of the Fallen has a very clear line of influence coming from the original Dark Souls, with several of the game's core elements – combat, art direction, world design, tone, etc. – finding their way into the reboot/sequel of one of the genre's earliest games not developed by FromSoftware. While aiming for Dark Souls' bar of quality is a loft goal that Lords of the Fallen mostly nails, its adherence to 12-year-old game design hinders one of the title's best aspects: exploration of its intricate world.
After outright omitting the ability for characters to jump in Demon's Souls, Dark Souls added in a convoluted jump mechanic that required players to hold a button to dash and then tap it to execute the maneuver after breaking into a full sprint. This cumbersome button sequence to complete a jump led to several accidental deaths, and FromSoftware itself finally course-corrected with Elden Ring by adding a dedicated jump button. That Lords of the Fallen uses a similar outdated jump sequence to the original Dark Souls is a shame given how beautifully designed its world is, as well as how much platforming the game asks of players.
An Abundance of Platforming Makes Lords of the Fallen's Jump Mechanic Feel Stilted
Part of what made executing Dark Souls' convoluted jump mechanic bearable was that jumping was something that players were rarely ever required to do within the context of completing the game. Sure, there were plenty of items that were visible in the distance, beckoning players to try and come fetch them, but these were deviations off the critical path and not an essential part of completing the game. In contrast, Lords of the Fallen's dual worlds feature more than their fair share of platforming sections, making mastering the jump controls a must.
While the control scheme used to jump in Lords of the Fallen is definitely easier to trigger than that of Dark Souls', it's still a far cry from the ease of jumping in Elden Ring. With how much platforming is expected of the player around both Axiom and Umbral (including plenty of dicey sections necessary to progress through the main quest), having a dedicated jump button would have been a boon for the player. Instead, the jumping controls hinder what's otherwise a highlight of Hexworks' admirable Soulslike: navigating its beautifully designed worlds.
Lingering Performance Issues in Lords of the Fallen Make for Exacting Jumps
If using an outdated control scheme for successfully landing the game's many platforming challenges weren't enough, Lords of the Fallen also happens to still be suffering from a handful of lingering performance issues. Thankfully, these mostly come down to some occasional stuttering and frame rate drops, with few game-breaking bugs being reported, but combining choppy performance in visually-dense settings with a finicky jump control scheme is a recipe for plenty of unintentional deaths. To add insult to injury, the game's Umbral mechanic can occasionally see the player respawn at a point where successfully completing a platforming challenge is then impossible, resulting in permanently lost Vigor.
Adherence to Dark Souls' design has, by and large, impacted Lords of the Fallen positively. Attempting to meet the quality standard that FromSoftware established in its 2011 game is no easy feat, and that a new studio has done a commendable job at crafting a compelling Soulslike that mostly hits the mark is practically a miracle. Still, there are some design decisions that are best left in the past, and it's a shame that Lords of the Fallen's jump mechanic can't seem to get out of its own way.
Lords of the Fallen is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.