re: Lords of the Fallen

Yeah. Constant frame rate drops on Xbox right now, even after two updates.

I just watched Oro doing some PvP and the performance looked awful. Not sure if he was on console or PC at the time, but yikes.

I've had little to no issues performance wise.

That said, I also am on a 3080ti. I've let the raytracing stay on with overall high settings regardless, and the game looks fantastic.

I imagine consoles would be struggling to handle the game.

It’s just hard to imitate the gold standard that is Fromsoft.

And it took them a LONG time to get to Demons Souls.

King’s Field, Shadow Tower, Evergrace, Eternal Ring… 15 years till hitting the jackpot in 09.

Finished my first run.

So far, I probably can say I enjoyed it more than DS1-3 and Elden Ring.

I have not played Bloodbourne or Lies of P at the moment either.

I mainly compare Lotf to DS/ER because it is actually souls like where as the majority of the games labeled souls like are only souls like on the surface. Nioh is probably one of the best examples of this where the game is dramatically different.

The primary difference maker for me is the combat is just more interesting in Lotf than the closest comparison point games which is the DS series. I've been wanting FromSoft to improve on their combat for years, but they just haven't done it unfortunately.
It's not mind blowing interesting combat, but it's still improved compared to those titles for me. Nioh ruined me to be fair

I enjoyed the Umbral realm concept more than I thought I would. Using it for creative level design was a major plus for the game.

My primary complaint is the very strange decision to not have vestiges in NG+. Vestige seeds are still an option, but you only have 1 active at a time so doing other endings/quests on NG+ would be a tremendous chore.

Other complaints I have are not unique to the title as it clearly took heavy inspiration from Souls titles. The bizarre lack of information in menus and the UI is just frustrating since you realistically don't know if an item is good or bad since you normally get generic descriptions without actual numbers.
No in game legend for UI icons is also frustrating as usual since some icons are not clear.

Overtly convoluted questlines with NPCs teleporting to sort of random places which require you to look those quests up if you want to retain your sanity.

Ranting about that aside, I enjoyed it overall and will probably do the other endings at some other time on fresh chars. If you want the DS3 feel but with more interesting combat, Lotf feels like that to me.

I haven't played yet, so I've been really thrown by the dichotomy of reaction. On the one hand, some people are giving it extremely high praise. On the other hand, some people are calling it one of the biggest disappointments of the year and the company's stock has tanked.

Not sure what to make of it either way.

Lot of good but the levels are a pain. So hard to figure out where to go

It's gotten a good bit better, but I'm still having some performance issues. It is a very fun game tho. Ive had a blast playing it once I got my character leveled up a decent bit. Also, the level designs are probably the best I've seen in a soulslike game.

Also just got an email that it's less than $20 on Steam right now.

Pretty massive update. I platinum’d it and had a good time, it’s a very solid dark fantasy world and the game is absolutely massive. Only area where it’s completely inferior to FromSoft is boss design. I beat pretty much every boss except the ultimate final boss on my first try