A bit lttp I just finished my first run. Here is a wall of text.
Going in fresh after reading why it's a 1/10 on NeoGaf and listening to some youtube essays on why this game is a total abomination I was expecting it to be mediocrre at best.
It's not the best soulslike ever made, but I wasn't prepared how much I'm gonna love everything it does right.
When in Rome do as the Romans do so I'll start with a little rant. Everything you've heard about abysmal performance on playstation is true. Asset pop in is probably the worst I've ever seen, weird smear/ checkerboard like effect with artefacts in dense areas and pixelated flame and fog effects, enemies animated in 10 fps up close.
Endless clusterfucks of mobs coming at you get super annoying, but I see people having a problem with every reocurring tougher new enemy being introduced as a miniboss fight. That's totally fine imo, but those enemies having gigantic health pools as they did in the boss fight is not.
The game feels a lot like Dark Souls 2, where getting to the boss is most often way bigger of a challenge than the boss itself.
Most of the time everything 1-2 shots you and a lot of the natural progression is about avoiding combat. Not until late when you come revisit earlier areads and 1-2 shot everything yourself, in order to finally be able to explore. Which is what you do while not focusing on fighting the enemy dear Hexworks.
Now, the director of this game and all his core design staff didn't get the memo, explaining how a mechanic of respawning enemies totally fucking ruins exploration and there has literally never been a game in history where that was a good idea.
Weird analogy to make but that's what killed Atomic Heart for me.
I understand they wanted to keep the tension in Umbral high but in result getting into Umbral is just a bad idea you often can't avoid. Once you're in it tho - gameplay turns into spaz about running just trying to find a way out or the next point to plant the checkpoint, or the statue that gets you out of it. Too bad as the alternative reality looks super dope, and somehow the option to take it all in and really explore is taken away from you.
Now imagine entering umbral would introduced a bunch of additional tough enemies, but had a much more lenient red reaper timer and no respawn. Instantly better.
Good news is that combat and how chaining attacks works is another nice surprise. Feedback from parrying sucks but the sidestep dance you/re able to pull chaining different attacks works great.
There is just couple of common sense tweaks to how it controls I hope From soft finally gets a clue. Toggle click L3 to run. How hard can this be Miyazaki?
Throwables and ammo working as actual ammo is another great idea, takes away all of the hoarding-for-later-never-to-use-it effect. Like those batshit crazhy OP throwables. Remember kids if nothing works, you always have the toxic granade. Only thing it's lacking is some lore it's made of cheese.
Game has some of the best looking spell casts in all of the genre, eat Elden Ring alive. Magic, overall as much as I've used it, feels great and is an essential addition to every build. How reliance on certain magic and buff and types can change the feel of it between hitting wither and posture, so good.
Areas in the game are incredible with some jaw dropping vistas of the interconnected land. I can imagine what a treat is on a banger PC, and you can actually recognize places far out in the distance without them looking like fucking porridge.
Also what I don't see getting enough spotlight, as far as delivering on gothinc medieval dark fantasy, the game has the
best ever souls fashion full stop.
Gonna stick to PvP PvE for some time and then going for a "new game zero", should be hilarious this overpowered.
Lords of the Fallen is a flawed but otherwise a very good souls game. Not as good as Lies of P but an easy 8/10 from me.